• LostWon@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      My apologies if the bunkers were always Albanian. I may have seen it misreported. There is history there, though. Here’s what I could find on Wikipedia.

      During the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Albania relied heavily on the Soviet Union. During that time, the Soviets built a base for Whiskey-class submarines and a chemical/biological weapons plant on the island and surrounding areas. The island stationed around 3,000 soldiers during this period.[15][16] However, the Soviet-Albanian split in the early 1960s marked the end of the Soviet naval presence on Sazan.[13] After the fall of communism four submarines remained at Pasha Limani port in the bay of Vlore.[17] To this day, many Soviet-era gas masks can still be found scattered around the valley of the island.

      The island now is uninhabited but there is a small joint Italian—Albanian naval base, of reportedly two soldiers, used mainly to counter contraband between southern Italy and Albania, as a training field for the British Royal Navy, and as shelter for boats in nearby Albanian waters.[18][17][19][15][16] There are approximately 3,600 nuclear bunkers that were built by Albania during the Cold War.[15] There is also a villa on the island belonging to the former communist defence minister Beqir Balluku. In 2010, the island’s surrounding sea waters, and those of adjacent Karaburun Peninsula were proclaimed a National Marine Park by the Albanian government.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sazan#Post–World_War_II

      • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        While Albania had a socialist governent for most of the Cold War, they were not allied to the Soviet Union. They were close to China till around 1980, and then more or less isolated. The bunkers were designed to defend against an invasion by NATO, the Warsaw Pact or Yugoslavia.

      • fraksken@infosec.pub
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        1 month ago

        The island now is uninhabited but there is a small joint Italian—Albanian naval base, of reportedly two soldiers

        😁