Rich Russians Buy Bunkers on Apocalypse Angst
By Lyubov Pronina -
May 13, 2011 4:01 AM GMT+0800
TRanslation by Autumnson Blog
一名藝術家的演譯，顯示生前集團的上層圓頂平面圖的地下碉堡的景觀。來源：Terravivos.com 通過彭博
由西北避難所系統興建的核防空洞的施工現場。來源：西北避難所系統通過彭博
Terrorism can be good for bunker builders. An apocalypse can be even better for business.
恐怖主義對掩體建設者可以是好事，一次天啟甚至可以是商機。
Danila Andreyev started building “panic rooms” three years ago, when fears of terrorist attacks and commercial disputes turning violent created demand in Russia. Now he’s selling “survival bunkers” for as much as $400,000 each to capitalize on angst over theories the world will end next year.
Danila Andreyev三年前開始建造“恐慌房”，當擔心恐怖襲擊和商業糾紛轉向暴力在俄羅斯創造了需求。現在他以每個多達 40萬美元推銷“生存碉堡”，利用對世界將在明年結束的理論的焦慮。
“I myself am not a believer in doomsday scenarios,” Andreyev, 31, whose Spetsgeoproekt company is completing 15 bunkers at hidden locations across Russia, said at his office in central Moscow. “But when you start hearing clients talking about the end of the world, it gets you thinking.”
“我自己不是一個世界末日的信徒”31歲Andreyev在他的莫斯科中部辦公室說，他的Spetsgeoproekt公司正在俄羅斯各地的隱蔽地點完成15座地下碉堡。 “但當你開始聽到顧客談論世界末日，它令你的思考。”
While Russia has been a target for terrorists, with 37 people dying in a blast at Moscow’s busiest airport in January, more people are looking to protect themselves from what Andreyev calls a “global cataclysm” in 2012 based on predictions such as interpretations of the ancient Mayan calendar.
而俄羅斯一直是恐怖分子的目標，一月時37人死於莫斯科最繁忙機場的爆炸，越來越多的人正尋求保護自己，免於在2012年時 Andreyev稱之為“全球性災難”，根據如古瑪雅人日曆的解釋的預測。
Northwest Shelter Systems, a company based in Sandpoint, Idaho, that specializes in nuclear bomb shelters, has seen the number of inquiries from potential customers rise as much as 60 percent since the March tsunami and earthquake in Japan, Allen Thompson, vice president, said by e-mail.
公司總部設在愛達荷州桑德波因特的西北避難所系統，專門從事核防空洞，已看到來自潛在客戶的查詢數目，上自3月的日本海嘯和地震以來升高達百分之六十，副總裁艾倫湯普森通過電郵說。
The Vivos Group, a California-based bunker builder with a website that features a meteor striking Earth, said requests for a shelter in one of its facilities jumped by 10 times since the disaster, which left about 25,000 people dead or missing.
要準備
Be Prepared
“Hundreds of applications” come from Russia and other former Soviet states, Vivos founder Robert Vicino said by e- mail. The nearest Vivos shelter is at an unidentified location in central Europe, he said. It costs about $25,000 per person.
“Every person has a different belief or sense of what may be ahead for all of us,” Vicino said. “Vivos is not about 2012, but having a life assurance solution for our families for whenever disaster strikes.”
Vivos is building facilities in the U.S. and elsewhere. It said in January it was considering buying a two-story bunker constructed for the U.K. government in 1990 in rural Scotland.
Spetsgeoproekt, which stands for Special Geological Projects, plans to open a showroom in the affluent Moscow neighborhood of Rublevka this year and is expanding into Russia’s regions, Andreyev said.
The company’s bunkers range from 35 to 90 square meters (377 to 969 square feet). Maintaining the unit, including the air system, runs about $2,500 a year, he said.
避開洪水
Avoiding Floods
Altai, the mountainous southern Siberian region that borders China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, is of particular interest because it’s believed to be “flood proof,” Andreyev said. Spetsgeoproekt started building an 80 square-meter, $350,000 bunker in Altai.
“They all say the same thing: Next year there’ll be a polar shift or something and most of Russia will be flooded except for Altai and a few other regions,” Andreyev said.
Alexei, 35, one of Andreyev’s clients, said distress over the coming apocalypse prompted him in February to order the construction of a $150,000 bunker big enough to shelter eight people outside of Moscow. He declined to give his full name to keep it secret that he ordered a bunker.
Something catastrophic will certainly happen next year, Alexei said in a telephone interview.
“It all points to some shake-up on Dec. 21, 2012,” Alexei said, citing his interpretations of the doomsday predictions of 16th century French apothecary Nostradamus, the blind Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga and the Mayan calendar.
蘇維埃設計
Soviet Designs
Andreyev said his bunkers are based on Soviet military designs from the 1970s and modified with modern technologies. The walls resemble those used in nuclear power stations and the air systems are akin to those used in spaceships and submarines. The doors are similar to those in Swiss bank vaults, he said.
Russia has a history of bunker building, particularly during the Cold War amid fears of a nuclear attack.
Several previously secret facilities in and around Moscow opened to the public since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, including a 7,000 square-meter compound 60 meters below Taganka Square in central Moscow that’s been turned into a Cold War museum. It can be rented for parties and weddings.
It may be a sign of the times that Yevgeny Ubiyko, a former Red Army engineer who served in what was once Czechoslovakia, feels the need to start producing floating bunkers. Ubiyko, 45, built his own 32 square-meter “mobile safe” that he now advertises on his website, offering to replicate it for anyone willing to pay at least $80,000. He has four orders so far.
“With seismic activity increasing and abnormal weather events becoming more frequent, it’s clear the trend is such that soon the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan will seem like a minor event,” Ubiyko said by telephone. “People are starting to think about shelters, like Noah and his ark.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-12/apocalypse-angst-adds-to-terrorist-threat-as-rich-russians-acquire-bunkers.html
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