Bunker-42, Moskva, Russia
The object “Bunker-42” (“ChZ-293”, “GO-42”) is a fortified structure of the buried type, located in the very center of Moscow. The design of the construction began in the course of the appearance in the United States of a new type of weapons of mass destruction – an atomic bomb. In this connection, Soviet scientists received an assignment from Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union: in the shortest possible time to create their own atomic bomb and develop methods of protection against new weapons.
In 1950, “SMU Mosmetrostroy” began work on the construction of the Bunker. The construction of the structure and the depth of 65 meters were selected based on the results of nuclear tests conducted in the Soviet Union in 1949. It was assumed that in case of a nuclear attack the facility would become a reliable place for the work of the first persons of the Soviet Union and would be completely protected from all the damaging factors of the nuclear explosion.
Already in the autumn of 1947, the Institute “Metroproject” prepared a technical project “Bunker on Taganka”, code-named “Object 02” (ChZ-293). The location for the construction – the Tagansky Hill district – was chosen not by chance, since the Bunker was supposed to be in proximity to the Moscow Kremlin so that Stalin and the government could quickly reach it and manage the state and the army in a nuclear war, and also because of the density of construction Taganskogo hill.
On the shoulders of the builders lay the impossible task, it seemed, to build a huge structure in the center of Moscow without damaging the city’s communication systems, and most importantly to keep the construction secret from the eyes of ordinary people and foreign intelligence services. The design was chosen according to the type of previously constructed bunkers. This project was submitted for consideration by the State Expert Commission, led by Lieutenant-General Alexander Yakovlevich Kalyagin.
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