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Secret Underworlds of the Soviet Union: Georgia
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Secret Underworlds of the Soviet Union: Georgia

42 MIN · EN · STATUS: [ STREAMING ]
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Tiny Georgia holds an outsized number of underground structures built during Soviet rule, and this DW Documentary film goes into them. Researcher Tornike Kapanadze, who has studied the country's bunkers since 2016, leads a tour of the largest Soviet command bunker in Georgia, a complex of 135 rooms linked by two kilometers of tunnels built to survive nuclear war with neighboring NATO member Turkey across the border. Archaeologist Ana Sepashvili examines the remains of secret dungeons used to hold political prisoners under Stalin, tracing marks prisoners left on the walls. Zhana Odiashvili tracks down one of Stalin's hidden sites inside an unremarkable house, where a well shaft drops into a concealed underground print shop once used for revolutionary propaganda. The film also revisits the 1907 Tbilisi bank robbery that Stalin helped plan, using it to connect the Bolshevik underground to the vast defensive and punitive infrastructure the Soviets later built beneath Georgian soil. Interviews and on-location descents carry the narrative throughout.