Held in the Main Building of Moscow State University, and in addition to the main goal - the report itself (which turned out to be extremely interesting!), I had the goal of photographing panoramas of Moscow from the Museum of Geography on the upper floors of the Main Building.
I will have a separate post about these panoramas, which are head and shoulders above the public views from Vorobyovy Gory. In the meantime, I’ll tell you about the Main Building of Moscow State University. Among other things, there will be views of the Civil War from the inside, including the Rotunda, which not every student or dormitory resident knows about.

And yes, of course I am aware that this is a post from the area “But in Moscow it turns out there is a Kremlin, but in St. Petersburg there is a Hermitage!” But still, I run LJ primarily for my own pleasure, and maybe someone else will be interested in this material.

First, let's look at the Main Building from the north, from the edge of the Sparrow Hills. Alas, the light is backlit, but this is the most effective view of the GB itself:

The main building of Moscow University was built in 1949-53, such iconic architects as B. Iofan, L. Rudnev, S. Chernyshev, P. Abrosimov, A. Khryakov, V. Nasonov worked on it. First of all, GZ is considered to be the work of Rudnev, since Iofan was removed from the post of chief architect during the construction process. The height of the building from the base to the top of the spire is 240 m, it has 36 floors, and the fact was quite widely circulated in the 1990s: this is the tallest building in the world, built by forced labor, since mostly prisoners worked on the construction of the Moscow State University.

Back view:

It seems to me that in architectural terms this is one of the most outstanding masterpieces of Moscow, Russian architecture and world architecture of the twentieth century. At the time of construction, the Moscow State University State Building was the tallest building in the world outside the United States, and in general there are skyscrapers of traditional (not modern) architecture only in the United States and Russia (+ also Soviet high-rise buildings in Riga and Warsaw). The Moscow State University building is only one of 7 “Stalinist sisters” that form a ring around the center of Moscow, but it is the largest, most majestic, and, in my opinion, the most beautiful of the Soviet high-rise buildings.

Side view:

Despite the emergence of new high-rise buildings, Moscow State University remains the most majestic building in Moscow and the dominant feature of the Moscow landscape. After all, it stands on top of the 50-meter Sparrow Hills - the coastal hills of the Moscow River, on one of the highest points of the city, and seems to float above Moscow. This is especially visible in the dark, when the building is brightly illuminated. Back in the early 19th century, they wanted to build the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on this site as a monument to the victory over Napoleon. At that time, technology did not allow the construction of giant buildings on such soils, and yet the idea remained. To be revived after the victory over Hitler, only instead of the Temple of God, the Temple of Science was built.

Previously, the main entrance to the GZ was located from the Vorobyovy Gory side. There is an alley of scientists, starting from Mikhailo Lomonosov:

As you know, Moscow State University was founded in 1755 by Elizaveta Petrovna at the suggestion of Lomonosov and Shuvalov. In general, by European standards, the age is very modest. However, MSU is still the main university in Russia, and has traditionally been one of the leading universities in the world. In recent decades, Moscow State University, like all of our science, has greatly lost ground - but I think this is not forever.
Initially, the university was located on Mokhovaya, right next to the Kremlin, in a baroque building, partly similar to Peter’s chambers - but it has not survived. Some of the buildings of Moscow State University are still located there (including the University Church of St. Tatiana - MSU was founded on Tatiana's day, after which Tatiana became the patroness of Russian students).

Former main entrance:

Triumphal columns on both sides:

The attraction of the Moscow State University is its sculptures, mainly the work of Vera Mukhina (the author of “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” and generally one of the best Soviet sculptors). For example, at the main entrance:

Another attraction is the astronomical clock tower. There are 4 of them in total, but there are only two types of dials on them:

The main building houses the faculties of geology, mathematics and geography, as well as the rector's office on the 8-10 floors. The Faculty of Geology occupies the 17th-22nd floors, and I remember how in the 10th-11th grade I dreamed that I would study there, in the skies above Moscow... Alas, I never entered Moscow State University, which I don’t regret now.
Even higher than the Faculty of Geology is the Museum of Geography in a square tier with a coat of arms:

Design of this tier:

Sculptures:

And on the even higher round tier (31-32 floors) there is the Rotunda - one of the two assembly halls of Moscow State University, less famous and larger than the main hall on the second floor, but more beautiful and elite. We'll get there. Floors 33-36 are technical. The height of the main building without the spire is 182 m; the spire with a star accounts for another 58:

