“ABODE” is one of the most technologically advanced and gloomy locations in the “Metro 2033” universe, described in detail in Andrei Grebenshchikov’s novel Metro 2033: Abode of Dreams. Unlike the half-destroyed and dirty Moscow Metro, this complex was originally conceived as a true autonomous paradise on Earth, but ultimately turned into a giant high-tech tomb.

Architecture and Level Layout

“ABODE” is located south of Moscow, in the Shcherbinka area. From the surface, the complex looks like a huge artificial hill, the base of which is constantly shrouded in poisonous yellowish fog. Thanks to its own nuclear reactor, the bunker is completely autonomous: it has functioning sewage, water supply, air regeneration systems, and full electricity.

The complex descends deep underground and is divided into functional levels:

  • Upper level: A huge transport hangar with red emergency lighting. Heavy equipment is preserved here: evacuation buses, “Tiger” armored vehicles, and “Volk” chemical protection vehicles.

  • Technical floors: Purification systems and warehouses stocked with food supplies for generations ahead.

  • Minus 2nd and Minus 3rd floors: Residential zones with comfortable furnished apartments. The elite and specialists in key professions lived on the third tier.

  • Minus 2nd and Minus 3rd floors: Residential zones with comfortable furnished apartments. The elite and specialists in key professions lived on the third tier.

  • Minus 5th floor: The highlight of the project — a large-scale imitation of a pre-war city. Under a high ceiling with a painted daytime sky, there are asphalt roads, functioning street lamps, open cafes, shops, a library, a cinema, swimming pools, and flower beds with fountains.

  • Lower levels: A high-tech medical block (Minus 6th floor), beneath which lie deep technical wells and elevator shafts.

Fatal Trap: The Mystery of the Hermetic Gate

The main vulnerability of ABODE was its own security system. The massive entrance hermetic gates could not be locked or opened at will.

All of the bunker’s automation is tied to a rigid timer linked to the date of the beginning of World War III (July 6). The gates open only once every four years and only for a very short period of time. For the rest of the time, the residents are locked inside with no chance of leaving.

History

Originally, the Object was built as a large commercial logistics center with underground refrigeration units. However, one of the investors — the architect Vladimir Aristarkhovich Sannikov (later known as the Dreamer) — had foreseen the nuclear apocalypse and secretly converted the project into an autonomous ark. On the day of the Catastrophe, buses carrying the families of shareholders and residents of an elite village managed to enter.

However, the utopia never materialized. The very first years were marked by a fierce power struggle between the official Bunker Administration and the dissenting residents, who were nicknamed the “Swamp People.” The “Swamp People” uprising was suppressed by the leadership with extreme brutality: people were shot with machine guns and burned with flamethrowers.

The Dreamer himself intervened in this conflict. Having lost his young son during the coup, he faked his own death and became a secret executioner. For years, he methodically eliminated the leadership and tormented the population of ABODE, forcing them to live in constant fear.

The Curse of the “Sleeping One” and the Fall of the Bunker

The final collapse of the shelter was caused by a biological threat from outside. During the next gate opening in 2021, the daughter of the Administrator — El — broke out while trying to save her young son Nick.

The boy was taken to the safety of the Metro, while El herself disappeared into the radioactive Fog.

Four years later, during the next automatic opening of the gates, El’s living but comatose body was found on the threshold of ABODE. It turned out that a dangerous telepathic mutant had possessed her. Becoming the “Sleeping One,” El began broadcasting waves of madness throughout the entire bunker. Residents of ABODE went insane en masse, killing their relatives in their sleep or committing suicide.

Within a few years, the entire population of ABODE died out in terrible agony. The only survivor was the mad Dreamer, who for years dumped the bodies of his former neighbors down the elevator shafts and cared for the body of the Sleeping One on the minus sixth floor — until the voice in his head ordered him to go outside and bring back her (El’s) grown son.

Finale

In 2033, ABODE finally ceased to exist. Lured by deception, Nick managed to destroy the creature inside his mother, ending the mental nightmare. The creator of the bunker himself, the Dreamer, fell under mental control while trying to escape and was crushed alive by the closing multi-ton hermetic gates of ABODE, which sealed this underground city forever.

Commentary

I can’t help but note the similarity between ABODE and the Vaults from the Fallout universe.

Both are highly technological shelters, but with a “Secret.” (While Vault-Tec’s involve experiments, In ABODE, this is a hermetic seal that cannot be opened at any time.).

And in both cases, they met a rather grotesque end.