A forgotten symbol of communism. Why the Palace of the Soviets was never built (01/10/2014). Palace of Soviets USSR Palace of Soviets where it was supposed to be

I have long wanted to write a post about the Palace of Soviets - an unrealized utopian project of a colossal administrative building that was supposed to be built in Moscow and was supposed to symbolize the victory of socialism in a single state. According to the plan of Soviet architects, the Palace of the Soviets was to become the tallest building in the world at that time - taller than the skyscrapers in New York.

For the construction of the Palace of Soviets, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was destroyed - the Bolsheviks blew it up in 1931, and in 1932 they began preparatory work for the construction of the Palace of Soviets. The foundation of the colossus was completed by 1939, but due to the outbreak of World War II, the project was completely frozen.

First, a little history. The idea of ​​​​building a colossal palace arose back in 1922 - it was voiced by Sergei Kirov at the First All-Union Congress of Soviets - it seemed to Sergei that “the sounds of the international no longer fit in old buildings, and in place of the palaces of bankers, landowners and tsars it is necessary to build new palace working peasants."

The fact that this would not be a “palace of peasants” at all, but a palace for meetings of the Soviet nomenklatura, to which the peasants would not be allowed within sight of a cannon shot, was modestly kept silent in the fiery speech. But Kirov did not hide the expansionist plans of the Bolsheviks for the Western countries - “the majestic structure will become the emblem of future power, the triumph of communism not only here, but also there, in the West!”

02. These are the articles that were published in the Soviet press of those years. For comparison, it was drawn exactly how much higher the Palace of the Soviets would become than the famous skyscrapers, pyramids of Egypt and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

04. To select the final project, a competition was held; the requirements for the palace building were as follows: there should be two halls inside, Big and Small, each hall should accommodate several thousand people. Among the competition entries, the project of Dmitry Iofan was rejected (as “restoration-eclectic”) and the project of German Krasin (“the upper part resembles a church dome”). In total, about 160 projects were considered - they were considered in two stages, and in the end the work of Boris Iofan won.

According to the designers, the Palace of the Soviets was to be the tallest building in the world, the top of the building was to be crowned with a giant 100-meter statue of Lenin - thus, the Palace of the Soviets itself was both a building and something like a colossal pedestal for the monument. The mass of the full-size statue of Lenin was supposed to be 6,000 tons, and the length of his index finger would be 4 meters.

05. By the way, before the construction of the Palace itself, it was also planned to completely rebuild the center of Moscow, destroying the old quarters - something similar was done later. It was planned to build a wide highway between Red Square and the then Sverdlov Square (now Teatralnaya). The authors of the project noted that “the idea put into the architectural design of the squares of the Palace of the Soviets is the idea of ​​open, widely inviting squares that personify socialist democracy.” I don’t know what’s so “democratic” about open spaces - most likely, the result would be gigantic, overwhelming squares that don’t correspond to the scale of a person, where a person feels like a bug.

This is how the Palace should look in today's Moscow - if it were built.

06. Little information has been preserved about the interiors of the planned palace - we only know that they were to be decorated with polished granite and decorated with sculptures. The seats for spectators in the Great Hall were planned to be covered with leather; the height of the Great Hall was to be 100 meters with a diameter of 140 meters. The small hall was supposed to be 32 meters high, and the foyer of the Palace was to be called the “hall of the Stalinist constitution.”

Estimated view of the interior of the Great Hall:

07. Foyer, "Hall of the Stalinist Constitution":

08. In 1939, they finished building the foundation - it took so long to build because the proposed palace was supposed to have a gigantic weight - about 1.5 million tons. The head of the construction of the Palace, named Vasily Mikhailov, was repressed and shot at the end of the construction period of the foundation. Reality knocked on the doors of Soviet projectors with the outbreak of World War II - anti-tank hedgehogs had to be made from metal blanks for the foundation for the defense of Moscow, and the rest of the metal was used to build bridges on railway.

In the post-war years, the USSR did not abandon the idea of ​​completing the Palace of the Soviets - however, the project was significantly compressed and seriously deflated - the height of the building should no longer be 415, but 270 mm, the areas of the internal halls and their decor were significantly reduced. In 1947, the famous “Stalinist high-rise buildings” began to be built in Moscow, and the Palace of the Soviets was completely forgotten.