At night, the star sometimes has a rotating spotlight, like a lighthouse. Its beam in the black sky always reminded me of the Eye of Sauron.
Dormitories are attached to the sides of the building (for students of the State University, for graduate students of all faculties, and apartments for professors and teachers), forming courtyards:

The building in the foreground is a checkpoint. The access regime at MSU is draconian; it is no easier for an outsider to enter there than it is to enter a defense plant. Until recently, strangers were generally prohibited from entering the MSU dorms (with the exception of parents, and let’s say, brothers and sisters are no longer formally allowed, but in fact everything was decided with the security guard).

In the community courtyard:

The same arches on the outside are very beautiful bridges between the dorms and the Main building.

I don’t know whether there is an open passage through them, but also through the courtyard to walk from entrance to entrance about 30 meters. The Moscow State University is equipped with shops (not only grocery stores), cafes, a cinema, a swimming pool and much more, and theoretically a student entering the building on September 1 and having settled into the dorm, he may not leave the GC at all until the end of the summer session.

The main entrance is now on the south side. We will enter:

View up straight from the foot:

The famous feature of Moscow State University is its revolving doors. They are at all entrances, this shot was taken on the side entrance leading to the dorm courtyard. A resident of the dormitories and a graduate student are visible at the door ommenysh, known in literary circles:

One of the attractions of the first floor is the Hall of Four Buffets, or Shaiba, very beautifully decorated with granite:

A few more interiors of the first floor - heavy, stone, FUNDAMENTAL:

In general, there are a lot of interesting things inside the GZ, and another post could be made about its interiors. For example, a grandiose assembly hall or fragments of the original Cathedral of Christ the Savior decorating the entrance to the dean’s office. But I didn't go there anymore...
Another attraction of the GZ is the elevators. There are many of them, they are high-speed, and each serves certain floors - that is, the elevators here are full-fledged transport with a route diagram.
The farthest elevator leads to the 28th floor:

This is the Museum of Geography - one of the best natural science museums in Moscow. You can also make a separate post about it, but I didn’t have time to see it this time (although I’ve been there more than once). Panoramas were taken from the window behind the globe, which will be discussed in the next post. An outsider can, alas, only get here with a tour or at least a pass - but it’s difficult to get a pass. Theoretically, not only the listener, but also the speaker can be prevented from attending a report.
There is a separate elevator from the 28th floor, entry to which is also only with permission. He leads to the Rotunda:
Exit to the 31st floor - at the bottom of the Rotunda:

Exit to 32nd is at the top.

There are stern professors sitting here, some reminiscent of Gandalf, some of Saruman (including their position on a high tower), who immediately kicked me out. However, I managed to take a view of the Rotunda from above:

Reverse view:

Dome of the Rotunda:

By the way, theoretically, there is an observation deck at Moscow State University, and photography from there is paid. But I don’t know how and with whom to negotiate.
Thank God, I found out about this only after I had already photographed the views from the museum window. They will be discussed in the next post.

How many pigeons live on the roof of Moscow State University, where the university can accommodate the population of the city of Illokqortoormiut and a dozen more facts about the country's highest university in numbers.

240 meters- the highest point of Moscow State University. The Bahrain World Trade Center and the Main Tower skyscraper in Frankfurt am Main have the same mark.

4 floors- this should have been the maximum height of MSU according to the City Committee of the CPSU, which considered the idea of ​​​​building a skyscraper unrealistic.

33rd floor- the last one that MSU students can access, although there are 35 floors in the building. Only employees and students of the Department of Optics and Spectroscopy have the right to access the top floor.

0 pigeons live on the roof of the main building.

1 peregrine falcon lives on the roof of the main building and feeds on pigeons, which can damage the facade.

3 - such is the number of floors of the “emgeush” star.

12 tons the star on the spire weighs, which is equivalent to the weight of a tank, tractor or the largest elephant weighed by a person.

Photo: Nickolas Titkov

9 meters— the diameter of the clock installed on the main building of Moscow State University. They were once the largest in the world, but now they “tangle” at the end of the dozen and share space with the clock at the railway station of the Swiss town of Aarau.

