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

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.

Barrikadnaya Apartments – 1955

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

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

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

Architects;

Mikhail Posokhina and Ashot Mndoyants

Completed;

1954

Height;

160 m (520 ft)

Floors;

Location;

1 Kudrinsky Square, opposite Barrikadnaya Metro station

GPS;

55°45′32″N

37°34′50″E

More on the USSR

Moscow Metro – Barrikadnaya – Line 7

Barrikadnaya – exterior

Barrikadnaya (Баррикадная) is a station on the Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya Line of the Moscow Metro. It is named after the events of the Revolution of 1905, when it was a site for barricades on Krasnaya Presnya street. The station was opened in 1972 as the first station on the Krasnopresenenskiy line, and for three years was its southern terminus, until the tunnel to Pushkinskaya connected it to the Zhdanovskiy line.

Barrikadnaya – hammer bas relief

The station was built following a typical pylon design, but due to unfavourable underlying geological conditions the pylons eventually had to be widened. The station architects Strelkov and Polikarpova used pink and red marble in the pylons. The walls use with different shades of pink, red, blue and grey marble. The central hall had to be extended as the station was initially designed for extended seven-carriage trains (although the line has been using eight-carriages since the late 1980s). The entrances to the central hall are all decorated with metallic artworks.

Barrikadnaya – star

The entrance to the station is located on Barrikadnaya Street, which links Krasnaya Presnya with the Garden Ring, and is externally decorated with stone artwork depicting the events of 1905. Across the road is Kudrinskaya Apartment Building, one of the ‘Seven Sisters’ skyscrapers. From the opposite end of the central hall there is a transfer to the Krasnopresnenskaya station of the Koltsevaya Line.