Kazansky Mainline Railway Station – Moscow

Kazansky 'Pod Room'

Kazansky ‘Pod Room’

More on the USSR

Kazansky Mainline Railway Station – Moscow

One of the most important aspects of the Kazansky mainland railway station in Moscow (from a Socialist Realist art perspective) is one of the rooms off the main concourse. This used to be the restaurant when the station was first opened in the mid 1920s but now seems to be used more as a high end, high comfort waiting room. There are even ‘pods’ in the room for people to sleep in if they have an early or ‘middle of the night’ departure. The designation of the room now is as The Pod Room.

The architectural design of the room itself seems to follow more of the pre- revolutionary layout and influences but what makes it distinctive now are the images that have been placed into the ‘baroque style’ panels.

For unknown reasons the construction of this station took place over many years so it’s difficult to pin down exactly when the murals were painted – although the panel at one end of the room depicting the reconstruction of Moscow would indicate that at least some of the panels are post-1944/5.

I have no idea of the artist (or artists) but what’s most interesting about this decoration, which is slightly different from the other mainline railway stations in Moscow, is that the images here are telling the story about all parts of the Soviet Union, that is, areas other than those parts of the Soviet Union which were actually served by the station itself.

Kazanskaya station mainly serves the east but, for example, there are images of the Ukraine, which is west of Moscow. So here many parts of the Soviet Union get referenced. There’s also a reference, which is again slightly unusual, to the ‘Workers of the World’.

This is art that has a political message, but it’s also a little bit of fun. Some of the images are humorous, joking. This is as well as putting over a political message about the achievements of the Soviet Union in the construction of Socialism.

Some things to look out for in the panels on the ceiling;

  • the airship in the central panel;
  • the loggers from the far north;
  • the rebuilding of Moscow;
  • the miners and collective farm woman of the Ukraine;
  • the fox;
  • the grapes and water melon;
  • the celebration of the arrival of electricity in the far east of Russia;
  • the camel in Kazakhstan;
  • the red stars in Siberia;
  • the sad looking fish;
  • pollution being caused by smoke belching from factory chimneys and ships;
  • the group of four – the cow, the horse, the goat and the cockerel;
  • ‘Workers of the World, Unite!’ in multiple languages.
Kazansky Station - Vadim Razumov

Kazansky Station – Vadim Razumov

Related;

Yaroslavsky station

Kievskya railway station

Stalingrad (Volgograd) Railway Station

Architect;

Alexey Shchusev (of the station building)

Location;

2 Komsomolskaya Square, Moscow

GPS;

55.773333°N

37.656389°E

Construction;

Started in 1913 but not totally completed until 1940 – with later modifications

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Documents from and about political organizations in Palestine

Destroyed ambulance in the city of Shijaiyah

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October 2023 – Palestine’s ‘Tet’? – from June to end of July 2024

Documents from and about political organizations in Palestine

Joint statements by multiple organizations

October 28, 2023 Joint Statement, of 5 organizations: Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement); Palestinian Islamic Jihad; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine; and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command. 2 pages.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)

April 23, 2024 Statement: Condemning the Repression of Protests at U.S. Universities, 1 page.

November 8, 2023 Statement, 1 page.

October 28, 2023 Statement, by the Office of Martyrs, Prisoners, and Wounded for the PFLP, 1 page.

October 28, 2023 Statement, 1 page.

October 17, 2023 Statement, 1 page.

October 12, 2023 Statement, 2 pages.

October 7, 2023 Statement, 2 pages.

Our code of morals is our revolution, selected speeches and interviews of George Habash from 1970-1984. Published by the International Centre for Palestine Studies, Amsterdam, in 2021, 112 pages.

The Sixth National Conference, July 2000: Toward a new political vision, English Translation by Hamad Said Al-Mowed, 2000, 225 pages.