800 meters— MSU was “moved” to this distance from the cliff of the Lenin Mountains at the project development stage. Chief architect Boris Iofan saw the university building right on the steep slope of the Lenin Mountains, for which he paid the price - he lost his post for excessively risky plans.

3,000 Komsomol Stakhanovites erected the building, according to official information.

14,290 prisoners erected a building, according to unofficial information. The number of prisoners involved in the construction exceeds the population of the Republic of Nauru and the state of Tuvalu.

1 person one of the prisoners, according to legend, was able to escape from the construction site by making a hang glider from a piece of plywood and wire and gliding from the high-rise building under construction to the other side of the Moscow River.

1 assassination attempt Stalin was attacked by an absurd coincidence directly from the Moscow State University building under construction: during the changing of the guard, the guard guarding the prisoners accidentally fired his rifle, and the bullet miraculously flew to the territory of the leader’s dacha.

175,000,000 bricks was spent on the construction of the building.

Photo: Sergey Norin

640 people houses the Palace of Culture of Moscow State University. It could completely accommodate the population of the village of Anoshkino near Voronezh or all the residents of the Greenlandic city of Illokqortoormiut.

By September 1, 1953, on the day of the grand opening of the new building of Moscow State University, on the main sign instead of the name M.V. Lomonosov, the name I.V. should have appeared. Stalin. This was prevented by the death of the leader in March of the same year, after which it was decided to leave everything as before.

9th place Moscow State University ranks on the list of the tallest buildings in Moscow, being the oldest of them. Before the appearance of Triumph Palace in 2005, the main building headed the “high-rise” rating, but over the next 10 years it lost its position significantly.

37 years The main building of the university was listed as the tallest building in Europe, until in the 90s it was “overtaken” by the Frankfurt giants - Messeturm and Commerzbank Tower.

about 0.5 meters the thickness of the steel doors in the basement of the main building, which formerly belonged to the headquarters of the Civil Defense.

10 floors the buildings should survive a direct nuclear strike, according to mathematical modeling.

11 km rail tracks were laid to the construction site of the new building for quick delivery of goods.

4 columns made of solid jasper, which decorated the destroyed Cathedral of Christ the Savior, were installed on the 9th floor of the university by order of Beria.

Photo: ruscow

Alexander Yarovoy

In 1948, employees of the department of the Party Central Committee that oversaw science received an assignment from the Kremlin: to study the issue of constructing a new building for Moscow State University. They prepared the report together with the rector of the University, Academician A.N. Nesmeyanov, proposing to build a high-rise building for the “temple of Soviet science”.

From the Central Committee, the papers migrated to the Moscow authorities. Soon Nesmeyanov and a representative of the “scientific” department of the Central Committee were invited to the city party committee: “Your idea is unrealistic. A high-rise requires too many elevators. Therefore, the building should be no higher than 4 floors.”

A few days later, Stalin held a special meeting on the “university issue”, and the Generalissimo announced his decision: to erect a building for Moscow State University no less than 20 floors high on the top of the Lenin Mountains - so that it could be seen from afar. “...And to provide each student with a separate room in the dormitory! - added the great leader and asked Nesmeyanov: - How many students are you supposed to have? Six thousand? So there must be six thousand rooms!” Here Molotov intervened in the conversation: “Comrade Stalin, students are sociable people. It will be boring for them to live alone. Let them move in at least two at a time!” - “Okay, we’ll leave three thousand rooms!”

The construction of high-rise buildings was a huge step forward towards the industrialization of the domestic construction industry. Moscow high-rise buildings became an experimental base for many technologies that were used for the first time in the USSR and form the basis of modern design and construction practice. High-rise buildings have become very demanding customers for the construction industry. The enormous volume of structures made it possible to implement new and expensive technical improvements, the cost of which was transferred to a unit of usable area of ​​the building without significantly increasing the cost of the latter. This made it easier to master new technology. The construction of high-rise buildings turned out to be an economically progressive factor - its influence went far beyond the framework of the construction of high-rise buildings themselves.

The design of the new university building was prepared by the famous Soviet architect Boris Iofan, who designed the Palace of the Soviets skyscraper. However, a few days before the approval “at the top” of all the architect’s drawings, the architect was removed from this work. The creation of the most grandiose of Stalin's skyscrapers was entrusted to a group of architects headed by L.V. Rudnev.

