Where Lenin Lives: Inside Latvia's VIP Nuclear Bunker

The Ligatne Sanatorium, about 75 kilometers from the capital, Riga, was completed in 1982 for the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic’s top communist leaders.

A game room inside the Ligatne resort. The facility looks much like the many other elite spas built throughout the Soviet Union where politicians and their families could combine rest and medical treatment.

But after the U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1991, Latvian locals wandering around the newly unguarded grounds noticed there was something strange about Ligatne. Some infrastructure seemed unusually heavy duty – almost military grade.

This lily pond concealed a concrete base solid enough to hold the weight of a large helicopter.

And these air vents -- hidden from American spy satellites in clumps of trees -- hinted at something concealed underground.

After keeping the secret of Ligatne for years, the Latvian government finally opened this door to the public in 2003, revealing a 90-room underground nuclear bomb shelter enclosed in five meters of solid concrete. In Soviet days, the door would have been guarded by an officer who would open only to those who whispered the right password.

Tucked out of sight around a corner from the secret entrance, two air-tight blast doors protected the underground shelter.

This banner urged loyal Soviets to “Be alert, guard the defense of our country like the apple of your eye!” The curtains conceal a plan of the bunker.

A communications room links the bunker to other Soviet strongholds, including the Kremlin. The sign reads “without communication there is no control. Without control, there is no victory!”

A radio receiver inside the communications room. According to local guide Regina Kinder, the bunker and almost everything inside remains as it was when the Soviet Union collapsed.

A meeting room inside the bunker, adorned with a map of the Latvian S.S.R.

A Soviet-made clock in an underground meeting room. Kinder says “the Soviets could take what they wanted [after the U.S.S.R. collapsed] but they didn’t take much.”

The bunker’s canteen. The facility had enough supplies to feed 250 people for three months. The banner says "Don't waste bread, it is the work of a thousand people!" 

Plastic flowers and some of the original crockery that communist loyalists would have reached for as "World War III" raged overhead.

A waiting room outside the quarters reserved for the Latvian communist leader. From 1984-88, the head of the Latvian S.S.R. was Boris Pugo.

The bed and office (right) reserved for Latvia’s leading communist. In 1991, Pugo was involved in the attempted coup that would have stopped the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and reimposed hard-line communist rule over the Soviet Union. After the coup failed, Pugo killed himself with a pistol. His wife either also killed herself or was shot by Pugo.

A woman takes a photo of her daughter in front of a bust of Lenin (whose name is spelled in the Latvian style: Lenins). Today the bunker is open for tourists to explore, though photography is forbidden in some rooms.

An office in the bunker with a poster reminding comrades not to chat on the telephone in case spies are listening. Kinder believes the ban on photography in some rooms is more about maintaining the mystique than hiding sensitive information.

A sign recommending the protective clothing to wear in the event of a nuclear or poison-gas attack. Kinder told RFE/RL that after the Soviet Union’s demise, the fledgling Latvian government probably kept the bunker a secret in case they would need it. “In the early '90s we [Latvians] didn’t know what would happen, it really was scary.”

A woman walks in a corridor of the bunker. Kinder told RFE/RL: “during the [1991 coup attempt] I was in a different city with two young kids and a plane flew over dropping leaflets saying 'we have a new government, you shouldn’t rebel.’”

"So maybe it was naive thinking, but the government probably thought they might need this bunker for themselves.”