Photo: Photo: russian7.ru | namednibook.ru | way2day.com | tehne.com

In my opinion, the Palace of Soviets was originally utopian project, which shows what happens when the government has undivided control of the country’s finances - instead of such a gigantic expensive structure, the infrastructure of several Soviet cities could be completely modernized.

What do you think about this?

Write in the comments if it’s interesting.

On December 30, 1922, the creation of the USSR was proclaimed at the first Congress of Soviets. At the same time, S. M. Kirov put forward an ambitious idea - to build the Palace of the Soviets, which would become a symbol of the country. However, the implementation of the idea began only in 1931. At every stage - from design to preparation for implementation and the start of grandiose construction - the Palace of the Soviets was a structure the likes of which did not exist in the world.

Struggle of architectural styles

In June 1931, a competition for projects was announced. A few months later, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was destroyed. The “outdated”, according to the plans of the authorities, had to give way to the new. Both professional architects and ordinary citizens of the Union applied for the competition. The great French architect Le Corbusier was also among the competition participants.

The works of B. Iofan, I. Zholtovsky and G. Hamilton entered the second round. All three projects were designed in a monumental style. Later, this style would be called the “Stalinist Empire style”. The choice of these projects marked the end of the era of Soviet constructivism - lightness and delicacy gave way to pomp and massiveness. Offended by the neglect of his thoughtful project, Le Corbusier wrote: “The people love royal palaces.”

In 1933, the winner was determined - construction was to be carried out according to the design of B. Iofan. But the winning sketch was very different from the final version.

Transformation of an idea

The famous tower with the figure of Lenin was not in the first sketch: the Palace of the Soviets looked like a complex of buildings, and on the tower there was a figure of the Liberated Proletarian. Gradually, the tower acquired a level structure, and the accompanying buildings were removed. The height of the building was supposed to be 420 meters, of which 100 was the height of the statue.

The grandiose statue of Lenin (one of the leader’s fingers was the size of a two-story house) on top appeared only in 1939. The idea to make the building a pedestal did not belong to Iofan, but to the Italian Brasini. Iofan himself wanted to place the monument in front of the Palace, but the authorities liked Brazini’s proposal.

In the central part of the Palace there was a Great Hall for 22 thousand people. The stage was in the middle, the rows of spectators walked like an amphitheater. Next to it there was a foyer, utility rooms, and the Small Hall. In the high-rise part there were chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Presidium, and offices.

Grand construction

According to the project, for the construction of the Palace and the entire infrastructure it would have been necessary to demolish almost everything historical Buildings Volkhonki. It was supposed to make a grandiose parking lot, a square filled with concrete, move the Pushkin Museum to them. A. S. Pushkin.

At the construction site, for the first time in the USSR, a preliminary analysis of the soil was carried out using core drilling - a number of wells were drilled to a depth of 60 meters and the composition of the soil was analyzed. The location turned out to be successful - there were dense limestones and a rocky “island” in this area. To prevent groundwater from eroding the foundation, bitumenization was used for the first time: almost 2,000 wells were drilled around the foundation pit and bitumen was poured into them. Additionally, water pumps were installed and an insulating coating was added.

For final cladding grandiose building They built a stone processing plant, which later “helped” make Moscow granite: it processed stone panels for the subway, bridges and houses. [C-BLOCK]

To produce concrete for the Palace, a factory was founded near it. The construction of the foundation (also designed in a special way - in the form of rings) required 550 thousand cubic meters of concrete. The diameter of each ring was about one and a half hundred meters. 34 columns were installed on them. The cross-sectional area of ​​one column was 6 square meters. m. A car could fit on such a column.

The frame of the building was created from a special grade of steel created specifically for construction - “DS”. The auxiliary frame, which directed the load to the main one, was made of corrosion-resistant steel and was simpler. Near Lenin Mountains a factory was founded where the elements were prepared for installation.

They decided to mount the main frame on concrete rings. To lift the beams, cranes were supposed to be assembled on these rings. The higher, the fewer cranes: the installation of the statue had to be carried out by only one crane.

