"In late May, a Cold War Museum will open at the former secret facility," Olga Arkharova, head of the exhibition complex, said.
She said the first visitors would be able to see an exhibition called Confrontation May 24-25, which would display telephones and other communication devices of the former underground telegraph center, which was designed in 1951, two years before Stalin's death. The military abandoned the bunker in the late 1980s.
The exhibition will also feature weapons, military uniforms, and documentaries. The visitors will be allowed to touch the displays and even try on the uniform and drink tea from a samovar, a big metal pot used to boil water for tea in Russia.
As for the entertainment center, Arkharova said it might include a bar, a cinema and a disco but would not open until 2008.
Vadim Mikhailov, Moscow's chief digger, hailed the idea of the museum in the bunker but strongly cautioned against letting people stay long in the place. "Such facilities were built at the time for strong and healthy military men who were capable of working underground and maintaining the bunker," he said. "But even then they could not stay there long for purely psychological reasons."
Mikhailov said Moscow had 15 such bunkers of various sizes. "The best solution would be to restore these facilities in their original shape and connect them by a common transportation system, and use them as a wonderful museum complex that would continue performing its strategic functions," the digger said.
Russian emergencies services said the idea was realizable but only if all safety measures were observed, including ventilation and firefighting systems. "Such facilities can be used for other purposes but only if they are provided with the necessary safety systems," Andrei Kozyrev, head of the firefighting regulator in Moscow, said.
