Tirana Part 2

 I did some exploring around Tirana, and something I had wanted to visit was Bunk'art 2. There is another one on the outskirts of Tirana, but I didnt get time to see it, as I was only here for a short time. The Museum is within a bunker, built during the communist regime, which as you can see, was designed to survive any kind of attack, whether it be chemical, nuclear or indeed any type of attack. You can see by how deep and how thick the walls are, that you are in what would have been the safest place in Tirana. The museum incorporates a lot of the history and goings on of the Sigurimi, the Albania secret police, who like many other secret police, would spy on citizens, gather information and then arrest them and make them disappear, often after long brutal interrogations. It's been restored to look like the Sigurimi have just nipped out on a lunch break, and it almost makes you feel like you are snooping around and that they will come back any minute. 

It's quite a heavy going museum, so I wouldn't blame you if you needed a walk in the park and some ice cream to decompress afterwards, which is what I did. I think if you visit a museum like that, or ones similar, where the stories of human suffering are pain are that strong, you have to. Museums like Bunk'art, the Auschwitz Concentration camp, the national socialist museum & others, are so important at showing not just how awful things were & what's happened, but also seek to remind us, particularly in countries like the UK and other western countries how lucky we are to live in a society where these things happen much less frequently, if ever. And it's important we continue to educate ourselves, in order to prevent these events from happening again. The worst quality of our species is that we seek to learn, to inform ourselves, to grow as people, yet for some reason, we continue to commit the atrocities against each other. Even today, events across our world continue to maim & kill people, and it seems, as developed as a world we are, how we treat each other is something we still need to massively work on.

After taking some time in the park to process and think about what I'd seen and learnt about in Bunk'art, I decided to head down to the National Archeology museum in Mother Teresa Square. It was the first museum in Albania to open in 1948, and although it feels like it's not had any major work done since then, it was very interesting and had a nice array of different archaeological findings, one of the most notable being this fantastic bronze (I think) helmet.

Also worth seeing out this piece of the Berlin wall in the Postblok park, which also has some of the armoured bunkers you saw in the previous post.

Also, I have no idea what was going on, but on my evening stroll I came across a free concert. I'd never heard of the people performing, but experiencing some new Albanian hip-hop is always appreciated! I also grabbed myself a yummy kebab on the way back to the hostel. On my way back, I discovered this fun piece of pop art on a electrical box. Proof that art cant transverse all cultures and borders!

And while I think of it, during my visit to Tirana, I stayed in the Tirana Backpaker Hostel on Rruga e Bogdaneve. It was clean, very comfortable and the staff there were all very friendly and helpful. Check it out if you're heading to Tirana!