In Moscow, on April 26 (May 7), 1755, the first university in our country was opened, more precisely, on that day a part of the university, the gymnasium, was opened, but less than three months had 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 about 4,000 guests visited the university building on Red Square that day, music blared all day, illuminations blazed, “there were an uncountable number of people, through the whole day, even until four in the morning.”


The Apothecary House was chosen as the building for Moscow University, located next to Red Square at the Kuryatnye (now Resurrection) Gates. It was built at the end of the 17th century. and resembled in its design the famous Sukharev tower. On August 8, 1754, the Empress Elizabeth signed the decree on the transfer of the Apothecary House to the Moscow University, which was being opened.

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 (Voskresensky Gates, 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 - "inauguration", as they said then - of the gymnasium of the Imperial Moscow University, and with it the university itself, took place.

The educational institution was opened on the basis of a nominal decree issued by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna on January 24, 1755 "On the establishment of Moscow University and two gymnasiums." Attached to this act was the "Project on the Establishment of Moscow University", which provided for the creation of three faculties at the university: legal, medical and philosophical.

In accordance with § 22 of the "Project for the Establishment of the Moscow University", training at all its faculties was to last three years. Admission to university students according to § 23 was carried out according to the results of an examination, during which those who wished to study at the university had to show that they were "capable of listening to professorial lectures."


All applicants to 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 stay at the same faculty for an in-depth study of one of the subjects, or move to the medical and law faculties, where the 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 state students was increased to thirty people. The first enrollment was completed on this: Moscow University began to operate. However, neither the law nor the medical faculties at that time were yet distinguished as independent departments of the university.

Lomonosov decided to act through the favorite of the Empress, Ivan Shuvalov, a young empty dandy who played the patron of science and art. Shuvalov supported his proposal, but at the same time arrogated to himself the fame of the founder of the university, "the inventor of that useful thing." In addition, Shuvalov made 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 the great merit of Lomonosov. 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 met with great difficulty all the needs of the university: in addition to lecture halls, there were classrooms of the university gymnasium, a library and a mineralogical room, a chemical laboratory, a printing house with a bookstore. Therefore, since the 1760s. part of the classrooms are being transferred to newly acquired houses on Mokhovaya Street. The final relocation of the university to Mokhovaya took place at the end of the 18th century.

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

The main building of Moscow State University was not so long ago the tallest in Moscow; the height, together with the spire and the star, reaches 235 meters. It is one of the seven Stalin skyscrapers in Moscow. The main building of Moscow State University, or as it is sometimes called the high-rise of Moscow State University, occupies the highest geographical point above the Moscow River and to this day retains the value of one of the largest verticals of the capital.

It was the construction of a high-rise building on the Sparrow Hills that gave a powerful impetus to the development of the south-west of Moscow. Together with the Main building of the Stalin skyscraper, other buildings, alleys and parks, avenues and streets of the adjacent areas of Moscow were designed and built.

Initially, the Main Building of Moscow State University was designed by B. Iofan, who was the architect of the Palace of Soviets. According to the town-planning plan, it was supposed to orient all eight skyscrapers of Moscow exactly at the Palace of Soviets.

B. Iofan, using the same methods as when designing the Palace of Soviets, planned to place a sculpture of Mikhail Lomonosov on the roof of the skyscraper, and the skyscraper itself on the very edge of the Sparrow Hills. Joseph Stalin did not agree with such a project, and B. Iofan was suspended from work on the project a couple of days before the completion of the last drawings.

The architectural project that met all the insistence of I. Stalin was developed by L. Rudnev. The new team of architects was able to erect the Main Building of Moscow State University within the original deadline.

Experimental verification

L. Rudnev in his project provided that the Main Building of Moscow State University would be located 300 meters further from the edge of the slope descending to the Moscow River. The complexity of the situation lay in the fact that none of the architects, including L. Rudnev himself, could be sure that the Main Building of Moscow State University would not be lost behind the trees and the last floors of other houses.

It was decided to test everything experimentally. Aerostats left over from the time of Moscow's air defense during the Great Patriotic War were raised into the air over the Sparrow Hills.

Each of the balloons was raised to the appropriate height: 240 meters to indicate the height of the central volume of the building, the rest to indicate the 9 and 18-storey buildings. Architects and photographers, being in various parts of Moscow, recorded the visibility of balloons. And so it was proved that the silhouette of the Main Building of Moscow State University will be visible from afar from various points in Moscow.

In 1953, the State Construction Commission accepted the building of Moscow State University and the campus, which included a botanical garden, several dozen ponds for breeding selective fish varieties, 2 sports complexes with swimming pools and many administrative and technical buildings.

