Whatever the name of this legendary place - VDNKh or VVTs - it still has a special energy and keeps its secrets.
Bunker
Few people know, but there is still a bunker on the territory of VDNKh. It is located right under the House of Friendship of Peoples. Its capacity is 300 people, in a state of readiness it has everything you need for autonomous living for two days, there are rest rooms, a room for storing provisions, an air filtration room, and an office for the secretary general. Until 1971, the bunker was regularly replenished with water and provisions. Now the bunker is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and is brought into readiness in 6 hours. During the entire existence of the bunker, no one has used it for its intended purpose.
It is interesting that an underground passage leads from the bunker, which ends under the sculpture of Lenin, installed in front of the pavilion. That is why the sculpture has not yet been removed.
Golden sheaf
The Friendship of Peoples fountain is perhaps the most popular object of the All-Russian Exhibition Center. Bronze girls covered with gilding, of course, personify the union republics, but there are 16 girls in the fountain, and there were 15 republics of the USSR. This discrepancy is explained by the disappeared Karelo-Finnish republic. At the fountain, this is a girl with a Christmas tree. They did not remove the girl, as the fountain could lose its functionality after dismantling.
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The fountain was originally called the "Golden Sheaf" because it was intended to reflect the theme of the abundance of socialist agriculture. However, the name "Friendship of Peoples", which he received literally on the eve of the opening, nevertheless was more consistent with the content. It is interesting that Stalin himself ordered the girls to dress in a golden outfit: “Well, we don’t even have gold for our virgins?”
Matryoshka Monument
Until 1951, a huge 25-meter sculpture of Stalin stood in place of the rocket installed at the Cosmos pavilion. The height of the rocket is 38 meters. The monument to Stalin was erected at the place where it was originally planned to erect a monument to Lenin. He became one of the symbols and was even featured in all three films about the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition: "Foundling", "Light Path" and "Pig and Shepherd". Of the latter two, however, later, the frames were cut.
It is curious that initially, when the statue was being prepared, a small model was created for approval. Nobody raised a hand to destroy the form, so a small sculpture was placed inside a large one. Such was the matryoshka. After the cult of personality was debunked, the statues were buried on the territory of VDNKh.
Cycle of names
A bit of language mysticism. Before the revolution, on the territory where the All-Russian Exhibition Center is now located, there was the All-Russian Exhibition Center, namely the Volost Traveling Circus. In the summer, the big top went on tour, and in the fall it returned to Moscow. The people said: "Here comes the All-Russian Exhibition Center - there will be a holiday on the porch!"
From words to deeds
There is a fairly widespread opinion that the chief architect of the exhibition, Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky, wanted to create not a cultural, but an occult center of the USSR. If you look at Oltarzhevsky's plan, you can see that the area of mechanization resembles the sun, and the pavilions - nine planets. In this case, the buildings form an Orthodox cross. Oltorzhevsky's plan was changed, and the architect himself was condemned and exiled. In the camp, a famous architect designed one-story barracks for prisoners. He returned to Moscow only five years later, in 1942. There is a version that this happened thanks to a letter that the disgraced architect wrote to Stalin. Back in Moscow, he personally advised Stalin on the construction of high-rise buildings. They say that the architect has never in his life visited his creation - the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy,until his death in 1966.
No smoke
Another VDNKh legend is associated with Stalin. During the construction of the Georgia Pavilion, the Secretary General came to see how the construction was going. On the construction site, Iosif Vissarionovich decided to light a pipe. The guard who came up told Stalin that smoking was prohibited in this place. Stalin silently lifted the receiver. It is not known for certain what feelings the strict guard experienced during those few days, until people from the Kremlin came to him. The situation was resolved successfully: the guard was awarded a certificate and a monetary reward for good work.
Trotsky's profile
The history of the VDNKh symbol of the monument to the Worker and Collective Farm Woman is interesting. The famous sculpture was made in 1937 for the pavilion at the Paris exhibition. The figures were transported to Paris, cutting them into 65 pieces and placing them on 28 railway platforms. Leading engineers, locksmiths, assemblers, tinsmiths and welders were sent for the assembly. Assembling the sculpture took 11 days. By the way, Picasso admired her. The very creation of the sculpture was a very difficult process. Mukhina approached the work very responsibly, constantly making corrections, although the deadlines for the work were coming to an end. The situation was aggravated by denunciations that the director of the Tambovtsev plant wrote, accusing Mukhina of sabotage. In addition, in the folds of the collective farmer's skirt, he saw the "profile of Trotsky." Probably, it was precisely the rumors about "Trotsky's profile" that caused Stalin's night visit. Having illuminated the sculpture with the headlights of a car and did not find the "profile", he was satisfied. In 1947, "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" became a brand of Russian cinema - the brand of the Mosfilm studio.