Table of contents:
- Large construction site
- Golden symbols of the Kremlin
- To the twentieth anniversary of the Great October
- From "Ilyich's bulb" to thousand-watt monsters
- Empire symbol
Video: From Tsarist Eagles to the Red Stars of the Kremlin: How the Technical Masterpiece of the Stalinist Empire Style Was Created
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The approaching twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution was greeted by the Land of Soviets in a proud awareness of its power. The battles on the fields of the Civil War have long since died down; the White Guards and their masters, the interventionists from 14 imperialist states, have been defeated and thrown out. The Trotskyists have been defeated: the hysterical cries of all kinds of oppositions have long ceased to be heard at party meetings, and their leader, "Judas Trotsky," in impotent rage, pours mud on the USSR. Industrialization and its offspring have been carried out - the mighty Red Army will reliably protect the world's first state of workers and peasants from any enemy.
The workers prepared for the anniversary with enthusiasm. New factories were being prepared for launch, the lights of open-hearth furnaces were lit, ships bearing the names of the heroes of the Revolution were launched, the magnificent buildings of the Palaces of Culture were opened. The Soviet musical classic Prokofiev wrote a cantata for the 20th anniversary of October, and the intertwining sounds of choirs and orchestras floated over the new Moscow - the city of Communist Tomorrow.
The reconstruction has completely transformed the capital. From a merchant, with a predominantly one-story building, it became monumental - fantastic, striving upward towards a brighter future. And through the morning haze in the Moscow sky, the silhouettes of the Kremlin stars were visible.
Large construction site
The first of them were crowned with the spiers of ancient towers back in 1935. Work on the transformation of the ancient capital into a city of the future was in full swing, and the two-headed king's eagles "did not fly into this city." However, the case was entrusted to experts, who issued their conclusion that none of the royal eagles can be ranked as a monument of antiquity and fall under the law on their protection. The newspaper "Pravda" published a message that the eagles on the towers of the Kremlin wall, as well as the Historical Museum, the Council of People's Commissars decided to remove, replacing them in the Kremlin with "a five-pointed star crowned with a hammer and sickle."
The royal symbols were dismantled (later melted down) and the symbols of the workers 'and peasants' state were installed in their place. The design of the first stars was entrusted to TsAGI (Moscow Aerohydrodynamic Institute). The design work was carried out according to the sketches of FF Fedorovsky, the master - the artist of the Bolshoi Theater.
The result of the work was a stainless steel structure sheathed with copper sheets. An overhead hammer and sickle inlaid with Ural gems served as decorative elements. Metropolitan factories and an institute workshop were engaged in manufacturing. All four products were different from each other.
The five-rayed emblem of the Trinity Tower had decorations in the form of ears, Borovitskaya - inscribed one into the other contours, the rays coming from the center rested against the face of the Spasskaya star. And the stars of the Nikolskaya Tower had no pattern at all. After the demonstration, "Muscovites and guests of the capital" had to install new symbols on the Kremlin towers. The Stalprommekhanizatsiya Trust manufactured special cranes and from October 24 to 27, crowds of people watched as industrial climbers raised "semi-precious stars".
Golden symbols of the Kremlin
In addition to the Ural gems, the new symbols were gilded with a thickness of 18 to 20 microns. A gem in a jewelry metal frame was attached to a frame made of bronze and steel. Craftsmen from Moscow and Leningrad worked on their production for more than a month and a half.
Before installation, it was necessary to calculate the wind loads: at a high altitude, the wind force is such that a structure with such a large weight (more than a ton) and windage could bring down dilapidated towers. The brickwork was reinforced and some parts were redone. But on October 27, the last star crowned the Borovitskaya Tower, and Soviet newspapers wrote about the outstanding feat of the working people who created genuine works of art in two months.
To the twentieth anniversary of the Great October
In the damp climate of the capital of the Red Empire, the gold and gems of the stars began to lose their luster. The beams of searchlights, which illuminated communist symbols at night, visually enlarged them, giving the impression of excessiveness and weight. However, the embodiment of the idea itself was too successful. In less than two years, the Kremlin stars have become a real "brand" of the capital of the world proletariat. In May 1937, the country's leadership decided to replace the existing structures with new ones made of special glass.