The reason for such an unexpected replacement is considered to be Iofan’s intransigence. He was going to build the main building right above the cliff of the Lenin Mountains. This exactly corresponded to the wishes of the “father of nations.” But by the fall of 1948, specialist scientists were able to convince the Secretary General that this location of the huge structure was fraught with disaster: the area was dangerous from the point of view of landslides, and the new University would simply slide into the river! Stalin agreed with the need to move the main building of Moscow State University away from the edge of the Lenin Mountains, but Iofan was not at all happy with this option. Object to “the best friend and teacher of Soviet architects”? - Resign immediately!

Lev Rudnev moved the building 800 meters deep into the territory, and at the site chosen by Iofan, he created an observation deck.

In the original draft version, it was planned to crown the high-rise building with a sculpture of impressive size. The character on the sheets of whatman paper was depicted as abstract - a human figure with his head raised to the sky and his arms spread wide to the sides. Apparently, this pose should symbolize a thirst for knowledge. Although the architects, showing the drawings to Stalin, hinted that the sculpture could receive a portrait resemblance to the leader. However, Joseph Vissarionovich ordered the construction of a spire instead of the statue, so that the upper part of the Moscow State University building would be similar to the other six high-rise buildings being built in the capital.

Steel and reinforced concrete frames were used for high-rise buildings. The steel frame, compared to reinforced concrete, was more industrial, but its use entailed a large consumption of steel. When designing eight high-rise buildings in Moscow, designers developed a third solution, intermediate in terms of efficiency and industrialism - a steel frame reinforced with concrete, the so-called reinforced concrete frame with rigid reinforcement.

The frame system made it possible to reduce the role of external walls to just a shell that insulates the interior of the building from external temperature fluctuations. All the building's loads were now transferred to the frame, which was a system of beams and columns that took the weight of the building and transferred it to the foundation. Soviet methods for designing steel frames were based on the works of outstanding Russian engineers N.A. Belelyubsky, P.Ya. Proskuryakov, V.G. Shukhov and others, and later - E.O. Paton, B.G. Galerkin, N. S. Streletsky, who created their own school and rational constructive forms by the beginning of the twentieth century. Electric welding, invented in Russia by engineers N.D. Slavyanov and N.I. Benardos in the 80s of the 19th century, became especially widespread after the October Revolution in various fields of industry, including construction. The successful development of welding made it possible to confidently use welding in the installation of steel structures: the frames of all high-rise buildings in Moscow were not only manufactured, but also completely assembled using welding. The welded structure, first used in the Soviet Union for high-rise construction, had a number of advantages over the existing structure with rivet mounting connections existing in world practice - weight reduction, reduction in the labor intensity of manufacturing elements and reduction in the complexity of installation.

The simplest assembly interfaces between columns and frame crossbars were provided, and the columns were delivered to the construction site with interface elements already welded to them for fastening the crossbars and beams during installation. The ends of the column elements were milled at the factory; when joining such columns, temporary fastening in the form of braces was not required; the joining was done using bolts that were inserted into special “ribs” welded at the ends, which acted as flanges. The conditions for simplifying and facilitating installation required the maximum reduction of mounting elements. For example, during the construction of the building frame on Smolenskaya Square, with a total structure weight of 5,200 tons, the number of installation elements was only 7,900 units. The installation weight of the columns ranged from 5.0t. up to 1.2 t, crossbars from 4.5 t to 0.3 t.

The solemn ceremony of laying the first stone of the high-rise building of Moscow State University took place on April 12, 1949, exactly 12 years before Gagarin’s flight.

Reports from the shock construction site on the Lenin Hills reported that the high-rise building was being erected by 3,000 Komsomol Stakhanovites. However, in reality, many more people had jobs here. At the end of 1948, at the end of 1948, the Ministry of Internal Affairs prepared an order for the conditional early release from the camps of several thousand prisoners who had construction specialties. These lucky ones were to spend the rest of their term on the construction of Moscow State University.

Universal tower crane UBK in construction

In the Gulag system there was “Construction-560”, transformed in 1952 into the Directorate of the ITL of the Special Region (the so-called “Stroylag”), whose contingent was engaged in the construction of the university high-rise building. The head of this “Gulag island” was first Colonel Kharhardin, and after him Colonel Smirnov and Major Arkhangelsky. General Komarovsky, head of the Main Directorate of Industrial Construction Camps, personally supervised the construction. The number of prisoners in “Stroylag” reached 14,290 people. Almost all of them were imprisoned on “domestic” charges; they were afraid to take “political” charges to Moscow. A zone with watchtowers and barbed wire was built a few kilometers from the “object”, near the village of Ramenki, in the area of ​​​​current Michurinsky Avenue.

