by InTrieste
The volunteers who have been working for ten years to protect the bunkers and promote their historical significance to visitors, along with the Consorzio Centro In Via – Insieme a Opicina – Skupaj na Opčinah, which hosts guided tours of these structures, have filed a complaint. The organization regularly promotes these tours as part of events aimed at preserving and highlighting the importance of the bunkers.
Fabio Mergiani and Furio Alessi, responsible for GAAST, reported a serious act of vandalism at the Opicina bunkers, discovered during one of the first organized tours of the event “Autumn in Opicina – Red Leaves on the Karst, White Sails on the Sea,” promoted by the Consorzio Centro In Via – Insieme a Opicina – Skupaj na Opčinah in collaboration with the Municipality of Trieste, coinciding with the 56th Barcolana.
During one of the guided tours to the Opicina bunkers, organized as part of the Barcolana, GAAST representatives noticed that the historical site had been vandalized (see attached photos). The walls, both inside and outside, were covered with graffiti and drawings in various colors, defacing a site that the association has been striving to protect and maintain in good condition for the past ten years, stated Fabio Mergiani and Furio Alessi, who led the tours.
The act of vandalism is a serious blow to the association, which has always been dedicated to preserving and enhancing the historical heritage of the area. Considering the extent of the damage caused by unknown vandals, it will likely be necessary to suspend visits until both the interior and exterior surfaces of the structure can be cleaned and restored. The GAAST representatives expressed deep disappointment, especially in light of their decade-long commitment to safeguarding the bunkers and educating visitors about their historical value.
GAAST is currently evaluating possible solutions to restore the site and allow tours to resume. The association remains committed to its mission of protecting and promoting the historical heritage, though this act of vandalism has inevitably slowed their projects and posed a significant obstacle to their activities.
Nadia Bellina, President of the Consorzio Centro In Via – Insieme a Opicina – Skupaj na Opčinah, who has been collaborating with GAAST for years to promote and showcase the bunkers by including some guided tours in the events she organizes in Opicina with the co-organization of the Municipality of Trieste and in collaboration with the Second Circumscription of the Eastern Karst Plateau, joined in denouncing and condemning the vandalism. She hopes that the perpetrators will be identified and urges greater site monitoring by law enforcement to safeguard a precious structure of great historical value, not only for Opicina but for the entire region. To this end, she calls on local and regional authorities responsible for promoting and defending the region’s historical heritage to ensure proper surveillance and contribute to equipping the bunkers with tools to prevent unauthorized access and install video surveillance systems.
In this regard, Bellina referred to the recent Stati Generali del Turismo Storico della Guerra Fredda (General Assembly on Cold War Historical Tourism), an initiative promoted by the University of Udine in collaboration with Friuli Storia, aimed at mapping the extraordinary legacy left to the region by the 20th century and laying the foundation for a network capable of enhancing this heritage and launching appropriate strategies for cultural-tourism development. She hopes that the Opicina bunkers can also be included in the project envisioned by the scientific director of Friuli Storia, Tommaso Piffer, who observed that “Friuli Venezia Giulia has an extraordinary and unique historical heritage from the ‘short century’: not only bunkers, fortifications, and other scars of the Cold War but also settlements linked to the Great War and the Second World War. So far, it has mainly been private associations (such as GAAST) that have cared for this great memory of the 20th century: now it is time to launch a comprehensive institutional project to connect the over 1,300 structures in the region, to preserve and promote a historical legacy that is also a valuable asset and a unique feature of the region.”
The hope, as discussed during the Stati Generali del Turismo Storico della Guerra Fredda, is to include Cold War tourism—along with a map and schedule of guided tours to the Opicina bunkers—within the broader scope of regional historical tourism.