Final construction

The project was supposed to be completed by 1942. In 1940, the frame reached seven floors, but the war began. High-quality steel was required for the production of anti-tank hedgehogs, and the frame had to be dismantled. After the war, the country did not have the resources for such structures. The project was moved to Vorobyovy Gory, where the Moscow State University building gradually grew up instead of the Palace. The high-rise buildings were based on Iofan’s design, and the common features are clearly visible.

Another trace of the project is the Kropotkinskaya metro station - it was conceived as an underground lobby of the Palace and was built on a maximum scale.

The Palace of Labor and the Bolshoi Cinema - these names cannot be found on the map of the modern capital; they are preserved only in the archives. Let's try to imagine what our city would look like if all the plans were destined to come true.

Moscow is a city that has been actively built and rebuilt throughout its history. Each era brought something new to the appearance of the capital, sometimes trying to completely change its architectural concept. This is especially true of the Soviet period, when styles such as the famous Stalinist Empire style and constructivism appeared.

The architectural projects of that time are amazing. Some of them were brought to life, but many remained in the archives. However, some drawings of the pre-revolutionary period can only be seen on paper. Let's try to imagine what our city would look like if all the plans were destined to come true.

Pre-revolutionary subway

The first proposals to create a metro in Moscow appeared back in 1875. Then the idea arose to lay a line from the Kursky railway station through Lubyanskaya and Pushkinskaya squares to Maryina Roshcha. In 1902 A.I. Antonovich, N.I. Golinevich and N.P. Dmitriev compiled a revised project, which included the construction of the Circle Line running along Kamer-Kollezhsky Val, as well as Central Station in the Alexander Garden and four radial lines. Half of these pre-revolutionary lines were planned to be built on overpasses, and half to be carried out in tunnels. According to the project, the ring road was supposed to run along overpasses and earthen embankments.

Cathedral of Christ the Savior on Sparrow Hills

This temple was going to be erected in honor of the victory of Russia in the Patriotic War of 1812. Architect Alexander Vitberg proposed to build it between the Smolensk and Kaluga roads, on the Sparrow Hills, which Alexander I poetically called the “crown of Moscow.” Here are a few arguments that gave weight to the proposal: this is the emperor’s desire to build a temple outside the city, since in Moscow “there is not enough space required for an elegant building”; these are also references to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome located outside the city; This is also a good geographical location - after all, the Maiden's Field, spread out at the foot of the Sparrow Hills, would allow one to see the temple from afar. And the last argument: Sparrow Hills located between the routes of the enemy, who entered Moscow along the Smolensk road and retreated along the Kaluga road.

The temple was supposed to be the tallest in the world: the height of its ground part was supposed to be 170 meters (for comparison: the height of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome is 141.5 meters). In 1823, stone procurement and work began to connect the upper reaches of the Volga and Moscow Rivers to deliver stone to the temple. The first experiment was successful, but large quantities were never transported because the water in the Moscow River could not be raised to the required level.

Construction of the temple never continued. Numerous springs on the mountain slope, indicating sandy soils, exclude the possibility of construction large building not only on the slopes, but also at the top due to the danger of uneven settlement.

The Palace of Labor in Moscow is an unrealized project of 1922-1923. In the center of the capital, on the site between Tverskaya Street and the Sverdlovskaya, Revolution and Okhotnoryadskaya squares (on the site of the current Moscow Hotel), it was planned to build a grandiose complex.

The Palace of Labor was supposed to accommodate all the workers' organizations in Moscow, large proletarian libraries, a meeting hall for several thousand people, an auditorium for eight thousand listeners, a museum of social knowledge, a canteen with a capacity of six thousand people, sports organizations and much more.

The exhibition of projects “Palace of Labor” opened in March 1923. This major competition was to largely determine which path Soviet architecture would take. The project of the Vesnin brothers presented at it became the first building in the constructivist style. However, its construction never began, and in 1935 the Moscow Hotel appeared here.