Tasks of the New Stage, the Foreign Relations Committee of the PFLP. This is a translation of the PFLP’s Political Report of its Third National Congress held in March 1972. The original programme was published in Arabic under the title Muhimmat al-Marhalah al-Jadidah, 1972, 84 pages.

Military Strategy of the PFLP, the Information Department of the PFLP. Presented in an interview style with Al-Hadaf, the official organ of the PFLP published in Beirut, 1970, 103 pages.

Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine, by the PFLP, originally published in 1969. This edition, Foreign Languages Press, Utrecht, 2017, 160 pages, includes a new introduction by the PFLP, and also the brief Founding Document of the PFLP (December 11, 1967).

Works About the PFLP

The Decline of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine: A historical analysis, Terry James Buck, n.d. but from about 2012, 121 pages. This interesting volume appears to be a thesis for an advanced degree, but the school and other information is not included here.

Kanafani: Symbol of Palestine, George Hajjar. A study based on Ghassan Kanafani’s writings. July 1974, 91 pages.

Interview with Ghassan Kannafani on the September Crisis and the PFLP, published by the New Left Review, 1971, 8 pages.

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)

September 2024 Statement: The Foreign Affairs Department of the D.F.L.P monitors the positions of Western countries towards their martyred citizens who are in solidarity with the Palestinian people, DFLP, Department of Foreign Affairs, 5 pages.

2024 Statement: A message from the Foreign Affairs department at DFLP to the world’s parties about the crimes of Israeli settlers, 2 pages.

August 14, 2024 The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in a full session of its Central Committee: Fieldwork and collaboration with allies to pressure the occupying state into implementing UN Security Council Resolutions 2735 and 2728, ceasing hostilities against our people, and fully withdrawing from Gaza. Immediate efforts to implement the outcomes of the Beijing Declaration, including convening the Temporary Leadership Framework and forming a National Unity Government., 11 pages.

August, 2024 Political Statement issued by the Central Committee of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, 7 pages.

February 9, 2024 Message from the Department of Foreign Affairs at DFLP Aggression on the West Bank, 3 pages.

April 2024 Statement: DFLP Concludes Its Eighth Conference, 2 pages.

October 25, 2023 Statement: Letter from DFLP to political parties and societal forces in the world. Crimes continue in the Gaza Strip… and the number of massacres rises to about 600, 2 pages.

Non-dated Statement (but post-October 7, 2023): The Future of the Gaza Strip is an internal Palestinian matter, 5 pages.

October 8, 2023 Statement: Al-Aqsa Flood — a slap to the Israeli Security System, 4 pages. This is the initial DFLP public response to the Hamas-led uprising of October 7, 2023.

Statement by Fouad Baker on October 3, 2023: Full [U.N.] Membership of the State of Palestine: Problems and Solutions, 4 pages.

September 12, 2023 Statement: What is happening in Ain al-Hilweh Camp? [in Lebanon], by Fouad Baker, 2 pages.

Statement from Mid-2023 (not dated): Forced and mass displacement of the Palestinian people; an essential pillar of the Zionist Project, 2 pages.

May 12, 2021 Statement: DFLP Condemns the heinous Israeli crime that targeted unarmed citizens, including children, and mourns the martyrs of the aggression on Gaza, 1 page.

Towards a democratic solution to the Palestinian question, by the Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DPFLP) [Original name for the organization], c. 1970, 20 pages.

Three Essays by the Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [Original name for the organization]: On Terrorism; Role of the Party; and, Leninism vs. Zionism. In a single pamphlet, c. 1970, 17 pages.

October 30, 2024 Statement: Israel’s Approval of the Law Banning UNRWA: A Declaration of Total War on the United Nations and Palestinian Refugees, DFLP – Department of Foreign Affairs, 3 pages

Hamas [Islamic Resistance Movement]

Our Narrative: Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, a report by the group concerning the reality of what happened on October 7, the motives behind, its general context related to the Palestinian cause, as well as a refutation to the Israeli allegations and to put the facts into perspective., 18 pages.

