Urbex Budapest: Exploring F-4 Rakosi Bunker

While researching what might be interesting to explore in Budapest, I came across information about bunker F-4, which was built for the communist leader Mátyás Rákosi beneath a square in the city center in the 1960s. I was really surprised when, in the yard of an abandoned building, we found a forgotten entrance to this hidden page of Hungarian history.

Ventilation pipes lead downward, reaching 10 meters deeper than the level of the metro tunnels.

The way down the shaft is via two concrete stairways. They were built so well that they remind me of the quality of the Nazi fortifications we found in western Poland last summer at Regenwurmlager.

The main entrance to the bunker is protected by a vestibule with two blast-resistant doors. The doors even have peepholes! Those bloody communists wanted to see who had come to visit them.

Alongside the stairways, there is a passenger elevator in the shaft.

Behind the blast-resistant doors, light spills from the main part of the bunker. It smells like a bloated communist era the likes of which you have never experienced before.

The F-4 Object (publicly often known as the Rákosi-bunker) is a formerly secret nuclear shelter under the downtown of Budapest. It is located 45-50 metres below the surface, in a “H” shape between Kossuth tér and Szabadság tér. It has a direct connection to the Line 2 of the Budapest Metro.

Its construction began in 1952 parallel with the metro. Its goal was to provide shelter to Mátyás Rákosi and the Central Committee members of the Hungarian Working People’s Party in case of a possible nuclear raid, as well as to provide space for offices of the Parliament. When the danger is over, they were supposed to take the metro to Eastern railway station and then change to an armoured train. It was made technologically similarly to a metro (it resembles metro stations and tunnels), so the workers were informed they were building the metro. According to rumours, hundreds of prisoners worked at the construction, while in fact this work was done by miners.

The object, suitable to accommodate 2,200 people, with an area of 3,500–3,800 square metres, was completed in 1963. It was equipped with an air filtering mechanism with a capacity of 4,000 cubic metres, appropriate to filter out radioactive dust. A water reservoir of 150 cubic metres and a generator was also installed, capable of producing 30 kW of electricity. An emergency exit was created next to the Hungarian Television headquarters, also serving for ventilation. The object, resembling a labyrinth, houses a separate council hall, intended for the leaders of the country to debate the current tasks. Though never used, it was kept at the ready until the mid-1970s.

You can easily join a Cold War Bunker tour in Kyiv right now!

Now its status has considerably degraded. However, the ventilator, the generator, and the other technical appliances work properly, they are maintained regularly and checked every week. Former furniture and equipment were carried away as early as during the détente of the Cold War. Since then, it has been completely empty and unused. It is owned by the state and controlled by the BKV (Budapest Transport Company). It is visited by BKV’s maintenance personnel every week, and its technical appliances are checked for functioning.

This is a typical Soviet civil defence air-filtering system with F-300 activated-charcoal filters.

The industrial design of the electrical networks is beautiful.

The corridor running along the block of technical equipment.

The diesel power station is completely different from the Soviet types we have seen before.

The battery room.

Water supply tanks. On the pipework wall, you can see the date 1953.

The living quarters for people were divided into two floors.

Each floor was divided by blast-resistant doors every 20-30 meters. We saw something similar a few months ago while exploring WWII civil defence shelters in London.

The lower level. Here you can see benches for people.

We found old maps of the bunker showing that these tunnels once held cabinets with teleprinters. But in the 1960s all the spaces were renovated to be used as a civil defence shelter.

Inside the bunker there are more than 50 toilets. Each toilet is covered with a wooden lid.

At the end of one of the blocks, we found the emergency exit to the metro line.

Having climbed up to the level of the metro tunnels, we reached a ventilation chamber on Line 2 of the Budapest Metro.

Here in this photo is a blast-resistant door frame.

It was already 5:49, so we didn’t have enough time to explore the metro tunnels.

It is hard to grasp how important places like this are for modern human history. Because, you know, if you settle a communist down somewhere, sooner or later he will dig a bunker and sit inside it, waiting for a nuclear attack.

If you guys are into urban exploring and happen to be in Ukraine, we invite you to take part in the Kyiv Urbex Tour and explore a Cold War bunker and drain tunnels. Or we can arrange an exploration tour to Chernobyl in urbex style )