Successful life for ordinary Soviet man was reduced to sacramental formula “dacha, a wheelbarrow and a dog”. The implication was that came to the success of the Builder of communism should have a dacha, a car and apartment. The representatives of the Soviet nomenklatura with this triad, the situation was much easier, because all its constituent parts, the state provided them in the first place. Giving it has played in the fate of some top leaders of the party and the government a key role. Nikita Khrushchev’s party colleagues forced to retire while relaxing at the government dacha in Pitsunda, and Mikhail Gorbachev coup of 1991 was caught on vacation in the object “dawn”, a brand new dacha in the Crimean foros. However, culture of such a relaxation, even a permanent life in the country and control the country from there was introduced by Joseph Stalin, who had more than a dozen purpose-built residence near Moscow, in the Crimea and on the black sea coast of the Caucasus. As spent his time in the cottages special purpose Stalin — in a large review Onliner.
Forced rest
By the time the triumphant seizure of power many professional revolutionaries came up with a completely broken health. Most of them to “victory of the Great October” eked out a rather miserable existence. The prosecuting authorities, prisons, the constant references in godforsaken places with a monstrous climate and living conditions left their mark on the state of their body. Even in exile, many in poverty and live only with dreams about the inevitable “victory of the proletariat.” The revolution was followed by civil war, with its deprivations, and the rest the leaders of the RCP(b) were able to think only in the early 1920s. In April 1921 the party ordered (it was ordered!) some senior comrades to go on a forced vacation. Among the lucky ones was the organizer of the October revolution and Creator of the red army, Leon Trotsky, the head of Moscow’s Lev Kamenev, Deputy Chairman of people’s Commissars and the future head of the government, Aleksei Rykov, but also the people’s Commissar on nationalities Joseph Stalin. First vacation of Stalin, which he spent in the Caucasus, lasted two and a half months, and later this and even a large length of the rest was for the future leader the norm.
On his return from the Caucasus, Stalin acquired his first country seat. Attractive in a vacant estate near Moscow there was no shortage. After the revolution, many noble and merchant houses have been abandoned rapidly leave the country hosts. Lenin, for example, settled in the suburban Palace of the widow of Savva Morozov Zinaida in the Hills (where, in fact, eventually died). Stalin in October 1921, got a mansion on the former estate of Levon Supalova, a rich oilman who owned the factories in Baku and Batumi. In the neighboring houses in the same manor there was other prominent Bolshevik: Anastas Mikoyan, Nikolai Bukharin, Kliment Voroshilov. Dacha “Zubalovo-4” was the first in a series of many of Stalin’s residences.
Dacha “Zubalovo-4”, blown up in the German offensive in 1941
In “Zubalovo” Stalin was more than 10 years, up to 1932, grew up here his children. Daughter Svetlana in his book “20 letters to a friend” called this country as “Sunny house”. The two-story building was located on 14-m kilometre of Rublevsky highway, there was 12 rooms. Together with the family here Stalin lived relatives of his first wife Ekaterina Svanidze, and the parents second (the current) wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva. But in this period the principal residence of the Narkomnats were his Kremlin apartment.
There, right in the Kremlin, lived and many other functionaries of the Bolshevik party. By the end of 1920, all more or less suitable premises were already occupied. 325 apartments located in various buildings on the territory of the Kremlin, was written more than 2 thousand people, and community as the whole housing was very sad. Stalin himself, in the same 1921 has greatly improved their living conditions. In January of small flats in the Grand Kremlin Palace, he, along with his wife moved to a much more spacious apartment in the Amusing Palace, where before his death in September 1920, lived another “faithful friend and companion” V. I. Lenin, the head of the women’s division of the party Inessa Fyodorovna Armand (d Arbanville).
As cottage in Zubalovo, this apartment №1 has been the residence of (urban) Stalin until 1932, when he has firmly taken power into their own hands, led the party and crushed the opposition of various kinds, and right and left. But in this 1932 event occurred that forced him to completely change his place of residence and recreation. November 8, after the Banquet, dedicated to the anniversary of the October revolution, quarreled with her husband of Nadezhda Alliluyeva returned to the same apartment in the Amusing Palace and was shot from a small pistol, which was given to her brother Paul. His wife’s suicide shocked Stalin, he considered it a betrayal and a humiliation, because the personal life of the Secretary General at one point became a topic for gossip of his associates. Apparently wanting to get rid of any reminders of the life of Stalin changed the apartment in the Kremlin (where he, however, subsequently almost didn’t come, appearing only for lunch) and moved from his home in Zubalovo in the new two-story nine-room mansion on the estate Lipovka.
