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A bomb exploded at Moscow State University on Saturday and a second was found before it was detontated. Several hundred people had to evacuate the Soviet-era “wedding- cake” style university building on Moscow’s Sparrow Hills, a police spokesman said.

I’ve been rather slow about posting in the Seven Sisters series, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about it. Part 3: Moscow State University will be up this week. In the meantime, check out SkyscraperPage’s diagram of the 25 tallest buildings (existing and proposed) in Moscow.

(This is part two of an eleven-part series. The first part is here.)

In 1947 the Communist Party Central Committee ordered for 8 skyscrapers to be built in Moscow. In Russian, they’re called vysotnye zdaniy? (???????? ??????) or simply vysotki (???????). It’s said that Stalin was so impressed by the Municipal Building in NYC that he wanted build several buildings in the same Roman Imperial style. Khrushcev recalls it like this:

«????? ??? ? ??????? ???????? ???? ????????? ???????? ??????. ?? ????????? ????? ???????, ??? ???????? ????????????, ? ???, ??????? ??, ?????? ?????? ??????????, ?????? ?? ??????, ? ? ??? ??? ???????? ??????. ??? ????? ?????????? ?????? ? ?????????????????? ?????????. ?? ???????? ????????? ?????».

Roughly:

“I remember how Stalin had the idea of building the skyscrapers. We finished the War victoriously, we were hailed as the victors, and he said that foreigners would start coming to our city. They would walk around Moscow, but there wouldn’t be any tall buildings. Then they would compare Moscow with the capitals of capitalist countries. We would suffer a moral loss.”

But from what I understand, there is some debate among historians concerning exactly how much direct participation Stalin had in the architecture during his rule. Dmitri Khmel’nitsky has written a lengthy article (in Russian) arguing that Stalin was very much involved.

As the plans came together and architects were selected to construct the skyscrapers envisioned by Stalin, this grand task of architectural landscaping was seen not as eight separate projects, but rather as one huge project with eight similar elements.

Here’s how the buildings, including the Palace of the Soviets, were to be set out across the city:

Kotel’nicheskaya Naberezhenaya

The first of the sisters to be built was the residential building on Kotel’nicheskaya Naberezhnaya, near where the Yauza River meets the Moscow River. It’s actually just down the street about 5 minutes from where I live.

The lead architects were Dmitri Chechulin, who also worked on several Moscow metro stations and Hotel Rossiya, and Andrei Rostkovsky. Both were awarded State Stalin Prizes of the Second Degree for their work. It’s said that much of the laborers used in the construction were POW’s and convicts.

The 176-meter, 30-story building is split into three parts: sector A, which is located along Kotel’nicheskaya Naberezhenaya and the Moscow River; sector ?, the tall triangular section in the center; and sector B, which is closer to the Yauza riverbank. Though sectors A and B look similar at first glance, they’re quite different once you get inside. Sector A was built before the War and the apartments there are a bit smaller and more humble. Each landing has four apartments (two 2-room and two 3-room). In comparison, sector B, which was built after the War, has two larger apartments per landing. It also features what Russians call a black staircase (chernaya lestnitsa) - a secret staircase that would often descend into a basement bomb shelter. The number of apartments per floor in the central, triangular tower (sector ?) varies. Floors 5-17 each have one 4-room, three 3-room, and thirteen 2-room apartments. Floors 18-24 each have six identical 2-room apartments. The remaining top 6 floors are not residential, but I’m not sure what’s there. It’s well known that the building is used for weather observation, so it’s possible that there are some meteorological offices and equipment up there.

The exact number of apartments has been rather difficult to track down. This Russian website has sources who quote anywhere from 344 to ‘about 800′, but the author leans toward the estimate of somewhere between 700 and 800.

The first floor of the building houses a bakery, three food-shops, an electronics store, a post office, and a movie theater.

If you’d like to see more pictures of the Kotel’nicheskaya skyscraper and the other vysotki, browse through the Seven Sisters Group I created over at Flickr.

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…