Moscow Soviet Tour – Back to the USSR

  • duration: 4 hours
  • price: 55 €
  • order: Book
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For more than 70 years Moscow was the capital of the USSR. The streets of the city are full of traces of the communist regime. We invite you to explore secret pages of the Soviet history from the Great October Revolution to Perestroika, from Lenin to Gorbachev and Eltsin. You will be impressed with Stalin’s architecture (Empire Style) and get acquainted with life of Russians pre and post Iron Curtain.

What You Will See

You will enjoy Moscow High-Rise Buildings. From the second half of the 1930s to 1950s a great number of buildings that can be boast perfect artistic quality were constructed in Moscow.

These Moscow landmarks, nicknamed the Seven Sisters or Stalin’s skyscrapers were built from 1947-1953 imitating the construction technology of American skyscrapers.

At that time the architects were eager to create ensembles that would be in harmony with their elevated, triumphant mood and represent the ideals of the epoch. They were deliberate in using sumptuous, imposing forms. Such ensembles appeared in Tverskaya Street and part of Kutuzovsky Prospect such as Administration office and dwelling house near Krasnye Vorota, Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Smolenskaya Square, main building of Moscow University on Vorobyovy Hills.

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You will see headquarters of the KGB also known as Lubyanka and Lubyanka Square.

This place was the epicenter of political repression under Joseph Stalin. Your guide will tell you the story of the GULAG concentration camps and the Solovetsky stone located on the Square.

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VDNKh Park – a small island of the USSR Eepoch

The present-day Exhibition Complex has been created on the basis of the former Exhibition of National Economic Achievements (VDNKh) opened in 1959. Its pavilions are typical examples of The Soviet architecture from the 1930s to 1950s. Eminent architects of the period V.Shchuko, V. Gelfreich and others participated in the project. The friendship of the People and Stone Flower fountains are located in the central alley.

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The well-known monument by V. Mukhina, once expressing the soviet ideal, the Worker and Collective-farm Woman, stands at the entrance.

New Arbat. The White House

The New Arbat Prospect between Arbat Square and Sadovoye (Garden) Ring is another sight of Moscow. The project worked out by a team of architects was awarded the Grand Prix by the Paris Centre of Architectural Research in 1966. The super modern style of this driveway is made up by the geometrical regularity of its lines and the obvious repetitions and sharp contrasts of the forms.

The verticals of the twenty-six-story tower-shaped blocks rhythmically alternate with the lower, somewhat flattened, rectangular buildings that house cafes, bars, restaurants and shops.

The White House constructed during USSR times is a government building in Moscow. It is famous for the attempted coup of August 1991 which failed in spite of the Boris Yeltsin’s speech from the top of a Soviet tank.

In 1993 the White House was attacked again successfully when the Supreme Counsel of the USSR was besieged there trying to block the attempts of newly made democrats to arrange the collapse of the USSR. There was a fire in the building during the storm but today nothing remind on those dark days. The windows and marble exterior of the White House gleam in the sunlight attracting people all over the world to get acquainted with Moscow and Russians.

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The light-colored twenty-story building that rises above Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment is known as the White house, as it is the seat of Russia’s government. Its design is rather peculiar. The building consists of two parts. Above the lower seven-story part with the side-wings there rises the narrower and taller part crowned by a small tower with a clock and the Russian federation flag.

A broad staircase leads up to the entrance, in front of which there is a wide square.

You will pass by the Metropol hotel which was the scene of fierce fighting between Czar forces and the Bolsheviks, seeing the Cosmos Hotel - the largest hotel in Russia, that was built for the participants of the 1980 Olympic Games.

Moscow Soviet Tour lasts 4 hours and during the tour you will

  • get acquainted with the real life of Russians under the watchful eye of the KGB
  • walk along Tverskaya Street listening about Stalin, Gorbachev, Eltsin and the collapse of the USSR
  • pass by numerous places connected with Stalin’s terror, like the KGB Building
  • see the famous White House which was the epicenter of struggle between communists (The Supreme Council) and newly-made democrats during the collapse of USSR in 1990s and learn what really happened to the country.

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