Kazansky Mainline Railway Station – Moscow

Posted on 31/10/2024 by Michael

Kazansky ‘Pod Room’

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.

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

More on the USSR

Soviet Society

Posted on 21/03/2022 by Michael

A Collective Farm Festival

More on the USSR

View of the world

Ukraine – what you’re not told

Soviet Society

A view of different aspects of life when the people of the USSR were attempting to construct a new society in a hostile world of capitalism and imperialism – which used every opportunity to undermine the task of the revolutionary workers and peasants in the country that covered one-sixth of the world’s land mass.

The Marriage Laws of Soviet Russia, complete text of first code of laws of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic dealing with Civil Status and Domestic Relations, Marriage, the Family and Guardianship, Soviet Russia Pamphlets No. 2, The Russian Soviet Government Bureua, New York, 1921, 49 pages.

Red Star in Samarkand, Anna Louise Strong, Coward McCann, New York, 1929, 329 pages.

The Soviet Five-year Plan and its effect on world trade, HR Knickerbocker, Bodley Head, London, 1931, 245 pages.

From the First to the Second Five-Year Plan, a Symposium, J Stalin, V Molotov, L Kaganovich, K Voroshilov and others, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR, Moscow, 1933, 490 pages.

In Place of Profit, social incentives in the Soviet Union, Harry F Ward, Scibner’s Sons, New York, 1933, 460 pages.

Foreign trade in the USSR, JD Yanson, The New Soviet Library, Gollanz, London, 1934, 175 pages.

Buryat-Mongolia, International Publishers, New York, 1936, 56 pages.

Soviet Russia and Religion, Corliss Lamont, International pamphlets No 49, International Publishers, New York, 1936, 23 pages.

The Reconstruction of Moscow, Lev Perchik, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR, Moscow. 1936, 72 pages.

Soviet Communism, a new civilisation, Volume One, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Scibners, New York, 1936, 528 pages.

Soviet Communism, a new civilisation, Volume Two, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Scibners, New York, 1936, 645 pages.

Handbook on the Soviet Trade Unions, for workers’ delegations, edited by A Lozovsky, Cooperative Publishing Company of Foreign Workers in the USSR, Moscow, 1937, 144 pages.

Soviet Democracy, Pat Sloan, Left Book Club, Victor Gollanz, London, 1937, 288 pages.

Socialised Medicine in the Soviet Union, Henry E Sigerist, Left Book Club, Victor Gollanz, London, 1937, 397 pages.

The position of women in the USSR, GN Serebrennikov, Victor Gollanz, London, 1937, 117 pages.

A Visit to Russia, Report of Durham Miners Association, 1937, 56 pages.

From Tsardom to the Stalin Constitution, WP and Zelda Cpates, Aleen and Unwin, london, 1938, 332 pages.

The Moscow Subway, Y Abakumov, FLPH, Moscow, 1939, 24 pages.

Universities in the USSR, ULF Pamphlet No 7, University Labour Federation, London, 1939, 20 pages.

The State Farms of the USSR, P Lobanov, People’s Commissar of State Farms of the USSR and Member of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, FLPH, Moscow, 1939, 32 pages.

Soviet Students, S Kaftanov, Chairman of the Committee on Higher Education of the Council of Peoples’ Commissars of the USSR, FLPH, Moscow, 1939, 32 pages.

Sport In the USSR, A Starostin, FLPH, Moscow, 1939, 31 pages. (Apologies, bad scan. Pages out of sequence.)

State Farms of the USSR, P Lobanov, People’s Commissar of State Farms of the USSR, FLPH, 1939, 32 pages.

Light on Moscow, DN Pritt, Penguin, London, 1940, 223 pages.

USSR speaks for itself, No 1, Industry, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1941, 95 pages.

USSR speaks for itself, No 2, Agriculture and Transport, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1941, 104 pages.

USSR Speaks for itself, No 3, Democracy in Practice, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1941, 104 pages.

How the Soviet State is run, Pat Sloan, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1941, 128 pages.

Marriage and The Family in the USSR, D Erde, Soviet Booklets, No. 2, Soviet War News, London, 1942, p16.

The Russians are people, Anna Louise Strong, Cobbett Publishing, London, 1943, 202 pages.

Peoples of the USSR, Anna Louise Strong, Macmillan, New York, 1944, 246 pages.