Sukharevskaya Square

In 1931, a plan for the general reconstruction of Moscow was developed. It envisioned a complete change in the urban planning concept of the city. Wide ones should have appeared in the center transport routes and high-rise buildings. To do this, they began to demolish historical buildings. In 1933, things came to the Sukharev Tower. Famous architects tried to protect the tower. The painter and restorer Igor Grabar, academicians of architecture Ivan Fomin and Ivan Zholtovsky wrote a letter to Stalin in which they indicated that the decision was wrong: “The Sukharev Tower,” they wrote, “is an unfading example of the great art of construction, known to the whole world and equally highly valued everywhere... We... strongly object to the destruction of a highly talented work of art, tantamount to the destruction of a Raphael painting."

The authors of the letter proposed to develop a project for the reconstruction of Sretenskaya Square within a month, which would resolve the transport problem while preserving the Sukharev Tower. Architect Fomin soon presented this project - with a circular movement around the square. There were other options - to allow transport to pass to the west of the tower, to move it to another place, to build a tunnel for transport. All this, alas, was not destined to come true.

During the dismantling of the Sukharev Tower, one of the window frames on the third floor was preserved and moved to the Donskoy Monastery, where it was embedded in the monastery wall. The clock from the Sukharev Tower is now installed on the tower of the Front Gate of the Kolomenskoye estate. The foundations of the tower have also been preserved, but are hidden under the modern square.

In the 1980s, the Moscow Executive Committee decided to restore the tower. A competition for projects was announced, but none of them were accepted. Now the only reminder of the existence of the Sukharev Tower is a memorial sign in the park on the Garden Ring.

The Palace of the Soviets in Moscow was designed as a gigantic building 420 meters high, crowned by a 70 meter high statue of Lenin. Thus, the building was to become the tallest in the world. The site where the Cathedral of Christ the Savior previously stood was allocated for construction. The project was proposed by Boris Iofan, and the work on the monument to Lenin was entrusted to Sergei Merkurov. Construction was interrupted with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War and was never resumed.

Zaryadye

In keeping with the new aesthetic, the Soviet government planned to double Red Square, and central squares- named after Nogin, Dzerzhinsky, Sverdlov and the Revolution to be reconstructed within three years. They wanted to free the territory of Kitai-gorod from the existing small buildings, with the exception of certain large structures, and instead build several monumental buildings of national importance.

The eighth Stalinist high-rise building was supposed to be an administrative building in Zaryadye. The 32-story skyscraper, founded on the day of Moscow's 800th anniversary, was never completed. All erected structures were dismantled, and in 1964-1967 the Rossiya Hotel was built on the remaining foundation.

Zakrestovsky overpass

The decision to open the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition (VDNH) influenced the reconstruction of 1st Meshchanskaya Street and Yaroslavskoe Highway. Yaroslavka was separated from 1st Meshchanskaya by the tracks of the Oktyabrskaya Railway, through which an old overpass was thrown. Its width was so small that even tram tracks could only be laid in one thread.

The first architectural design project was completed in 1935 by architect Mikhail Zhirov. The structure was supposed to have dimensions unprecedented for Moscow: its width was 40 meters. Zhirov’s project was not approved, and further work on the overpasses was entrusted to a team consisting of engineer Yuri Werner and brother architects Konstantin and Yuri Yakovlev. Construction began in 1936 and was completed two years later.

TASS House

In 1934-1935, a competition was announced for the construction of the TASS building. It took place in three rounds, and a new location was chosen for the building - Pushkinskaya Square. The author of one of the projects was Leonid Grinshpan, a famous architect of the post-constructivist era. However, his plans were never put into practice. The existing building of the Russian Information Telegraph Agency was built in 1976 on Tverskoy Boulevard according to the design of architects Viktor Egerev, Anatoly Shaikhet, Zoya Abramova and Gennady Sirota.

Large Academic Cinema on Teatralnaya Square

The Big Academic Cinema is a large public building, which, according to the Moscow reconstruction plan, was to be built on Sverdlov Square (current Theater Square), opposite the Bolshoi Theater building. Since cinema was recognized as “the most important of the arts,” the new cinema had to be architecturally subordinate to the Bolshoi Theater building. The cinema should surpass the Bolshoi in size: the theater had two thousand seats, and the Bolshoi cinema was supposed to have four thousand (later, however, this figure dropped to three thousand places).

A competition for the project of the Bolshoi Academic Cinema was announced in the fall of 1936, but all projects were ultimately considered unsuccessful; all the proposed buildings suffered from gigantomania, which they were just beginning to vigorously fight against. Despite the fact that the cinema never appeared on the square, it was to his project that we owe the creation of the combined lobby of the Ploshchad Revolyutsii and Ploshchad Sverdlova stations.