When the construction of the high-rise building was nearing completion, it was decided to “bring the prisoners’ places of residence and work as close as possible.” The new camp point was installed directly on the 24th and 25th floors of the tower under construction. This solution also made it possible to save on security: there is no need for watchtowers or barbed wire - there’s nowhere to go anyway!

As it turned out, the guards underestimated their sponsored contingent. Among the prisoners there was a craftsman who, in the summer of 1952, built a kind of hang glider out of plywood and wire and... Rumor interprets further events differently. According to one version, he managed to fly to the other side of the Moscow River and disappeared safely. According to another, the guards shot him in the air. There is an option with a happy ending to this story: supposedly the “flyer” was already captured on the ground by security officers, but when Stalin became aware of his action, he personally ordered the brave inventor to be released... It is even possible that there were two winged fugitives. At least that’s what a civilian high-rise builder said, who himself saw two people gliding from the tower on homemade wings. According to him, one of them was shot, and the second flew towards Luzhniki.

Another unusual story is connected with the unique “high-altitude camp zone”. This incident was even considered then an attempt on the life of the leader of the peoples. One fine day, vigilant security, checking the territory of Stalin’s “near dacha” in Kuntsevo, suddenly discovered a rifle bullet on the path. Who shot? When? The commotion was serious. They carried out a ballistic examination and found out that the ill-fated bullet came... from the University under construction. During further investigation, the picture of what happened became clear. During the next change of guard guarding the prisoners, one of the guards, handing over his post, pulled the trigger of a rifle, in the barrel of which there was a live cartridge. A shot rang out. According to the law of meanness, the weapon turned out to be pointed towards a government facility located in the distance, and the bullet still “reached” Stalin’s dacha.

The main building of Moscow State University immediately broke many records. The height of the 36-story high-rise reaches 236 meters. The steel frame of the building required 40 thousand tons of steel. And the construction of walls and parapets took almost 175 million bricks. The spire, so beloved by Stalin, is about 50 meters high, and the star crowning it weighs 12 tons.

On one of the side towers there is a champion clock - the largest in Moscow. The dials are made of stainless steel and have a diameter of 9 meters. The clock hands are also quite impressive. The minute hand, for example, is twice as long as the minute hand of the Kremlin chimes and has a length of 4.1 meters and weighs 39 kilograms.

A unique elevator facility was also created in the high-rise building. Specialists manufactured 111 elevators of a special design, including high-altitude high-speed cabins.

It is very likely that the Main Building of the University holds the record for the number of columns. It is almost impossible to count their number. Some of the columns were placed solely for decoration and do not bear any structural load.

1951 Komsomol cladding workers - students of the school for working youth against the backdrop of the Main building

On the tower of the main building of the university, Komsomol installer Ivan Kleshchev calls a crane by phone.

Electric welder E. Martynov on the thirty-fourth floor of the main building of the university.

The barrel of a UBK-3-49 tower crane, preserved to this day in the attic of one of the Moscow high-rise buildings

Joseph Vissarionovich did not live to see this event for seven months. The high-rise building of the “temple of science”, erected on his initiative, was inaugurated on September 1, 1953. If he had lived a little longer, Moscow State University would have become, instead of “named after M.V. Lomonosov" - "named after I.V. Stalin." Plans for such a renaming were already quite realistic. The change from Vasilyevich to Vissarionovich was going to be timed just in time for the commissioning of the new building on the Lenin Hills. But the Generalissimo died, and the project remained unfulfilled. But in the winter of ’53, even the letters for the new name of the university were ready. Their installation has already been marked over the cornice of the main entrance to a high-rise building.

1956
Few people know, but the territory of Moscow State University should have been twice as large as it is today. The area behind Lomonosovsky Avenue, bounded by Vernadsky Avenue and Michurinsky Avenue, right up to modern Udaltsov Street, should be part of Moscow State University. The territory is huge! Already in the 21st century, Inteko built the Moscow State University library on this territory on Lomonosovsky Prospect opposite Moscow State University, and before that it built the Shuvalovsky residential complex on the corner of Michurinsky and Lomonosovsky.