The truth about Soviet Union, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, with an essay on the Webbs by Bernard Shaw, Longmans, London, 1944, 79 pages.

Soviet Farmers, Anna Louise Strong, Pocket Library of the USSR, National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, New York?, n.d., 1944?, 47 pages.

Soviet Local Government, the administration of village and city explained, rates and taxes, elections, gas, water, electricity and other municipal services, Don Brown, Russia Today, London, 1945, 24 pages. (Apologies, bad scan, pages out of order.)

USSR, her life and her people, Maurice Dobb, University of London Press, 1945, 139 pages.

The Pattern of Soviet Power, Edgar Snow, Random House, New York, 1945, 219 pages.

These are the Russians, Richard Lauterback, Harper, New York, 1945, 368 pages.

Introducing the USSR, Beatrice King, Pitman, London, 1946, 112 pages.

Soviet Democracy, Harry F. Ward, Soviet Russia Today, New York, 1947, 48 pages.

Soviet Communism, A New Civilization, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Longman’s, London, 1947, 1007 pages.

The Right-Wing Social-Democrats Today, O Kuusinen, FLPH, Moscow, 1948, 35 pages.

Industry in the USSR, E Lokshin, FLPH, Moscow, 1948, 170 pages.

The Soviet way of life, an examination, Maurice Lovell, Methuen, London, 1948, 213 pages.

The Law of the Soviet State, Andrei Yanuaryevich Vyshinskiy, Macmillan Company, New York, 1948, 749 pages.

Man and Plan in Soviet Economy, Andrew Rothstein, digitised version, first published in London 1948, 145 pages.

Soviet Economic Development since 1917, Maurice Dobb, Routledge Kegan Paul, London, 1948, 487 pages.

Industry in the USSR, E Lokshin, FLPH, Moscow, 1948, 170 pages.

Dialectical Materialism and Historical Science, VP Volgin, np., 1949, 5 pages.

Across the map of the USSR, N Mikhailov, FLPH, Moscow, 1949, 344 pages.

Fulfilment of the USSR State Plan for 1949, communique of the Central Statistical Administrration of the USSR Council of Ministers, Soviet News, London, 1950, 22 pages.

The role of the State in the Socialist Transformation of the economy of the USSR, KV Ostroviyanov, FLPH, Moscow, 1950, 11 pages.

The Soviet Union Today, a scientist’s impressions, SM Manton, with an foreword by Lord Boyd-Orr, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1952, 133 pages.

Questions and answers on Property (Public and Private) in the USSR, Soviet News, London, 1954, 24 pages.

Soviet Law and Soviet Society, ethical foundations of the Soviet structure, mechanism of the planned economy, duties and rights of peasants and workers, rulers and toilers, the family and the state, Soviet justice, national minorities and their autonomy, the People’s Democracies and the Soviet pattern for a united world, George Guins, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1954, 457 pages.

The Soviet Regime, Communism in Practice, WW Kulski, Syracuse University Press, New York, 1954, 807 pages.

Education in the USSR, ASYFA, n.d., n.p., 12 pages. (Apologies, bad scan, pages all out of sequence.)

Questions and answers on Working Conditions in Soviet Industry, Soviet News, London, 1954, 30 pages.

Engineering progress in the USSR, A Zvorykin, FLPH, Moscow, 1955, 80 pages.

Problems and Achievements of Soviet Historical Science, abridged from the brief survey presented to the International Congress in Rome in September 1955, AL Sidorov, Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR, London, 1955, 13 pages.

Soviet civilization, Corliss Lamont, Philosophical Library, New York, 1955, 447 pages.

Political economy – a textbook issued by the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1957, 623 pages.

Soviet Economic Development since 1917, Maurice Dobb, International Publishers, New York, 1966 (reprint of 1948 original), 515 pages.

Jews in the Soviet Union – Fact versus Fiction, British Soviet Friendship Society, London, 1971, 4 pages.

Fraud, famine and fascism, the Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard, Douglas Tottle, Progress Books, Toronto, 1987, 167 pages.

Anton Semenovich Makarenko

….was a Ukrainian and Soviet educator, social worker and writer, became the most influential educational theorist in the Soviet Union.

