In January 1947, the decree “On the construction of new high-rises in Moscow” was issued by the USSR Council of Ministers. The document instructed that “the proportions and skylines of these buildings should be original and that their architectural and artistic composition correspond to the historically established architecture of the city and the skyline of the Palace of the Soviets (which at this time, was still planned to be erected on the site of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, ed.) ... Building designs should not copy the architecture of famous international high-rises.” The post-war history of Zaryadye is very much connected to the history of constructing Moscow’s skyscrapers.
In an interview published on February 28, 1947, in the newspaper Soviet Art, Dmitry Chechulin,
Moscow’s chief architect, said: “In Moscow, we need to build two 26-story buildings and several
16-story buildings. The design and construction of these buildings is entrusted to the
Construction Directorate of the Palace of the Soviets under the USSR Council of Ministers
and several other main ministers.” The two tallest high-rises would be the 32-story hotel
(and later university) in Lenin Hills (now Vorobyovy Gory)
and the 26-story administrative
building in Zaryadye on the site where the second Sovnarkom building was to be built before the war.
Panorama of banks of the River Moskva with the projected high-rise building in Zaryadye and the Palace of Soviets on the site of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, 1947-1948
The construction of the new high-rise buildings was a symbolic project of great national importance, which is evidenced by the fact that the direct coordination of the design and construction of the skyscrapers (including in Zaryadye as ordered by the Council of Ministers) was carried out by Lavrentiy Beria, who was the director of the Soviet atomic bomb project. Extensive correspondence concerning the design and construction of the high-rise buildings (including Zaryadye), including Beria’s own resolutions and instructions, have been preserved in the Russian State Archives. Chechulin had known Beria since the pre-war period, and was able to find a common language with him and even would gently contradict Beria. Chechulin’s memoirs reveal that he managed to skillfully redirect Beria’s project to construct a building for the Central Administration of Prison Camps, better known as the GULAG, on Mayakovskaya Square. Instead, Chechulin proposed building a hotel on the square, a project that was later realized.
The breaking of ground ceremony for the Zaryadye high-rise and the other buildings was timed to coincide with the 800th anniversary of Moscow’s founding on September 7, 1947. Construction began with laying part of the foundation, which later was used to build the Rossiya Hotel concert hall. In 1948-1949, old buildings in the Zaryadye neighborhood were torn down to clear space for the skyscraper. In total, 7890 people were forced to relocate from Zaryadye. For the first stage of resettlement, new five-story buildings were quickly erected in the Moscow suburbs: six in Kuntsevo, five in Cheremuski, and six in Tekstilshchik. The Church of Nikolay Chudotvorets (the Miracle Worker) was demolished by the end of the 1940s. It is worth noting that Chechulin’s vision to preserve selected architectural monuments in Zaryadye, especially along Varvarka Street was, for the most part, implemented later on.
Changes were regularly made to the project during the planning stages as well as during construction itself. A decree by the USSR Council of Ministers on March 25, 1948 (No. 926) increased the number of floors to 32 up from the originally planned 26. The January 28, 1952 decree (No. 539) by the ministers “On the construction of a high-rise office building in Zaryadye” stipulated that the building have “2000 offices for workers and a total 72,000 square meters.” Several cinemas, cafeterias, buffets, printing houses, and conference halls were included in the building blueprint. The conference hall was first planned for 1000 people, but by the end of 1952, the capacity was increased to 3000 people. The same decree noted that “construction is lagging behind the deadlines set by the government.” According to a government decree issued on September 7, 1950, the Zaryadye high-rise was supposed to be completely finished by 1953, but in 1952, the date was postponed until 1954. The construction delay wasn’t surprising since the Construction Directorate of the Palace of the Soviets — which was in charge of all the Stalin skyscrapers — would periodically send workers from the Zaryadye site to skyscraper sites, such as Moscow State University on Lenin Hills.
A group of “non-party member” studio specialists wrote an anonymous letter to Beria in October 1951 accusing Chechulin and the studio’s chief designer Tigranov of “disrupting work” on the project.
Ever since the foundation was first laid, the deadline for providing the Council of Ministers with a consolidated budget for construction was continuously postponed. On January 20, 1949, the Council of Ministers issued a decree that the Construction Directorate of the Palace of the Soviets was obligated to submit a general cost estimate of the building by August 1, 1949, but it wasn’t submitted. The following decree extended the submission deadline until May 1, 1950, but this deadline was also derailed. Then on June 18, 1950, the Council of Ministers ordered the Construction Directorate of the Palace of the Soviets to provide a cost estimate by January 1, 1951, but again, it wasn’t ready. The general budget submission deadline was issued (and ignored) several more times over a two-and-a-half-year period. Finally, in the spring of 1953 after Stalin’s death, the budget was finally close to being finished, and it was examined by the Ministry of Construction, which reported “significant architectural and construction extravagances were revealed that significantly increased the cost of construction.” In response, Lavrentiy Beria issued a decree on June 9, 1953 to extend the deadline for the Zaryadye high-rise building cost estimate until November 1, 1953. This was the final document on the Zaryadye skyscraper issued by Beria. Two and a half weeks later, on June 26, the all-powerful Beria was arrested inside the Kremlin by Georgy Zhukov, the Soviet Marshal. He was put on trial, accused of espionage, and shot. The project to build a Stalin high-rise in Zaryadye, Beria’s brainchild, came to a halt shortly after his death. Finally, in the spring of 1953 after Stalin’s death, the budget was finally close to being finished, and it was examined by the Ministry of Construction, which reported “significant architectural and construction extravagances were revealed that significantly increased the cost of construction.” In response, Lavrentiy Beria issued a decree on June 9, 1953 to extend the deadline for the Zaryadye high-rise building cost estimate until November 1, 1953. At the same time, the construction of a ’Stalin high-rise’ just outside the Kremlin walls had already lost the support of both Stalin and his successors, who deemed the project impractical. By the end of 1953, the construction of a high-rise building in the very center of Moscow was suspended and then completely halted.
Construction work on a high-rise building in Zaryadye, 1953
Chechulin’s biographer Anatoly Zhuravlev wrote: “Terminating the construction in Zaryadye was a huge blow to Chechulin and his team of architects and builders who dedicated so much creative effort to the new building. Although Chechulin continued to work on the Zaryadye project, dozens of proposals for buildings of various size, purpose, and style were all rejected.”
