Hidden in a Moscow Suburb, Stalin's Bunker Gets New Lease of Life
Martine Self
April 08, 2006
When it comes to finding out about Stalin?s bunker in Moscow, a lingering secrecy exists. When I knew I was going to visit the bunker as part of an organised excursion, along with an equally curious group of expatriates living in Moscow, I did a search on the internet but came up with only one or two sites with relevant but scant information. There is much more information about Stalin?s bunker in Samara.
Even the approach to the Moscow bunker would throw a British spy off guard. I thought something was strange as we drove into the back streets of a typical Moscow street market, its higgledy piggeldy stalls and kiosks sullenly shut in the frozen night time air. After a short and bumpy ride, we parked in what seemed to be the back of a football stadium, and like obedient children, followed our tour guide down snow-dusted steps to an innocuous-looking door. Facing the door across a clearing was another train-sized metal door, and an incongruous (for a marketplace) tank parked in front of it.
Entering the bunker, I was expecting to see something rather rustic and roughly hewn, but instead was confronted with a long and wide gleaming marble passage fringed by pillars and leading to a circular domed room supported by imposing marble columns. The eye is drawn to a central space framed by a circular table. This is presumably where Stalin would have stood and addressed his Politburo who in turn, would have been seated around a circular table that skirted the inner side of the columns. Later, I discover that the dome is not simply for architectural decoration. It was specially built to enhance the volume of Stalin?s voice because he was accustomed to speaking quietly and in a low pitch. Anyone standing outside the domed area would have not been able to eavesdrop on what was being said inside it.
Just 17km from the Kremlin, and situated within a five minute walk of the popular Izmailovo tourist market, the bunker was built in the 1930s. This was at about the same time as a phalanx of tight-lipped builders descended on the Volga River town of Samara, about 1000km to the east of Moscow and built a second bunker. A third was built in the centre of Moscow.
Our guide tells us that Stalin only spent a short time here. The plan was that if Hitler advanced too closely to the Kremlin, he would head for this bunker and if necessary, then fly from one of three nearby airports to his bunker in Samara. This particular bunker was used till the mid-1970s, during Krushkev and Brezhnev?s time, but then fell into disrepair. It was only after the company which bought the land in order to build a market just after the fall of communism, found that it contained the bunker, and decided to renovate it and use it for commercial purposes. Renovation began in 1996 and today, the museum functions as a branch of the Central Museum of the Armed forces.
The door we saw facing the entrance to the bunker, hides the beginning of an underground metro line and road which leads to the Kremlin and which would have enabled secret travel between the Kremlin and Izmailovo.
Although we probably saw about 200sqm of the bunker, we were told that it is actually 143,000sqm in size, more than four times the Manezh underground shopping mall just outside Red Square. It is one floor in extent, but has a technical floor below it. It was built to accommodate 2,000 people and a column of tanks. The mind boggles at how much underground excavation must have been carried out, and where was the soil moved to? And, we were told, no one ever knew about the project, after all, it was top secret and at that time, in the middle of a forest where nobody lived. During those days of course, people knew how to keep secrets, or, make other people keep secrets.
The bunker has a 6-meter thick layer of concrete on top of it and its walls are 4 meter thick. This would have protected Stalin from being bombed, but would be useless in terms of protection if a war broke out today, simply because different weapons are being used.
A decision was also made to build a stadium seating 20,000 which became the home ground of the former Stalinets football team. Legend has it that one of the reasons it was built was because Hitler was known to have given an order for the Luftwaffe never to bomb stadiums. Speculation has it that he had a soft spot for them because he knew they were efficient in disseminating a leader?s message.
The site at Izmailovo was also chosen because it was to the East of Moscow so in the event of a ground attack by Hitler, his army would be coming from the west, and would first have to make its way through Moscow before getting to the bunker. There are also three military airports situated not far from the bunker which would have given him time to flee to Samara if the fuehrer managed to get past Russian defences ? which they did not.
Ahead of the circular space used for meetings, there is a stage from which an enormous map of Europe was suspended and used for daily assessment and manipulation of troop movements.
