Stalin's Bunker

Nizhny Novgorod 800

The mystery of one place

Published by the team Urban Kings

Stalin's Bunker

Nizhny Novgorod 800

The Upper Volga (Verkhnevolzhskaya) Embankment is a favorite place for Nizhny Novgorod residents. The romantic river landscape and the interesting combination of modern and merchant architecture attract citizens and tourists here. And the green slopes below it, sometimes reaching 100 meters, is one of the representative items of our city. But what can such layers of soil hide?
The fact that a whole underground city was built under the Volga slope in Gorky has been rumored among the townspeople for a long time.

Rumors about the "underground city"

But for many years they have remained just rumors. Only in 2000 the first declassified documents on this object began to appear.
Former governor of Nizhny Novgorod region Valery Shantsev posted in his blog a photograph taken “at the interdepartmental commission on declassification”.

Declassified documents

Nizhny Novgorod 800

The photo shows the document, the first words of which compel our attention: "The adit-type shelters built in the Volga slope ...". A stamp can be seen in the upper right corner: DECLASSIFIED. Was there a bomb shelter inside our slope?
According to the declassified letter of the secretary of the Gorky regional Committee of CPSU (b) Mikhail Rodionov to the Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR Lavrentiy Beria

«… in connection with the emergency condition of the supporting structures, adit-type shelters built on the Volga slope must be either liquidated or repaired. As it turned out, behind the dry wording of "adit-type shelter" the real bunker of Joseph Stalin was hidden!
Step by step, document by document, the truth about the construction of "special object No. 74" was revealed to the researchers.

Secret order №945

Nizhny Novgorod 800

The unexpected attack of Nazi Germany to some extent caught the USSR by surprise — the country was not prepared for war, and in 1941 there was a real threat of the surrender of Moscow. In a panic the population was hastily leaving the capital.
On October 14 at the meeting of the Defense Committee, the issue of evacuating people from the central region was raised. And to save the lives of members of the Supreme High Command, it was decided to build special bomb shelters in 7 cities of the Volga region: in Kuibyshev, Stalingrad, Gorky, Yaroslavl, Ulyanovsk, Kazan and Saratov. The decision to start the construction of bunkers for the top leadership came into force after the signing of secret order No. 945 of the State Defense Committee dated November 22, 1941.
Subsequently, a museum was created only in the Kuibyshev shelter, and the rest of the objects sank into oblivion.

Nizhny Novgorod 800

Special object №74

The Upper Volga Embankment had a number of advantages. The proximity of the river allowed, if necessary, to leave the shelter along the Volga completely unnoticed. The height of the slope (100 m) made it possible to reliably protect the bunker from air raids.
To accommodate this "camp", of course, needed a decent area, so it was ordered to vacate the hotel "Russia". Several residential buildings were also evicted. In the current Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory and the Art Museum, ground-based residences were located, and from them to a depth of 80 m there were adits in which underground points were arranged.
In 10 months - from November 1941 to September 1942 - they were able to equip 8 workrooms with good decoration, “with parquet floors and curtains on simulated windows” and with all communications.
So very soon "Special Object No. 74" became not only safe, but also cozy. One of the engineers checking the object, S. Krasnov, wrote already in the 90s: “... there was a lifting elevator, in which the car could fit”.

An inglorious end

Nizhny Novgorod 800

Unlike its Kuibyshev counterpart the Gorky bunker was not destined to become a museum. The Volga slope has been known since ancient times for its landslides. Being mothballed, the bunker quickly began to collapse, especially since the drainage system was violated during construction. Moisture began to seep into the object, a fungus appeared, and then the supporting structures began to deform. A specially created commission concluded that the bunker should be liquidated.
Although today there is no material evidence of the existence of Stalin's bunker in Gorky City, probable traces of it can be found on the Volga slope.

To the present day there are several drainage adits just under the embankment near the buildings of the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory and the Art Museum.
According to eyewitnesses of those times to the right of the café “Burlatskaya Sloboda” there was a massive metal door that led into the slope, which was later covered with earth, and trees were planted around...