The Soviet press wrote that the Main Building of Moscow State University was built by the hands of 3 thousand young Komsomol members - participants in the Stakhanov movement. In fact, much more people worked on the construction of a skyscraper.

In connection with the work on the construction of the Main Building of Moscow State University in the late 40s, a decision was signed in the bowels of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR on the parole of more than 4 thousand convicts related to construction specialties. They worked on the construction of a skyscraper on Sparrow Hills until the end of the term, and sometimes longer.

During the years of completion of construction work, it was decided, in order to save money and time, to move the places for the prisoners' housing directly to the construction site. The new camp site was located on the 24th and 25th floors of the Main Building of Moscow State University under construction. This action was also justified from the point of view of security: prisoners placed at a height of more than 120 meters did not require protection, they had nowhere to run physically.

However, one day an emergency occurred at the construction site, connected with the disappearance of 2 prisoners. After the shift, the guards did not count them. Clearly realizing that the fact of the escape of the prisoners would cost many posts, and for some even freedom, all the guards were raised to their feet in alarm.

For several hours, the fugitives were searched until they were found in a glass star. As it turned out, they did not hear the end signal and continued to work, according to another version, they just played cards.

Sparrow Hills

Sparrow Hills became a stronghold of learning at the end of the 17th century, when the first school in Russia was opened in the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery on Sparrow Hills, where it became possible to study Slavic and Greek languages. In the future, this school turned into the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy - the predecessor of Moscow State University.

Sparrow Hills has long attracted interest from the authorities. Starting from the 17th century, one of the royal palaces stood on Sparrow Hills. And later, in the 19th century, the territory of the Sparrow Hills was allocated for the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior according to the original project, the architect of which was A. Vitberg.

Work began in 1823, but was stopped due to the peculiarities of the soil - a landslide slope with an extensive network of springs. And the second problem was the impossibility of delivering the stone because of the extremely low level of the Moskva River in this area.

Just like B. Iofan, architect A. Vitberg was removed from construction, accused of embezzlement and exiled to Vyatka. The territory in the Volkhonka area next to the Kremlin was chosen as a new site for the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

The temple was built according to the project of the new architect K. Ton for almost 40 years. But in less than half a century, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was destroyed by an explosion to build the Palace of Soviets in its place according to the project of the same B. Iofan. Again, the project never materialised.

Expansion of Moscow State University. Lomonosov

Initially, the Main Building of Moscow State University on Sparrow Hills was conceived as a hotel. However, in the late 40s, I. Stalin considered that in the country that defeated the Nazi army, the level of science was very low, new scientific research was not carried out, and scientists were trying to primitively copy Western developments.

Doubting the strength of the leadership of Moscow University, Joseph Stalin proposed to make two universities from one university: in one to collect natural science faculties (physics, chemistry, physico-technical, biological, mathematical and soil-geographical faculties), and in the second - faculties of public (social sciences). ) Sciences (historical, legal, philological, and philosophical faculties). In the old building of Moscow State University, to carry out a major overhaul and leave it to the social sciences, and to build new buildings for the natural sciences.

Ideas to expand Moscow University existed before. In the 18th century, the university management turned to Catherine II with a request to allocate funds and a plot of land for the construction of new premises for the university on Sparrow Hills.

Unfortunately, the expansion of Moscow University took place much later, and in the old building on Mokhovaya Street near the Kremlin, Moscow State University met Napoleon, the October Revolution and survived the years of the Great Patriotic War.

Projects for the construction of new university buildings have been prepared and discussed since the mid-1930s. At first, it was supposed to locate new buildings on Hertsin and Gorky Street. In the future, a plan arose to build on the existing building up to 3-4 floors.

Proposals were put forward to choose a site in the area of ​​Kaluzhskaya Square, since it was planned to build a metro there. For a long time, the position about the need to keep Moscow State University in the center of the capital, as the cultural and educational center of the country, prevailed. This is how the skyscraper on Sparrow Hills became a symbol of the new Soviet students in Moscow.

The main building of Moscow State University today

Now on the 34 floors of the building there are classrooms, an assembly hall, administration, a museum, a library, student dormitories, apartments for teaching staff, as well as a cinema, post office, shop, laundry, gym, etc. The skyscraper was conceived as a closed communal system. Students and teachers had the opportunity not to leave the walls of the palace of science during the entire academic year.

Today on the territory of Moscow State University there is a botanical garden with a beautiful arboretum, where excursions are held from May to October, the Palace of Pioneers of Moscow State University, the Museum of Earth Science of Moscow State University. Unique museum exhibits are collected in the Main Building of Moscow State University.

