Military Command Bunker of the Durres District

An unusual and fairly well-preserved bunker beneath one of the city’s hills. The bunker consists of two parts joined by a staircase — in effect two different bunkers built in different years.

The older one, from around 1963, is small, sits a little lower, has two street entrances closed by two-leaf armoured steel doors, and only two working rooms. It still keeps its ventilation system, air ducts with valves, a water tank, pipework, iron doors, old military crates and many old Albanian-made light fittings.

The second part was built later (around the 1980s, judging by the fact that it was never finished) and is much larger, both in size and in the number of rooms. Its doors here are concrete. The main entrance is on the same side as the entrances to the old bunker; two others run through long galleries out to other sides of the hill. Those exits are sealed with blocks and probably lie on someone’s private plots. This part keeps its ventilation and air-filtration systems and remnants of communications equipment.

The site was presumably a protected command post or army headquarters. It’s best explored carefully, after dark, avoiding the attention of the locals. The entrances are not locked — there are four in all, and if one turns out to be closed, look for another nearby. To get onto the grounds, though, you’ll have to cross an olive grove or climb the fence. One of the locals grows mushrooms in part of the bunker, and once used another part to make wine.