Location from Stranger Things by The Duffer Brothers
A secret Soviet military installation built beneath Starcourt Mall, housing the key — a massive machine designed to reopen the gate to the Upside Down.
The Russian base beneath Starcourt represents the Cold War paranoia layer of Stranger Things — the idea that the Upside Down isn't just a supernatural threat but a geopolitical one, with the Soviet Union racing to weaponize the dimensional breach. The Russians discovered that the barrier between dimensions was weakest in Hawkins and secretly constructed an entire military facility beneath a shopping mall, using the mall's construction as cover. The key is their crowning achievement: a machine capable of tearing the gate back open after Eleven sealed it. Alexei, a reluctant Russian scientist, eventually defected and helped Joyce and Hopper understand the machine, leading to a desperate Fourth of July assault. Hopper was trapped on the wrong side when the key was destroyed, beginning his journey to Kamchatka.
A vast underground facility accessed through hidden corridors beneath the mall. Industrial concrete walls, harsh fluorescent lighting, and Soviet military insignia everywhere. The central chamber houses the key — an enormous machine that fires a directed energy beam at the dimensional barrier, ripping it open. Armed guards patrol corridors lined with supply crates stamped in Cyrillic. A communications room monitors Russian military channels. The whole base hums with the vibration of the key's generators.
Also known as: the Russian base, the base under the mall, the Soviet base, the underground base