The Museum of Geography of Moscow State University occupies the 29th and 32nd floors of the Main Building. The 30th and 31st floors of the skyscraper are occupied by technical rooms. The 33rd floor under the dome occupies a large meeting room.

On the 34th technical floor there is a door leading to the spire, in which, according to some information, there was one of the operational posts of the KGB to monitor the situation in the center of the capital, including the routes of movement of top officials of the state.

In view of the hasty alteration of the architectural plan by B. Iofan himself, miscalculations in the design and construction could not be avoided. Fountains on the square in front of the main entrance to the building appeared in connection with the need for a ventilation system, which the builders and architects simply forgot about.

Fountains and flowerbeds mask the huge air intakes, and the tunnels below them leading to air purification plants. By the way, through these tunnels you can quietly go around all the buildings of the complex, and look into the dining room or audience.

According to rumors, during the construction and decoration of the Main Building of Moscow State University, materials collected from the ruins of the German Reichstag were used, in particular, pink marble and unusually dark granite are often mentioned. It is only known for certain that captured German ventilation mechanisms are used in the ventilation system, and surprisingly, many of them still work fine.

The spire and star of the skyscraper on Sparrow Hills have been sparkling with gold for more than sixty years. Only now there is no gold and never was. The gold coating is very impractical, under the influence of atmospheric phenomena it will quickly become unusable, and therefore, in the construction of the spire and star, yellow glass plates were used, on the inner surface of which a thin layer of pure aluminum was applied.

Botanical Garden of Moscow State University, Pharmaceutical Garden

The Apothecary Garden of the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University has a long history. Long before the construction of the complex of buildings of Moscow State University, including the agrobotanical garden, the first Apothecary garden in Russia was created in Moscow.

At the direction of Peter I, at the beginning of the 18th century, behind the Sukhorevskaya Tower, by then standards, the very outskirts of Moscow, an apothecary garden was planted, in which medicinal plants were grown. Cultivated plants were used both for the preparation of medicinal formulations and for teaching botany to future doctors, chemists and gardeners.

The pharmacy garden has gone through difficult times. It was almost completely burned down in 1812, plundered in 1918. And until the 50s of the 20th century it was abandoned and packed. The revival of the garden was associated with the opening of the Prospect Mira metro station, which was then called the Botanical Garden. And in 1953, the Pharmaceutical Garden became a branch of the newly erected Agrobotanical Garden of Moscow State University.

The restored and greatly enlarged collection of rare plants was divided between the sites. Developing the new territory of the Botanical Garden on Sparrow Hills, the management of Moscow State University encouraged expeditions of biologists who brought unique seeds and plants from different parts of the USSR.

Model houses at Moscow State University

In the depths of the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University, you can find an amazing, almost toy-like structure. A small one-story building, which now houses the Botanical Garden division, gives the impression of an architectural misunderstanding.

The wall of the building is made of cladding panels of the Main Building of Moscow State University. It seems that for the construction of this small structure they used building materials left over from the construction of the university building.

However, no - this is not the result of the most severe savings in building materials. This small building is one of two model houses of Moscow State University, used to demonstrate architectural solutions. The same materials were used on the model as on the facade of the Main Task of Moscow State University, including the granite lining of the plinth.

At the construction site of Moscow State University, not only the model of the exterior decoration of the Main Building was presented, but also models of rooms for students and professors. According to the project, students were supposed to live alone, but at a meeting in the Kremlin it was decided to place students in two in a room, since single living would have a bad effect on the formation of the personality of young Komsomol members.

The apartments for professors consisted of three rooms: a large corridor, a bathroom and a kitchen. There was even a small room for servants, in which only a small table and chair could fit. A full-size balcony was even made in the model house.

After the completion of work on the Main Building of the University, the department of flora of the Botanical Garden was located in the model house. Despite the past years, all the premises of the Main Building of Moscow State University have retained their nobility and solidity.

January 30th, 2013

In 1948, employees of the department of the Central Committee of the Party, which oversaw science, received a task from the Kremlin: to work out the issue of building a new building for Moscow State University. They prepared a memorandum together with the Rector of the University - Academician A.N. Nesmeyanov, proposing to build a skyscraper for the "temple of Soviet science".

Papers migrated from the Central Committee to the Moscow authorities. Soon Nesmeyanov and a representative of the “scientific” department of the Central Committee were invited to the city committee of the party: “Your idea is unrealistic. Too many elevators for a high-rise building. Therefore, the building should not be 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 with a height of at least 20 floors on top of the Lenin Hills - so that it could be seen from afar. “... And to provide each student with a separate room in the hostel! - added the great leader and clarified with 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. They will be bored living alone. Let at least two settle down! - “Okay, we leave three thousand rooms!”

