10 Best Bunkers

The griz­zly bear reigns supreme as the king of the car­ni­vores in North Amer­ica. With their for­mi­da­ble size, pow­er­ful limbs and sabre sharp teeth and claws, they have lit­tle to fear from most other crea­tures. Yet there is a time every year when they are most vul­ner­a­ble – when they hiber­nate. To pro­tect them­selves from harsh envi­ron­ment con­di­tions and other preda­tors, they with­draw to the secu­rity of a sub­ter­ranean refuge.

In the same way, those wish­ing to sur­vive dooms­day must have a secure retreat in which they can weather the apoc­a­lyp­tic storm. Bunkers, dugout, fall-out shel­ters, call them what you will, these under­ground sanc­tu­ar­ies pro­vide pro­tec­tion from the men­ace of such things as solar radi­a­tion and nuclear fall-out, all the way through to maraud­ing bands of post-apocalyptic sur­vivors bent of no-good and the legions of un-dead.

Our species is no stranger to the con­sid­er­able ben­e­fits the under­world offers in times of cri­sis. Since our troglodyte ances­tors first lurched into the dark­ened hal­lows of caves, we have uti­lized holes in to ground to shel­ter from the hor­rors of exis­tence. From the Blitz to the Cold War, the sophis­ti­ca­tion of bunkers has devel­oped to the point that they are some­times now mar­keted as you home away from home.

Don’t wait until you hear the sirens scream­ing, get your shovel out now and start digging.

Here are 10 inter­est­ing exam­ples of what is possible.

1) Ramenki Bunker, Moscow

 

Since the time of Ivan the Ter­ri­ble, Mus­covites have been seek­ing refuge below the streets and byways of Moscow. Yet it wasn’t until the Cold War that the full poten­tial of the sub­ter­ranean world was realised. The Ramenki Bunker sys­tem is believed to have been built some 10 kms (6 miles) from Moscow’s city cen­tre and linked via a secret under­ground rail net­work to the Krem­lin and other key gov­ern­ment build­ings. Built over a ten year period from the mid-1960s, Ramenki was effec­tively an under­ground city about 2.5 square km (500 acres) in size and built to a depth of 200 metres (400 ft). When oper­a­tional dur­ing the it is esti­mated to have been able to shel­ter up to 15,000 peo­ple, with enough food to last 30 years. Lit­tle is known of its capa­bil­ity today.

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2) Ban­hof — Pio­nen, White Moun­tain Data Cen­tre, Sweden

 

This for­mer Cold War nuclear shel­ter, buried beneath 30m of solid gran­ite in cen­tral Stock­holm, now houses Bahn­hof, one of Sweden’s largest inter­net providers and host of the infa­mous Wik­ileaks website.

Look­ing like the quin­tes­sen­tial James Bond set, the Pio­nen facil­ity is bristling with state-of-the-art hard­ware that would be the envy of any technophile. Designed by the archi­tec­tural firm Albert France-Lanord and inspired by such Sci-Fi clas­sics as Logan’s Run, Silent Run­ning and Star Wars, the facil­ity is pow­ered by two diesel sub­ma­rine engines and has sub­ter­ranean gar­dens, a 2600 litre fish tank, water­falls and an orig­i­nal warn­ing horn sys­tem from a Ger­man Submarine.

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3) Vivos, Mohavi Desert, California

 

At a secret loca­tion in the Mohave desert, east of Los Ange­les, entre­pre­neur Robert Vicino has con­structed a pri­vate net­work of sur­vival shel­ters in prepa­ra­tion for the 2012 apoc­a­lypse or any other cat­a­sro­phy that could befall mankind. Capa­ble of hous­ing 200 peo­ple, the shel­ter con­sists of a multi-level under­ground com­plex with blast doors, decon­t­a­m­i­na­tion show­ers, gen­er­a­tors, air fil­tra­tion sys­tems and med­ical facil­i­ties. This is the first of what Vicino envis­ages as a global net­work of sur­vival facil­i­ties located near major urban centres.

Reser­va­tions can be made now for around the $50,000 mark, per person.