Lectures to Parents, National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, 1961, 30 pages. These texts are lectures that were given by Makarenko over the radio in 1937. They were published in the Literaturnaia Gazetta after he died in 1939, and also in the Collected Works of Makarenko, Vol. 4, 1951.

A Book for Parents, FLPH, Moscow, 1954, 410 pages.

Workers control and socialist democracy, The Soviet experience, Carmen Sirianni, Verso, London, 1982, 437 pages.

Road to Life, Part 1, n.p., n.d., 282 pages.

Road to Life, an epic of education, volume 2, FLPH, Moscow, 1955, 179 pages. Online Version: A. S. Makarenko Reference Archive (marxists.org) 2002.

Anton Semyonovitch Makarenko, an analysis of his educational ideas in the context of Soviet Society, Frederic Lilge, University of California, Berkeley, 1958, 52 pages.

More on the USSR

View of the world

Ukraine – what you’re not told

Stalin Museum – Gori

Posted on 28/09/2018 by Michael

Stalin – outside entrance to Museum

Stalin Museum – Gori

The Stalin Museum in his birthplace of Gori, in the centre of Georgia, is one of the few places in the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) where you will see any reference (let alone a positive reference) to the leader of the world’s first socialist state.

(Before the success of reaction in the Soviet Union, in the 1990s, there used to be a much larger museum dedicated to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, just off Red Square, in Moscow. This was called The Central Lenin Museum. That museum space is now devoted to the successful war against the Napoleonic invasion of 1812 – by ignoring their Soviet past the Russian people have had to go back more than 200 years before they can hold their heads high.)

I don’t know when they were created but the life-size Stalin statues – one outside the museum and the copy which stands on the first landing of the stairs to the exhibition halls – are probably some of the worst likenesses of JV Stalin to be seen – apart from the terracotta wine container I obtained in Tbilisi. This, I can only assume, is deliberate. Georgian sculptors are no less able than those in different parts of the world to re-create an accurate image of an individual. To not do so is not a matter of artistic incompetence but a political statement attempting to erase the past.

And one thing that demonstrates the dis-ingenuousness of these statues is the fact that Stalin’s right hand is resting on a book of his own writings, with his name in Georgian script on the spine. Never in his lifetime would Stalin self-reference in such a manner. If his hand would be on a book it would have been either on one of Marx, Engels or Lenin – never himself.

(However, though not widely known by visitors or really publicised anywhere in Gori itself, there are two ‘proper’ and ‘realistic’ statues of Uncle Joe still in existence within the city.)

Comprising mainly of artistic representations of Stalin’s life (paintings and statues) and reproductions of photographs – many of which anyone with an interest in the period would have seen before – there are also a few personal artefacts. Uncle Joe wasn’t really into ‘consumerism’ and so there are few of the latter.

The aim of this post is to provide a video and photographic impression of the museum for those who have not yet had the opportunity to visit this unique location. To go to a video of the various parts of the museum click the link on the individual Rooms (numbered from 1 to 6, plus the Illegal printing press in Tiflis (Tbilisi), the reconstructed Kremlin Office and Stalin’s Birthplace). (Apologies for the low quality of the videos – no Oscar for me this year.) Then there’s a quite extensive photographic slide show/gallery at the end of the post.

Young Stalin

Room 1 – Early life, through Revolution and Civil War to the death of VI Lenin

Highlights of this room include: a full size statue of the young Stalin; a maquette of his birthplace; a bust of the young Stalin and a maquette of the illegal printing press (see below).

The house of the illegal printing press, Tiflis

The illegal printing press in Tiflis (Tbilisi) 1906

Just before the entrance to the second room, in the middle of the floor, can be found a maquette of the building which hosted the illegal printing press that Stalin was instrumental in establishing (and for which he wrote many articles and leaflets) that existed for a short time from November 1903 to April 1906 in Tiflis (present day Tbilisi). From looking at this model you can appreciate the amount of effort and planning that went into the hiding of this press from the Tsarist reactionary forces (and especially its ‘secret’ police, the Okhrana). It also makes you think about the determination of the Georgian/Russian revolutionaries to defeat the exploiting class. Such imagination, determination and dedication of present day ‘revolutionaries’ would be more than welcomed.

