"I remember the winter of 1982. A trip to the countryside with my friends from the institute to my parents’ dacha. In their absence, we often liked to go there secretly. In an outbuilding near the house, there was a cellar.
After shaking the snow off our shoes, we removed the hatch cover, climbed down the wooden ladder, and lit candles. It was an unusually cozy, round structure made of old red bricks. The temperature inside was warmer than outside.
On the cellar floor stood jars filled with my mother’s homemade preserves: tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, cured meats, and jams. Crates of apples and potatoes were stacked side by side. There was also apple and cherry wine, which we immediately poured into our glasses. We had brought a cassette player with us. We listened to The Doors, and with Jim Morrison came a feeling of great happiness. After talking about college news, love affairs, and new music albums, we began discussing the war in Afghanistan and the danger of a nuclear war.
Everyone agreed that we would survive the war in this cellar and that the food and wine stored there would be enough for us. We happily continued drinking wine until the last train took us back to the city.
Forty years later, in February 2022, my relatives found shelter from Russian missiles in that very same cellar."
Based on Sergey’s photographs and descriptions, I built a reconstruction of this cellar beneath the staircase of the cafeteria at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) in Offenbach am Main. During the HfG Rundgang, the bunker was open to visitors. They could descend into the space, spend time there, and even help themselves to food and drinks