The Palace of the Soviets

Take what metaphors and allegories you will from this famous failure.

The Palace of the Soviets (Russian: Дворец Советов, Dvorets Sovetov) was a project to construct a political convention center in Moscow on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The main function of the palace was to house sessions of the Supreme Soviet in its 130-metre (430 ft) wide and 100-metre (330 ft) tall grand hall seating over 20,000 people. If built, the 416-metre (1,365 ft) tall palace would have become the world's tallest structure, with an internal volume surpassing the combined volumes of the six tallest American skyscrapers.[10]

The music on this video is annoying--hit MUTE--but otherwise it's well done.

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Comments

I am jumping the gun here, but isn't this the place where the Orthodox Church recently rebuilt the cathedral that once stood on the same ground?

Posted by KDP on 04/15/22 at 12:10 PM

Too bad they didn't put that giant statue of Lenin way up there. It would have been great to see it come crashing down.

Posted by Virtual in Carnate on 04/15/22 at 02:36 PM

Hmm, yeah. Now compare this to London's Shard, or to Rome's Vittorio Emanuele... Bigger in scope, sure, but in worse taste? Nah.

Posted by Richard Bos on 04/16/22 at 11:20 AM

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