Secretive Albanian island braces for the Trump treatment

Once a Cold War base that would have been the pride of James Bond villains, an Albanian island is set for an overhaul after Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump unveiled plans to revamp its wild beauty.

The daughter of former US president Donald Trump and her partner want luxury villas to go up on the island of Sazan that for decades served as a garrison with bunkers, fallout shelters and a warren of tunnels designed to withstand a nuclear attack.

The base epitomised the paranoia rampant during the four-decade rule of Albania's Stalinist strongman Enver Hoxha after World War II.

"The island was dotted with 2,840 bunkers with heavy machine guns and other automatic weapons," Ylli Mecaj -- a former soldier stationed at Sazan -- told AFP.

"There were also kilometers of tunnels and underground installations, fallout shelters to house ammunition and food reserves," the 78-year-old retired naval officer added.

During the socialist era, more than 2,000 people lived on the island base -- outfitted with a cinema, school, and hospital -- that was designed to last for months if cut off from the rest of the country.

The base fell into ruin following the collapse of the communist government in 1991.

- Dilapidated base -

The downfall of the communist regime set off years of chaos in Albania, with an economic collapse in 1997 sparking a brief civil war that saw military depots and armories emptied, including on Sazan.

For now, the island is peppered with wild mulberry and fig trees set against the sea's turquoise waters, while the former military installations are dilapidated shells.

Big changes could be on the way for the island, which was only reopened to the public in 2015.

News first broke in March that Ivanka Trump and her husband were pursuing ambitious development plans on Sazan and a separate project in the Serbian capital Belgrade.

The Trump family has a long history of embarking on luxury projects around the world.

Some critics have accused the power couple of leveraging their time in the White House to secure overseas business deals.

But the Albanian government has sought to bolster the economy through tourism, prompting a building boom along large swaths of the coast.

The Kushner-backed development is still in the planning stages and needs further government approval before ground can be broken on dozens of villas set amid the rocks of Sazan.

But excitement is already palpable in some quarters.

"We can't wait for this to start because it triggers chain reactions for the city's economy," said the mayor of Vlora, Ermal Dredha, whose city looks across the water to Sazan.

Vlora, in southwestern Albania, has been one of the largest beneficiaries of Albania's tourism surge, with apartment blocks and resorts now crowding its shores that attract millions of visitors a year.

The scene stands in stark contrast to Sazan island, where the Trumps are the latest in a long line of foreigners who have sought a foothold.

- Trump zone -

Situated at the entrance of Vlora bay at a strategic point where the Adriatic and Ionian seas meet, the tiny island has been coveted over the centuries by the Venetians, Greeks, Italians and Germans, among others.

Still classified as a military zone, the island has seen just a trickle of Albania's tourist onslaught every summer.

Daily boats bring visitors to walk along Sazan's winding paths and admire the island's only inhabitant -- a small grey donkey.

Few official details have emerged about the future luxury development.

In an interview published in July, Ivanka Trump said the island's isolation brought its own unique challenges.

"The logistics of even getting the building materials to an island are no joke, but we will execute on it," she said. "The best architects and the best brands" were involved in the project.

After years of neglect, Sazan's impending makeover will likely leave little of its former James Bond romance -- for better or worse.

"Sazan is no longer Sazan. There are no more weapons, no cannons, no anti-aircraft machine guns, no ships, the bunkers are in ruins," said Mecaj.

"It is open to whoever wants to occupy it."