Tank Base with Underground Garages Z

The former base of a tank brigade of the Albanian army, which defended the country’s capital, Tirana, from the north. The unit was equipped with Type-59 tanks and engineering vehicles. Tanks remained on site until around 2007–2009, after which they were sent for scrap.

The site sits at the foot of a hill and consists of an open flat area and a group of tunnels running into the hillside. The open ground was used to park vehicles in the open air, carry out maintenance, and muster troops. A pair of ruined administrative buildings also remain on the site. The tunnels served as garages, a fuel depot, or housed the brigade headquarters. There are eight tunnels in total. Each garage tunnel could accommodate four to five tanks.

Military slogans and maintenance instructions, stencilled in paint, survive on the walls. Some garages are connected to one another by narrow passages at the far end. Most tunnels retain their original iron gates. These gates are riddled with AK-47 bullet holes, apparently fired during the 1997 civil war, when the population looted military depots. One tunnel housed an ammunition store; its gate is badly bent, as if someone had wrenched it open with a vehicle — or a tank. Inside, empty wooden crates from grenades, shells, and cartridges are scattered on the ground.

The site is overgrown with blackberries and other vegetation. A local farmer has taken over some of the upper tunnels for hay storage and grazes livestock on the land. There is a chance he will object to your presence on the territory.