The construction of high-rise buildings was a huge step forward in the industrialization of the domestic construction industry. Moscow high-rise buildings have become 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 buildings made it possible to implement new and expensive technical improvements, the cost of which was shifted to a unit of usable area of ​​the building without a significant increase in the cost of the latter. This made it easier to learn new technology. The construction of high-rise buildings has proved to be an economically progressive factor - its influence has gone far beyond 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 skyscraper of the Palace of Soviets. However, a few days before the approval "at the top" of all the drawings of the architect, this work was removed. The creation of the most grandiose of the Stalinist skyscrapers was entrusted to a group of architects headed by L.V. Rudnev.

Iofan's intransigence is considered the reason for such an unexpected replacement. He was going to build the main building right over the cliff of the Lenin Hills. This exactly corresponded to the wishes of the "father of nations". But by the autumn of 1948, specialist scientists managed to convince the Secretary General that such an arrangement of a huge structure is fraught with disaster: the area is dangerous from the point of view of landslides, and the new University will 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 Hills, but Iofan did not like this option at all. Object to "the best friend and teacher of Soviet architects"? - Resign now!

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

In the original draft version, it was supposed to crown the skyscraper with a sculpture of impressive size. The character on the sheets of drawing paper was depicted as an abstract figure - a figure of a man with his head raised to the sky and his arms spread wide to the sides. Apparently, such a pose should symbolize the craving for knowledge. Although the architects, showing the drawings to Stalin, hinted that the sculpture could get a portrait resemblance to the leader. However, Iosif Vissarionovich ordered to build a spire instead of the statue, so that the upper part of the Moscow State University building would look like the other six skyscrapers being built in the capital.

For high-rise buildings, steel and reinforced concrete frames were used. 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, the 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 the outer walls to only a shell that isolates the interior of the building from external temperature fluctuations. All loads of the building were now transferred to the frame, which is a system of beams and columns that took the weight of the building and transferred it to the foundation. The Soviet methods of 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. S. Streletsky, who created their own school and rational constructive forms by the beginning of the 20th century. Electric welding, invented in Russia by engineers N.D. Slavyanov and N.I. Benardos in the 80s of the XIX century, became especially widespread after the October Revolution in various fields of industry, including construction. The successful development of the welding business made it possible to confidently apply welding to the installation of steel structures: the frames of all high-rise buildings in Moscow were not only manufactured, but also completely assembled by welding. The welded structure, first used in the Soviet Union for high-rise construction, had a number of advantages over the construction with riveted field joints that existed in world practice - weight reduction, reduction in the labor intensity of manufacturing elements and reduction in the labor intensity of installation.

The simplest assembly interfaces of 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 carried out using bolts that were inserted into special “ribs” welded at the ends, which served as flanges. The conditions for simplifying and facilitating installation required the maximum reduction of mounting elements. For example, during the construction of the frame of a building on Smolenskaya Square, with a total weight of structures of 5200 tons, the number of mounting elements was only 7900 units. The mounting 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 a shock construction site on the Lenin Hills reported that 3,000 Komsomol-Stakhanovites were building a skyscraper. However, in reality, many more people had jobs here. Specially "under the university" at the end of 1948, the Ministry of Internal Affairs prepared an order for the parole of several thousand prisoners who had construction specialties from the camps. These lucky ones were to spend the rest of their term at the construction of Moscow State University.

Universal tower crane UBK at construction site

In the GULAG system, there was "Construction-560", which was transformed in 1952 into the Directorate of the ITL of the Special District (the so-called "Stroylag"), whose contingent was engaged in the construction of a university skyscraper. The head of this "gulag island" was first Colonel Kharkhardin, and after him - Colonel Smirnov and Major Arkhangelsky. The construction was personally supervised by General Komarovsky, head of the Main Directorate of Industrial Construction Camps. The number of prisoners in Stroylag reached 14,290 people. Almost all of them were imprisoned under "everyday" articles, they were afraid to bring "political" ones 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 ​​​​the current Michurinsky Prospekt.

When the construction of a high-rise building was coming to an end, it was decided "to bring the places of residence and work of prisoners as close as possible." The new camp site was equipped right on the 24th and 25th floors of the tower under construction. Such a decision allowed saving money on security as well: there is no need for either watchtowers or barbed wire - there is still nowhere to go!