Pantheon of Glory

The Pantheon in Moscow is an unrealized project of a memorial tomb, “a monument to the eternal glory of the great people of the Soviet country,” where the sarcophagi of Lenin and Stalin, as well as “the remains of outstanding figures of the Communist Party and the Soviet state buried near the Kremlin wall,” were to be moved.

In 1953, immediately after Stalin's death, a competition for pantheon designs was announced, but its specific location was not specified. The central authorities began to receive numerous projects, many of which overlapped with those that appeared during the competition for the construction of the Palace of the Soviets.

Monument to the Chelyuskinites

The return from the pole of the Chelyuskinites, taken from the ice floe by Soviet pilots (they, by the way, became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union), became a national holiday. Therefore, the Moscow City Council announced a competition for the design of the monument. The monument was planned to be placed on the spit of the Obvodny Canal (now at this place there is a monument in honor of Peter I Zurab Tsereteli).

Children's railway in the Park of Culture and Leisure named after I.V. Stalin (Izmailovsky Park)

In 1932-1933, a children's railway already existed in Moscow - in the children's town Central Park culture and recreation named after Gorky. By the end of the 1930s it was closed.

The city-wide park of culture and recreation named after Stalin in Izmailovo (now Izmailovsky Park). The master plan for the development of Moscow envisaged turning this park into the main recreation area for Muscovites. Near the northwestern entrance there was supposed to be a central Stadium USSR named after Stalin for 100 thousand spectators. In the eastern part of the park it was planned to open the world's largest zoo, and in the center of the park, in the floodplain of the Serebryanka River, to develop a huge pond with an area of ​​more than 110 hectares with well-groomed beaches for 10 thousand people, a yacht club and a racing boat station.

The children's railway was supposed to connect all the cultural and entertainment facilities of the park and become the main mode of transport. When creating it, it was decided to abandon the practice that had developed in those years of designing children's roads by children or young professionals in their free time. A competition was announced for the best design of a children's road and all its structures. According to its terms, the architecture of the station buildings had to be at the same quality level as the Moscow metro, the Moscow-Volga canal structures, the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, and be a shining example of “joyful Soviet architecture.” Particular attention was paid to the variety of styles, and therefore each of the participants prepared a project not for the entire road, but only for one of the stations. The results of the architectural competition were summed up in the spring of 1940.

In 1940-1941, Moscow children's technical stations and palaces of pioneers recruited young railway workers into circles. From the very first day they were distributed among services (traffic, traction, carriage, and so on). In the spring of 1941, having completed the initial theoretical course, the guys began practical training. But since the road had not yet been built at that time, classes were held at the enterprises of the Moscow railway junction. For example, young locomotives, under the guidance of experienced drivers, drove passenger trains from the Savelovsky station.

On June 20, 1941, the final version of the children's railway project was submitted for approval. And two days later the Great Patriotic War began. After the war, attempts were made repeatedly to return to the issue of building a children's railway, but all of them were unsuccessful.

What the streets we are used to might look like

Ambitious city reconstruction projects have affected almost all the central streets and squares of our city. Look completely different from what we are used to, we could Manezhnaya Square, and Tverskaya, and Kursky station.

The Palace of the Soviets is a labor of love between modernist Art Deco and harsh Soviet neoclassicism. Designed in the 30s of the last century, the design of this building impresses with its exterior to this day (though only in pictures). The hundred-story, 420-meter Palace of the Soviets was supposed to be the tallest building in the world.

Its construction began in 1937 and suddenly ended in September 1941, when the building materials intended for the palace were used for military needs. After the war, they decided not to resume construction; there was no time for that.

Main Turkmen channel

The year 1950 marked the beginning of the great all-Union construction project. The Main Turkmen Canal was designed with the aim of watering and reclamation of the arid lands of Turkmenistan, increasing the area under cotton cultivation, and also with the aim of establishing a shipping connection between the Volga and Amu Darya. It was planned to carry 25% of the flow of the above-mentioned Amu Darya along the dry riverbed of the Uzboy to the city of Krasnovodsk.

