In Sant’Oreste, in the province of Rome, from 1937 to the mid -1940s was built in the bowels of Mount Sorarette, at the behest of Benito Mussolini, one of the most impressive military engineering works in Europe: the Galleries of Monte Sorarette, or more briefly Sorarette bunkermilitary support and protection structure of the high offices of the state. Do you think the same has undergone, during the Cold Warone structural variation which led to the construction of a bunker inside the bunker, to ensure a Anti -Tomic Refuge in case of nuclear conflict.
The story of the Sorarette bunker
The Sorarette bunker inherits his name from the homonymous Monte Soratte, one rock training which also outlines the boundaries and ancient defenses of the town of Sant’Oreste, in the province of Rome. Sant’Oreste is a village of about 2000 inhabitants who, in the 1930s, mainly lived in agriculture and traditions. This particular conformation made it, therefore, a strategic military point For the advantages linked above all to the possibilities of sighting and closeness to the capital.
Starting from these considerations, in 1937 an important project of military engineering which will culminate in the construction of one of the largest military strategic centers in Italy. The fascist government of the time therefore decided to build the so -called underground complexes “in cave“, mainly for three reasons:
- there proximity of Sorarette to the capital, about an hour of travel;
- there Orographic conformation of Monte Sorarette, as an excellent sighting point and adequate protection for the important state charges;
- there confidentialityas well as the ease of masking military projects in an agricultural context and, at the time, still partially developed from a cultural point of view.
The structure of the Sorarette bunker
Let’s now briefly see how this bunker is structured inside, telling the realization of both the military garrison and the anti -Tomic bunker.
The military garrison
The project to build the military garrison wanted by the fascist government included 5 lots with a total plant extension of 14 km of tunnels intercommunicating. Official projects are not available, probably because still kept in some reserved archive. However, the current evidence is that of a series of tunnels and caves that develop on one Length of about 4 kmon a single plan for the major, with some technical rooms developed on several floors if necessary. The structure had been designed to offer shelter to state charges in the war period, so -called historically Protected Officine del Duce. Of course, of this, there was no explicit evidence at the time of construction. The structural system of the galleries, made with high reinforced concrete thicknesses, called its robustness also following the war events of 1944. In fact, the same they came out practically illese from the bombings that affected the German troops, take them back under the guidance of Feldmaresse Albert Kesselring.
The anti -dithomic bunker
Sorarette’s project radically changes its conceptionat least from a functional point of view, with the advent of Cold War. In 1965, in fact, the government began to work on a technical project that developed and built a site capable of survive a possible nuclear attack on Romepreserving important documents and guaranteeing the survival of strategically and politically important people. Sorarette, already hosting the German supreme command in the years of the Second World War, lent itself geomorphologically respect for Stringent standards born in the field of protected constructions.
Some pre -existing tunnels, 7 arms in particular, were modified To host a new structure coaxially arranged compared to the existing one. The new structure, built by covering the existing one of an additional 50 cm of reinforced concrete, developed now on two floors, rather than one. These new scaffolding are connected to vertical structures via Elastomeric insulatorsa cutting -edge anti -seismic technology for those times. This relative connection between the two structures guaranteed Additional protection of the bunker against any energy impacts caused by the explosion of an atomic bomb. In fact, the presence of the insulators guaranteed the possibility of developing relative movements between the decks of the internal anti -antiomic bunker and the pre -existing galleries: therefore, in the event of an explosion, the external galleries could move freely and not damage the bunker, which continued to preserve its strategic functionality.
The recovery project of the area
The general plan of recovery of the area, promoted by the Province of Rome and the Lazio Region, provided the recovery of abandoned sites to make a transformation that guaranteed a New flywheel of local economy. The idea was to achieve a widespread museum along the entire route that developed a real park of the memory of the events relating to the Second World War and the Cold War itself. The restoration of the area, among others, also needed partial remediation of some tunnels, covered by Eternit. These operations, temporally long and economically expensive, ended in December 2013. Currently, the site can be visited by booking and represents a real tourist attraction for the town of Sant’Orete.
