“From the first day it started in Ukraine, my phones were ringing,” said Charles Hardman, director of Subterranean Spaces, a UK-based shelter and basement design company. “Everyone was really scared.”
Russia’s escalating conflict has sparked a wave of concern across Europe over the threat of nuclear war, prompting some to explore the possibility of building their own shelter or renting space in former government facilities abandoned due to impracticality. as a means of protecting the civilian population.
Google Trends data show that the search for “shelter” is skyrocketing to levels not seen since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. (The search for “nuclear”, meanwhile, is the largest since the 2011 Fukushima disaster.)
Mathieu Séranne, whose Paris-based Artemis Protection company is just one year old, said he has received more than 900 requests for bids and plans since the war began five weeks ago.
“We have very, very different types of people and from different backgrounds,” he said. “And we were not prepared for that.”
A luxury warehouse design by Artemis Protection costs almost $ 200,000. (Artemis Protection)
Séranne, like Hardman, designs custom warehouses for as little as $ 200,000. Many run into millions. In peacetime, they are reminiscent of a playroom, home cinema or even an entire basement.
One of Hardman’s projects is 4,300 square feet, he said – enough space “for the family and the staff running the house.”
“It is not cheap to build”
If things go south, they contain filtration systems, generators and concrete gauges that the manufacturers say are necessary to withstand a nuclear or chemical attack.
“It’s not cheap to build,” Hardman said. “And if someone said he is, then he is lying.”
Building is not the only option. Other wealthy survivors buy space in decommissioned government warehouses, often at a bargaining chip.
The Vivos Europa One, a luxury shelter inside a former East German government shelter, is still unsuitable for habitation, but the tunnels sell for nearly $ 3 million each. (Vivos Shelters)
In 2014, a 15-storey apartment built inside a former rocket silo in Kansas was able to sell its 75 units for $ 1.9 million or more.
Most recently, the Vivos Survival Shelters began selling space in a former East German shelter for $ 2.7 million – although Dante Vicino, their chief executive, said they were “still working” to make it habitable.
“If Germany invades tomorrow, it will not be ready for that, unfortunately,” he said.
But it is not only the rich who buy. Vivos is also trying to cover Doomsday developers and Survivaliststhat Vicino said they “read the tea leaves” and were not surprised by the outbreak of war.
At the company’s xPoint facility in South Dakota, you can have your own shelter at a former military base billed as the “largest survival community on earth,” for $ 45,000 – plus $ 100,000 or more in customization costs.
Dante Vicino, executive director of Vivos Survival Shelters, says projects like xPoint aim to “democratize the idea of owning a shelter”. (Submitted by Dante Vicino)
But the growing number of privatized facilities such as the Vivos Europa One shows another reality that fuel manufacturers may be more reluctant to acknowledge: governments have long since abandoned supply.
After the aerial bombardments of World War I and World War II, European countries dropped millions on civil defense as warehouses, with the aim of minimizing civilian casualties in the ensuing war.
But that changed in 1954, with the first public test of the hydrogen bomb – a weapon thousands of times as destructive as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and capable of producing catastrophic nuclear effects that could poison areas.
According to Emily Glass, a British archaeologist and expert on Cold War shelters, officials realized they would need to build “an entire underground city” if they wanted to protect their civilian population and sustain them for months or until they emerged safely. years later.
A tunnel fork inside the Vivos Europa One. Many governments abandoned warehouse construction when faced with the destructive power of hydrogen bombs. (Vivos Shelters)
“This is something I do not think any government has provided anywhere in the world,” he said.
According to Luke Bennett, a researcher in the history of British civil defense, the H bomb test marked a fundamental change.
“The army instead [put] their faith — and most of the funds allocated to deal with the Soviet nuclear threat— [making more] “nuclear weapons,” he wrote a document of 2018 – part of a “policy of deterrence through mutually guaranteed destruction”.
Civil defence
Some countries, such as Albania, have invested millions more in fuel networks, adopting a “nationalist preparation mentality,” Glass said, using the constant threat of invasion to quell opposition to the government.
Some countries still impose some form of civil defense. Switzerland requires private home builders to include air raid shelters in their plans. Sweden’s civil defense department maintains a network of more than 65,000 public shelters. After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, they recommended building more.
But the most common route was that of Germany, which gradually closed the nuclear shelters or sold them to the bidder.
The writing remains visible on the wall of the Regierungsbunker, a German government shelter outside Bonn that was decommissioned in the 1990s and has since been converted into a Cold War museum. (Kajo Meyer / Dokumentationsstatte Regierungsbunker)
Hubert Warner once guarded a shelter near Bonn that was to house the West German government in the event of a nuclear war, built to meet a NATO requirement.
Since then it has been turned into a Cold War museum and today it takes guided tours there.
“I do not think it makes sense to prepare for a nuclear war, because there is no protection against a nuclear bomb,” he said. “We had [the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster], and what could people do against it? Nothing.”
“Expression of fear”
Recently, Warner said, the museum has been receiving calls from people asking if they could “take a seat” at the shelter. “In my opinion, it is an expression of fear,” he said, “and in fear you can not [make] good decisions “. For this reason, he is skeptical of companies such as Vivos Survival Shelters, Artemis Protection and Subterranean Spaces that will benefit from a moment of great concern. “It’s a good way to make money,” he said. “But it is not a good way to protect people and prevent war.” But for warehouse builders, there is no room for doubt. “I think the future is underground,” said Hardman of Subterranean Space. “How long are we going to do this? I have no idea. “But if there is a catastrophe above the ground, where [are you going] to go? You will go down. “
