In the early 1950s, Josip Broz Tito, the late leader of the former Yugoslavia, ordered the building of a secret bunker that would safeguard the country’s ruling class in case of a nuclear attack. Located 900 feet (270 m) underground, near the Bosnian town of Konjic, the 26-year project was only completed in 1979, the year before Tito died, and it was built at a cost equivalent to just under £3 billion ($4.6 billion). According to AP, if restocked with supplies it would still serve its purpose – allowing 350 people to live and work for six months without ever coming outside.
Other than Tito and his closest confidants, the existence of the bunker was only known to four generals and a handful of soldiers that guarded the complex on completion in 1979 until Bosnia separated from Yugoslavia in 1992 and the new army took over.
According to the news agency AP the entrance lies behind a nondescript garage door of a remote house at the end of a lonely road, dug into the mountain’s behind the house. In the 70,000 sq ft (6,500 sq. m) there are over 100 small bedrooms, offices and conference rooms, decorated with simple furniture and the obligatory portrait of Tito in his uniform with numerous decorations.
When a war did come to Yugoslavia, 12 years after Tito’s death, it wasn’t quite the war for which the bunker was built. The country disintegrated into its constituent republics and Tito’s bunker became a huge white elephant owned by Bosnia’s armed forces, eager to hand it over to someone else hoping to get rid of the maintenance costs.
(Source: telegraph.co.uk)