To the one side of the auditorium is Stalin?s study furnished with replicas of the type of furniture that would have stood there in his day. We are told it was decorated in an almost identical style to his other studies elsewhere, all quite sparse. There is a small desk, on which lie three Bakelite telephones and a green shaded lamp. The phones seem cumbersome in their antiquity and dominate much of the small desk. One imagines Stalin might have relished the extra space, had he been able to take advantage of today?s mobile phone technology. An ashtray and a pipe adorn the desk, a token of Stalin?s well-known habit. To the side of the desk, is a small bookshelf. At the other side of the room is a long, slightly uncomfortable looking, red divan, said to be the original. And, in the far corner is a circular table on which lies a wooden ?war game? composed of many differently-shaped pieces, meant to represent battalions, airplanes, tanks and the like.
It is said that this game was a gift to Stalin and was conceived of especially for him. On the walls are copies of oil paintings: one of Engels, one of Marx and one of Lenin. There is also a picture of Stalin taking part in a game of billiards with a relaxed Marshall Zhukov. The floor is beautiful light coloured parquet.
On a back wall lies what seems to be a painted map of Europe used for strategy. A white marble bust, probably four times bigger than life size, stands in a corner. Its creamy contours invite your fingers to caress it and you imagine doing so for a moment, but then recoil, realising what you would be doing.
Adjacent to the study is a ?room of relaxation? for Stalin, but unfortunately we were not shown into it.
Having tried out the acoustics in the circular space ? they were spectacular ? we were ushered into the restaurant which has been decorated in Georgian style, in deference to Stalin?s origins and his favourite type of cuisine. There are several glass cases containing objects and photographs dating from Stalin?s time, including one of his military tunics, which looks strangely small when compared with the robust looking man in his portraits. My husband reminds me that probably all portrait painters of Stalin unquestionably made him look bigger than he really was which perhaps explains the anomaly.
There is one particular stomach-churning sculpture in white marble which depicts Stalin ("Friend to all children, The Great Mountain Eagle"), lovingly cradling a happy child in his arms. It is displayed in the centre of the restaurant making it unavoidable that my eyes were drawn to it at times during my meal, together with a parallel feeling of discomfort.
I would have liked to visit other parts of the bunker, but I imagine renovating a larger area would be too cost prohibitive. However, some Internet research revealed that the company which owns the land (NIC Izmailovo) has also developed bars, saunas, a solarium, a billiard room, a shooting gallery, and other leisure and recreation facilities and amenities. An exhibition bringing back the Second World War period, and a picture gallery, are also said to be open in the museum.
To see the museum, you need to join a tour which is pricey (we paid just over $100 each but this did include the meal and wine).
Even the approach to the Moscow bunker would throw a British spy off guard. I thought something was strange as we drove into the back streets of a typical Moscow street market, its higgledy piggeldy stalls and kiosks sullenly shut in the frozen night time air. After a short and bumpy ride, we parked in what seemed to be the back of a football stadium, and like obedient children, followed our tour guide down snow-dusted steps to an innocuous-looking door. Facing the door across a clearing was another train-sized metal door, and an incongruous (for a marketplace) tank parked in front of it.
Entering the bunker, I was expecting to see something rather rustic and roughly hewn, but instead was confronted with a long and wide gleaming marble passage fringed by pillars and leading to a circular domed room supported by imposing marble columns. The eye is drawn to a central space framed by a circular table. This is presumably where Stalin would have stood and addressed his Politburo who in turn, would have been seated around a circular table that skirted the inner side of the columns. Later, I discover that the dome is not simply for architectural decoration. It was specially built to enhance the volume of Stalin?s voice because he was accustomed to speaking quietly and in a low pitch. Anyone standing outside the domed area would have not been able to eavesdrop on what was being said inside it.
Just 17km from the Kremlin, and situated within a five minute walk of the popular Izmailovo tourist market, the bunker was built in the 1930s. This was at about the same time as a phalanx of tight-lipped builders descended on the Volga River town of Samara, about 1000km to the east of Moscow and built a second bunker. A third was built in the centre of Moscow.
Our guide tells us that Stalin only spent a short time here. The plan was that if Hitler advanced too closely to the Kremlin, he would head for this bunker and if necessary, then fly from one of three nearby airports to his bunker in Samara. This particular bunker was used till the mid-1970s, during Krushkev and Brezhnev?s time, but then fell into disrepair. It was only after the company which bought the land in order to build a market just after the fall of communism, found that it contained the bunker, and decided to renovate it and use it for commercial purposes. Renovation began in 1996 and today, the museum functions as a branch of the Central Museum of the Armed forces.
