When I look at old houses with one or two floors buried, I want to imagine what the foundations of such huge buildings look like.
Being underground, sometimes several floors, is explained in the official history in two ways: the cultural layer and “they built it this way”.
You don't even need to write about a cultural layer consisting of one clay. Who carried this clay and scattered it through the streets?
About "it was built this way" is more interesting. But there is a question, and what for?
What did the builders want to achieve with this ?
What is easier, leveled the site, filled the foundation and build yourself calmly. No, first they dug a pit to the depth of the floors that will be underground. Add here the depth of the foundation.
The walls of the pit should not be steeper than 45 degrees, otherwise they will crumble. They dug the entrance to the pit for the delivery of building materials, because they will not dump them from above.
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It turns out a huge amount of earthwork, but that's not all. Having built a building that has windows (and sometimes doors) in the ground, the builders drag all this excavated soil back and fill up the lower floors. That is, there is still a lot of extra work.
All this earthwork costs money. So for what purpose did the builders go to raise the cost of construction?
For example, there is such a beautiful building in Chita. This is the Railroad Administration, built, as it is written in history, in 1949. The cultural layer would not have had time to fill up, it means “it was built like that”.
Chita Railway Administration.
This building also has underground floors, but that's not the point. Pay attention to the building element, which is called a portico in architecture.
Entrance to the building of the Trans-Baikal Railway Administration.
Here the portico is used as an entrance.
And here too.
Column building in Moscow.
And here.
Reichstag building in Germany.
And here, the portico is no longer an entrance.
Building in Moscow.
And here.
Pushkin House in St. Petersburg.
And here.
Building in London.
And here.
Building in Yekaterinburg.
In the same place.
Building in Yekaterinburg.
All the same, the windows are visible under the ground and there is no foundation.
In Italy, there is an unfilled building, which shows the purpose of the portico, as well as the size of the foundation required for such buildings.
Vittoriano, Palazzo Venezia.
Vittoriano, Palazzo Venezia.
Here I see a foundation that matches the size of the building. And no need to think about waterproofing walls that are in contact with the ground.
Compare this with the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg and imagine how buried it is.
Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg.