BUNKER GO-42

WHERE IS THE ENTRANCE TO THE UNDERWORLD?

It can be confusing: Wherever you go on the Moscow metro system, you encounter stairways that are blocked off and exits that lead to nowhere. Tunnels near the Kremlin may lead to seemingly dilapidated but well-guarded buildings. Only a small part of Moscow’s metro system is known to passengers, and one area that has long remained concealed is Bunker GO-42, a once-secret military structure that Stalin commissioned in the 1950s. The 75,000 square-foot complex was constructed more than 200 feet underground to serve first as a bomb shelter for Stalin and later (until 1986) as a command center for the fleet of Soviet nuclear bombers (photo: tunnel leading to the bunker). Designed to withstand an atom bomb, the shelter featured easy access from the Kremlin and the metro and today it serves as the Cold War Museum. In addition to Moscow’s official metro system, there are persistent rumors about Metro-2, a secret system that parallels the public metro. It is said to have four lines that connect the Kremlin with the FSB security agency, the government airport, and a secret underground town. Merely a legend? Dmitry Gayev, who headed the metro from 1995 to 2011, once said: “There is a lot of talk about the existence of secret transport tunnels. I would be surprised if they did not exist.”