The Hills Had Eyes
Somewhere in northern Albania, on a hill near the border, stands a radar post that once guarded the skies of a communist country against a possible attack from the air. What sits here are Chinese copies of the Soviet P-35 radar and the PRV-10 height finder.
How Chinese radars ended up in Albania
Finding a military site in Albania that has survived to this day is a real stroke of luck. After the country joined NATO, thousands of tonnes of old ammunition were destroyed here and hundreds of pieces of military hardware went to the smelter. The disposal work went on until the mid-2010s, after which things went quiet. Whatever had not been decommissioned or hauled away was left forgotten, often open to anyone who came along. Over the past couple of years, though, many great spots have been spoiled: the old hardware has been carted off, and sometimes the site itself has even been restored.
This military unit formally remained in service until the early 2020s, which is why it outlived the mass decommissioning of military sites. Radars pushing seventy years old had obviously outlived their usefulness back in the late twentieth century, yet some military personnel went on working here well into the twenty-first.
The story of how these ancient radars ended up in Albania is rather interesting. After breaking with the USSR over its views on communism, Albania found itself a new patron in the People’s Republic of China. In exchange for loyalty, China supplied technology and even food. As for military hardware, what was sent to Albania was what China already considered obsolete and surplus. And so, through the 1970s and 1980s, the Albanian People’s Army was running on vacuum-tube equipment while most countries had already moved to semiconductor electronics.
Exploring the site
The headquarters
2. We enter the site through a fallen barbed-wire fence, trodden down by goats. The first thing to appear is the headquarters building.
3. The entrance to the headquarters. The plastic windows tell you the site was in use up to modern times. But the only ones working here now are the goats, mowing the grass.
4. Along the road leading uphill stand shelters made of prefabricated concrete sections. These are general-purpose structures, usually covered with earth or assembled inside a tunnel. Here they decided to simply leave them as they are.
5. Structures like these house storerooms or garages for vehicles. This one was fitted out as a protected working space for the headquarters staff. Inside are a few empty rooms.
Hangars with vehicles
6. A FIAT truck. It probably reached Albania after the communists, since it looks relatively new, and Western hardware was exceptionally rare in Albania. What you find here more often are Czechoslovak Tatras, Škodas and LIAZes, and less often Chinese copies of the ZIL.
7. As you may already have noticed, the hangar doors are odd. They were meant to be concrete, but the Albanians decided not to bother and left them unfinished.
8. The hangars in a row.
Generators
9. A shelter-body truck — a KUNG — with a generator.
10. Inside is a Chinese generator.
11. Another KUNG with a generator.
12. A small petrol generator.
13. Made at the Dongfeng plant in Shanghai.
14. A mobile medium-frequency generator, whatever that means.
15. The control panel.
16. The exciter.
The command KUNG
17. A KUNG for the duty crew.
18. Inside are iron cabinets with little orange circles.
19. The little circle on which a soldier played Space Invaders for a whole shift.
20. Looks like a Soviet R-105 radio set, but no. It is the Chinese copy of one.
21. Next to some of the Chinese characters, labels with Albanian translations have been stuck on.
22. The operator’s duties.
23. Wide angle.
24. Everything looks so familiar, and yet it is a copy of the familiar.
The tracked tractor
25. Another hangar, with a Chinese Type 60 tracked tractor.
26. Lying low.
27. Something that looks like an antenna in the cargo bed.
28. The cab offers absolutely no comforts.
29. Under the cover is a powerful V-type diesel engine, accessible from inside the cab.
30. A look back.
31. The last hangar, with an empty duty-crew KUNG. It seems to have served as a donor for the one we came across earlier.
At the top
The height finder
32. We climb right to the top and see the height finder, a copy of the Soviet PRV-10.
33. A civilian communications tower stands next to it. It is the only thing here that still works.
34. Inside the height finder.
35. The power supply unit.
36. Vacuum tubes. Exact copies of the Soviet ones, like the rest of the components.
37. I wonder whether they are interchangeable.
38. The radar station is visible in the distance; we head towards it.
The radar station
39. Here is the P-35 — or rather, its copy.
40. Frozen in its combat position.
41. The military left the radar as it was, only disconnecting (or stealing) the cables that link it up.
42. A little box.
43. Let’s take a look inside.
44. The rack in the centre should hold the vacuum tube that makes the radar work.
45. High-frequency equipment.
46. Documentation in Albanian and spare radio components.
47. A panel of quickly replaceable parts.
48. Chinese characters.
Night and morning among the radars
49. Spending the night here is not a bad idea.
50. The morning turned out golden.
51. The best view there is.
52. From the best possible place to spend the night!
53. A morning walk.
54. The height finder again.
55. Square.
56. Even more beautiful in the morning.
57. Time to set off towards new places. From down the slope come the bells of a herd of goats heading out to pasture among the radars.
Until next time!