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In the just over a century since Albania became an independent country, it has been a monarchy, endured Fascist occupation and spent nearly 50 years as an isolated Communist dictatorship, mostly under the rule of Enver Hoxha.
Hoxha died in 1985 and the Communist Party collapsed in 1990, heralding a turbulent transition to a market economy.
The turmoil continues as student-led protests, representing the most serious unrest since the 1990s, demand the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama, leader of the pro-European, centre-left Socialist Party of Albania, who has been in power since 2013.
Were Hoxha still in charge, he may have retreated to the vast network of bunkers he built to protect the leadership in the event of a nuclear strike.
The cost of dismantling bunkers that were designed to be indestructible could be as devastating to Albania’s economy as building them was in the first place. Some of the smaller ones have been turned into cafes, beach huts and animal shelters, while two in the capital have become museums.
The biggest of all, built into a hillside northeast of Tirana, contains more than 100 rooms. Primarily for Hoxha and his most senior military command, it is now Bunk’Art 1, a museum focused on military history.
For those who don’t have time for the trek out to the outskirts, Bunk’Art 2 is located in the centre of Tirana, next to the Ministry of Interior, which is under siege as today’s police force turns tear gas and water cannon on the student-led protesters, who hurl paving stones and tear up street furniture.
The tunnels and 24 rooms below are a museum to the history of the Albanian Ministry of Internal Affairs during Communist times and the history of the country’s police, including the dreaded Sigurimi, the secret police who enforced Hoxha’s regime.
We begin with the gendarmerie that was meant to ensure domestic tranquillity in a young country. We then progress to the methods of border guards who enforced decades of isolation and killed hundreds who sought to escape.
The number who died at the hands of the Sigurimi or were detained in political prisons ran into many thousands, in a country of less than 3 million. They are represented by lists of names, interrogation rooms and highlighted individual cases, most chillingly the story of a 20-year-old woman, driven to madness and ultimately death by police torture.
Justifying the inclusion of art in the museum’s name, Albanian artist Nga Rajmonda Zajmi Avignon has created the sculpture “The Monster of the Dictatorship” that depicts a Communist armed with a pickaxe in one hand and a rifle in the other.
There is also a photographic exhibition portraying the positive side of Albania in the form of “besa”, the principle of honour. It decrees, we’re told, that there are no foreigners in the country, only guests, and it meant poor Albanians who could barely feed themselves took in Jews and hid them for their safety.
Much of what Bunk’Art 2 conveys is little different from all the other commemorations of the dark times of Communism, Fascism and Nazism, but the point is that every country needs to confront honestly its past, or to use the quotation on the wall at the start of our descent into the tunnels: “All those who forget their past are condemned to relive it.”
Albania is not alone in being uncertain of what comes next.
Rama is meant to stand for democratic freedoms, closeness to the West and the pursuit of European Union membership that relies on enlightened enforcement of the rule of law – and yet the protesters are desperate to oust the man they say is corrupt and blocking their future.
Bunk’Art 2,
Tirana.
In the just over a century since Albania became an independent country, it has been a monarchy, endured Fascist occupation and spent nearly 50 years as an isolated Communist dictatorship, mostly under the rule of Enver Hoxha.
Hoxha died in 1985 and the Communist Party collapsed in 1990, heralding a turbulent transition to a market economy.
The turmoil continues as student-led protests, representing the most serious unrest since the 1990s, demand the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama, leader of the pro-European, centre-left Socialist Party of Albania, who has been in power since 2013.
Were Hoxha still in charge, he may have retreated to the vast network of bunkers he built to protect the leadership in the event of a nuclear strike.
The cost of dismantling bunkers that were designed to be indestructible could be as devastating to Albania’s economy as building them was in the first place. Some of the smaller ones have been turned into cafes, beach huts and animal shelters, while two in the capital have become museums.
The biggest of all, built into a hillside northeast of Tirana, contains more than 100 rooms. Primarily for Hoxha and his most senior military command, it is now Bunk’Art 1, a museum focused on military history.
For those who don’t have time for the trek out to the outskirts, Bunk’Art 2 is located in the centre of Tirana, next to the Ministry of Interior, which is under siege as today’s police force turns tear gas and water cannon on the student-led protesters, who hurl paving stones and tear up street furniture.
The tunnels and 24 rooms below are a museum to the history of the Albanian Ministry of Internal Affairs during Communist times and the history of the country’s police, including the dreaded Sigurimi, the secret police who enforced Hoxha’s regime.
We begin with the gendarmerie that was meant to ensure domestic tranquillity in a young country. We then progress to the methods of border guards who enforced decades of isolation and killed hundreds who sought to escape.
The number who died at the hands of the Sigurimi or were detained in political prisons ran into many thousands, in a country of less than 3 million. They are represented by lists of names, interrogation rooms and highlighted individual cases, most chillingly the story of a 20-year-old woman, driven to madness and ultimately death by police torture.
Justifying the inclusion of art in the museum’s name, Albanian artist Nga Rajmonda Zajmi Avignon has created the sculpture “The Monster of the Dictatorship” that depicts a Communist armed with a pickaxe in one hand and a rifle in the other.
There is also a photographic exhibition portraying the positive side of Albania in the form of “besa”, the principle of honour. It decrees, we’re told, that there are no foreigners in the country, only guests, and it meant poor Albanians who could barely feed themselves took in Jews and hid them for their safety.
Much of what Bunk’Art 2 conveys is little different from all the other commemorations of the dark times of Communism, Fascism and Nazism, but the point is that every country needs to confront honestly its past, or to use the quotation on the wall at the start of our descent into the tunnels: “All those who forget their past are condemned to relive it.”
Albania is not alone in being uncertain of what comes next.
Rama is meant to stand for democratic freedoms, closeness to the West and the pursuit of European Union membership that relies on enlightened enforcement of the rule of law – and yet the protesters are desperate to oust the man they say is corrupt and blocking their future.
Barbara Lewis © 2026.
By Stephen McGrath • added recently on London Grip, art, exhibitions, history, sculpture, society • Tags: art, Barbara Lewis, exhibitions, history, sculpture, society