Russia to Build Strip Mall in Stalin's Top-Secret Bunker

With 13 million residents, Moscow is one of the most populous cities in Europe, but rather than build up they want to go down -- 22 floors below street level to be exact. Found beneath the streets near the Taganskaya metro station in central Moscow, Josef Stalin's top-secret bunker was bought by a private developer, Novik-Serviz, last year and is planned to be turned into a leisure complex and hotel that, according to the developer, will have a Cold War theme (say what?).

[photo via Radio Free Europe]

The 1,968 foot long corridor of bunkers, built in the 1950s, used to house a weapons cache, fuel depot, and shelter for up to 3,000 troops and civilians. The space was built to withstand a nuclear bomb, naturally making it an ideal location for what else, a strip mall. There are issues, though, to developing underground.

According to Radio Free Europe:

"It's understandable that they should want to look for what they can do underground. But there are issues, problems with instability," says Edmund Harris, a spokesman for the Moscow Architecture Preservation Society. "There are areas in Moscow which are geologically dodgy, so they need to proceed very carefully. I think my main worry would simply be that they don't yield to pressure from developers and investors to do everything as quickly as possible."

One of Moscow's main thoroughfares, Leningradsky Prospekt, last year partly caved in, an incident blamed on nearby construction work. In February, traffic came to a standstill after a 120-square-meter sinkhole appeared in a roadway in western Moscow. And a square in the city center collapsed on April 22 after construction workers hit an underground stream.

Besides creating suburban sprawl, the underground bunker will also house a Cold War Museum which will have retro gizmos on display like:

A military radiostation "Brusnka"

A decoding Criptomachine

And a variety of telephones, including the "Stalin" style (left) - with facility ABC numbering, the usual duty officer telephone (center) for internal communication, and non-numbering telephone (right) for direct communication with the Duty Commander.

[photos via Cold War Museum]

Rad! No word on when this will be completed.