However, the latter was only a temporary home. In 1933, right in the middle of a forest in the village of Volyn, just a few kilometers from the city, began construction of a new residence of the leader, known as Blizhnyaya dacha. It was the first building entirely built in accordance with the tastes of Stalin, who would become his main place of living for almost two decades.
Giving Lipki
Cottages — Near and Far
In 1930 in the Economic management of the USSR Central Executive Committee, the organization that provided the life of the top Soviet leadership has a new unit — architectural-design workshop. In June of the following year it was headed by 36-year-old architect Miron Merzhanov, which is separated from the mass of colleagues as a great sanatorium of the red army, built in 1929 in Sochi. In the process of building of this object he was closely associated with the people’s Commissar for military and naval Affairs Kliment Voroshilov, who apparently recommended him for the new responsibility. It Marianowo going to design the most favorite dacha of Stalin, including the suburban Neighbor, and from several objects on the black sea coast of the Caucasus. However, the personal status of the architect the leader in the end did not save Merzhanov from repression. In 1943 he, together with his wife and closest associates, was arrested, got 10 years in the camps and went to the far East, in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where the “cowboy office” continued to engage in architectural activities. He was released only in 1954, after the death of the Host.
Red army sanatorium in Sochi, which subsequently received the name of people’s Commissar Voroshilov
But despite its activities in Komsomolsk, and built several magnificent resorts in the Caucasus, the most important work of Merzhanov became, of course, is Near the cottage. Her style can be described as constructivism, the mixture admiralskogo already avant-garde architecture with accompaniment, he was replaced by neo-classics. Originally a one-story, in the 1940s, she received the second level and survived to the present day, being now within the city, not far from the Minsk street, metro station and Victory Park. After the end of the building, in 1934, Stalin moved here to live permanently, and from then until his death it Near the cottage were his main and most favourite residence.
Near the cottage internally and externally reflect individual artistic and personal preferences of the leader. On the first floor there were seven rooms. From the spacious entrance hall a corridor led to the right in two living rooms (the nursery, which later became the office and the guest). Right there to the great hall, the dining room, next to which were the bedroom and bathroom of the Secretary General. But favorite room of Stalin was to the left of the hallway. This was the so-called small dining room, which later became his main place of work and leisure. There Stalin and received guests, and dined, and slept on one of the sofas. There he died March 5, 1953.
Subsequently erected on the second floor there is an additional guest room, where he led and built-in in the reconstruction giving a lift. But on the second floor of a Stalin practically was not raised. His living space was limited to these seven rooms. Apparently, under the building there is an underground bunker, reliable information which is still there, but, judging by the fact that in the middle cottage lived Stalin and during the war, when the front line was very close to the bunker there just could not be.
The cottage was surrounded by a large Park, or rather forest Park with an area of two dozen acres. Stalin loved to engage in country economy. For him Volynski organized a greenhouse for citrus, broke a vineyard, cultivated watermelons and bred fish in the pond. There are hundreds of personal orders of the chief, in which he pointed out how right to farm, which was an important part of his vacation.
He worked also Near the cottage regularly, however, leaving the office in the Kremlin, but not nearly appearing in his apartment there. Stalin led nocturnal, which is adjusted to his subordinates. He usually woke up around noon, about 17-18 hours left in the Kremlin, and in the evening, around 22-23 (later, if organized screenings, which the leader loved) but went back to Volhynia. Day continued. The famous Stalin’s “lunch”, in fact, night dinners, which he almost collected daily associates, was held in the great hall. This feast with abundant food, drink, singing and dancing often lasted until late at night (or early morning). “We had to work on their positions < …>, and in addition, to participate in the Stalinist parties as theatrical characters to entertain him. Heavy was the time for us”, — wrote in his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev.
Blizhnyaya dacha and therefore got a nickname that existed and giving Far. It was built in 1937-1939 in the former estate of count Orlov Semenov. It is largely (for layout, decoration, furnishing) resembled its counterpart (before its add-ins) in Volyn. Stalin was generally very conservative in their habits — all his residence similar to each other. However, in Sochi, with the picturesque manor Park, a leader was seldom, his principal residence remained Volyn.
