Question of the Day: why are bomb shelter addresses classified in Moscow?

Ivan Zubov

A curious collision unfolded on social networks in connection with the correspondence between Moscow City Duma deputy Yevgeny Stupin and Moscow officials. Stupin turned to the Moscow Government with a request to provide the addresses of bomb shelters in the areas where his voters live.

Stupin's request was as follows:

“Due to the fact that state propaganda and individual deputies periodically threaten foreign states with nuclear strikes, it is obvious that the risk of retaliatory strikes against Moscow is increasing. I asked the government of the capital for the addresses of bomb shelters in the areas of residence of my voters”. The Moscow mayor's office refused to disclose the addresses of the bomb shelters, citing state secrets.

According to Stupin, the authorities reported that there are bomb shelters in these areas, but they cannot provide their addresses and number, citing state secrets. This was stated in a written response by Deputy Mayor of Moscow Pyotr Biryukov.

“It’s scary to imagine what such “secrecy” can lead to when at X hour no one will know where to go”, Stupin commented on the mayor’s office’s response.

The popular blogger Maxim Mirovich reacted in approximately the same way:

“Well, Russians, it seems that Glukhovsky’s dystopia is becoming true. In the event of a nuclear war, only bureaucrats and their families will find themselves in bomb shelters, and of ordinary people, only those who manage to run to the subway will survive”.

But the channel Andrey Vyshinsky, on the contrary, considered that Stupin was going to reveal state secrets to the enemies of Russia:

“... He tried to obtain information constituting a state secret, again in the interests of his friends, who already live abroad and spread pro-Ukrainian fakes almost around the clock. (...) We believe that law enforcement agencies should give a qualified assessment of Stupin's actions and find out in whose interests he was trying to get secret information..."

Social media commentators were rather skeptical about the very idea of escaping into a bomb shelter in a nuclear war:

- In Moscow, for sure, bomb shelters in case of a thermonuclear war do not make sense. The better the bomb shelter, the slower the death.

- For a nuclear winter, we need not just bomb shelters made of concrete at a depth, but with a system for cleaning air, water and a supply of food. None of this has been around for a long time. And if this is checked, it turns out that someone has communized a lot of money over the past few decades to maintain this entire economy.

- In principle, it is logical, because there are not enough bomb shelters for everyone. Therefore, the new nobility knows where to get in, but for smerds this is a mystery.

- Those who do not have access to state secrets have nothing to do in bomb shelters.