As it turned out, the guards underestimated their sponsored contingent. A craftsman was found among the prisoners, who in the summer of 1952 built a kind of hang glider from plywood and wire and ... Rumor interprets further events in different ways. According to one version, he managed to fly to the other side of the Moscow River and safely escaped. According to another, the guards shot him in the air. There is a variant with a happy ending to this story: supposedly the “flyer” was already seized on the ground by the Chekists, but when Stalin became aware of his act, 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 builder of a skyscraper claimed, who himself saw two people gliding from the tower on makeshift wings. According to him, one of them was shot, and the second flew away towards Luzhniki.

Another unusual story is connected with the unique "high-altitude camp zone". This incident was even considered then an attempt to assassinate the leader of the peoples. One fine day, vigilant guards, checking the territory of Stalin's "near dacha" in Kuntsevo, suddenly found a rifle bullet on the path. Who was shooting? When? The uproar was serious. They carried out a ballistic examination and found out that the ill-fated bullet had arrived ... from the University under construction. In the course of further investigation, the picture of what happened became clear. At the next change of guard guarding the prisoners, one of the escorts, handing over his post, pulled the trigger of his 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 directed towards a government facility located in the distance, and the bullet nevertheless "reached out" to Stalin's dacha.

The main building of Moscow State University immediately broke many records. The height of the 36-storey skyscraper reaches 236 meters. It took 40 thousand tons of steel for the steel frame of the building. And the construction of walls and parapets took almost 175 million bricks. The spire so beloved by Stalin has a height of about 50 meters, 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 very impressive. The minute hand, for example, is twice as long as the minute hand of the Kremlin chimes and is 4.1 meters long and weighs 39 kilograms.

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

It is very likely that the Main Building of the University holds the record for the number of columns as well. It is almost impossible to count their number. Some of the columns were placed solely for the sake of decoration, and do not carry any constructive load.

1951 Komsomol-facers - students of the school of working youth against the backdrop of the Main Building

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

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

The trunk of the UBK-3-49 tower crane, which has survived to this day in the attic of one of Moscow's high-rise buildings

Joseph Vissarionovich did not live up to this event for seven months. The high-rise building of the "temple of science" erected on his initiative was solemnly opened on September 1, 1953. Had he lived a little longer, and Moscow State University would have become instead of “the name of M.V. Lomonosov" - "named after I.V. Stalin." Plans for such a renaming were already quite real. The change of Vasilyevich to Vissarionovich was going to be timed to coincide with the commissioning of a new corps on the Lenin Hills. But the Generalissimo died, and the project remained unfulfilled. But in the winter of 1953, even the letters for the new name of the university were ready. Already marked their installation above the cornice of the main entrance to a high-rise building.

1956
Few people know, but the territory of Moscow State University was supposed to be twice the size of the modern one. The site behind Lomonosovsky Prospekt, bounded by Vernadsky Prospekt and Michurinsky Prospekt, up to the modern Udaltsova Street, should be part of Moscow State University. The territory is huge! Already in the 21st century, Inteko built the library of Moscow State University on this territory on Lomonosovsky Prospekt opposite Moscow State University, and before that it built the Shuvalovsky residential complex on the corner of Michurinsky and Lomonosovsky.

The most curious detail in the history of the construction of Moscow skyscrapers is that over time from the moment they were laid to the end of the proposed number of storeys and the 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 of 32 floors on the Lenin Hills in the center of the bend of the Moscow River and place a hotel and residential apartments in the building. There is no mention of 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 Soviets. The figure could be 35–40 meters high, but this would give the building the appearance of a giant pedestal for a small sculpture. Therefore, it was removed from above, reduced in size, changed its position and placed by the fountains, where today's students usually celebrate the end of the session. And the building, which received in return a spire 58 meters high, only won.

Such a grandiose construction could not help but acquire a lot of 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.
In the building of Moscow State University - 34 floors plus a spire and reliably - 3 basements down. 29th floor - Museum of Earth Science of Moscow State University, from there there is an elevator to the 32nd floor. 30th and 31st floors are technical. The round meeting room is on the 32nd floor. The 33rd floor is a gallery under the dome, and the last floor, 34, respectively, 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 outdoor monitoring of the movements of high-ranking officials, which, it seems, could be seen from there Stalin's dacha.

