One of the The Foundation Pit’s central images - that of digging a vast foundation pit for a building that will never be built - foreshadows one of the most surreal episodes in the cultural history of Stalinism: “The dominant in the structure of the future Moscow was to be the Palace of Soviets and a decree authorizing its construction was issued in February 1932. The largest church in Moscow - The Church of Christ the Savior near the Kremlin - had been pulled down shortly before, and it was on this site that the stepped tower, 415 metres high and crowned by a 100-metre statue of Lenin was to be erected. Taller than the recently constructed Empire State Building, it was to house the supreme organs of Soviet power and the apartments of the Leader … . An entire large institute worked on the project for many years, until the beginning of the 1950s. A vast foundation pit was dug on the site of the church, and the press never tired of describing the future grandeur of a construction which was to contain 17,500 square metres of oil painting, 12,000 of frescoes, 4,000 of mosaics, 20,000 of bas-reliefs, 12 group sculptures up to 12 metres high, 170 sculptures up to 6 metres high, and so on. Both the architecture as a whole and the symbolism of the decor were intended to express the power of the Country of Victorious Socialism. Nothing of the Palace of Soviets … was ever constructed.” (Igor Golomstock, Totalitarian Art, pg. 274-75)
Robert Chandler & Olga Meerson have done a thorough job with their collection of comprehensive notes that help make this dense and absurd masterpiece come to life.