The most interesting detail in the history of the construction of Moscow high-rise buildings is that over the time from the moment of their foundation until its completion, the estimated number of floors and purpose of the buildings changed.

If you believe the articles in the newspaper “Soviet Art” dated February 28, 1948, it was planned to build the largest building with 32 floors on the Lenin Hills in the center of the bend of the Moscow River and locate a hotel and residential apartments in the building. We are not talking about any university here.

In the original plans for the building, it was planned to install a statue of Lomonosov instead of a spire, similar to the Palace of the Soviets. The figure could have been 35-40 meters high, but this would have given the building the appearance of a giant pedestal for a small sculpture. Therefore, they removed it from above, reduced it in size, changed its position and placed it near the fountains, where today's students usually celebrate the end of the session. And the building, which received a spire 58 meters high in return, only won.

Such a grandiose construction could not help but acquire many tales and myths. A.N. Feshenkov, a former graduate of Moscow State University and, as he himself writes, an inquisitive student, cites some of these tales in his article.
The MSU building has 34 floors plus a spire and, reliably, 3 basements down. 29th floor – Museum of Geography of Moscow State University, from there there is an elevator to the 32nd floor. The 30th and 31st floors are technical. The round meeting room is on the 32nd floor. The 33rd floor is a gallery under a dome, and the last floor, 34th, is again technical. There is an entrance to the spire. What's inside the spire?
One of the tales says that in Soviet times the premises there belonged to the KGB and were used for external surveillance of the movements of high-ranking officials, and that Stalin’s dacha was apparently visible from there.

Another story is this: on one of the basement floors from –3rd to –16th (depending on the narrator’s imagination), there lies a 5-meter bronze statue of Stalin, which should have stood in front of the entrance to the Main Building (GZ). But in connection with the 53rd year, this statue was left in the basement of the still unfinished GZ, and so it lies there, walled up.
What is certainly a story is that the GZ was built by prisoners. This is fundamentally wrong. This is confirmed by witnesses. Would such a responsible construction of a strategic facility, supervised personally by L.P. Beria, be entrusted to prisoners, traitors to the Motherland, who have never built anything more complex than the White Sea Canal? The GZ was built exclusively by the labor of German prisoners of war. The story about a prisoner who flew off a spire on a piece of plywood in Ramenki and (or) fished out of the Moscow River by the NKVD came from an article published in Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1989.

Perhaps the most famous story about the construction of Moscow State University, which is passed on from article to article. Its essence is as follows. When they planned the construction of the Temple in honor of the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, there were several projects, one of them was to build a temple on the Sparrow Hills. Construction has not started because the soil here is very weak and cannot support a large building. But what the tsarist architects could not do, Stalin’s did. They dug a huge foundation, filled it with liquid nitrogen, then installed refrigeration units in what later became known as the 3rd basement. This zone has been given super-secret status, since in the event of possible sabotage and failure of the freezers, the GZ will float into the Moscow River in a week. It must be said that this story has been refuted in various sources. Firstly, because of the high cost and unreliability of the method of freezing soil with liquid nitrogen. Secondly, make the integrity of MSU dependent on the supply of electricity? It is much easier and cheaper to freeze everything using pipes containing a strong saline solution at sub-zero temperatures.

The University has something else in common with the Cathedral of Christ the Savior besides the unrealized project on the Lenin Hills. The malachite columns, removed during the destruction of the temple, lay in the NKVD warehouse for many years, and then L.P. Beria donated them to his brainchild. Columns decorate the rector's office. It is said that this is not the only detail of the temple inherited by the Temple of Science.

In one of the basement rooms, littered with gas masks and dosimeters, in 1989 A.N. Feshenkov saw a map screwed to the wall under plexiglass - this map was later published in the AiF newspaper - and on it, among other things, two lines of Metro-2 were depicted, underground car tunnels, including those duplicating the Garden Ring. I remember the exit on Michurinsky Prospekt, the grandiose highway exiting near the Belorussky railway station and also the highway, which was built later by the State Plant, all the way to the White House.

One of the secrets of the dungeons was recently declassified - the metro line, the so-called Metro-2, from the Kremlin to Vnukovo Airport. The Metro-2 line runs directly under the GZ, one of the entrances there is through the checkpoint of zone “B”. This branch leads to the underground city in the Ramenok area.

