- Title: ALBANIA: Bunkers demolished in search of scrap metal
- Date: 15th July 2009
- Summary: KORCA, ALBANIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) KORCA TOWN KORCA TOWN WITH BUNKER ON TOP OF HILL BUNKERS AROUND DARDHE VILLAGE VARIOUS OF BUNKER WITH SIGN READING "PRIVATE PROPERTY" DEMOLISHED BUNKER ALONG ROAD BUNKER SCAVENGER, LEONARD MURIZI WALKING OUT OF HIS HOUSE MURIZI PLACING HAMMER IN CAR TRUNK MURIZI DRIVING AWAY MURIZI'S CAR ON ROAD MURIZI DRIVING MURIZI'S HANDS ON CAR WHEEL STONE WORKSHOP WHERE MURIZI'S FRIEND ASLLAN SALIU WORKS. SIGN READING "3,800 LEK FOR SQUARE METER" VARIOUS OF MURIZI AND SALIU WALKING TOWARDS CAR MURIZI AND SALIU DRIVING SALIU GETTING TOOLS AND WATER OUT OF CAR TRUNK MURIZI WALKING BY BUNKER MURIZI WITH HAMMER IN HIS HAND WALKING BY VARIOUS OF MURIZI DEMOLISHING BUNKER (SOUNDBITE) (Albanian) BUNKER SCAVENGER, LEONARD MURIZI, SAYING: "I have been doing this job for three years now. We demolish bunkers and extract their iron to sell it for 15 cents a kilogram, we make only 2 to 10 US dollars a day. Because of the high quality of bunkers, as Enver Hoxha once said the mortar shell could not break into the bunker, but my friend and I are destroying them." MURIZI AND SALIU DEMOLISHING BUNKER VARIOUS OF SALIU DEMOLISHING BUNKER MURIZI AND SALIU MOVING METAL WIRES FROM BUNKER HAMMER DEMOLISHING BUNKER VARIOUS OF MURIZI AND SALIU CUTTING METAL WIRES SALIU COLLECTING METAL WIRE SALIU CARRYING METAL WIRE SALIU PUTTING METAL WIRES IN CAR TRUNK DEMOLISHED BUNKERS MURIZI CARRYING METAL WIRES, PUTTING THEM ON SCALE SALIU PUTTING METAL WIRES ON SCALE SALIU RECEIVING BANK NOTE MURIZI AND SALIU SEATING AT TABLE, DRINKING (SOUNDBITE) (Albanian) BUNKER SCAVENGER, ASLLAN SALIU, SAYING: "I have come here from the city of Erseka. I'm a full-time stone pit worker for this work I get paid six dollars a day. I finish my shift at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then I go to pull out iron till ten in the evening. From this work I make some five dollars, I have a beer that costs two dollars with this money. What do I have left to live? Look at my hands they are all cut and with callouses." SALIU SHOWING BLISTERS ON HANDS
- Embargoed: 30th July 2009 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Albania
- Country: Albania
- Topics: Employment,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA7WXV2GD1JC19O2SRKI89QG818
- Story Text: Two Albanian men have been demolishing some of the country's famous bunkers in search of its metal which they sell to make money to survive.
In the southeastern Albanian city of Korca, Leonard Muirzi and Asllan Saliu have been earning extra money for years, with metal illegally extracted from mushroom-top cement bunkers that Communists built across Albania as a bulwark against an attack by the outside world.
There are more than 700,000 bunkers scattered all over Albania, built by Communist leader Enver Hoxha in the 1070s and the 1980s to protect the country against NATO and the Warsaw Treaty (USSR). At the time they were built, one bunker cost the same as a small apartment in Albania, but today the iron taken from them is hardly worth more than 60 US dollars from each one.
Scrap metal dealers are facing sharply lower steel prices on the world market, and now Muirzi and Saliu only get about half of what they once did for this back-breaking bunker work.
Muirzi told Reuters Television the high quality of the bunkers make their job even harder.
"I have been doing this job for three years now. We demolish bunkers and extract their iron to sell it for 15 cents a kilogram, we make only 2 to 10 US dollars a day. Because of the high quality of bunkers, as Enver Hoxha once said the mortar shell could not break into the bunker, but my friend and I are destroying them," he said.
Each day Muirzi picks up his friend at his day-time workplace and the two set off to the bunker fields. Saliu, a 37-year-old stone carver, does a full eight hours work at the local stone quarry, for which he gets paid about six US dollars a day. He said that is not enough to make the living.
"I have come here from the city of Erseka. I'm a full-time stone pit worker for this work I get paid six dollars a day. I finish my shift at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then I go to pull out iron till ten in the evening. From this work I make some five dollars, I have a beer that costs two dollars with this money. What do I have left to live? Look at my hands they are all cut and with callouses," Saliu said.
The smaller bunkers contain about 400kg of iron that are sold on the market for 15 US cents a kilogram or about 60 US dollars per bunker.
The bigger ones contain up to 1000kg of iron, but those are almost impossible to demolish by simple hammer. Muirzi and Saliu say only dynamite could break it, but they have given up on this idea because of the danger to their lives and the likelihood it would attract police.
Destroying bunkers is illegal in Albania but authorities tolerate people doing it as long as they don't use explosives. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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