At the same time as the first five-year plan was launched, Stalin had the Government House built in 1929. Like a luxurious overseas steamer, the building complex was equipped with no less than five hundred apartments. With a canteen, cinema, theater and all kinds of stores, the house on the riverbank was a cosmos in itself. Even the interior furnishings were taken care of; each of the spacious apartments included a desk modeled on Lenin's desk. Built opposite the Kremlin, separated by the Moskva River, which did not lie protectively between them, the deserving revolutionaries and the party and state elite moved in here as instructed. From the perspective of the inhabitants of this center of power, but also of powerlessness, the film creates a vivid picture of the Soviet Union up to today's insignia of power. The memories and comments of the widows and descendants of the first generation of inhabitants of this fortress paint a very personal chronicle of the 20th century based on the history of the house.
At the same time as the first five-year plan was launched, Stalin had the Government House built in 1929. Like a luxurious overseas steamer, the building complex was equipped with no less than five hundred apartments. With a canteen, cinema, theater and all kinds of stores, the house on the riverbank was a cosmos in itself. Even the interior furnishings were taken care of; each of the spacious apartments included a desk modeled on Lenin's desk. Built opposite the Kremlin, separated by the Moskva River, which did not lie protectively between them, the deserving revolutionaries and the party and state elite moved in here as instructed. From the perspective of the inhabitants of this center of power, but also of powerlessness, the film creates a vivid picture of the Soviet Union up to today's insignia of power. The memories and comments of the widows and descendants of the first generation of inhabitants of this fortress paint a very personal chronicle of the 20th century based on the history of the house.