… It was absolutely impractical to build that glass-and-concrete freak, striking a discordant note with the Kremlin architecture. People were condescendingly explained that “the governing bodies of the party and government” urgently needed a new contemporary building for congresses, forums and other noisy political assemblies. As usual, this was a lie. Did not the Kremlin have any solid and roomy halls before? It did, and as many as one would want. One example is a club hall in the former red commanders’ school building erected on the ruins of Chudov and Ascension monasteries – the future Kremlin Theatre. And how about another hall built on the site of Alexander’s and Andrew’s halls of the Large Kremlin Palace, where all congresses of the “leading and guiding one” had been held prior to 1959? They certainly could not tell the truth, and the truth was that during one of Khrushchev’s visits to Beijing the party boss saw the local “aquarium” for party forums (by the way, it is not placed next door to the Imperial Palace there) and wished to have one not just in Moscow, but inside the Kremlin, in order to leave his own ugly “footprint” on the face of the long-suffering Russian architecture.
The Palace was built in 1959-1961 along the perimeter of the Sovereign’s Back Yard – a women’s half of the tsarist palace that had a long and boisterous history. During the construction of the Palace of Congresses its underground quarters were excavated, investigated and… destroyed. In the XIX century Chevalier (Suitor) buildings of the Imperial Palace were erected along the yard’s perimeter as well as the Armory building designed by well-known Russian architect Ivan Egotov. The building had hosted the Armory Chamber until it was relocated to its contemporary “residence.” Stationed next to that building was Tsar Canon with some trophies from the French War of 1812 exhibited, which was rather symbolic. It is the old Armory building that crowned the composition of the resplendent classic square, its other facades being the Senate and the Arsenal. Both the Chevalier buildings and Armory were urgently brandished as “a decrepit development of little value” – sounds familiar… And a very short time ago, it was established during the digs that one section of the demolished buildings went back to the late XV century…
The construction was supervised by a well-known and “honored” blighter of old Moscow, author of the New Arbat “shark’s denture”, Mikhail Posokhin Senior. Now almost nobody remembers that his project was implemented in a downsized version: thus the original and initially approved (!) by Khrushchev version envisaged a complete demolition of the Kremlin Wall with two towers (Trinity and Borovitskaya) and construction of a very broad ramp in their place – specifically for chic “body transporters”. Some architects tried to protest saying that the building would obstruct the Kremlin view on the western side. “Let them look at it on the other side,” the odious leader replied!
Today “the relay race of times” continues: at the initiative of Posokhin Junior (also quite symbolic) the Kremlin freak has been assigned the status of a new-born architectural monument. Yet the number of people, who hope to see Moscow without New Arbat and State Kremlin Shed, as the Posokhin’s “masterpiece” was dubbed by the actors of Bolshoi Theatre once leasing its stage, keeps growing.
Georgiy Osipov
