The Red October is a Russian manufacturer of confectionery and the name of the same factory in Moscow. In 1851 the Brandenburg confectioner Theodor Ferdinand von Einem (1826-1876) from Belzig opened up a small pastry shop on the Arbat Street. In the shop “Einem”, chocolate and candy were produced. He employed five staff. In 1857 he met his future business partner, the German businessman Julius Heuss (1832-1907) from Walddorf in the Black Forest. In the same year they jointly opened a pastry shop at the Theater Square in Moscow. read more…
The Moscow Manege is a large oblong building which gives its name to the vast Manege Square, which was cleared in the 1930s and lies adjacent to the more famous Red Square. A manège is an indoor riding academy. read more…
The Seven Sisters are a group of seven skyscrapers in Moscow designed in the Stalinist style. The term “Seven Sisters” is neither used nor understood by the local population, Muscovites call them Vysotki or Stalinskie Vysotki, meaning “(Stalin’s) high-rises” (or “Stalinist skyscrapers”). They were built from 1947 to 1953, in an elaborate combination of Russian Baroque and Gothic styles, and the technology used in building American skyscrapers.
GUM (an abbreviation of the Russian Glavnyi Universalnyi Magazin; literally “main universal store”) is the name of the main department store in many cities of the former Soviet Union, known as State Department Store during the Soviet times. Similarly named stores were found in some Soviet republics and post-Soviet states. The most famous GUM is the large store in the Kitay-gorod part of Moscow facing Red Square, opposite of the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin. It is currently a shopping mall. Prior to the 1920s, the location was known as the Upper Trading Rows. Nearby, also facing Red Square, is a building very similar to GUM, known formerly as the Middle Trading Rows. It is about the same size as a large North American shopping mall. read more…
The Lubyanka is the popular name for the headquarters of the KGB and affiliated prison on Lubyanka Square in Moscow. It is a large Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick designed by Alexander V. Ivanov in 1897 and augmented by Aleksey Shchusev from 1940 to 1947. read more…
The House on the Embankment (Russian: Дом на набережной) is a block-wide apartment house in downtown Moscow, Russia. It faces Bersenevskaya Embankment on one side and Serafimovicha Street on the other side. It was completed in 1931 as the Government Building, a residence of Soviet elite. It was designed by Boris Iofan. read more…