Another tale is as follows: on one of the basement floors from -3rd to -16th (depending on the narrator's imagination), there is 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 immured there.
What is definitely a tale is that the GCs were built by convicts. 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 convicts, traitors to the Motherland, who have never built anything more complicated 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 from article to article. Its essence is as follows. When the construction of the Temple in honor of the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812 was planned, there were several projects, one of them was to build a temple on Sparrow Hills. Construction has not started, as the ground here is very weak, which is not able to withstand a large building. But what the tsarist architects could not do, the Stalinist ones did. They dug a huge foundation, filled it with liquid nitrogen, then put refrigeration units in the place, which later became known as the 3rd basement. This zone has been given the status of super secret, since in the event of a possible sabotage and the failure of the freezers, the GZ will float into the Moscow River in a week. I must say that this story has found a refutation in various sources. Firstly, because of the high cost and unreliability of the method of freezing the soil with liquid nitrogen. Secondly, to make the integrity of Moscow State University dependent on the supply of electricity? It is much easier and cheaper to freeze everything with pipes with a strong saline solution at sub-zero temperatures.

With the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the University connects something else besides the unrealized project on the Lenin Hills. The malachite columns removed during the destruction of the temple were lying around in the warehouse of the NKVD for many years, and then L.P. Beria presented them to his offspring. The columns adorn the rector's office. It is said that this is not the only part of the temple inherited by the temple of science.

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

One of the secrets of the dungeons was declassified not so long ago - the subway line, the so-called Metro-2, from the Kremlin to Vnukovo Airport. The Metro-2 branch passes directly under the GZ, one of the entrances there is through the checkpoint of zone "B". This branch leads to an underground city in the Ramenok area.

Another legend is that when the GZ was designed, it was designed as a spare television center if Shabolovka failed in the event of a war (there was no mention of the Ostankino tower then).

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, daredevils... 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 recall 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 is made -

The construction of the main building of Moscow State University on the Lenin (Sparrow) Hills in 1949-1953 was one of the largest construction projects of the post-war USSR.
The Moscow State University building was the tallest administrative and residential building in Moscow before the appearance of the Triumph Palace, and the tallest in Europe, before the construction of the Messeturm in Frankfurt in 1990.
Height - 182 m, with a spire - 240 m, number of storeys of the central building - 36.
Students of the school of working youth against the backdrop of the main building of Moscow State University under construction (1951)

In 1948, employees of the department of the Central Committee of the Party, which oversaw science, received a task from the Kremlin: to work out the issue of building a new building for Moscow State University. They prepared a memorandum together with the Rector of the University - Academician A.N. Nesmeyanov, proposing to build a skyscraper for the "temple of Soviet science". Papers migrated from the Central Committee to the Moscow authorities. Soon Nesmeyanov and a representative of the “scientific” department of the Central Committee were invited to the city committee of the party: “Your idea is unrealistic. Too many elevators for a high-rise building. Therefore, the building should not be higher than 4 floors.

A few days later, Stalin held a special meeting on the "university issue", and he announced his decision: to erect a building for Moscow State University with a height of at least 20 floors on top of the Lenin Hills - so that it could be seen from afar.

The design of the new university building was prepared by the famous Soviet architect Boris Iofan, who designed the skyscraper of the Palace of Soviets. However, a few days before the approval "at the top" of all the drawings of the architect, this work was removed. The creation of the largest of the Stalinist skyscrapers was entrusted to a group of architects headed by L.V. Rudnev.

Iofan's intransigence is considered the reason for such an unexpected replacement. He was going to build the main building right over the cliff of the Lenin Hills. But by the fall of 1948, experts managed to convince Stalin that such an arrangement of a huge structure is fraught with disaster: the area is dangerous from the point of view of landslides, and the new University will 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 Hills, but Iofan did not like this option at all, and he was removed. Rudnev moved the building 800 meters deep into the territory, and created an observation deck at the place chosen by Iofan.

In the original draft version, it was supposed to crown the skyscraper with a sculpture of impressive size. The character on the sheets of drawing paper was depicted as an abstract figure - a figure of a man with his head raised to the sky and his arms spread wide to the sides. Apparently, such a pose should symbolize the craving for knowledge. Although the architects, showing the drawings to Stalin, hinted that the sculpture could get a portrait resemblance to the leader. However, Stalin ordered to build a spire instead of the statue, so that the upper part of the Moscow State University building would be similar to the other six skyscrapers being built in the capital.

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 a shock construction site on the Lenin Hills reported that 3,000 Komsomol-Stakhanovites were building a skyscraper. However, in reality, many more people worked here. Specially "under the university" at the end of 1948, the Ministry of Internal Affairs prepared an order for the parole of several thousand prisoners who had construction specialties from the camps. These convicts were to spend the rest of their term at the construction of Moscow State University.

