Going underground is always a great experience no matter what city you visit.
Cold war capitals like Moscow and Berlin offer some of the very best subterranean experiences around. This is because the safest place if the Cold War ever got hot, was deep underground where the radiation can’t get you.
Now that communism is dead and the world is one big happy place, Cold War bunkers are increasingly coming off the Top Secret list and being transformed into tourist sites.
Take, for example, the newest attraction in Moscow: The Confrontation Cold War Museum. In the old days, this 75,000-square-foot facility buried 200 feed underground was known only as the Tagansky Underground Command Center. And, it was known only by the select few who would scurry there and live off rations for three months while the outside world was scorched by nuclear bombs.
Today, any foreign tourist with $39 in their pocket can now join a guided tour of these facilities. David Holley, of the Los Angeles Times, recently journeyed below the surface to check it out and reports back that the new owners have decorated it with Soviet posters and some outdated communications equipment. Tour guides dress in old Soviet Army uniforms, and visitors are served the traditional rations endured by those on duty here: buckwheat porridge, canned beef stew, and a shot of vodka–proving that some things in Russia never change. Har har har.
Click here for a virtual tour.