The Cold War created a tense situation throughout the world, especially in the United States of America and in the USSR. Both governments spent billions of dollars creating weapons and defense systems. Hundreds of bunkers were built as part of the system of defense. Bunker 42 in Moscow is a decommissioned bunker where Soviet officials monitored nuclear weapons around the world. Irina DiGiovanni talks about our visit there.
The Bunker 42 tour was held on June 7th, 2019. The tour consisted of many bunker rooms, lots of stairs and long hallways. One of the hard parts of being on the bunker tour dealt with the many stairs we descended to get to the bottom of it. We had to take 18 floors of staircases and by the end we were all out of breath. It’s hard to imagine people in real emergency situations walking those stairs, or even worse, running on them. The stairs led to a long dark hallway which led to one of the first rooms we saw. Walking into the room, our tour guide informed us that the bunker is about 7,000 square meters. They first started to build it in the 1950’s. The guide explained how they kept it close to the Kremlin in case Stalin, or any other leader, needed to go to a secure location for any reason. The guide also explained to us that this bunker can fit up to 3,000 people at a time! This fact stunned me because even this decent-size bunker looks too small for that amount of people. As the tour continued, we saw more rooms including a meeting room which was well lit and had a very large table where people gathered to make decisions together. There was another room where Stalin would sit and do his own work. Now I have personally never been inside of a bunker before, so this experience was eye-opening and shocking to me. I did not realize how many people may have been forced to use bunkers in the past. This was a real place underground where people could go for safety and work purposes.
The most interesting part was when we were walking in the hallway and all the lights turned off abruptly. When the lights turned off, I figured that the power had gone out and there was a glitch in the system. However, it was much worse. The lights went out and then red flashes along with very loud sirens started blaring! It was very intense. I was petrified and couldn’t wait to get out. Thankfully, it only lasted two or three minutes. After that I understood how awful it must have been for people staying in the bunker when these things happened. The systems were alerting them that something bad must be going on outside. The tour ended after this and honestly, I was thankful it did. The tour showed me that many people have gone through a lot worse than me and I am very grateful to be safe.
USA in Russia 2019 