In the GULAG system, there was "Construction-560", which was transformed in 1952 into the Directorate of the ITL of the Special District (the so-called "Stroylag"), whose contingent was engaged in the construction of a university skyscraper. The construction was supervised by General Komarovsky, head of the Main Directorate of Industrial Construction Camps. The number of prisoners in Stroylag reached 14,290 people. Almost all of them were imprisoned under "everyday" articles, they were afraid to bring "political" ones 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 ​​​​the current Michurinsky Prospekt.

When the construction of a high-rise building was coming to an end, it was decided "to bring the places of residence and work of prisoners as close as possible." The new camp site was equipped right on the 24th and 25th floors of the tower under construction. Such a decision allowed saving money on security as well: there is no need for either watchtowers or barbed wire - there is still nowhere to go.

As it turned out, the guards underestimated their sponsored contingent. A craftsman was found among the prisoners, who in the summer of 1952 built a kind of hang glider from plywood and wire and ... Rumor interprets further events in different ways. According to one version, he managed to fly to the other side of the Moscow River and safely escaped. According to another, the guards shot him in the air. There is a variant with a happy ending to this story: supposedly the “flyer” was already seized on the ground by the Chekists, but when Stalin became aware of his act, 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 claimed, who himself saw two people gliding from the tower on makeshift wings. According to him, one of them was shot, and the second flew away towards Luzhniki.

Another unusual story is connected with the unique "high-altitude camp zone". This incident was even considered then an attempt to assassinate the leader of the peoples. One fine day, vigilant guards, checking the territory of Stalin's "near dacha" in Kuntsevo, suddenly found a rifle bullet on the path. Who was shooting? When? The uproar was serious. They carried out a ballistic examination and found out that the ill-fated bullet had arrived ... from the University under construction. In the course of further investigation, the picture of what happened became clear. At the next change of guard guarding the prisoners, one of the escorts, handing over his post, pulled the trigger of his 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 directed towards a government facility located in the distance, and the bullet nevertheless "reached out" to Stalin's dacha.

The main building of Moscow State University immediately broke many records. The height of the 36-storey skyscraper reaches 236 meters. It took 40 thousand tons of steel for the steel frame of the building. And the construction of walls and parapets took almost 175 million bricks. The spire is about 50 meters high, and the star that crowns 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 very 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.

View from the building of Moscow State University, 1952:

Private sector in the vicinity of the construction site.

Erection in 1949–1953 the main building of Moscow State University on the Lenin (Sparrow) Hills was one of the largest construction projects of the post-war USSR. Before the appearance of the Triumph Palace, the building was the tallest administrative and residential building in Moscow, and before the construction of the Messeturm in Frankfurt in 1990, it was also the tallest building in Europe. Height - 182 m, with a spire - 240 m, number of storeys of the central building - 36.