Another legend is that when the GZ was designed, it was designed as a backup television center if Shabolovka failed in the event of war (the Ostankino tower was not even in sight at that time).

Moscow State University 1950s

Moscow State University 1950s

Moscow State University 1950s

VIRTUAL FLIGHT AROUND MSU

And here - http://raskalov-vit.livejournal.com/127004.html you can read and look at the guys who climbed the spire of the building. Wow, brave souls... sources
http://retrofonoteka.ru
http://my-ramenki.narod.ru/int-msu.html
http://www.mmforce.net/msu/story/story/1520/ — Alexander Dobrovolsky
http://aramis.dreamwidth.org
Photos of Granovsky

If you remember the architecture of the USSR, then I would like to remind you , and The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -

In Moscow, on April 26 (May 7), 1755, the first university in our country opened, or more precisely, on that day a part of the university opened - a gymnasium, but less than three months passed before classes began at the university itself.

The opening of the university was solemn. The only newspaper in Russia at that time said that on that day about 4 thousand guests visited the university building on Red Square, music thundered all day, illumination glowed, “there were countless people, throughout the whole day, even until the fourth hour of midnight.”


The Apothecary House, located next to Red Square at the Kuryatny (now Resurrection) Gate, was chosen as the building for Moscow University. It was built at the end of the 17th century. and its design resembled the famous Sukharev Tower. The decree on the transfer of the Apothecary House to the opening Moscow University was signed by Empress Elizabeth on August 8, 1754.

The first building of Moscow University (now Moscow State University) was located in the building of the Main Pharmacy (former Zemsky Prikaz) on the site of the State Historical Museum on Red Square (Voskresenskie Vorota proezd, 1/2). The university was located in this building from April 1755 (opening) until it moved to a new building on Mokhovaya Street in 1793.

In this house, rebuilt as an educational institution, on April 26, 1755, the official opening took place—the “inauguration,” as they said then—of the gymnasium of the Imperial Moscow University, and with it the university itself.

The educational institution was opened on the basis of the personal decree “On the establishment of Moscow University and two gymnasiums” issued by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna on January 24, 1755. Attached to this act was the “Project for the Establishment of Moscow University,” which provided for the creation of three faculties at the university: law, medicine and philosophy.

In accordance with § 22 of the “Project on the Establishment of Moscow University,” training in all its faculties was to last three years. Enrollment as a university student in accordance with § 23 was made based on the results of an exam, during which those who wished to study at the university had to show that they were “capable of listening to professorial lectures.”


All those entering the university initially studied for three years at the Faculty of Philosophy, studying the humanities1, as well as mathematics and other exact sciences. After three years, they could either remain at the same faculty for in-depth study of one of the subjects, or move to the medical and law faculties, where training continued for another four years. At the Faculty of Medicine they studied not only medicine, but also chemistry, botany, zoology, agronomy, mineralogy and other natural sciences.

In September-October 1755, the number of government-funded students was increased to thirty people. The first recruitment was completed: Moscow University began to operate. However, neither the law nor the medical faculties were yet identified as independent departments of the university at that time.

Lomonosov decided to act through the empress’s favorite Ivan Shuvalov, a young empty dandy who pretended to be the patron of science and art. Shuvalov supported his proposal, but at the same time took credit for the founder of the university, “the inventor of that useful thing.” In addition, Shuvalov introduced a number of changes to the Lomonosov project that worsened and crippled it.

Lomonosov was not mentioned either in official documents or during the opening of the university. But it was not possible to hide the truth about Lomonosov’s great merit. Pushkin also said that Lomonosov, who “himself was our first university,” “created the first Russian university.” In our Soviet times, the government named Moscow University after its founder.

From the very beginning, the building of the Main Pharmacy, with great difficulty, satisfied all the needs of the university: here, in addition to lecture halls, there were classrooms of the university gymnasium, a library and a mineralogical office, a chemical laboratory, a printing house with a bookshop. Therefore, already from the 1760s. Some of the educational premises are being transferred to newly acquired houses on Mokhovaya Street. The final move of the university to Mokhovaya took place at the end of the 18th century.

The first university building, having lost its inhabitants, gradually deteriorated (in the photograph we see its condition in the middle of the 19th century) and was dismantled in connection with the construction of the Historical Museum. A memorial plaque in its wall now testifies to the Moscow University that once opened on this site.