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Aside from St. Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin, the most famous buildings in Moscow are arguably the skyscrapers known as the Seven Sisters. These impressive and majestic buildings, which were constructed in the 1950’s, are the epitome of Stalinist Architecture and Socialist Classicism. They’re also one of my personal favorite parts of Moscow, so I’ve decided to write a 11-part series exploring the history of the buildings. It’ll probably look something like this:

I. The Palace of the Soviets Project
II. Kotel’nicheskaya Naberezhnaya Vysotka
III. Moscow State University
IV. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs
V. Hotel Ukraine
VI. Kudrinskaya Vysotka (Dom na ploschadi Vosstaniya)
VII. Ministry of Transport at Krasnye Vorota
VIII. Hotel Leningrad
IX. The Missing 8th Sister and other unrealized Stalinist Architecture
X. Stalinist Architecture elsewhere
XI. Triumph Palace and the Rebirth of Stalinist Architecture

In order to better to understand the history of the Seven Sisters, it’s important to first discuss another member of the ‘family’, albeit one that never truly existed. I’m referring, or course, to the scrapped Palace of the Soviets project. The Seven Sisters owe a lot to the multi-tiered design of this building that was never finished.

In 1932, as part of the Soviet-instituted collectivism, the Communist Party Central Committee passed a resolution titled “On Structural Changes in the Literary and Artistic Organizations”. This decision made all independent organizations illegal and all architects (as well as artists and writers) were subject to state control and required to get party approval in order to determine what was best for the collective. The Soviet Academy of Architecture was founded the following year, marking the start of the 23-year period of Stalinist Architecture.

The Palace of the Soviets was the first grand project of this period. The plans were completed in 1933 and it was to be built on the location of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Savior (an interesting story, but not the theme of today’s post). Had it been completed, it would have been the world’s tallest building at the time, measuring in at 415 meters (1365 ft) tall. Here’s what it would have looked like:

Yes, that’s a statue of Lenin on top. A gigantic statue of Lenin, to be more specific. Take a look, for example, at how it compares in size to the Statue of Liberty.

Long story short, the construction was plagued by a number of problems. Because the site was located right on the banks of the Moscow River it was prone to constant flooding. Work was also halted due to the start of WWII and the first sixteen stories of the structure were demolished to use the steel for tanks. On top of this, many architects have even suggested that it could never have been built because of structural problems involving the dome at the center of the building.

In 1953 Khrushchev decided to call the project off for good and had the foundation turned into a large outdoor swimming pool. After the collapse of the USSR the cathedral was rebuilt on the same site.

That brings us up to the 1950’s. By this time, work was well underway on the Seven Sisters…