Dacha in Sochi
The leader is on vacation
In addition to rest in a forest near Moscow, a significant part of Stalin’s life took many months of summer vacation. Of course, it was not a holiday in the usual sense of the word. Stalin did not forget to control the situation in the country and in the Crimea or in the Caucasus. Every day he received a stack of documents, took foreign guests, actively corresponded with the Moscow colleagues, sometimes vacationing with them, and at this time the center of power in the USSR was moved to one of the “cottages special purpose.” However, increasingly revealed itself to illness was forced Stalin and treatment, and just doing nothing, walking around the garden, playing Billiards or skittles.
Having gone for the first time in 1921 on a vacation to the Caucasus and passing the following year, 1923, he spent 13 years, every year a few months went South, often alternating in one trip in the Crimea and the Caucasus. Since 1937 these visits came a break. At first he remained in Moscow because of the need for personal control over the “Great terror” (1937-1938), in 1939, the summer was preparing a non-aggression Pact with Germany, but then came the Second world war. Again in South vacation, Stalin only went in 1945. Since then his tastes have been evolving. Instead of the summer period he began to leave Moscow closer to the fall and stayed in the South sometimes until the New year.
With age, Stalin grew and the duration of its stay. In 1946-1949, he was stretched to three to three and a half months in 1950-1951-m — four and a half. Thus in one place the whole time he was sitting down, constantly moving from one garden to another, the benefit of the created network allows to regularly change residence, located close to each other.
Until the early 1930s in the South, Stalin lived in “houses of the CEC”, organized on the basis of before the revolution the old regime mansions. But in 1931, construction began on the first “giving of special function” (obtained in secret documents number 27) specifically created based on the tastes of the leader. January 18 issued a joint decision of the CEC and CPC of the USSR “On the construction of the rest House of the CEC in the village Musser Gudauta district Soviet socialist Republic of Abkhazia”. The building project was elaborated by the Leningrad architect Vladimir Gelfreich, subsequently moved to Moscow and became one of the authors of the unrealized Palace of the Soviets and built after the war, high-rise buildings of the Soviet foreign Ministry. It was a two-storey building with an area of 340 square meters, next to which was a service town: the food section — dining room, theater, pool with sea water, dormitories for servants and guards. In addition, in the cottages in Musseri appeared and two guest houses, which later rested the Stalinist colleagues (Mikoyan, Molotov, Budyonny). In total, Stalin has been here eight times, first arriving here in October 1933.
After the first year of the construction of cottages No. 27 in January 1932 issued a decree “On the construction of the rest House of the CEC in the village of Cold river (Barymta) of the Gagra district, Abkhazian ASSR”. The residence “Cold river” (cottage No. 18) 15 kilometers from Gagra and 43 kilometers from Sochi has become one of the favorite of Stalin. Was designed Miron Merzhanov, the author of the Near cottages, and they were built largely in parallel. The three-storey building area of 500 square meters were constructed in very difficult conditions: it is literally embedded in the mountainside. As usual, the main color chosen was dark green (among the trees he did the country hardly noticeable), interior panels of valuable breeds of wood, too, was very typical of Stalin’s dachas. Inside was the usual nomenclature of rooms: bedroom, dining room, study, billiard room, cinema room. The building complex includes service buildings, and even its own hydroelectric power station to provide electricity. In September 1933, Stalin wrote to one of his companions: “was today, the new Villa near Gagra. Turned out (she is now finished with construction) magnificent Villa”. In total, the leader came on “Cold river” 14 times.
But the main Caucasian residence became “the Green grove” (or “New Matsesta”), built by the project of the same Miron Merzhanov in 1935-1937 in Sochi Khostinsky area on the territory of the former estate of tea Mininova Michael. First, the country appeared here in 1931, but by 1937 had built a new (of course, dark green) building with two-storey and single-storey wings (built after the war). Next was erected the residences for other members of the Politburo, Beria, Malenkov, Voroshilov, Molotov.
In Sochi, Stalin appeared most often and had lived in the vacation. Mainly because of his health: he helped the Matsesta mineral water. “I am recovering. The Matsesta waters (near Sochi) good against multiple sclerosis, processing nerves, enlargement of the heart, sciatica, gout, rheumatism,” — in 1925 kept up to date with Molotov Stalin. As soon as the illness of the leader’s age has intensified, and increased need for therapeutic baths.