A Statement for the People, October 9, 2023, about the commencement of the Aqsa Flood operation, 2 pages.

A document of general principles and policies (2017 Hamas Charter), updated from the original 1988 charter, The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, 13 pages.

Communist Party of Palestine, 1919-1948

The Palestine Communist Party, 1919-1948, by Maher Charif, Interactive Encyclopaedia of the Palestine Question, 2003/2007, 4 pages.

The Communist Movement in Palestine, 1919-1949, author(s) not specified, and political orientation uncertain, but with lots of information, 28 pages.

Origins of Communism in Palestine, review by Fred Halliday of Mario Offenberg’s book, Kommunismus in Palästina: Nation und Klasse in der antikolonialen Nation und Klasse in der antikolonialen Revolution. This review was originally published in MERIP Reports, No. 56, April 1977, and was then reprinted in the Journal of Palestine Studies, 8 pages. This book is said to be one of the best sources available for information about the earliest development of the communist movement in Palestine, and its struggles to overcome ideological weaknesses at that time.

Communism Versus Zionism: The Comintern, Yishuvism, and the Palestine Communist Party, by Johan Franzén, Journal of Palestine Studies, Volume 36, No. 2 (Winter 2007), pp.6-24.

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Casa Scînteii – House of The Spark/Casa Presei Libere – Bucharest

Casa Scînteii – House of The Spark

Casa Scînteii – House of The Spark

Casa Scînteii – House of The Spark/Casa Presei Libere – Bucharest

The House of the Free Press (Romanian: Casa Presei Libere), known during the Socialist period as Casa Scînteii, ‘House of The Spark’, is a building in northern Bucharest, Romania, the tallest in the city between 1956 and 2007.

Construction began in 1952 and was completed in 1956. The building was named Combinatul Poligrafic Casa Scînteii ‘I.V.Stalin’ and later Casa Scînteii (Scînteia was the name of the Romanian Communist Party’s official newspaper). It was designed by the architect Horia Maicu, in the Socialist Realist style made popular in Moscow in the early 1950s, resembling the main building of the Moscow State University, and was intended to house all of Bucharest’s printing presses, the newsrooms and their staff.

It has a foundation with an area of 280 by 260 metres (920 ft × 850 ft), the total constructed surface is 32,000 m2 (344,445 sq ft) and it has a volume of 735,000 m3 (26,000,000 cu ft). Its height is 91.6 m (301 ft) without the television antenna, which measures an additional 12.4 m (41 ft), bringing the total height to 104 m (341 ft).

Between 1952 and 1966, Casa Scînteii was featured on the reverse of the 100 lei banknote.

100 lei banknote, 1952, reverse

100 lei banknote, 1952, reverse

On 21 April 1960, a statue of Vladimir Lenin, made by Romanian sculptor Boris Caragea, was placed in front of the building. However, this statue was removed on 3 March 1990, following the Romanian counter-revolution of 1989.

Casa Scînteii - FOTOFORTEPAN MHSZ

Casa Scînteii – FOTOFORTEPAN MHSZ

On 30 May 2016, the Monument to Capitalism, ‘Wings’, was inaugurated in the same place.

Renamed Casa Presei Libere (‘House of the Free Press’), the building has basically the same role nowadays, with many of today’s newspapers having their headquarters in it.

As of 2023, the House of the Free Press is the only building in Bucharest that has kept the hammer and sickle communist symbol, together with the Star, which appears on repeated reliefs on its façade.

Text above from (a revised) Wikipedia posting.

Architect;

Horia Maicu

Engineer;

Panaite C. Mazilu

Location;

Piata Casa Presei Libere

GPS;

44.480907°N

26.071261°E

Construction started;

1952

Completed;

1957

Height;

104m (341ft)

Related;

Krasnye Vorota – Transport Ministry Building – Moscow

Moscow State University

Radisson Ukraine Hotel, Moscow

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Moscow

Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya

Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building – Moscow

Kudrinskaya Apartment Building – Moscow