THE WORLD - News from June 21, 2009

One of the old bomb shelters is now a fish cannery. Another has just been turned into a high-tech data storage center. Yet another is a museum.

Deep below the ground in Latvia runs a vast labyrinth of 311 bomb shelters, dating back to an era when Communist Party bosses built thousands across the Soviet Union in case of nuclear attack. But now Latvia can no longer afford to maintain the shelters, at a time when the government can barely pay public servants and is begging for help from the International Monetary Fund.

So the government has drafted legislation to cancel the shelters’ special status, allowing owners -- the government, cities and companies -- to do whatever they want with the property. Owners will no longer be responsible for simple maintenance such as keeping the hydraulic doors in working order, for a savings of $3.4 million annually.

“In times of peace these shelters don’t serve any purpose, and in a war they could only accommodate 5% of Latvia’s population, which is too little to be of any use,” says Capt. Maigurs Ludbarzs, head of civilian defense operations at the State Fire and Rescue Service. By closing the shelters, he says, Latvia “will put another end to the Cold War.”

It would take at least $13.8 million to make the shelters functional again. Last year the Fire and Rescue Service proposed an investment program to resuscitate them, but ministers rejected it.

Latvia, a nation of 2.3 million people now in the European Union, became independent in 1991 after the breakup of the Soviet Union and joined NATO in 2004. The shelters are a bone-chilling reminder of an age when two superpowers flirted with mutual annihilation.

In one expansive, well-scrubbed shelter beneath a former convalescent center used as a Communist Party weekend resort, bright yellow maps detail contingency plans in case of a nuclear war. Although the maps are old and their doomsday scenario is more than two decades in the past, the tour guide asks a group of Associated Press journalists not to photograph them.

“That’s the order from above,” says Margarita Pluksna. “They still contain information that is considered secret.”

Since Latvia gained independence, no significant investments have been made in the shelters. Dozens are used by companies for storage. Most are neglected, and the Fire and Rescue Service estimates that a third are flooded.

The bomb shelter on Export Street just north of downtown Riga, the capital, in view of tall cranes and massive cargo ships moored at the port, is typical. This small facility, built a half-century ago to accommodate the port’s managers, is usually ankle-deep in water. It is so damp that the guide refuses to switch on the light for fear it will spark an electrical shortage.

“You would’ve slept in any empty corner available,” says Rihards Augucevics, a port employee in charge of the facility, explaining the absence of cots. “This kind of shelter was only meant to be used for two or three days -- just long enough to survive the initial [atomic] blast.”

By contrast, the shelter in Ligatne, now a museum, was designed to be self-sustaining for three months. The shelter has a bowed wall for absorbing a nuclear shock wave and an enormous facility for filtering radiation-poisoned air.

The Ligatne shelter had separate rooms for the KGB, equipped with direct phone lines to Moscow and racks of gray electronic devices capable of eavesdropping on nearly any room in the facility.

“These rooms were sealed all the time. No one could enter,” says Pluksna.

Outside, an empty pool carved in the shape of Latvia served as a helicopter landing pad. In a nuclear attack, the task was to fly all key leaders to this strategic shelter within half an hour.

“But only Communist Party bosses, ministers and generals -- no women or children were allowed here,” says Pluksna.

Generally, Latvia’s bomb shelters are located next to factories, government offices and schools in seven urban areas. The largest can accommodate up to 1,000 people. A few, such as the shelter beneath the Riga East Clinical University Hospital, Latvia’s largest, have an entrance wide enough to drive a car through.

Built 30 years ago, this shelter consists of a single broad corridor, with patient dormitories, offices and an operating room on each side. A bulky black phone on the director’s table emits a dial tone.

“The hospital doesn’t spend any money on this place, but we still keep it in good condition -- just like it should be,” says Aldis Lubins, the shelter’s caretaker.

The private sector has come up with some creative solutions for the bunkers. A Latvian technology firm, DEAC, recently spent millions of euros transforming a command center in Riga -- capable of withstanding a 15,000-ton atomic bomb -- into a data storage center with long yellow walls, numerous white doors and massive computers. And in the 1990s a Riga factory that produced telephone equipment leased its bomb shelter for paintball battles.

Latvians in general support the government’s decision to part with the shelters.

“We’re not target No. 1 anymore. If some catastrophe were to happen, the shelters couldn’t save many people anyway,” says Uldis Petersons, 31, who recalls exploring several bomb shelters in the 1990s. “Commercial firms can probably put them to better use.”