May 8: Moscow's underground bunker system

As published by Meduza on May 4, 2023

An open secret: Moscow’s subterranean bunkers

Staff, Meduza, May 5, 2023

At the opening of his talk on “Secret Government Bunkers,” historian Dmitry Yurkov warned his audience that its provocative title wasn’t exactly true. “These bunkers are obviously no longer secret,” he said, “otherwise, I wouldn’t be sitting in front of you — but instead lying face down, in handcuffs, with my hands behind my head.”

“We only deal with declassified documents,” he explained. Yurkov, founder of the Moscow-based Museum of Modern Fortification, gave his talk at the museum’s underground screening room “Bunker 703” on April 18, 2021.

The talk was later uploaded to the museum’s YouTube Channel, “Underground Moscow.” Ten months later, Roskomnadzor, Russia’s censorship authority, attempted to block the video. In correspondence with YouTube’s legal support service, the agency claimed that Yurkov’s talk disclosed state secrets, citing a court decision.

The lecture is based on Yurkov’s book “Secret Soviet Bunkers: Special Urban Fortifications from the 1930s–1960s,” which he wrote after several years of research based on declassified archival documents.

Yurkov’s talk discussed the following facilities:

• The first secret bunker in Moscow, located behind the Chistye Prudy metro station tunnel walls

• A city command post near ​​Tverskaya Square

• A shelter for Russia’s leadership, between the Kremlin Arsenal and the Kremlin Senate buildings

• A shelter for officials near the Kremlin walls

• A government communications center

• A site under the General Staff Building

• A site under the FSB headquarters in Lubyanka Square

• An underground transport system between the Kremlin, Zaryadye Park, the Presidential Administration buildings, and the FSB headquarters

• An underground tunnel for the evacuating Kremlin officials