Until now, this place is shrouded in many secrets, which can only be partially unraveled by being inside.
The construction of a command post in the Grodno region of Belarus began in 1985. It is known for certain about the parallel creation of two similar objects in Moldova and Azerbaijan. None of them have been completed. Perestroika began, a wave of "velvet revolutions" swept through the countries of the socialist camp, followed by the fall of communist regimes. In 1991, the military unit of the Internal Affairs Directorate, called for 36 years the shield of socialism, ceased to exist.
And then the USSR collapsed.
In 1991, all work at the Belarusian bunker stopped. By that time, almost the entire underground complex was built: two main blocks, auxiliary shafts and communication poles, shafts for retractable telescopic antennas. Under the roof of the camouflage hangar lay expensive equipment, which was delivered, but did not have time to mount.
Some of the equipment was taken away by the military, some were plundered. Local residents speak about it.
- My friend served here as a warrant officer. He said expensive equipment was lying around. All were taken away somewhere, taken away and squandered. Someone got rich on this,”a forestry worker who met by the road told us and waved his hand towards the bunker. - And how much money was senselessly buried in the ground, how much human labor, how much time - all wasted.
Not far from the former secret construction site, there is a two-story residential building among forests and fields. It was once built as a hostel for officers. Apparently, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a farmer with his family settled here. He now raises goats and sells milk.
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Reinforced concrete ceilings are stored near the farmhouse, next to it is a pile of broken bricks. These are the remains of a military town that was being built to serve the underground structure. They also did not have time to finish building it, and then they destroyed what was.
According to the project, the command post consists of two shafts, each of which houses a multi-storey cylindrical block. The southern block (in the diagram below it is designated as block A) was intended for the command personnel. It provided for an operational management room, offices, a dining room, a medical unit and other premises. The northern block - technical - was necessary for the life support of the bunker. It was supposed to contain various power plants, a diesel power plant, ventilation equipment and so on. For communication between floors, staircases and elevators were assumed in each block. On several levels, the blocks were connected to each other by terns - underground corridors.
Information about the construction of the command post was classified for a long time. Today, there is very scant information in the public domain about its layout, dimensions, technical characteristics. According to differing data, the depth of the blocks is either 45 or 62 meters. The inner diameter of the trunks in which the blocks are located is 32 meters. To roughly estimate the scale, it is enough to imagine two famous "maize" near Komarovsky market, placed in underground wells at a distance of 20 meters from each other.
In the second half of the 1980s, the economy of the Land of the Soviets was bursting at the seams, but the party did not spare money for grandiose military projects. There is reliable data on the cost of the Belarusian command post: it cost the state 32 million Soviet rubles. With these funds, it was possible to build a whole microdistrict - 16 five-story buildings, each of which has 8 entrances.
The command post, abandoned by the builders and the military, was taken under round-the-clock security, which was on duty until about 2009. After that, diggers and curious locals began to enter the secret object in rows. The "metalworkers" with diesel generators reached out, sawing everything that the military did not need. For a short time, the command post was again taken under police protection.
This is how the camouflage hangar looked in 2010. The dimensions are impressive.
A year later, the authorities of the Grodno region decided to demolish the hangar and concreted all the manholes. The gaping holes of the "wells" were covered with iron beams, metal profiled sheets, and covered with earth from above.
The forest path leads to an open space, in the center of which there are two hills, hiding the "washers" of the command and technical blocks.
Remnants of the camouflage hangar supports stick out from under the snow.
The rails of the gantry crane, which worked under the hangar arch, have been partially preserved.
The whole complex is covered with a protective reinforced concrete "cushion". Such a roof, of course, will not save from a direct hit by a nuclear warhead. But more perfect protection was not required in those days. The accuracy of the missiles was not the same as it is now, especially since the coordinates of the command post were kept secret.
Not far from the blocks, you can see the upper part of the shaft, lined with reinforced concrete tubing. According to the project, this is a shaft for a telescopic antenna. In the event of a nuclear attack, after the passage of the shock wave, the antenna was supposed to rise to the surface and provide communication between the commander-in-chief with the troops. In addition, it was planned to build an antenna field nearby, buried 90 centimeters into the ground.
Despite the conservation of the facility by the authorities, from time to time, holes appear under the concrete slabs, made by either diggers or metal hunters. It is extremely dangerous for people without special training to go down. The corridors of the unfinished bunker end with shafts going into the abyss, the flights of stairs are lined with rotten wooden steps. The system of corridors is so tangled that in case of failure of a single flashlight, the chances of rising to the surface from the lower levels are very small.
This is how the entrance from the porch to the first underground level of the command block looks like.
The walls will never succumb to marauders. They are made of non-removable metal formwork, poured with durable fortification concrete. The photo below shows the opening between the inner wall of the shaft and the outer wall of the block body
The bunker inside is a huge iron monster, the dimensions of which simply do not fit into the head. Floor, walls, ceiling - all surfaces are covered with rust-colored metal. The bunker did not have time to be completed and equipped, so there is absolutely nothing inside, except for empty corridors, massive pressurized doors, large and small ventilation pipes and boxes.
A flashlight beam picks out deep mines in the darkness, the purpose of which can only be guessed at. A stone thrown down flies for almost 4 seconds and barely audibly flops into the water. The lower levels of the bunker are flooded.
The builders did not even have time to mount the raised floors and false ceilings, where various communications were supposed to pass. The next photo clearly shows the level of the doorway and about half a meter of ground from the bottom and top, necessary for laying pipes and cables.
And this is the entrance to the technical block B. On the left side of the corridor there is a displacement of structures and a collapse of the ground. The deformation most likely occurred in 2011 during the explosion of the hangar.
On the third underground level, there are broken tubings - the same ones from which the walls of the mine were laid. How did they get here? Perhaps they were knocked out by a directional explosion when making a passage into the auxiliary barrel. This explanation is given by researchers who have visited the command post many times.
Corridors and hermetic doors.
Only one room in the entire block was painted.
On flights of stairs there are flights of stairs where the railings are cut and there are no steps.
Seventh underground level. Some rooms have ventilation wiring.
And in some places they managed to mount raised floors.
The descent continues down to the ninth level. And then the ladder goes under the water. Bunker researchers say there are three more floors below.
There used to be ice here, but after the bunker was mothballed, the temperature inside gradually began to rise to ground level. Now in this world of rust and darkness, it is about 8 degrees Celsius.
At the ninth level, the corridor continues with a flooded porch leading to Command Block A.
Throughout its life, the command post was overgrown with rumors and speculation, sometimes incredible. On the Internet, you can find a legend about diggers who stumbled upon a mountain of corpses in a dungeon: allegedly the bandits threw their competitors into the mine. The story turned out to be fiction. But the morgue designed as part of the bunker is a confirmed fact.
After the collapse of the Union, the deputies of the Supreme Soviet pondered how to use the military facility that had become unnecessary for peaceful purposes. Someone suggested growing mushrooms in the bunker all year round. However, no investor was found. There are other proposals on the Internet today. Why not turn the command post into a Cold War museum? Probably, the authorities are not interested in this. Does it make sense? The shelter was never used, was plundered and therefore did not retain either the atmosphere or the original equipment of those years. Now it is just thousands of tons of iron rusting in the pitch darkness. Millions of Soviet rubles, forever buried in the ground.