The Iron Curtain foundation plans to turn the Atom Museum near Borovno, the only nuclear ammunition dump open to the public in the world, into an educational center in the wild focused on families, foundation founder Vaclav Vitovec has told CTK. The foundation has been operating the museum, situated in the Brdy former military training grounds, since August 2013. It has loaned the ammunition dump for eight years.
"After 2016 we will be striving for its transfer to a non-profit organisation," Vitovec said.
The Atom Museum has been visited by politicians, military representatives as well as other interesting personalities, such as Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, former British intelligence officers, Robert Kelley, former head of the laboratories in Los Alamos, U.S. who knew the father of the U.S. hydrogen bomb, as well as delegations from Australia and New Zealand and journalists from the Reuters, AP and Tokio Simbun news agencies. A Mexican TV has shot there its most successful reportage from the eastern bloc that has been watched by 200 million viewers.
The foundation wants to start rebuilding the complex, where dozens of nuclear warheads were stored until 1990, after the Brdy grounds are transferred to the local municipalities. The complex is part of the Borovno little village that has long called on the military to look after it.
The foundation plans to build up a visitor center and a lecture hall and cinema to screen films on the history of nuclear armament outside the museum entrance.
The most valuable feature of the facility is that it fulfils the correct goal to which similar facilities should serve "to remind of history in a dignified way and educate young people," Vitovec said.
Some exhibits are priceless since they are unique in the world, such as a key to the Scud missile carrying a nuclear warhead, he added.
The museum has attracted many visitors since its opening. At the beginning it was visited by 100-130 people a day. The three enthusiasts running the museum, Vitovec, Milan Skocovsky and Milan Linhart, did not manage to handle such a high attendance and this is why they decided to only open the museum at the weekends this year.