Now I am in Albania, and have a different kind of legacy from the same time (Bunkers in Albania) surprisingly all around me.
I arrived late last night at Lake Ohrid, having driven from a pre-wedding party in Greece three days previously. This morning I walked along the lakeside to Tushemisht (just along from Pogradec). On the return leg (having managed to find a sort of ordinary shop amongst all the tourist outlets, and bought milk and fruit) I cranked up Ben's Canon EOS 550D camera, and took some photos:
...this could surely have been built for Brezhnev's
generation in Krimea! The name - HOTEL PROGRADECI 2 - evokes the
hyper-functionalism of Soviet cultureBut then I came across a ladybird! A big, concrete ladybird!! I had seen various concrete lumps on the way down, but thought of them as something similar to the concrete lumps used for tidal protection in Cornwall...but, of course, the lake here does not have tides!!
The next one prompted the realisation in my mind that these were not just 'lumps of concrete'...
...these were the very gun emplacements that I had read about, placed by Enver Hoxha all over the country - and here pointing out across this inland lake towards the threatening (but non-existent) navy of Macedonia. And here they were, just come across by accident:
and within 500 m of each other:
I thought: Ben would have loved this!!
And then (I have been writing this on the campsite, and had ordered lunch - to be taken in a different part of the forest) I went over to the table:
...Oh, just a minute! What's than behind my table...
...could it be a gun emplacement?!!
That Enver Hoxha was such a guy, wasn't he?
¡Que haya luz! Kerenza ha yeghes da! Dad/Grandpa/Andrew x