Let me lead you through the streets of Moscow

by Anni Pelmeni

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As I discussud in previous post, though it is so-called Lenin period, Lenin himself had little if nothing to do with urban development of Moscow. In the period from 1917 (Revolution) till 1924 (Lenin’s death) there were only few buildings newly constructed in Moscow. The young Soviet state was torn in the swirl of the civil war and could not spare efforts for the image building. The Lenin period came after the physical death of Lenin, however ironic it may sound. The death of Soviet leader made him into icon and the economic growth of Soviet Union provided enough resources to pay honors to Lenin. This trend has a special term “Leniniada” - commemorating Lenin in any available means of expression, i.e. art, literature, architecture etc.

My sphere of interest here is Moscow urban development. Where does Lenin come in here? Basically in all the aspects.

Moscow Metro was not only named after Lenin (see first foto), but also a station Ilyitch Square [Ilyitch is Lenin’s patronymic name. In Russian language it is a casual way of addressing to someone]. This station was built in 1979. Up above this station there is a factory Hammer and Sickle, a nostalgic name that one is. This station is not that impressive from the esthetic point of view, but the huge Lenin’s sculpture is still situated there since Soviet time. It is worthy mentioning and having a look at, because there are few monuments of Lenin left intact in the last decades of transformations of Russian society.

It is somewhat a tradition that in the transition time all the relicts of the previous regime will be denounced and destroyed. It happened after the Revolution 1917 when most of monuments to Russian Tsars were torn down. The Soviet time monuments had the same fate once the perestroika brought up the newly acquired freedoms. Almost every city and town in Soviet Union had a Lenin monument, nowadays only few are preserved. The Metro Station Ilyitch Square is one of those few places. It remained intact as a part of the history which is rather unusual because the current bosses see no difficulties with re-writing history to fit their perceptions and their aims, in the best of 1984 techniques.

One of major avenues of Moscow also remained named after Lenin. Stalin’s architectors had envisioned Leninsky prospect as a magnificent main entrance to the capital. This avenue is the best of Stalin’s Empire style (or Social Classicism). I will come back to more detail description of that style in the later posts. Propaganda by the means of architecture is an authentic know-how of Stalin Period.

Another element of Lenin period is worldwide known. That is Lenin Mausoleum on the Red Square. It is must photo-shooting view for any tourist in Moscow. In Soviet time it had both ideological and sacral meaning. Nowadays it is rather a historical location, but every once in a while there is a public debate weather Lenin’s body should be buried properly. But the Mausoleum is still open though there is no longer a line to get inside.

by Anni Pelmeni

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With this post I will start my new project dedicated to Moscow architecture. Moscow was founded 860 years ago and with 9 centuries of history one might expect quite a versatile architecture. However, most of Moscow was burnt down during Napoleon invasion in 1812, therefore what we see now in Moscow is relatively modern. There are buildings that date back till 19^th century but the nowadays Moscow was mainly built after the Revolution of 1917.

The Soviet Moscow might be familiar from the breaking news of Khrushchev era and from some tourist brochures of Soviet time. This will be the starting point of this project.

It is easy to distinguish 5 periods of urban development of Moscow which coincide with the ruling period of particular Soviet and then post-Soviet leaders. One may speak of architecture of

• Lenin period
• Stalin Period
• Khrushchev period
• Brezhnev period
• Luzhkov period (the first post-Soviet benchmark)

Where in all this is Gorbachev period one may ask? Well, we are talking here about CONSTRUCTIVE development of Moscow, while most of Gorbachev era is marked with DE-CONSTRUCTION, there is not much created at that time to speak of.

Another thing which might seem inconsistent in this typology is the last Luzhkov period. For the last 15 years Moscow politics and development was shaped by the mayor Luzhkov and that had both positive and negative sides. Luzhkov has never been Russian political leader, he is somewhat more important – he has been Moscow mayor since 1992 and the one who rules Moscow is actually has many power resources to define Russian domestic politics. One the one hand side, it has always been this way in the whole Russian history, but on the other side the recent 20 years of transition brought something new and unaccustomed to the role of Moscow. I will come back to this phenomena when I will discuss Luzhkov’s period in more details.

The next post in this project will dedicated to Lenin period of Moscow architecture and as the preview, here are 2 of my favourite spots in Moscow: both impressive and with national character.

The most impressive view on Kremlin is one from the Moscow River.

The residential area Taganka: you can see old buildings from 19th century (at the left), one of the famous Stalin high-rise buildings - Vysotka na Kotelnecheskoy naberezhnoy (in the center), and a new residential construction built in the last decade.