Prague Communism and Nuclear Bunker Tour

“Communism” themed tour that starts in Prague’s Old Town. The first hour will be taken up by walking and stopping at various spots in the city centre that in one way or another pertain to the theme of the tour, e.g. the former secret service HQ, the small monument to the Velvet Revolution or under the balcony of a house on Wenceslas Square from which Václav Havel addressed the protesters at the beginning of the fall of communism in the CSSR. If you don’t already know much about Czech history then all this may also be worthwhile in its own right, but if you’re not a novice then this part of the tour may be less exciting. 

First you board a tram and ride for a few stops (the tram fare is included in the tour fee), then you are led up towards Parukarka park opposite a particularly ugly set of communist-era prefab housing blocks. The entrance of the bunker is heavily grafittied (brand new when I was there – the paint had barely dried!). The guide unlocks and opens the heavy steel door, then you descend a massive spiral staircase down to ca. 4 storeys or 16 metres below ground.

The first part of the bunker has been turned into some kind of “underground” (literally!) bar or club venue, but appeared defunct at the time of my visit. The smell is typically bunker: dank and somewhat musty.

Past the basic loos, illuminated by eerie green light, you are then led down more parts of the bunker tunnels and eventually enter the Nuclear Bunker Museum part. This is where it gets more interesting.

There are mock-ups of e.g. a hospital ward and a kind of communications centre complete with dummies in uniforms – it gives you an idea what it would’ve been like… parts of the air purification machinery can be seen too.

The first museum room is a room stuffed to the brim with all sorts of communist-era memorabilia: from old books to propaganda posters, from period newspapers to masses of medals. Photos and busts of the likes of Stalin, Lenin, Klement Gottwald and even the GDR’s Erich Honecker can be seen too. Also on display is a large collection of gas masks, including whole-body variants for small children, complete with, you guessed it , kiddie mannequins in them.

Along further corridors you pass a mock-up of a decontamination room – where two white rubber suited dummies scrub down a naked dummy with brooms. More rubber-suited and gas-masked dummies line yet another corridor … to get you further into the nuclear war mood. Then you come to a mock-up of a nuclear family scene where again everyone except the little daughter’s doll wears gas masks too.

The gas mask theme continues. In the last room there’s even a whole wall of gas masks – they call it Lenin Wall (in allusion to the Lennon Wall in town), next to which a red button is labelled “big red button – do not press”. You get the picture. 

At the end of the tour you are even invited to try on a gas mask yourself – and you can pose in front of a Soviet flag holding a Kalashnikov (while wearing a gas mask, of course). Some visitors feel that this goes a little too far, but I didn’t find it difficult to go with the flow and enjoy even the tackiest elements. It also helped that ours was a very small and congenial group. We all found it quite fascinating and entertaining at the same time.