Albanian old regime's mountain hideouts

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LINZA: The metal doors in the mountainside are tough to open but once in, a tunnel sinks into the rock: the long-concealed hideout for the secret police of late Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, designed to withstand an atomic bomb.

"This is where the Interior Ministry and Sigurimi (Communist-era secret police) would have been based in case of war," Interior Minister Abaz Hysa explained to a French news agency.

It is the first time authorities have opened up this site in the Dajti mountain town of Linza on the outskirts of the capital Tirana to the media.

Under the raw light of bare ceiling bulbs, its tunnels and corridors lead visitors to an underground world -- 82 rooms for meetings or work along with other spaces reserved for transmissions or wire tapping.

Another set of metal doors open onto more endless-looking galleries. In all the network of mountain tunnels is nearly two kilometers (12 miles) long.

They are replete with communist-era artifacts: books with technical instructions, a Soviet-made clock, Chinese safes marked with a big red star and simple beds ravaged by humidity -- all reminders of the four decades, 1945 to 1985, when Albania was the most isolated country in Europe, virtually cut off from the world.

A total 8,000 tonnes of concrete and 4,000 tonnes of metal went into making the pyramid-like buildings underneath Linza, according to the ministry's data.

Construction documents for different tunnels, to which the news agency had access, showed that these sites were supposed to be able to withstand bombardments or the blast of a 20,000-tonne atomic bomb -- about the size of the one that struck Hiroshima.

Following initial alliances with communist allies Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and finally China, Hoxha adopted a go-at-it-alone policy in the late 1970s. The move turned this state across the Adriatic Sea from Italy into an isolated bastion of Stalinism.

After this break with the outside world, Hoxha stepped up his programme to build hundreds of thousands of bunkers across Albania as well as an underground defense network in case of an invasion.

"For himself and his close allies, Hoxha had at least four (underground) hideouts, one of them in the mountain at Krraba, just minutes away from southern part of Tirana," explained Kastriot Dervishi, chief of archives at the interior ministry.

Hoxha's personal dwelling in the center of Tirana -- at the time situated in a district reserved only for dignitaries and carefully separated from other inhabitants -- also contained an underground shelter.

Ironically the former dictator's neighbourhood is now at the heart of Tirana's nightlife and a trendy hangout for young people, vibrating all night with dance beats.

"An overall plan with the whole (underground) network does not exist because of the cult of secrecy the Communists created," said 72-year old Hajri Lalaj, an engineer who took part in construction of the tunnel under Hoxha's house, which now serves as a government building.

Teams were sent to work for month-long periods at one location, then sent onto to another after a brief rest period.

"That way, no one had an overall vision of these shelters," Lalaj explained.

These vast structures inherited from the country's paranoid communist rulers have left Albania with a quandary: what to do with them today?

"Some of them could be used as museums or for mushroom plantations," suggested former Albanian president Alfred Moisiu.

Moisiu said he had also seen an underground hall in Babbru, south from Tirana, built for communist central committee meetings in case of an attack.

The government is considering opening some of the structures, still secret and off limits to anyone but government officials, to the public.

"We have many requests from tourists and others interested in learning about this part of Albania's history," said Culture Minister Ferdinand Xhaferri.