The goal is truly impressive, especially considering that the length of the designed canal was about 1200 km, width - at least 100 m, depth - 6-7 m. In addition to the main canal, a network of irrigation canals with a total length of 10,000 km, about 2,000 reservoirs, three hydroelectric power stations. During construction it was planned to use 5,000 dump trucks, 2,000 bulldozers, 2,000 excavators, and 14 dredgers. It was decided to use prisoners and local residents. In 1953, there were 7,268 free laborers and 10,000 prisoners at the construction site.

Of course, the ruling elite was not limited to the above means. The whole country worked on this construction project, as the figure of 1000 (!) freight cars that were delivered here from all over the Union every month eloquently tells us.

Immediately after the death of the leader, the construction of the State Customs Committee was stopped on the initiative of Beria. And then it was completely stopped due to reasons of unprofitability. But by this time, more than 21 billion Soviet rubles, or 2.73 trillion modern Russian rubles, had been irrevocably spent on the construction of the facility.

Transpolar Railway (construction 501-503)

Man of the Year (1940, 1943) according to Times magazine (talking about Stalin, if anything) did not limit his ambitions on a geographical basis. On his initiative, in the post-war period, from 1947 to 1953, a large construction organization with the simple name “GULAG” worked on a grandiose project - the Transpolar Highway.

The purpose of this construction was to connect the western north (Murmansk, Arkhangelsk) with eastern north(Chukotka, coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk).

Due to extremely tight deadlines, construction was carried out in parallel with design and survey work, which could not but affect the quality of the railway track being built. In total, approximately 80 thousand people were involved in the construction, not counting security. In 1953, work was stopped, and in 1954 - their cost has been calculated: approximately 1.8 billion Soviet rubles.

Sakhalin Tunnel (construction 506-507)

Another colossal construction project that ended its existence with the death of Stalin is the Sakhalin Tunnel.

Construction, which started in 1950, was scheduled to finish in 1955. With a tunnel length of 10 km, the deadlines were more than tight. From socialism to communism in five-year steps! And the country walked specifically on this construction site with the feet of more than 27 thousand people, all the same prisoners and free workers. And in the spring of 1953, the construction site was closed.

Turn of Siberian rivers

Let’s make a reservation right away: no one was going to turn the rivers around. It was only planned to transfer part of the flow of some Siberian rivers, for example the Ob and Irtysh, to the arid regions of the USSR - for agricultural reasons.

The project became one of the most ambitious projects of the twentieth century. For more than twenty years, 160 scientific and industrial organizations of the USSR worked on it.

The first stage of work involved the construction of a canal 2,500 km long, 130 to 300 m wide and 15 m deep. The second stage involved changing the direction of the Irtysh flow by 180 degrees. That is, the waters of the Irtysh were planned to be directed to reverse direction using pumping stations, waterworks and reservoirs.

Of course, this project was not destined to come to fruition. Common sense prevailed over imperial ambitions - Soviet academics nevertheless persuaded the country's leadership to leave the Siberian rivers alone.

Nikitin Tower - Travusha 4000 (project)

In 1966, engineers Nikitin (by the way, the chief designer of the Ostankino TV tower) and Travush proposed a design for the tall skyscraper in the world. Moreover, they planned to build it in Japan. Theoretically, the skyscraper was magnificent: its height was 4 km! The tower was divided into four mesh sections a kilometer long and with a diameter at the base of 800 m. The tower, being a residential building as planned, was supposed to accommodate up to 500 thousand people.

In 1969, design work was stopped: the customers suddenly came to their senses and demanded that the height of the building be reduced to 2 km. Then - up to 550 m. And then they completely abandoned the Tsar Tower.

Terra-3

The remains of structure 41/42B with the 5N27 laser locator complex of the 5N76 Terra-3 shooting complex. Photo 2008

"Terra-3" is nothing more than a project for a zonal anti-missile and anti-space defense system with a beam destructive element. It is also a scientific-experimental shooting-laser complex. Work on “Terra” has been carried out since the 60s of the last century. Unfortunately, already in the early 70s, scientists began to realize that the power of their lasers was not enough to shoot down warheads. Although she shot down satellites, this cannot be taken away from her. The project somehow came to naught.