Centuries-old dungeons have been preserved in the center of Moscow. Now they are abandoned. The land near Moscow is riddled with countless tunnels and filled with bunkers.
Along with Soviet bomb shelters and modern utilities, the city center is home to extensive catacombs, many of which are several hundred years old.
The most famous pre-revolutionary underground in Moscow is the former salt cellars near Kitay-Gorod. In the 16th-17th centuries, at the corner of today's Zabelina and Solyanka streets, the Salt Fish Yard was located.
Vast dungeons were dug under the building, which local merchants used as a barn for storing their goods - salt and fish.
For two hundred years, the building of the trading yard was completely dilapidated, and at the beginning of the 20th century it was decided to demolish it. In its place, a huge House of the Moscow Merchant Society was built at that time, and the former salt cellars were strengthened and expanded by adding lower levels.
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During the construction, a large treasure from the times of Ivan the Terrible was found in the catacombs, the owner of which, apparently, was a merchant of the Salt Fish Yard.
New basements were built taking into account the needs of the new time and the scale of the building standing on the surface. Some tunnels are wide enough to allow two carts or cars to pass.
It is possible to distinguish the corridors of the 20th century from the preserved corridors of the 16th – 17th centuries by the rooms and branches - galleries and extensive storage rooms were arranged in the new dungeons, while the merchants of past centuries were content with small cellars.
In Soviet times, the basements were taken over by the Ministry of Internal Affairs - the police organized a garage in them for storing official cars, but this did not last long. Cars did not tolerate moisture well, and soon the basements were no longer used at all.
The hijackers settled here instead of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the 90s. In former police garages, they dismantled and sold stolen cars. By the XXI century they disappeared from the basements too. The place has gained popularity among diggers and just teenagers looking for a get-together place. For some time in the salt cellars there was even a squat - an illegally occupied building.
Ten years ago, anyone could get into the catacombs - the passages in the courtyard of the House of the Merchant Society were open. This is not an easy task today. The utilities have tried to find all the public entrances to the basements and lock them up. The dungeons are now deserted, but you can still make interesting finds.
For example, in one of the corridors there is an abandoned and almost completely disassembled car, which has been preserved here, apparently, from the times when the tunnels were occupied by hijackers.
One of the premises looks like a living room - there are still furniture and shelves on which belongings forgotten by the owners are still standing. These are the remains of a squat. And during frosts, real stalagmites grow in some corridors.
Author: Maximkosh