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December 1st, 2008
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A tale of two tunnels

Cold War history buried at the castle, and alive in a labyrinth in Žižkov

August 27th, 2008 issue

By Zach Blaue

JAN PŘEROVSKÝ/THE PRAGUE POST
Bunkr Parukářka in Žižkov still has the gloomy look and feel of a Cold War-era fallout shelter, making it an ideal setting for underground art and music that is drawing both locals and adventuresome tourists.
JAN PŘEROVSKÝ/THE PRAGUE POST
Proprietor Michal Těšinský welcomes visitors to a club typical of Prague with its claustrophobic restrooms and graffiti-covered walls.
JAN PŘEROVSKÝ/THE PRAGUE POST
JAN PŘEROVSKÝ/THE PRAGUE POST
For the Post
There are places in Prague where stepping back 50 years in time is as easy as descending a crumbling concrete stairway. They are access points to the past, hidden beneath the city’s streets and parks. Sprawling silently far beneath the surface, these are the abandoned atomic bunkers of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
The size of Prague’s Cold War-era nuclear shelters varies depending on which historian or local tale-teller one chooses to believe. Some swear that the entire city is crisscrossed with secret buried tunnels. Leaving aside these unlikely theories, there are a number of shelters and passages whose existence is easy enough to verify. Prague Castle historian Zdeněk Lukeš, perhaps one of the city’s most knowledgeable experts in matters of urban development and architectural history, can count more than a few forgotten subterranean structures on his fingers: “There are the Štefánikův bridge tunnels … the bunker connecting to the National Technical Museum, near Letná park … the castle shelters … and of course the metro atomic bunkers. I think the biggest of these are at I.P. Pavlova.”
Two atomic shelters in particular offer interesting counterpoints, dug on prominent sites on opposite sides of the river and subsequently neglected. In the years since the Velvet Revolution, they have come to terms in strikingly different ways with the growth and change in the surrounding city.
Royal redoubt
The first story begins half a century ago behind a set of closed doors somewhere in the heart of the presidential offices in Prague Castle. Here, unbeknown even to many of the functionaries working next door today, there is an empty, echoing hole that drops down 11 stories into rocky blackness. It is an elevator shaft originally built to conduct the Czechoslovak president and top government officials to safety in case of a nuclear attack.
According to Lukeš, the shaft leads to a rambling series of halls and secondary rooms, a tunnel system that eventually ties into a long, twisting switchback passage that surfaces at a concealed exit in the Deer Moat, outside the northern castle walls. The expensive and ambitious project was originally begun in the early 1950s as a top-secret initiative under the direction of President Klement Gottwald, though it failed to reach completion during his lifetime. President Gustáv Husák revived the project in the early 1970s, which continued on and off for another 15 years. The final result was a quarter-mile of twisting underground passages and various bunkered hiding rooms.
A lack of funding in the 1980s again stalled the project short of completion, and eventually it was abandoned. For security reasons, the door to the elevator shaft was sealed. Official access to the secret complex still exists from the Deer Moat exit point, clearly visible on the far bank of the moat near its western end. But the tunnels have essentially been abandoned for 20 years. And, with no foreseeable demand for top-secret presidential escape routes, it seems probable that this underground secret will remain unused.
Clubbing underground
Another piece of buried history lies atop a scrubby and unprepossessing hilltop in the Žižkov quarter, where a second shaft sinks into the earth. Unlike its contemporary beneath the castle, however, this is a bunker that’s open to exploration — at least to anyone who can find it.
The stairs that wrap around the edge of Parukářka hill are used primarily to get to a pub and beer garden at the top. The graffiti-covered concrete wall that breaks away about halfway up and the rough, dark opening at its center are easily overlooked. Even at night, the only clues that something lies within are an ambiguous spray-painted sign over the rusting steel doorway — Amigo — and the irregular stream of young dreadlocked Czechs passing through it.  
Anyone adventurous enough to follow their lead is rewarded with a surprise: After crossing the thresholds of a pair of foot-thick curving metal doors, and being ushered through a tiny antechamber, you will find yourself suddenly at the top of a double-helix staircase, wrapped in netting and stretching down out of sight into the echoing blackness.
Bunkr Parukářka was built in 1955 as a public fallout shelter. The state funded the construction of more than 1,000 square meters of intersecting concrete halls and chambers, buried five stories underground. The complex connects to a neighboring bunker and includes two ventilation shafts and five access and exit tunnels.
Intended only for emergency habitation, the bunker was never used, and was closed in 1989. It remained that way until 2006, when Michal Těšínský, a local entrepreneur with a clever idea, managed to wrangle an atypical deal from the Prague 3 municipal government. He was granted a conditional lease to open and renovate the abandoned space into a functioning nightclub and performance venue. In return for only nominal rent, the city reserved the right to evacuate and reclaim the site on 48 hours’ notice.
After a three-year struggle to hammer out fire and safety issues, construction began. In January 2007, the Bunkr officially opened as a club, music bar and exhibition space, complete with a 13-meter climbing wall built into the cavernous stairwell. It has become a popular spot on the local underground art and music scene, especially of late. On a typical night, while a band like the Psychedelic Spiders of Dr. Spoon blares from the stage and lounging bartenders distribute plastic cups of beer, local grunge-attired youth share the labyrinthine passageways with bemused tourists and sizable contingents of curious foreign students. With the Bunkr starting to appear in travel guides and expat publications, a further increase in mainstream attention seems likely.
The Parukářka story provides an interesting counterpoint to the forgotten empty tunnels beneath the castle. In both cases, ambitious ideas produced unique spaces within the city. While one has become an anomaly likely destined for obscurity, the other has been transformed and given new life. It’s a choice that awaits dozens of similar abandoned and empty chambers beneath us today.
Zach Blaue can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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