The broad boulevard was choked with every kind of vehicle...great diesel cab-over trucks, old buses with 3 open skylights in place of A/C, modern electric buses clinging desperately to a patchwork of overhead wires, American and Japanese SUVs, big sedans from Eastern and Western Europe, faded, rusting Lada's, Zhugili's and Moskvich's, black or yellow Volga cabs, olive-drab and grey Uaz vans (an unstoppable vehicle in any weather, Dmitri assured us) -- much more variety than any American street. On either side, a wall of interesting buildings, 5, 9 and 12 stories high. For the most part, Constructivist in style: the architecture demanded by Stalin during the first half of the Twentieth Century. As Dimitri explains to us the numbering system used to identify location on the license plates of the cars, I take in the architecture around us. What a different world it would've been, if Stalin had been
just an architect and urban planner, and Hitler had been
just a commercial artist. Alas, history is what it is...
This is the former Intourist Maintenance Garage designed by Melnikov in the late 1920s, certainly a very unusual building. So to this next building...
That is the Izvestia building, newspaper offices built in the late 1920s as well. Another interesting building is this next one...
The former Tank Engine Building built in the early 1920s. Also, interesting is this apartment block from the forties..
It is known as the Narkozem Building. Another one from more-or-less the same era is this: the Gostburg Building...
And this office building from the forties, known as the Mosselprom Building.
For some one like myself, who once wanted to be an architect, Moscow is very exciting indeed.
