The Secret Rooms of Hotel Jama


Useful Information

Location: 800 m northwest Postojna.
50 km south of Ljubljana. 2,4 km north of Postojnska Jama, 3 km north Postojna. Motorway E61 exit Postojna, towards the city, straight ahead through first roundabout, keep right at second roundabout. Turn left towards Postojna Cave, follow road for 1 km, parking lots on both sides of the road. Well signposted.
(45.781236, 14.205748)
Open: JUL to OCT daily 9-12.
Reservation mandatory.
[2023]
Fee: With Audioguide: Adults EUR 15.
With Guide: Adults EUR 24,90.
[2023]
Classification: SpeleologyKarst Cave SubterraneaUnderground Museums SubterraneaSecret Bunker
Light: LightIncandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:
Guided tours: D=1.5 h, Max=6, MinAge=15. Slovenščina - Slovenian English Audioguide: Deutsch - German Italiano - Italian
Photography: allowed
Accessibility: no
Bibliography:
Address: Hotel Jama, Jamska cesta 28, 6230 Postojna, Tel: +386-5-700-02-00.
Postojnska jama d.d., Jamska cesta 30, 6230 Postojna, Tel: +386-5-700-01-00, Fax: +386-5-700-01-30. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1969 begin of construction.
1971 Hotel Jama opened.
1991 secret communication centre shut down when the old regime ended.
2016 Hotel Jama renovated and secret rooms discovered and opened to the public.

Description

Hotel Jama is a typical seventies building, erected by the Yugoslavian government for the guests of the world-famous show cave. And it was the era of the Cold War, so it would have been quite obvious to install an atomic bunker. However, the secret rooms in the hotel were built with different intentions. With a million visitors per year the hotel was a meeting point of people from all over the world, which potentially made telephone calls with important topics. Hidden deep inside the hotel is a special kind of communication centre, a result of the activities of the secret services of the former system. But some questions remain unanswered to this day: who built it, what took place there, and who did it serve? What is known is that it was shut down in 1991, when the old regime ended. None of the new managers knew about it, at least they don't admit it. And so it remained a well-kept secret until the hotel was renovated in 2016 and the craftsmen opened the inconspicuous door.

The room is not actually a bunker, it is a room which is indistinguishable from other hotel rooms. Hidden in plain sight by being indistinguishable. It has surveillance rooms, a lounge, listening and broadcasting equipment and hidden entrances and exits. And what's quite impressive: the four rooms are partly built into a branch of Postojna Cave behind the hotel. The secret exit leads into the cave and visitors return to the surface through a part of Postojna Cave which is was formerly closed to the public.

During the renovation, when the room was discovered, there was the question of what to do with it. The idea to make it a sort of museum was obvious. They also could have transformed it into a guest room. They finally decided to create a sort of cold war escape room. The background and situation in the former Yugoslavia is vividly explained. Visitors have the opportunity to access various original wiretap recordings from back then. Spy tricks, which are top secret, are explained in the original surveillance rooms.

While giving a good impression of Cold War Secret Service, its also quite obvious that they never had the fancy James Bond equipment. Especially in the Eastern Bloc countries, they used pretty antiquated technology, often military equipment. The telecommunication equipment is analogous and the casing is cheap plastic in olive colour. It actually looks cheap, even if it wasn't.

It was obvious to western cave visitors and hotel guests during the Cold War, that even the touristic sites in the Eastern Bloc were primitive, cheap, often defective and sometimes downright mis-designed. Quite impressive was a stay at the hotel before the renovation. The carpet was from the seventies, never replaced, the furniture was rickety, the toilet leaked and dripped all night. Quite unsatisfactory, as the prices were already aligned with those in the rest of Europe. And the service was just as subterranean as in socialist times. Since the staff were unpromisable and initiative was rather unwanted, the restaurant had the charm of a railway station canteen. Since the renovation, the hotel is downright luxurious, with glass walls, state-of-the-art LED lighting, rain shower heads and natural stone tiling. Only the secret rooms are still in the seventies.