Moscow State University
Soaring Stalinist skyscraper crowned by a star-topped spire, built by thousands of Gulag laborers on a hilltop campus.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Moscow State University's Stalinist tower follows the Gulag prisoners who built it in the early 1950s, thousands of them housed in a camp on the building's own twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth floors to save on guards. Among them, the guide follows one craftsman said to have spent months secretly assembling a glider from plywood and wire in the summer of 1952. Listen for the scale of the build itself: over forty thousand tons of steel raised on a hilltop above the Moscow River.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building
Stepped Stalinist-Gothic tower crowned by a spire, built by prison-camp labor and later home to Soviet cultural stars.
Tverskaya Street
Broad Stalin-era boulevard lined with buildings once rolled back on rails to widen the road.
All-Russian Exhibition Center
Sprawling Soviet-era exhibition park of gilded pavilions, grand fountains, and triumphal arches.
Vorob'yevy gory
Riverside hill and viewpoint crowned by a soaring Stalin-era university tower and a teenage revolutionary's oath.
Komsomolskaya
Domed underground hall of gilded mosaics honoring historic Russian military commanders.
Novoslobodskaya
Metro hall lit by thirty-two glowing stained-glass panels made from repurposed cathedral glass.