After the war, all this assortment of residences were added dachas No. 5, which was built on the banks of the Abkhazian Ritsa lake in 1947. She looked modest other: one-story brick building, plastered and painted in essential dark green. Here Stalin was not very often and usually for a short time. After the war he started to not transfer heat (in fact, in many ways, so his holiday has shifted to autumn), and if the main Caucasian residence came the heat, the leader went on a mountain the Ritz, where and waited it out. The usual scheme of his release included a main stay in Sochi, then drive to the “Cold river” with trips to the Ritz, followed by “Musser” or Novy Afon with short-term trips for medical treatment in Tskhaltubo or Borjomi.
In addition to these objects, for Stalin was built and a number of others, in which, however, he’s been fairly rare. 13 kilometers from Yalta on Massandra Palace in 1949 for him to build a wooden cottage “Malaya Sosnovka”. All in the same Abkhazia, New Athos, adjacent to the famous local monastery in 1948, dacha №8 “swallow’s nest”.
In the years 1938-1940 was built and the residence of the “Big fords”, is located on lake Valdai in the Novgorod region. Here Stalin was only once, and then gave it to the use of the head of Leningrad Andrei Zhdanov (he died there in 1948). In addition, there is information about the construction of a new state under Kuibysheva (now Samara), which acted as spare capital USSR in case of war. Due to the death of the leader of the work on the construction of the facility was never completed.
Dacha in Novy Afon
Dacha in the Crimea
Dacha in Valdai
Dacha in Novy Afon
Dacha in the Crimea
In the last year of his life, 1952, that Stalin South did not go. Even in the Kremlin for the year he has appeared a total of 50 times — less than once a week. In fact, he bezvylazno spent a year Near the cottage. “He’s old. He wanted to rest. He didn’t know that’s what he wanted … He was extremely bitter against the whole world. Everywhere he saw enemies. It was pathology, it was persecution from the devastation of loneliness < …> It blew up in anger, and finding any little excuse he scolded the first available under the hand”, wrote his daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva.
Doctor Stalin’s butchers added to the last months of his life health paints: “I Believe that the cruelty and suspicion of Stalin, fear of enemies, loss of adequacy in the evaluation of people and events, the extreme stubbornness — all this has created to a certain extent cerebrovascular atherosclerosis (or rather, these traits are exaggerated atherosclerosis). Ruled the state, in fact, a sick man < …> vascular sclerosis of the brain has evolved slowly over many years. Stalin was found foci of softening of the brain of very old origin”.
28 Feb 1953, after another Kremlin movie Stalin habit, invited four of his closest associates: Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev and Bulganin, (by that time, Molotov, Mikoyan and Voroshilov were in disgrace) — to “lunch” to the neighbor cottage. As usual, the event ended in the morning. “Stalin was drunk, in a very good mood. He conducted the guests to the lobby, wrote Khrushchev in memories. — Joked a lot, took a swing, like a finger, and poked me in the stomach, calling Mikita. When he was in a good mood, it always called me in Ukrainian Mikita. We also left in a good mood because there is nothing wrong with the lunch did not happen”.
The next day, 1 March, Stalin in his beloved small dining room suffered a stroke. The circumstances of his death are well known. After four days of agony, at 21:50 on March 5, 1953, this man finally died. Svetlana Alliluyeva was present: “the Agony was terrible. She choked him in front of everyone. At some point- I don’t know if really, but so it seemed — obviously, in the last moment he suddenly opened his eyes and looked around at them all who stood around. It was a terrible sight, or mad, or angry and full of terror before death and before the unfamiliar faces of the doctors bent over him. Look this is going in a fraction of minutes. And there it was confusing and scary, I still don’t understand but can’t forget, then he suddenly lifted up his left hand (which was moving) and then pointed it somewhere upstairs, not that shook us all. The gesture was incomprehensible but threatening, and who knows who and what he was… the next moment the soul, making a last effort, broke out of the body.”
By this time the emergency Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Stalin withdrew from all posts, been up for hours ended. Companions during the life of their helpless God overthrew it, was removed from leadership positions and share power. A new era has come and for the nomenklatura summer houses: residences new Stalin “collective leadership” of the country to use was not going.
Small dining room Near the cottage. Here Stalin had a stroke
A large hall Near the cottage. On this couch Stalin died
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