at the head of the room for the majority of the soviet union's existence some are was renamed cooper schiff on the map clearly indicates its strategic position safely away from the german front lines it was never confirmed that uncle joe ever set foot here but the designers had obviously been told to meticulously prepare just in case nothing like a little megalomania to start the day but i was very happy to make my way back to the surface and take in some fresh air there's one real benefits of venturing out on days as cold as these it's going to be this sort of view. the mighty volga river in all its frozen glory now the river here is covered in ice for at least three months of the year and it was always a real pain to get across until some local businessmen opened up the rather unusual ferry service. but larry has been running the operation here since two thousand and seven literally thousands of people come to cross the river every month and they all jump into these hovercrafts and it's made the journey a lot less precarious. before we started using the hovercraft people would try to cros