In order for the rays to have a ruby-red color, which will be visible both day and night from great distances, they were equipped with two types of glasses. Outside, red ruby-selenium, the thickness of which was 10 cm. Inside, at a distance of 3 mm, white, 3 mm thick, was placed. The white glass of the second layer was installed when it turned out that in daylight the Kremlin stars appear black. Subsequently, a three-layer scheme with a thickness of 8 mm was installed: red glass on the outside, white on the inside and with a transparent second layer. Glazing was carried out at the plant in Konstantinovka, under the guidance of the most experienced master N. I. Kurochkin.
From "Ilyich's bulb" to thousand-watt monsters
The light source was only one special incandescent lamp. Manufactured by the Moscow Electric Lamp Plant, it had a capacity of 3,700 to 5,000 watts and a special refractor. It consisted of heat-resistant glass prismatic tiles. Cooling was carried out by fans - otherwise the heated glass could crack. During operation, another difficulty emerged: tungsten was deposited on the top of the lamp. Therefore, the upper beam became darker than the others. Then the engineers installed two metal mirrors on the sides for the desired focus. Also, all the Kremlin stars have an autonomous power supply.
Empire symbol
A characteristic feature of ruby symbols is that they were designed, manufactured and mounted in difficult conditions by Soviet specialists using domestic equipment. Fully. For a country that lay in ruins twenty years ago, this was a tremendous achievement. And such successes could fully confirm the well-known phrase of its harsh leader: "life has become better, it has become more fun, comrades."
BONUS
Everyone who comes to Moscow is of great interest and St. Basil's Cathedral - a pearl of Russian architecture, shrouded in legends.
Recommended:
For which the classic of illustration, who painted "Murzilka" and Soviet posters, was expelled from the technical school
Drawings by Tatyana Eremina are known to every Soviet person who held the Murzilka magazine or the legendary Fashion Magazine in their hands. The posters she drew urged the workers of the home front to work in the name of victory, the illustrations for the fairy tales were accurate and at the same time lyrical … A faithful follower of Deineka, Eremina over the years moved from the posterity of socialist realism to the softness of the graphic language of book graphics - and was remembered as the creator of "those" canon Soviet illustrations
How the creation of the world was represented in Russia: What was created by God and what was created by the Devil
Our world is full of mysteries and secrets. Until now, humanity has not been able to fully explore space, planets and various celestial bodies. Yes, this, perhaps, is not at all possible! And what about people who lived hundreds and thousands of years ago? What legends and fables our ancestors didn’t invent, and what they didn’t believe. It's funny enough these days to read their version of the creation of the world
Stars instead of eagles: How the Bolsheviks changed symbols on the towers of the Moscow Kremlin
The beautiful ruby stars have so harmoniously blended into the appearance of the five ancient Moscow towers that they seem to be their natural continuation. But for many years no less beautiful two-headed eagles have been sitting on the Kremlin towers
The very first skyscraper and the first experience of the Stalinist Empire style in Vladivostok: What is the famous "Gray Horse"
This luxurious house, built in the Stalinist Empire style so unusual for Vladivostok, is at the same time unique, mysterious, monumental, and simply delightful. Unfortunately, not all of us have the opportunity to visit distant Vladivostok, so the house bearing the strange name "The Gray Horse" is not as widely known as, for example, the architectural masterpieces of Moscow or St. Petersburg. But if you are in the Primorsky Territory, be sure to look at it - it's worth it
The underground cave labyrinth of Levon's grandfather, or How a simple villager created a masterpiece in the antique style
When we see ancient temples, pyramids, cave monasteries, fantasy immediately draws pictures of the events of past centuries and makes conjectures. How did the distant ancestors manage to create creations of such beauty and scale? However, if you go down into the cave labyrinth of our contemporary - a resident of an ordinary Armenian village, you won't even have to fantasize. The fact that this person, not possessing special knowledge, but being guided only by his intuition and "a voice from above", created such a masterpiece is in itself