Stalin with the future

Room 2 – From Collectivisation and Industrialisation to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War

Highlights in this room include: Stalin at a meeting with workers in a locomotive works; Stalin with Collective Farm workers; Stalin greeting a young female collective farm worker; a series of postcards produced in the 1930s and a large bust of an older Stalin.

Stalin tank lamp

Room 3 – The Great Patriotic War

Highlights in this room include: a lamp incorporating a Stalin tank; a section on Stalin’s family (his wives and children); military maps describing some of the major campaigns of the Great Patriotic War and Stalin with his generals.

Soviet power annihilates Nazism

Room 4 – A review of his life and the 19th (final) Congress

Highlights in this room include: a carved wooden shield with Stalin in profile amongst a number of symbols representing the Soviet Union and the image of a Russian sword smashing through a swastika at the bottom right; pictures taken a various stages of Stalin’s life; two large carpets with an image of Stalin (one of them also with Kliment Voroshilov); an image of Nazi banners being dragged through the dirt of Red Square in front of the Lenin Mausoleum and a picture of one of Stalin’s last public appearances at the 19th Congress of the CPSU.

Stalin lying in state – 1953

Room 5 – Stalin’s Death

Highlights in this room are: Stalin’s death mask; a painting of Stalin lying in state and a maquette of the Mausoleum in Red Square bearing the names of both Lenin and Stalin.

Stalin and Mao

Room 6 – Presents

It’s in this room where there are more artefacts and this consists of presents and other objects bearing the image of Stalin, of other Communist leaders and items brought from former Socialist countries representing their culture. There are many objects (many depicted in the slide show) but it’s worth mentioning a picture of Stalin and his daughter, Svetlana, as a young girl; a textile print of a meeting between Stalin and Chairman Mao Tse-tung; a number of large carpets with Stalin as the central image; a couple of images of Stalin with his mother; a large, Chinese silk portrait of Stalin and a large, circular, metal plate with a mosaic of Stalin in the centre.

Stalin’s office in the Kremlin

Stalin’s Kremlin Office Reconstruction

On leaving the first floor, where the majority of the exhibits will be found, by taking the right hand staircase this will lead you to the reconstruction of Stalin’s Kremlin Office (the first door on the right). Really the office is just the collection of chairs and sofas with a desk immediately on the right as you walk through the door. The rest of the space is taken up with further images of Stalin, both in paint and intricate marquetry; one of his ceremonial uniforms; two maquettes of the Stalingrad War Memorial and (quite unique) an image of both Lenin and Stalin made from tobacco leaves (just above the piano).

Stalin’s armoured carriage

Stalin’s Armoured train carriage

Outside the museum, to the left of the building, is Stalin’s armoured carriage. He didn’t like to fly and travelled to the major conferences with the US and UK ‘allies’ at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam in this carriage. This can be visited as part of the general ticket to visit the museum.

Stalin’s Birthplace, Gori

Stalin’s Birthplace

The humble building in which Stalin was born is almost unrecognisable now. Although restored to an almost new condition the two room building – of which on the tour you only see one – has been surrounded by a grand and almost temple like Doric structure. This is topped by a glass dome on which is a magnificent star and in each corner there’s a hammer and sickle symbol. This was erected in 1939. This is lit up at night and looks quite impressive with the various light temperatures, giving off a golden and green glow at the same time.

Related;

Rediscovered statues of Joseph Stalin

The Great Patriotic War Museum and War Memorial

Practicalities

Location

The Museum, Stalin’s Birthplace and the railway carriage take up what is the top of an inverted triangle of Stalin Park, with Stalin Avenue on either side and Kutaisi at the top. It’s right in the centre of town and not difficult to find.

Opening times

1st November – 1st April 10.00-17.00

2nd April – 31st October 10.00-18.00

Closed 1st January and Easter Sunday

Entrance

Visit of exhibition halls, memorial house and Stalin’s Railway Carriage:

General 15 GEL

Students 10 GEL

Schoolchildren 1 GEL

Under six Free

It’s not necessary to take the tour but for that extra bit of information it’s worthwhile. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any set time for the tour but English tours take place quite regularly, at least between April and October. They take about 45 minutes so if you miss a tour my suggestion is that you find out the time of the next tour, more or less, have a walk around the museum and then head back to the entrance of Room 1 at the time the next tour will be starting. The tour takes in both the train carriage and Stalin’s birthplace as well as the museum.