One Resident's Story

Svetlana Rudova has been living in the
House on the Embankment since 1992

My mother’s parents lived in this building since the day it was built. Grampa, Pyotr Savelevich Zaslavsky, was a Bolshevik, a participant in three revolutions, served time in exile alongside Stalin in the 1910s, and knew Lenin personally. He held significant state and party positions,* knew German very well, worked for a time in Germany, and later was deputy editor of the Small Soviet Encyclopedia. Grampa was a person of very strong opinions. He considered manicures, black stockings and gypsy theater to be depraved. He was very good at chess, wrote poetry and respected the Buddha. Grampa never drank, even to Stalin’s health (inconspicuously emptying his glass into the pot that held a ficus).

Grampa was almost competely blind, due to an unsuccessful operation. That may have saved him from being repressed. He died in 1967, and grandma continued to live in the building. In the early 1990s, our families combined, which is how I became a resident of the House on the Embankment.

I arrived after the renovation and never saw what the previous interiors were like. I never heard anything about frescoes on the ceilings; perhaps that was a myth. After I moved in they cleaned the building’s facade, lightened it, removed the Mercedes logo from the roof, replaced the windows. For me it is simply the building where I live: I arrive home tired, then eat, and sleep. In other words, my attitude is mundane and everyday. But friends who visit can feel the special atmosphere. What delights them so much, I don’t know. Maybe the view of the Kremlin, maybe the old photos, the books or furniture. But most likely it is the sense of proximity to the country’s history, making contact with the energy (that which often takes on a mystical hue) of the people who lived here and the things that took place here. As to the spirit of the 1930s and the repressions, the fear and tension, I don’t sense that.

From an everyday point of view the House has its pluses and minuses. Among the advantages: the parquet floors, the high ceilings, and the view from the windows. By the way, in the movie Burnt By the Sun, there is an episode where the hero slits his wrists in a bathroom that has a view of the Kremlin. That scene was shot in our building.

As to the disadvantages, I can name the noise and dirty air. We are right next to a heavily traveled road that generates plenty of exhaust fumes, and there is some sort of heating plant next to the building, so the windows get dirty very quickly. There is an automobile bridge below, and even the new fiberglass windows don’t keep the sound out. In addition, there is poor sound insulation between apartments, so you can hear the neighbors when they are in the bathroom. And don’t forget, that the House on the Embankment is also the House of Government and the apartments used to be bugged.

* He had party positions throughout the Soviet Union, from Odessa to Arkhangelsk. On his initiative Novonikolayevsk was renamed Novosibirisk.