Kudrinskaya Apartment Building – Moscow

Kudrinskaya Apartment Building

Kudrinskaya Apartment Building

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Kudrinskaya Apartment Building

The Kudrinskaya Square Building is a building in Moscow, one of Seven Sisters of Moscow skyscrapers. Designed by Mikhail Posokhin and Ashot Mndoyants’

Kudrinskaya - 02

Kudrinskaya – 02

The building was richly decorated but lacked a unified stylistic direction. The parapets are in the ancient Roman style. The lobbies decorated with marble columns, stained-glass windows, and lamps in the form of candelabra are a reminiscence of Gothic interiors. The pointed turrets around the spire resemble the domes of an Eastern Orthodox church. On the roof of the stylobate, there are sculptural portraits of Soviet workers and soldiers.

One of the stylistic features of the building were the stained glass windows, which are located in the halls above the lifts and the windows of the deli. Motifs from Russian folk culture were used in the design. The floors in the living rooms and corridors of the flats were laid with oak parquet, the bathrooms were tiled with metal tiles, and the kitchens with linoleum.

Kudrinskaya - 01

Kudrinskaya – 01

All the flats had refrigerators and built-in furniture in the kitchens. In addition to the ventilation system, the building had centralised air conditioning. The building was equipped with a centralized dust extraction system, which consisted of brushes and hoses located in each flat, piping running along with the building, and vacuuming stations installed in the basement. The collected dust was filtered and discharged into the sewage system, and the purified air was discharged into the street. Boilers were installed in the basement to provide heating for the whole building.

The skyscraper was laid down in 1950 and completed in 1954. It was the last of the Seven Sisters to be completed.

Kudrinskaya - 03

Kudrinskaya – 03

Its apartments were originally intended for cultural leaders of the former USSR; they are currently inhabited by wealthy Russians.

The building is starting to look a little frayed around the edges. A large room at the right hand side at the front appears to be abandoned and the windows have been broken and removed and replaced with cheap and badly installed wooden boards. At the back of the building what would have been a large shop is also now no longer used but appears to be, at least, in a reasonable physical condition.

Kudrinskaya Building from River Moskva

Kudrinskaya Building from River Moskva

Architects;

Mikhail Posokhina and Ashot Mndoyants

Completed;

1954

Height;

160 m (520 ft)

Floors;

22

Location;

1 Kudrinsky Square, opposite Barrikadnaya Metro station

GPS;

55°45′32″N

37°34′50″E

More on the USSR

Ploshchad Revolyutsii to Okhotny Ryad

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Alex 'Florstein' Fedorov

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Alex ‘Florstein’ Fedorov

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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Ploshchad Revolyutsii to Okhotny Ryad

The long corridor between the two stations is remarkable not just for the imagery that still exists but for the great number of empty spaces that, at one time, would have included sculptures and representations of the Soviet Union’s struggle to build Socialism.

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii - 01

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii – 01

Presented here is an introduction to this corridor used by thousands of people everyday, few of whom will take notice of the beauty and the work that went into the construction of the system dating from the mid-1930s. In what that remains there’s an emphasis on imagery from the Great Patriotic War

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii - 02

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii – 02

More on the USSR

Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Moscow Metro – Teatralnaya – Line 2

Teatralnaya - Line 2 - A Savin

Teatralnaya – Line 2 – A Savin

More on the USSR

Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Moscow Metro – Teatralnaya – Line 2

Teatralnaya - Line 2 - 01

Teatralnaya – Line 2 – 01

Teatralnaya (Russian: Театра́льная, English: Theater) is an underground metro station on the Zamoskvoretskaya line of the Moscow Metro, named for the nearby Teatralnaya Square, the location of numerous theatres, including the famed Bolshoi Theatre. The station is unique in that it does not have its own entrance halls. The north escalator leads to Okhotniy Ryad and the south escalator to Ploshchad Revolyutsii.

Teatralnaya - Line 2 - 04

Teatralnaya – Line 2 – 04

History

Ploshchad Sverdlova station opened on September 11, 1938, as part of the second stage of construction of the Moscow Metro system. It was the terminal station of the Zamoskvoretskaya line until the line was extended on January 1, 1943. Teatralnaya’s architect was Ivan Fomin. The station is located at a depth of 33.9 meters (111 feet). The central hall has a diameter of 9.5 meters (31 feet), with an 8.5 meters (28 feet) lateral lining of cast-iron tubing.

From its opening until 1990, the station’s name was Ploshchad Sverdlova, which was named in honour of the prominent Bolshevik, Yakov Sverdlov. In 1990, the city changed the name of the square to Teatralnaya Ploshchad. The name of the station followed accordingly.

Teatralnaya - Line 2 - 03

Teatralnaya – Line 2 – 03

Decoration

Teatralnaya Station has fluted pylons faced with labradorite and white marble taken from the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Crystal lamps in bronze frames attached to the centre of the room give the central hall a festive appearance. The vault of the central hall is decorated with caissons and majolica bas-reliefs by Natyla Danko on the theme of theatre arts of the USSR, manufactured by Leningrad Porcelain Factory. These bas-reliefs are a series of fourteen different figures, each representing music and dance from various nationalities of the Soviet Union. Seven male and seven female figures attired in their national costumes are either performing an ethnic dance or are playing a distinctively ethnic musical instrument. The series included Armenia, Byelorussia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Each figure is reproduced four times for a total of 56 figures. Initially, the floor was of black-and-yellow granite patterned as a chessboard; however in 1970, the yellow panels were replaced with gray.

Teatralnaya - Line 2 - 02

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A bust of Yakov Sverdlov, for whom the station was originally named, was located at the end of the platform opposite the escalators. Only the base remains today. A bust of Vladimir Lenin was however, preserved.

Text from Wikipedia.

Location:

Tverskoy District, Central Administrative Okrug

GPS:

55.7578°N

37.6190°E

Depth:

33.9 metres (111ft)

Opened:

11 September 1938

More on the USSR

Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery