Power Plant in Vlora

Of the old cement factory, only two chimneys remain standing, yet its combined heat and power plant has survived almost in its entirety. Built in the early 1950s, it was decommissioned in the 1990s and promptly stripped of anything worth taking. Part of the building — the boiler-turbine hall — is roofless and in a dangerous state of disrepair; another section, the administrative block, has fared considerably better.

Up among the transformers lives some old fellow who keeps watch over the place with his television turned up loud — and even when he steps out, the TV carries on. There is no fence; access to both the ruins and the building is entirely free.

Albania had no centralised district heating, so every CHP plant that existed served only the industrial enterprise it was built for. Coal from local mines was used as fuel.