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 The legend goes
that Stalin once said, «We've won the war and are recognized worldwide as a
great winner. Foreign tourists will visit our cities. What will happen if
foreign visitors walk around Moscow and find no skyscrapers? They will make
unfavorable comparisons with capitalist cities». For a long time, this phrase
was mostly laughed at, as it was given as an example of Stalinist
totalitarianism, as a vivid demonstration of his megalomania, but we can not deny
that Stalin skyscrapers (or «vysotki» in Russian) are one of the best sights of
Moscow, which attract tourists and excite admiration.
Broad avenues,
built in the days of Stalin, too, were ridiculed - they were far too spacious
for a small amount of traffic. But years have passed, and it turned out that
those avenues were built for the future, and their width is more than justified.
Indeed,
Stalin's desire to transform and «upgrade» Moscow is totally understandable. At
that time the Russian capital was not particularly impressive. Tall buildings
were a rarity, to say the least. The highest buildings had six to eight floors.
The «Moskva» hotel was the only exception as it had as many as sixteen floors!
But the rest of the Moscow urban landscape has not changed much since the days
of Pushkin, when the house of the Governor-General on Tverskaya Street which
had as many as three floors was considered to be the highest building in the
capital!
Stalin
skyscrapers and broad avenues have been designed to create an entirely new view
of Moscow - beautiful, luxurious, and equisitely elegant at the same time.
Unfortunately, the idea of renovation of the center of the city was not
implemented in the full, and the present-day tall buildings have completely
destroyed the building scheme developed in the 1940-s, by literally ruining the
«communist ampire» of Stalin skyscrapers.
Many
legends and stories are told about Stalin skyscrapers. For instance, they say
that a bronze statue of Stalin (which was supposed to crown the tower of the
building) is mured in the basement of the main building of the Moscow State
University on Sparrow Hills. Also, there is a legend that the builders were
political prisoners, and two of them tried to escape on a hang-glider when
working on the upper floors of the building, and one even suceeded. Moreover,
the construction site was a potential landslide hazard and the building cracked
in the process of construction, and people who were blamed for this were executed
and the foundation was redone. They say that the Moscow State University has a
few underground floors where Stalin planned to locate the Center for
countermissile defense of Moscow.
However, these
rumours are hardly true, while the talks about the tall building on
Lermontovskaya Square are plain truth: it was originally built at an angle and the
foundation ground was frozen in order to proceed with construction without
waiting for the natural shrinkage of the foundation. The calculation was quite
accurate, and the building has perfectly leveled off to the upright position.
All the buildings
employed over-engineered steel frames with concrete ceilings and masonry
infill, based on concrete slab foundations (in the case of the University
building - 7 meters
thick). Exterior ceramic tiles, panels up to 15 square meters,
were secured with stainless steel anchors. The height of these buildings was
not limited by political will, but by lack of technology and experience - the
structures were far heavier than American skyscrapers.
Moreover,
some stories about Stalin skyscrapers have a mystical flair. For instance, they
say that these buildings were erected not as a part of the architectural
reconstruction project of the Russian capital, but as energy concentrators
designed to reinforce the power and bring the leaders (Lenin and Stalin) back
to life. Like, that is why the skyscrapers were erected in the areas where
blood was spilt: on the Red Square (near the sites of mass executions), and the
sites of violent battles in 1905, etc. It is hard to imagine that Stalin would
like to bring Lenin back to life, but let this incredible theory rest on the
conscience of the mysticism enthusiasts. Anyway, you can find a lot of more «murderous»
places in Moscow.
However, whatever
you might say about resurrection of the dead, Stalin skyscrapers do look like high-stepped
ziggurat pyramids which are known to have strange effect on the living
organisms and objects.
Thus, blades
if placed on the pyramid surface get sharp by themselves, food is well
preserved for a long time and distilled water can change its electrical
conductivity. However, such experiments were performed on the pyramids of
classical, not stepped structure. But ziggurat pyramids have «mystical» properties,
too.
Sometimes the
longevity of Soviet rulers is attributed to the magical properties of Stalin «pyramids»:
Molotov (96), Budenny (90), Kaganovich (98), Zhukov - (78), Mikoyan (83),
Voroshilov (88) ... Life expectancy in the top highest echelons of power in the
Soviet era was 76 years. This is surprising indeed, especially when compared to
the life expectancy in men in general which was only 59 years. However, such
phenomenal longevity can be explained without resorting to the mystical pyramids
and attributing magical properties to Stalin skyscrapers (which allegedly «concentrate
energy» and forward it «in the right direction»). In the end, the powerful few have
always enjoyed better medical care than the mortals. Isn't this a true secret
of their longevity?
However, you
can't stop gossip. Another rumor says that Stalin wanted to eradicate religion
and to substitute with his own personality cult, and «sacred» architecture was
part of the «religious» plan. Yet the most popular theory states that the
Palace of Soviets (which was the first Soviet skyscraper project, interrupted
by the German invasion of 1941, at which point the steel frame was scrapped in
order to fortify the Moscow defense ring, and the site was abandoned) along
with Stalin skyscrapers should form a single complex, which would help to keep the
entire Soviet Union in «psychological and energetical» submission.
But after
the Patriotic War was over, Stalin froze the construction of the Palace of
Soviets. And if Stalin skyscrapers were to help hold down the country, why did
they work so poorly?
Yet, Stalin
skyscrapers will excite our imagination, even if tomorrow hundreds of
scientists will present irrefutable mathematical evidence that these buildings were
nothing else but an architectural fad of the time. The skyscrapers are too beautiful
and elegant, and they really look like mystical pyramids. And every city wants
to have something unusual and attractive that could be a true inspiration for
legends.
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