During the tour, Alexandrov painted a picture of a virulently anti-communist 1950s America that had demonstrated, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, that it was "ready to use nuclear weapons against civilian populations."
"They didn't want to talk to us at the time. Instead, they were quite willing to 'destroy the hydra of communism in its lair,' " he told the group of university students and young businesspeople. "It was life under gun sights. The threat was so imminent that our leadership could only have three or four minutes to make a decision."
Visitors were encouraged to wear olive-green Soviet army ponchos for the tour, and Alexandrov demonstrated the use of a gas mask and a 1960s Geiger counter still in working condition.
White respiratory face masks were handed out as part of the atmospherics, and some wore them while posing for souvenir snapshots. Each visitor was given a bright red USSR Defense Ministry pass with their name and a mug shot of someone wearing a gas mask. The tour also included a Cold War-era military rations meal consisting of buckwheat porridge with canned stewed beef and a shot of vodka.
Andrei Kvyk, 21, a student at the Moscow Construction Institute, said being in the shelter gave him "the creeps."
"They say that this is all a thing of the past and that the Cold War is over," he said. "But I don't think that's the case. I am sure facilities like this still exist in Moscow and across the country and are on combat duty every second. I am sure the Cold War was never over. They are lying to us."
The complex was constructed with techniques similar to that used to drill subway tunnels, and walking through it feels like a journey through huge pipes. The largest rooms, built in 30-foot-diameter tunnels, have arched ceilings. The old floors have been ripped out, and in many places one walks on a mix of soil and debris. In a few spots, water drips ominously.
The complex has tunnels linking it to the Moscow subway, which is even older, and in certain areas the roar of trains can be clearly heard.
"It is so spooky -- these tunnels, this porridge, this damp air 60 meters under the ground," said Yana Arutyunova, 25, a market researcher who joined the tour. "People in the tunnels look like ghosts of the past. You can't but feel danger here. Everything was removed at some point, all the equipment, but you can still feel this concentrated cold fear permeating the air."
