Very little is known about the tunnels. Today, there are more legends and crumbling walls than documented facts for historians to study.
Under his watch, the city circus and post office were built, as well as the parliament building on Rustaveli Avenue. It is in the sewage system that faint traces of his lesser known project can still be seen: a system of tunnels that traversed the city underground.
For example, under the former Institute of Marxist-Leninism now being rebuilt as a hotel , there are remnants of what appears to be a tunnel leading from a prison under the building to the River Mtkvari. There has been speculation that it once connected to tunnels in the center of the city.
It is now closed. One of the longest tunnels Khatoevi has documented on his site reportedly wraps around behind the Rustaveli underground station for an estimated 2, meters. With no mention of the tunnels in the archives, historians and scholars can only speculate about why Beria and his comrades built the tunnels and what purpose they served.
For instance, it is believed that the tunnel leading to the train station could have been used to secretly transport prisoners out of the city. So it is natural, reasoning goes, that the government needed a way to quietly move prisoners and corpses. Few still exist. The underground bunker Beria built is believed to be able to withstand a two-ton bomb and uses systems similar to those on submarines to provide electricity and air conditioning.