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4) Cheyenne Moun­tain, Colorado

 

As the pri­mary warn­ing cen­tre for all space, air and mis­sile threats to North Amer­ica, you could expect the Cheyenne Moun­tain NORAD Cen­tre to be pretty impres­sive; and you’d be right. Built under 2000 ft of solid rock, the Cheyenne Moun­tain facil­ity is designed to with­stand the impact of a direct nuclear strike. Three feet thick solid steel blast doors seal in an under­ground town of more than 200 peo­ple. With more than a dozen build­ings built on giant springs to absorb the shock of a nuclear det­o­na­tion, this facil­ity can run on in com­plete iso­la­tion for over a month. Eight diesel gen­er­a­tors power 4000 bat­ter­ies, water from a nat­ural spring and air fil­tered to remove any nuclear, chem­i­cal or bio­log­i­cal agents. The facil­ity has its own med­ical facil­i­ties, den­tal offices, phar­macy, gyms, a chapel and even a bar­ber shop.

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5) The Green­brier Bunker, West Virginia

 

Built beneath the salu­bri­ous Green­brier Hotel at White Sul­phur Springs dur­ing the Eisen­hower era as an emer­gency relo­ca­tion cen­tre for the U.S. House of Con­gress in the event of a nuclear war, this bunker remained a secret until a tip off to the Wash­ing­ton Post in 1992. Although decom­mis­sioned shortly after­wards, it was orig­i­nally designed to accom­mo­date over 1,100 peo­ple and was com­pletely self-sufficient for up to two months. Tours of the facil­ity are now available.

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6) Mount Weather, Virginia

 

Located in the Blue Ridge Moun­tains, an hour’s drive west of Wash­ing­ton D.C., the Fed­eral Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (FEMA) was built dur­ing the height of the Cold War as part of a ‘fed­eral relo­ca­tion arc’ of under­ground facil­i­ties designed to house gov­ern­ment offi­cials dur­ing times of inter­na­tional cri­sis. As you would expect, very lit­tle is known about Mt Weather, but rest assured, there will lit­tle point try­ing to bang on the blast doors when cat­a­stro­phe strikes. This one is strictly for the high and mighty.

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7) Vals, Switzerland

 

Although not tech­ni­cally a bunker, this under­ground res­i­dence could (with a bit of effort) be con­verted into a 5-star dooms­day shel­ter. Built into a hill­side in the moun­tains of Switzer­land, this retreat fea­tures all the com­forts of a con­ven­tional home, along with access via a secret tun­nel lead­ing to an old barn.

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8) Zero Star Hotel, Switzerland

 

What first began as an arts project by twin broth­ers Frank and Patrik Rik­lin, the Null Stern is the world’s first zero-star hotel. Built in a con­verted nuclear bunker near Zurich, guests must endure cold con­crete floors, a noisy ven­ti­la­tion sys­tem and an aus­tere envi­ron­ment that would suit the most die-hard Zen practitioner.

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9) Raven Rock Moun­tain Com­plex, Pennsylvania

 

Located only 10 km (6.2 miles) north-northeast of Camp David, Mary­land, this under­ground com­mu­ni­ca­tions facil­ity (also known as Site R) became oper­a­tional in 1951.It forms part of the U.S. government’s Con­ti­nu­ity of Oper­a­tions Plan, which will try to repo­si­tion the upper hier­ar­chy of gov­ern­ment in the event of a national cat­a­stro­phe.  Don’t expect a wel­come mat here.

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10) Burling­ton Bunker, England

 

One hun­dred feet below the sleepy mar­ket town of Cor­sham, Wilt­shire, lies a 35 acre sub­ter­ranean Cold War city known as Burling­ton Bunker. Designed to house the British gov­ern­ment in the event of a nuclear war, the bunker remained oper­a­tional for more than 30 years. This mas­sive facil­ity con­tained a hos­pi­tal, cafe­te­rias, kitchens, a bak­ery, laun­dries, offices, a tele­phone exchange and a tele­vi­sion stu­dio where the prime min­is­ter could address the pub­lic if the need arose.  It even had its own pneu­matic tube sys­tem to trans­fer mes­sages through­out the exten­sive com­plex. With more than 10 miles of under­ground roads, Burling­ton could sus­tain 4000 peo­ple for at least three months in com­plete iso­la­tion from the out­side world.

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So there we have it. A by no means defi­na­tive list of inter­est­ing bunkers. There are lit­er­ally thou­sands of old Cold War bunkers buried across the world, many of which are up for sale.