Two floors below a modern steel factory on Warsaw's northern edge lies an untouched relic of the Cold War: a shelter housing gas masks, stretchers, first aid kits and other items intended to help civil defense leaders survive and conduct rescue operations in the event of a nuclear attack or other disasters.
The map of Europe on the wall still shows the Soviet Union, and the old boots and jackets smell of mold. The military headquarters warns: "Attention, your enemy is listening."
Until now, no one seriously thought that the premises built in the 1950s - which the ArcelorMittal Warsaw plant maintains as a "historical curiosity", according to spokeswoman Eva Karpinska - could one day be used as a shelter again, writes the Associated Press agency (AP ). But as Russia continues to strike Ukraine, shelling the area around the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, and repeatedly threatens to use nuclear weapons, the Polish government this month ordered an inventory of the country's 62.000 air raid shelters.
The fear of war that is felt throughout Europe is especially present in countries like Poland and Romania that border Ukraine and would be very vulnerable in the event of a radiological disaster.
Following orders from the Polish government, firefighters visited the steel plant shelter last Sunday and entered it into their register. Warsaw authorities said the city's subway and other underground shelters could accommodate all 1,8 million residents and more in the event of a conventional weapons attack.
Eva Karpinska said that the ArcelorMittal Warsaw plant suddenly receives inquiries about the shelter. After Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to launch a tactical nuclear attack, "everyone is worried," Karpinska told AP. "I believe they won't (carry out a nuclear attack), that would be completely crazy, but no one really believed they would start this war."
Concerned about the conflict at the Ukrainian nuclear plant, Poland last month distributed iodine pills to regional fire services to give to citizens in case of radiation exposure. Iodine, which is taken in the form of tablets or syrup, is considered a way to protect the body from thyroid cancer and in case of exposure to radiation. In 2011, Japanese authorities recommended that citizens living around the site of the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant take iodine. Purchases of iodine tablets have also increased in other parts of Europe, including in Finland, where the government has urged citizens to get them.
During the Cold War, there were hundreds of thousands of shelters in Europe. Some date back to the run-up to World War II, while communist-era authorities also ordered new housing and manufacturing facilities to include underground shelters.
While some countries still maintain underground shelters from the Cold War era, some have been turned into museums after the collapse of the Soviet Union - relics of an earlier era of nuclear fears that would not offer adequate protection today.
Finland maintains shelters in cities and other densely populated areas that can accommodate about two-thirds of the population. Some of them are designed to withstand the detonation of a 100 kiloton nuclear bomb.
Countries like Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, which have vast public bunker networks, have at various times over the past two decades tried to determine the exact state of their civil defences.
AP reminds that atomic shelters were a key element in the doctrine of preparedness of the former Yugoslavia for a nuclear attack.
The most famous of all, in a mountainous area 60 kilometers from Sarajevo, is a huge underground fortress built for the protection of military and political leaders, AP writes about Tito's bunker near Konjic. The shelter, which at the time was known only to the president of Yugoslavia, four generals and a few soldiers who guarded it, was turned into a modern art gallery in 2010.
"From a military-political and geopolitical point of view, the current global environment is, unfortunately, very similar to what it was (during the Cold War), burdened with a very heavy feeling that war is on the horizon," Selma Hadžihuseinović, representative of the government agency that manages the locality.
She said the bunker could be brought back into use in another war, but as nuclear weapons have become far more powerful, it would not be "as useful as it should have been when it was built".
In Romania, a huge former salt mine, Salina Turda, now a tourist attraction, is on the government's list of potential shelters.
Many citizens also pass shelters every day without even realizing it while riding the subway in Warsaw, Prague, Budapest.
"We measured how many people can fit on trains all along the subway, in stations and other underground spaces," said Mihal Domaradzki, director of security and crisis management for the city of Warsaw. "There is enough space for the entire population."
Atila Guljaš, president of the Union of City Transport Workers in the Hungarian capital, was involved in regular exercises on the metro lines in the city. He was trained to shelter thousands of people as the head of the Astoria station on metro line 2 in Budapest.
"The system is still in place today, it works perfectly, it can be used in any emergency situation," said Guljaš. "Up to 220.000 people can be protected by the shelter system in the tunnels of metro lines 2 and 3".
However, with Russia waging an energy war against Europe and electricity costs rising, the main concern for many is how to survive the winter.
Sorin Jonita, an analyst at the Expert Forum in Bucharest, says many consider a Russian nuclear attack unlikely because it would not "bring a major military advantage to the Russians."
Still, Putin's threats add to a general sense of unease in a world in turmoil.
Just days after the start of the Russian invasion, some pharmacies in central Europe ran out of iodine, and experts warned that the pills could help in the event of a nuclear power plant disaster, but not against nuclear weapons. Dana Drabova, the head of the Czech State Office for Nuclear Safety, said that in that case anti-radiation tablets would be useless.
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