No trip behind what had formerly been a Soviet communist puppet state behind the iron curtain without a trip to the Cold War Museum on Wenceslas Square in historic Old Town Prague.
The Hotel Jalta (Yalta) was erected from 1954 to 1958 on the location of a building destroyed by allied bombing during WWII. From the 1950s until 1989 the hotel was home to a cold war secret. 20 meters underground is a bunker spread over three floors designed to provide shelter for up to 150 prominent state officials and espionage officers for as long as two months in event a nuclear exchange occurred between Warsaw Pact countries and the West.
The bunker had its own power and water cistern and operating theater. The concrete walls are two meters thick and include a steel slab designed as a radiation shield. Two emergency exit tunnels lead to Wenceslas Square and an adjacent building.
Following the Velvet Revolution and return to democratic government the bunker was declassified and turned over to the hotel. It is now a cold war museum.
If you like espionage and intrigue this is worth a visit. The Secret Police occupied the space for four decades creating a listening post to eavesdrop on the hotel's guests who were largely officials of Western countries.
West Germany's embassy was located on the premises in the 1970s and the Secret Police tapped their phones and bugged their offices. Here you will see how hotel room bugs were hidden in items as innocuous as a shoe brush.
Our guide at the entrance
Soviet era propaganda
Air handling equipment (still works)
Telex, communications equipment and switchboard used to listen-in and record bugged hotel rooms
Show me your papers!
One of the escape tunnels
You can learn more about the museum here
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