The door we saw facing the entrance to the bunker, hides the beginning of an underground metro line and road which leads to the Kremlin and which would have enabled secret travel between the Kremlin and Izmailovo.
Although we probably saw about 200sqm of the bunker, we were told that it is actually 143,000sqm in size, more than four times the Manezh underground shopping mall just outside Red Square. It is one floor in extent, but has a technical floor below it. It was built to accommodate 2,000 people and a column of tanks. The mind boggles at how much underground excavation must have been carried out, and where was the soil moved to? And, we were told, no one ever knew about the project, after all, it was top secret and at that time, in the middle of a forest where nobody lived. During those days of course, people knew how to keep secrets, or, make other people keep secrets.
The bunker has a 6-meter thick layer of concrete on top of it and its walls are 4 meter thick. This would have protected Stalin from being bombed, but would be useless in terms of protection if a war broke out today, simply because different weapons are being used.
A decision was also made to build a stadium seating 20,000 which became the home ground of the former Stalinets football team. Legend has it that one of the reasons it was built was because Hitler was known to have given an order for the Luftwaffe never to bomb stadiums. Speculation has it that he had a soft spot for them because he knew they were efficient in disseminating a leader?s message.
The site at Izmailovo was also chosen because it was to the East of Moscow so in the event of a ground attack by Hitler, his army would be coming from the west, and would first have to make its way through Moscow before getting to the bunker. There are also three military airports situated not far from the bunker which would have given him time to flee to Samara if the fuehrer managed to get past Russian defences ? which they did not.
Ahead of the circular space used for meetings, there is a stage from which an enormous map of Europe was suspended and used for daily assessment and manipulation of troop movements.
To the one side of the auditorium is Stalin?s study furnished with replicas of the type of furniture that would have stood there in his day. We are told it was decorated in an almost identical style to his other studies elsewhere, all quite sparse. There is a small desk, on which lie three Bakelite telephones and a green shaded lamp. The phones seem cumbersome in their antiquity and dominate much of the small desk. One imagines Stalin might have relished the extra space, had he been able to take advantage of today?s mobile phone technology. An ashtray and a pipe adorn the desk, a token of Stalin?s well-known habit. To the side of the desk, is a small bookshelf. At the other side of the room is a long, slightly uncomfortable looking, red divan, said to be the original. And, in the far corner is a circular table on which lies a wooden ?war game? composed of many differently-shaped pieces, meant to represent battalions, airplanes, tanks and the like.
It is said that this game was a gift to Stalin and was conceived of especially for him. On the walls are copies of oil paintings: one of Engels, one of Marx and one of Lenin. There is also a picture of Stalin taking part in a game of billiards with a relaxed Marshall Zhukov. The floor is beautiful light coloured parquet.
On a back wall lies what seems to be a painted map of Europe used for strategy. A white marble bust, probably four times bigger than life size, stands in a corner. Its creamy contours invite your fingers to caress it and you imagine doing so for a moment, but then recoil, realising what you would be doing.
Adjacent to the study is a ?room of relaxation? for Stalin, but unfortunately we were not shown into it.
Having tried out the acoustics in the circular space ? they were spectacular ? we were ushered into the restaurant which has been decorated in Georgian style, in deference to Stalin?s origins and his favourite type of cuisine. There are several glass cases containing objects and photographs dating from Stalin?s time, including one of his military tunics, which looks strangely small when compared with the robust looking man in his portraits. My husband reminds me that probably all portrait painters of Stalin unquestionably made him look bigger than he really was which perhaps explains the anomaly.
There is one particular stomach-churning sculpture in white marble which depicts Stalin ("Friend to all children, The Great Mountain Eagle"), lovingly cradling a happy child in his arms. It is displayed in the centre of the restaurant making it unavoidable that my eyes were drawn to it at times during my meal, together with a parallel feeling of discomfort.
I would have liked to visit other parts of the bunker, but I imagine renovating a larger area would be too cost prohibitive. However, some Internet research revealed that the company which owns the land (NIC Izmailovo) has also developed bars, saunas, a solarium, a billiard room, a shooting gallery, and other leisure and recreation facilities and amenities. An exhibition bringing back the Second World War period, and a picture gallery, are also said to be open in the museum.
To see the museum, you need to join a tour which is pricey (we paid just over $100 each but this did include the meal and wine).
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