Tunnel to Stalin’s bunker turned into art gallery

One of Moscow's bunkers

 

A hundred-meter-long tunnel running towards the centre of Moscow has been excavated by the military near Cherkizovsky Market in Moscow’s East. It presumably led to Stalin’s bunker. Now there will be a gallery inside.

The capital’s chief architect, Aleksandr Kuzmin, said on Monday, that according to a legend there was an underground 17-kilometer tunnel from “Stalinets” stadium in East Moscow (which is right near the Cherkizovsky Market) towards the Kremlin. It’s said to have been big enough for armored vehicles to pass through it.

“Recently, military men discovered a hundred-meter long tunnel towards the centre and made a gallery out of it,” Kuzmin said.

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He explained that, during Perestroika, many of the country’s museums got rid of pictures and photographs eulogizing heroes of the Soviet time. The military has collected those pictures and hung them on the tunnel’s walls. He also added that the tunnel is supervised by the Defense Ministry, so it’s up to them to decide what it will be.

The recently-discovered tunnel must have led to the alternative command center of the commander in chief of the Red Army, Joseph Stalin. Stalin’s bunker in Izmailovo, the nearby area of Moscow. It was a top-secret military asset constructed especially for Stalin, and was disguised with a stadium built right above the bunker. Since 1996, Stalin’s bunker was operated as a museum.

Such bunkers were previously secret military objects where armored units were standing by in case something happened. Bunkers were built in Moscow in the 1930s to secure the military defense of the country. Only three of them, however, were specially constructed for Stalin. The second such bunker was built in Samara, Central Russia, and was also turned into a museum. The last one – in Kuntsevo, west of Moscow – is still a secret installation and is said to be in use.

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