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1. Students of the school of working youth against the backdrop of the main building of Moscow State University under construction (1951)
2. In 1948, employees of the department of the Central Committee of the Party, which oversaw science, received a task from the Kremlin: to work out the issue of building a new building for Moscow State University. They prepared a memorandum together with the rector of the university - academician A.N. Nesmeyanov, proposing to build a skyscraper for the "temple of Soviet science". Papers migrated from the Central Committee to the Moscow authorities. Soon Nesmeyanov and a representative of the “scientific” department of the Central Committee were invited to the city committee of the party: “Your idea is unrealistic. Too many elevators for a high-rise building. Therefore, the building should not be higher than 4 floors.
3. A few days later, Stalin held a special meeting on the "university issue", and he announced his decision: to erect a building for Moscow State University with a height of at least 20 floors on top of the Lenin Hills - so that it could be seen from afar.
4. The design of the new university building was prepared by the famous Soviet architect Boris Iofan, who designed the skyscraper of the Palace of Soviets. However, a few days before the approval "at the top" of all the drawings of the architect, this work was removed. The creation of the largest of the Stalinist skyscrapers was entrusted to a group of architects headed by L.V. Rudnev.
5. Iofan's intransigence is considered the reason for such an unexpected replacement. He was going to build the main building right over the cliff of the Lenin Hills. But by the fall of 1948, experts were able to convince Stalin that such an arrangement of a 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 Hills, but Iofan did not like this option at all, and he was removed. Rudnev moved the building 800 meters deep into the territory, and created an observation deck at the place chosen by Iofan.
6. In the original draft version, it was supposed to crown the skyscraper with a sculpture of impressive size. The character on the sheets of Whatman paper was depicted as an abstract figure - a figure of a man with his head raised to the sky and his arms spread wide to the sides. Apparently, such a pose should symbolize the craving for knowledge. Although the architects, showing the drawings to Stalin, hinted that the sculpture could get a portrait resemblance to the leader. However, Stalin ordered to build a spire instead of the statue, so that the upper part of the Moscow State University building would be similar to the other six skyscrapers being built in the capital.
7. 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.
8. Reports from a shock construction site on the Lenin Hills reported that 3,000 Stakhanovite Komsomol members were building a skyscraper. However, in reality, many more people worked here. Specially "under the university" at the end of 1948, the Ministry of Internal Affairs prepared an order for the parole of several thousand prisoners who had construction specialties from the camps. These convicts were to spend the rest of their term at the construction of Moscow State University.
9. In the GULAG system, there was "Construction-560", which was transformed in 1952 into the Directorate of the ITL of the Special District (the so-called "Stroylag"), whose contingent was engaged in the construction of a university skyscraper. The construction was supervised by General Komarovsky, head of the Main Directorate of Industrial Construction Camps. The number of prisoners in Stroylag reached 14,290 people. Almost all of them were imprisoned under "everyday" articles, they were afraid to bring "political" ones 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 ​​​​the current Michurinsky Prospekt.
10. When the construction of the high-rise building was nearing completion, it was decided "to bring the places of residence and work of prisoners as close as possible." The new camp site was equipped right on the 24th and 25th floors of the tower under construction. Such a decision made it possible to save money on protection as well: there is no need for either watchtowers or barbed wire - there is still nowhere to go. 11. As it turned out, the guards underestimated their sponsored contingent. A craftsman was found among the prisoners, who in the summer of 1952 built a kind of hang glider from plywood and wire and ... Rumor interprets further events in different ways. According to one version, he managed to fly to the other side of the Moscow River and safely escaped. According to another, the guards shot him in the air. There is a variant with a happy ending to this story: allegedly, the “flyer” was already seized on the ground by the Chekists, but when Stalin became aware of his act, 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 claimed, who himself saw two people gliding from the tower on makeshift wings. According to him, one of them was shot down, and the second flew away towards Luzhniki. 12. Another unusual story is connected with the unique “high-altitude camp zone”. This incident was even considered then an attempt to assassinate the leader of the peoples. One fine day, vigilant guards, checking the territory of Stalin's "near dacha" in Kuntsevo, suddenly found a rifle bullet on the path. Who was shooting? When? The uproar was serious. They conducted a ballistic examination and found out that the ill-fated bullet had arrived ... from a university under construction. In the course of further investigation, the picture of what happened became clear. At the next change of guard guarding the prisoners, one of the escorts, handing over his post, pulled the trigger of his 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 directed towards a government facility located in the distance, and the bullet nevertheless "reached out" to Stalin's dacha.
13. The main building of Moscow State University immediately broke many records. The height of the 36-storey skyscraper reaches 236 meters. It took 40 thousand tons of steel for the steel frame of the building. And the construction of walls and parapets took almost 175 million bricks. The spire is about 50 meters high, and the star that crowns 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 very 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.
14. View from the building of Moscow State University, 1952
15. Private sector in the vicinity of the construction site.

17. Local residents were subject to resettlement. 18. Before the grand opening of the "Temple of Science" on September 1, 1953, Stalin did not live for several months. Had he lived a little longer, and Moscow State University would have become instead of “the name of M.V. Lomonosov" - "named after I.V. Stalin." Plans for such a renaming took place. The change of Vasilyevich to Vissarionovich was going to be timed to coincide with the commissioning of a new corps on the Lenin Hills. And in the winter of 1953, the letters for the new name of the university were already prepared, which were supposed to be installed above the cornice of the main entrance to the high-rise building. But Stalin died, and the project remained unfulfilled.
19. There are many myths about the main building of Moscow State University. So, there is a version that in front of the meeting room of the Academic Council (the office of the rector) on the 9th floor there are four columns of solid jasper, which supposedly survived the demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which is a myth, since there were no jasper columns in the destroyed temple.
20. Sometimes a rumor is mentioned that materials from the destroyed Reichstag were used in the decoration of the interiors of the building, in particular rare pink marble. In fact, either white or red marble is found in the GZ. However, the fact is known that the building of the Faculty of Chemistry is equipped with captured German fume hoods, which indirectly confirms the use of materials of German origin in construction.
21. Outwardly, it seems that the spire, as well as the star crowning it and the ears of corn, are covered with gold, but this is not so. The spire, star and ears of corn are not covered with gold - under the influence of wind and precipitation, the gilding will quickly become unusable. The spire, star and spikes are lined with yellow glass plates, the inner side of the glass plates is covered with aluminum. Currently, some of the glass parts have collapsed and crumbled, if you look through binoculars, you can see that holes are gaping in various places.