Cake buildings

April 2013

Every morning in Moscow, my guide told us where we were going.  When I heard we were going to see skyscrapers, I thought he probably had not been to Hong Kong (HK); tall buildings are everywhere in HK, I did not think I wanted to see more.  While I almost stuck my tongue out, I held it, because I was told they were in the Stalinist style and looked like a layer cake.  So I licked my lips and went on this sightseeing tour.

 




Hotel Ukraine, 2013

Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, 2013

There are seven skyscrapers in the city, so they are also called the seven sisters.  The tallest sister is Moscow State University, the next one is Hotel Ukraine, and then Kotelnicheskaya Embankment building.  They are enormous and magnificent, bigger than a castle.  I had to stand far away from them, otherwise I could not see the whole building.  If you played hide-and-seen in one of them, even if it was empty, you might never find your friends.

 

The last one I saw was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  We walked down one side of the building to get to the front.  It was quite a long way.  The wall was plain and there was nothing to see, I wished I could finish this long boring walk quickly.  At last, I turned the corner and stood in front of the building.  It looked like a huge robot, a transformer, in the film.  It looked as if it had been kneeling on the ground, and had suddenly stood up and showering dust all around.  The wings of the building were its hands and these were armed with heavy weapons.



The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2013

Although the idea of a building that changing into a robot may have been filmed before, if the story is good enough, the tickets would sell like hot cakes.