The Home of the Last Tsar - Romanov and Russian History

Bob Atchison - The Alexander Palace Time Machine Blog

The Moscow Skyscraper

Last night I watched a documentary on Sundance called The Moscow Skyscraper. Here's what Sundance has to say about it:

Documentary filmmaker Pavel Lounguine casts a critical eye on Russian society and history by focusing on the story of a monumental apartment building designed to house Stalin’s KBG officers and the Moscow elite. Built by prisoners of war and Gulag detainees, the massive neo-gothic high-rise still houses descendants of Stalin’s inner circle, who now prize their prime Moscow real estate. Focusing on the skyscraper’s current inhabitants, Louguine paints an ironic and revealing profile of a country still riven by the dark shadows of its past.

It doesn't look like Sundance is going to rebroadcast this film anytime soon but you can see a clip of the film on the Sundance site.

The filmmaker points out how Soviet citizens under Stalin lived in a constant state of both fear and exhilaration and how buildings like the great Stalinist towers ringing Moscow caused great pride and fear at the same time. I was struck by a visual and psychological similarity to the tripods in Speilberg's War of the Worlds, which both mesmerized and terrorised the helpless victim-cities they attacked.

About Bob Atchison

Bob Atchison
Bob Atchison has had a life-long fascination with the Alexander Palace, which began when he was a child. He was the first American to visit the palace officially since 1941 and was instrumental in its reestablishment as a museum. Bob was the protege of Anatoli Kuchumov, former curator of the Palace before the war, and he created this website in 1996.

Image Gallery of Mosaics in Hagia Sophia

Here's s page of wonderful images of the great mosaic icon of Christ in the upper gallery of Hagia Sophia - otherwise known as Saint Sophia.

Hagia Sophia - the Church of Holy Wisdom

Learn about the history and discover the mosaics of this monument of world architecture

Jewels of the Romanovs
Memories of Aleksei Volkov
Lost Splendor by Felix Yussupov