The "round table" conference "The Undergrounds of Samara" was conducted in the regional Musem of local lore. The idea belongs to V.N. Sorokin- the substitude of the director of the museum and he also led the conference. Speleologysts, historians, and journalists which were invited to the conference had discussed a wide circle of themes: from the mysterious pages of the history of Samara, up to the problems of ecology and safety, connected with underground objects. The chairman of the regional Speleologycal Commis- sion Michael Bortnikov also said about the cavities of natural origin. Large number of which is on a territory of Samara. The special place among them takes the cave of Greve brothers , which is situated in Red Glinca, described for the first time in the XVIII century by the academician Pallas. The head of the biological section of the Speleologycal Comission Alexander Metelin said,that because of unregulated flow of visitors into a cave a unique hibernate of bats became in danger. The researchers of flora and fauna of underground Samara were also disturbed with condition of mines in Sokolji mountains. They are interesting for scien- tists because unwinnged insects trilobiontes, which inhabit caves only, appeared there after the development of these mines was finished in the 60th. The report of Nicolai Pudovkin, who heads the Section of Artifical Cavities rose the special interest. Speleologysts specified, that in a sphere of his interests are not only mountain developments and engineering structures, but also so called technologycal cavities. One of such,kind according to the report of Pudovkin, was formed recently because of the breakdown of the pipeline at one of the plants. The depth of the arisen funnel was about twenty meters. Obviously, such kind of human activity is not good. However in a centre of attention of the "diggers" of Samara are still structures, most of which were built during the WWII. The special place among them takes so- called bunker of Beria -the huge structure, located on a depth of 2530 meters under Hlebnaya square. The report of A.S. Treschev, former main duty of the underground objects in Samara was met with great interest. Former KGB colonel suprised everybody, having informed, that a bunker of Stalin was not a bunker of Stalin at all. The arguments of Alexey Sergeevich are those: first, the same stations of control present in all the cities-centres of the military districts, second, for many years of his service on "the object N 1" he had not heard, that the structure was intended for "The Leader of the peoples ", third, by the words of former KGB colonel, the bunker was under construction before the war. Separately, the veteran stated about the attention of the society to these structures. Their purpose- was military, and, who knows, probably, they will be used as shelters and headquarters. By the words of Treschev, the person, who declassified the bunker under the building of the Institute of Culture, was fired. The commander of Povoljsky military district general-colonel Makashov turned him out of the service. The report on a bunker of Stalin called an ambiguous valuation of the participants of the" Round table ".But the important thing is of another kind. The participants of meeting agreed, that the undergrounds are the property of our city its wealth, which should be carefully taken care of and research closely.

Vadim Siproff 1999 ©

translation by Igor A. Mayorov 1999 ©v


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