Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Stalin Towers


Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin's death and the fall of communism, holds a great presence in Moscow's architectural history. After the end of WWII he declared that the skyline of Moscow was very small and lacked the beauty that he saw in the city. As a result, he commissioned the building of 7 skyscrapers to be built to rival those in the United States. To distinguish these towers apart from those in the States, he said that every tower should have a golden spire. While there have been several skyscrapers built since then, the 7 towers (or 7 Sisters as they are called) still highlight the Moscow skyline. Today the 7 Sisters are the location of the following sites:
1) Moscow State University
2) Ministry of Foreign Affairs
3) Ministry of Transport
4) Hotel Ukraina
5) Hotel Leningradskaya
6) Kudrinskaya Square
7) Kotelnicheskaya Embankment

The hotel we are staying in is the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya (#5 in the list above - see picture taken on Sunday).

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