Secret Soviet bunker built to survive a nuclear blast opens to visitors in Czechia
It was built as a secret Soviet command post during the Cold War and hidden from the public for decades. Now the Jasyr bunker in the Karlovy Vary region in northwest Bohemia is open to visitors, thanks to a group of enthusiasts who have spent years restoring it.
Completed in 1974, Jasyr was a highly secret Soviet military facility on the southern edge of the Hradiště Military Training Area, in the Doupov Mountains. It served as a reserve wartime command post for the Soviet forces stationed in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War.
The bunker had a direct encrypted communication link with KGB headquarters in Moscow, with messages reaching the Soviet capital within five minutes. It was also designed to operate independently, with its own power, ventilation and water supply.
After the fall of communism and the departure of the last Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia in 1991, the bunker came under Czech military control but remained largely unknown. The Czech Army eventually stopped using the site. Since 2015, it has been leased by the Jasyr Military History Association.
Martin Antala, one of its members, says the group initially had no plans to restore the bunker.
“When we founded the association in 2015, we had no idea that we would one day be restoring the bunker. We started work on it in 2020, and thanks to the enormous efforts of the association's members, the project gradually took shape. When we saw how interested our friends and acquaintances were, we realised it would be a shame not to share this piece of history with the public.”
When work began, the association found tonnes of rubbish but very little information about the original layout. Since no map of the bunker survived, they had to piece together what the different rooms had been used for.
A breakthrough came when they discovered an officer’s diary hidden inside the large water tank. They managed to contact him as well as other former soldiers who had served at Jasyr. Those former soldiers provided photographs and helped identify the purpose of different parts of the bunker.
Beyond its history, Jasyr is also a unique example of Cold War military engineering. Because the bunker was built in strict secrecy, the Soviets brought in their own materials and handled the construction themselves, as Antala explains:
“It was constructed from standardised prefabricated reinforced-concrete elements and designed to withstand the effects of a medium-sized nuclear explosion. Visitors can see the structure and technical features of the facility and learn how the reserve command post operated during the Cold War.”
The Jasyr bunker is now open to visitors every weekend during the summer holidays. Outside the main season, the association aims to open it at least once a month. Current opening times and booking information are available at jasyr.cz.
