Ghosts of War

Category: Cold War

  • Beneath the Streets of Prague, Czechia

    I find Cold War history frightening and fascinating, so when I found out there was a museum in a nuclear bunker right under the city centre of Prague, I promptly booked myself a tour.

  • Repurposing Albania’s Nuclear Bunkers Part II

    The BunkArt project has established two museums/art galleries within a couple of Tirana, Albania’s Cold War-era nuclear bunkers. After having a fascinating time exploring BunkArt 2, I set off on a sunny winter’s day to walk the hour-and-a-bit from central Tirana to BunkArt 1.

  • Repurposing Albania’s Nuclear Bunkers Part I

    Beneath the central business district of Tirana, Albania, a museum inside a nuclear bunker gives an insight into the paranoid reign of dictator Enver Hoxha

  • Visiting Chernobyl Part II, Ukraine

    You can certainly learn a lot from secondary sources, but nothing compares to seeing a place like Chernobyl first-hand.

  • Visiting Chernobyl Part I, Ukraine

    You can certainly learn a lot from secondary sources, but nothing compares to seeing a place like Chernobyl first-hand.

  • Museum of Strategic Missile Forces, Part II, Ukraine

    In the midst of paddocks in south-central Ukraine, a tour guide and I were cramped inside an elevator descending 30 metres into the earth to visit an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile command centre.

  • Museum of Strategic Missile Forces, Part I, Ukraine

    The brinksmanship, mistrust and misunderstanding between the east and west during the Cold War had created weapons so monstrous that offensive, defensive or erroneous launch would had spelled the end of everything.

  • The Red Flat, Bulgaria

    Close to the centre of Sofia, in an ordinary, non-descript housing block, is a unique time capsule. The Red Flat is an apartment that has been set up to replicate a family residence typical of 1980s urban Bulgaria.

  • House of Leaves, Albania

    After taking control, dictator Enver Hoxha wasted no time in building a terrifying state security apparatus that imprisoned the people of Albania within their nation’s borders, and sought to control all aspects of their lives.

  • Machern Stasi Bunker Museum, Germany

    Tucked away near the small village of Machern is a Stasi bunker that remained a secret until the end of the German Democratic Republic in 1989.