Brick Factory K-Y

A brick factory from the communist era, responsible for the orange products used in the mass construction of the city and surrounding district with the grim five-storey apartment blocks of the Enver Hoxha years. A large, decaying site, wide open to anyone who cares to enter. The walls are adorned with inscriptions in Albanian such as “protected by the state”, “do not enter the facility”, and “risk of life” — usually these signs read “risk of death”, but here, for some reason, it is literally the other way around.

Several workshops connected to one another. In wet weather the place floods impressively. All this emptiness is quite picturesque. Chickens roam the factory grounds, but judging by the tracks, sheep, goats, and other livestock occasionally pass through as well. The condition is close to derelict. Some metal remains on site — not just bricks and concrete.

What sets this place apart is the tunnel kiln (marked “risk of collapse”), which runs in a straight line and has a concrete casing — something not seen at other brick factories in Albania, where the kiln typically looks like a brick worm looped into itself. Enormous ventilation ducts in the form of plastered pipes have survived. No security whatsoever. Surrounded by picturesque hills and mountains, their peaks dusted with snow in winter.