Moscow's Unrealised plans 1930-1950

I am really pleased I was able to help.....

Dear Heidi, many thanks for your comment & I pleased you have added it to your play list. Best wishes. N

Very interesting! A lot of decoration, but a lot of style aswell. Today there is ni style at all(

I am glad you find it so...... N

stalins ambitions still live on but in a capitalist design, the moscow international business center have the highest skyscrapers in europe

In comparison to the recent builds in Moscow, these unrealised plans seem pretty tame in comparison.

I agree.... the new buildings of today are built for commerce and will not face the test of time. Most have a "shelf life" of twenty years. The buildings of the past were built to last.....

I like these skyscrapers and the fact that they are a few km from the heart of the old city centre.From my point of view this is a good balance, keeping the historic centre round the Kremlin intact, yet creating a great business location close-by.

Very good video, but why say nineteen hundred and thirty three? Why not simply 1933?

I am pleased you enjoyed the video. I always use the extended version of the year, just a particular fad, I suppose.!!!!

I thank you - I really enjoyed researching and making this....

I loved the documentary. I would be interested in seeing a documentary about the 7 sisters or some of the Soviet Avant-Garde architecture.

Thank you for your comment. I have it in mind to do a documentary on the Seven Sisters. I just have not sat down to work on it.......!!

I am pleased you think so... Nigel

There wer no such country as "soviet rasha" lern it already

Спасибо=)

Do you still have the Images from this documentary I am doing Soviet Architecture for an A level art project and it would be a grate help if had a copy of these Images.

Unfortunately they are back home in the UK in storage!!!!

Oh well thank you anyway.

Thank you so much for the research and video.Would be so interesting if you could do something similar for the workers's residencies and generally for the urban planning in ussr the same period.

Amazing video! I just was in Moscow few months ago got totally surprised by thouse amazing Stalinist Buildings, I wonder how Moscow would have looked like if it had completed the Palace of the Soviets

Interesting video. Thanks

Thanks very much for this video. Living in Moscow myself I didn't know all of this.

Got initially confused, by the way you said the years "nineteen hundred and.." Etc, as it's not common

although the soviets did terrible things and awful murders, i do think a city like this would be beautiful. just the simplicity of everything is so nice, and the huge buildings so impressive. it would be awesome to walk around in a city like that. (not saying that i love the soviets)

Just visited the new church (which is beautiful). What a monster Stalin was.

This is one of the most interesting thing I have ever seen

Fascinating footage. (where did you get it??)
Great docu-short! Please make more.
A final note: very sad to see the destruction of that STUNNING church fir this project. : (((

What a shame they never built that magnificent palace. How sad they abandoned that great vision and rebuilt that hideous cathedral and retreated to the past of despotism and superstition.

Fascinating. I'm reading Orlando Figes' "The Whisperers" now, so it was a bit of serendipity that I found this in an unrelated search and some Sunday-morning clicking. Great work. Thank you.

on min. 3.11 V. Schukov`s project much more looks like The Great Temple in Jerusalem, not a Dodge palace in Venice : D

A lot like Speer's concrete vision of Berlin. Cold, devoid of life.

Seems to go along with what Solzhenitsyn described in The GULAG Archipelago about the Soviet Academy of Sciences having to derive a list of 'firsts' to credit Russian achevments. First cars, first airplanes, first wheat, first beer.

Shame that Cathedral got to be rebuilt...

Are there any city planning theories that incorporate Marxist/Socialist theory?

The plan had more success under than above ground. The great Moscow subway system (built with a combination of volunteerism and slave labor) was begun, if I remember right, in 1936. Whereas impending war spelled the death knell for many planned buildings, it prompted construction of deep stations that did double duty as air raid shelters.

That hideous Rossiya hotel was demolished a good while back, and now the plot has finally been turned into something worthwhile - a nice, fresh park with great views over the city center (Park Zaryade)

in essence, the purposed new moscow was similar to Hitler's germania. still, taking stroll in Stalin's moscow would've been a transcending experience for architecture fans like me.

What could have been...what should have been! Soviet Union, you were the hope for the world and for all mankind. Workers of the world unite...you have nothing to lose but your chains!!

It's remarkable that Cathedral of Christ the Savior was reconstructed . After all the Orthodox Church proved to be stronger than marxism . Congratulations for your videos !

Какой интересный материал! Но как бы хотелось услышать комментарии на русском языке! Мой английский даёт возможность "догадываться", о чем идёт речь... Всего-лишь!!!
Да-а-а-а-а, какие были грандиозные планы! Но в стране-то был социализм... Реализовать их можно было бы лишь за счёт абсолютно неимущих людей - "хозяев жизни"...
Архитектурные достоинства многих проектов потрясают! Насколько современно они смотрелись бы и сейчас. Но ЦЕНА?!!!
Замыслы диктаторов имеют одну общность - "ввысь и вширь!!!" До сих пор учёные всего мира пытаются найти разгадку - как строились пирамиды? Если бы этим архитектурным планам было суждено осуществиться, то последующие поколения стали бы искать разгадки - "как можно было построить такие колоссы имея такое бедное население?"
Уважаемый Nigel, ваша работа вызывает чувство огромной благодарности! Сегодня, в такое непростое время, люди страны "победившего социализма"...☹️, говорят только о "победе в Великой Отечественной (???) войне"... А какая, по-настоящему, интересная история страны неизвестна её гражданам!!! Ваши фильмы, документальные свидетельства поистине интереснейшей истории - культуры, архитектуры, технических достижений... Во-о-т что должно быть достоянием этого народа, вот, что должно его интересовать!!! "Должно"???
Читая комментарии, видишь - многие люди интересуются Вашими фильмами, историей... Но, хотелось бы, чтобы Ваши фильмы стали началом ГЛУБОКОГО ИНТЕРЕСА к истории!!! Истории КУЛЬТУРЫ, а не военной ( хотя одно другого не исключает...)
Ещё раз - СПАСИБО!!!

I am so glad they rebuilt the Cathedral.

What's a bit ironic is that the actual beautiful architecture is described as 'Stalinist' whereas afterwards the ugly blocky buildings of Brutalism is what the Soviet Union will be associated with.

so hard to imagine it being bigger than the empire state building

Why not show what was actually constructed at the VDNKh instead of what wasn't? It was definitely ornate and classical. Sometimes I feel like people use propaganda to show the propaganda of the Soviet era, as if they're discovering America.

1900 and 35 ? No

1900 and 35 ? No

Every time i see one of these videos, im always like "omg, whhhhhhy. These plans, these cities. So pretty, so amazing :-:"

comrade stalin what version should we build?


yes!

Putin has only been a destructive force for Russia. I was in Dresden in May 1992 when they were rebuilding the Frauenkirche that was destroyed in the Allied bombing in World War II and was still partially a pile of rubble with trees growing on it.