technologies from across russia and around the world. join our knowledge update on our jeep. top story smartie moscow tonight moscow plays host to scientific top brass to prevent a battle for the arctic's middle rich countries involved are keen to get their share of what's considered to be a quarter of the world's oil and gas reserves. russia's decided not to sell its a defense missile systems to iran the chief of staff of the russian armed forces says the plan was shelved because of the latest u.n. sanctions on iran. and its hard talks of the u.n. millennium summit group a big russia and nato focus on global security and cooperation on missile defense meanwhile the middle east quartet tried to bring forward the peace process between israel and palestinians. twenty one thirty moscow

time next tonight we reported the mystery surrounding a very special home in the center of moscow located close to the kremlin walls it was meant for the soviet elite today though it's talents open the doors to you to share a very exclusive experience. sprang up in one thousand and thirty two in the heart of moscow just. imposing. three hundred meters of the. tennis. every. time. it was meant for soviet russia ruling elite revolutionary communist functionaries government

ministers and members of parliament. a key to the country's best. of its tenants had been repressed. special house for special people was popularly known as the house of pretrial incarceration. buildings. secrets is now known as. alexander. house across. the postcard like. the big gray house itself.

to me. to say just don't you think it's something. i'm sick and tired of it but it's my. grandfather alexander. in the one thousand. he held the post of minister in a country that had gone through the upheavals of revolution and civil war a person responsible for food supplies was almost as important as all the law makers put together. instantly complied with special paramilitary groups made the rounds of villages to strip peasants of so-called. as a result many of them to starvation. very extensive. executions without troy. and they had to do what they had to by providing the nation with an adequate supply of grain. alexander to

save the country's scientific and industrial potential by preventing the urban population from starving around about the same time stalin came up with a costly and ambitious project the idea was to build a big apartment house with all modern conveniences for the country's ruling elite the job was given to the architect of. a graduate of the italian academy of fine arts. that was the first add up project of its kind within a city down to the western as well as domestic architects built on that idea later in the twentieth century. construction got underway on an aisle in the moscow river facing the kremlin that was in one thousand nine hundred twenty eight minister alexander was to be one of the first tenants but he didn't live long enough to see the end of construction. died of

a heart attack in that same year. however his family was allowed to move into the house on the embankment. thirty two family moved out of the kremlin and into a five room apartment just like this one girl in one thousand nine hundred forty i was brought there from the maternity home to my three uncles and sister and grandmother was very happy to see me that. one hundred twenty square metres was a huge amount of floor space in those days even so it was not enough for a large and growing family compared to the tiny flat the family had lived in before the five room apartment was like a palace gas stoves instead of and hot water on tap were seen as marvels of engineering. the architects had introduced a host of technical novelties to make the tenants and lives as comfortable as possible. there was a service left here before the building was revamps and there was

a dust bin just outside the door. a man whose job it was to collect dust bins used to live to pick them up from every floor the. tenants didn't need to leave the building if they didn't want to all utilities catering to their daily needs were close at hand shops an outpatient clinic with a cinema close to outsiders a tennis court a canteen and even hobby clubs for children. you would be hard put to find anything missing so what there was a crash and there was a kindergarten kindergarten was in that cabin on the rooftop where there was a large veranda on the other side children from the creche and kindergarten slept on the verandah in the daytime and. in those days it was not as noisy as it is now yet life in the house was very comfortable. move nice and yes the wool believed in was three minutes into the jail it's not clear if it was demanded to be that way

but the more if architect. had sensed the trend of the times in any case that's the way that world was constructed. finding a closed courtyards and a system of. anyone entering or leaving the building was taken every movement was there was a total control of everybody and everything. that never even occurred to the tenants of the modern house that they were living in a large cage there were small fountains in the middle of the courtyard with a staff of gardeners looking after flower beds around there was not a single tree obstructing the guards field of vision no one could cross the courtyard unnoticed concierges guarded all entrances they were officers of the country's special security units and they had keys to all of the buildings apartments. special service agents always stood guard inside.

we knew they were because they were wearing. sometimes took advantage of the situation by seeking safe haven in the house. parents had no worries about their children they knew their kids were under constant observation but. under total control. of the special security units. five hundred five families occupied five hundred five apartments in the complex three hundred. such cars were commonly known as craven believed to have been used to take people to present. the detainee was bundled into a car where he sent between two men in the special security force said you miss me

the detainee was guarded by two special services officers and the driver of the car had no room. the raven in russia was considered to be a burden who brought on happiness that's why people called the black raven the model on which this car was based was presented to soviet russia by henry ford. with. stalin was shown the car in the kremlin in one thousand thirty three. plated time before he touched the grill and wondered why there were so much chrome on it if. it was told that in that way soviet engineers had wanted to outdo forward to work style and said too much chrome was not a good idea do it as for does he order to perform.

this was the only mass produced car in the country at the time it was used both as a taxi and as a limousine for big special service officers also made use of the ominous vehicle. marguerite father raised her almost as he would a boy he taught her to swim run and stick up for herself. was a communist worthy of the title he was proud of his party membership but when indiscriminate arrests swept the country in the late one nine hundred thirty s. he realized that storm clouds were gathering over him to. in january nine hundred thirty seven margaret his parents spent a long time in her father's study talking in whispers margaret was just eight years old at the time. that our mother entered the room children your father is leaving us yeah i said to my father communists don't behave like that.

try to embrace me but i did my best to break loose from his grip and what. i would understand and forgive him when i grew up he made an attempt to protect our family. filed a divorce suit and moved into a home in less than a month he was arrested on the street his formal divorce didn't help a few days after his arrest his apartment in the house on the embankment was searched his family was still there. i thought in my nightmares for a very long time after the search. was their custom they had come in the evening when i was already in bed and the first thing that they did of them took my dog. i didn't really play with dolls but this one my father brought

from england it was a rag doll but it had a head made of porcelain one of them took and smashed the doll against the wall. but my father taught me to strike back so i bit him but. the families of the repressed and stayed in the basement pending a decision on what was to be done with there was a multitude of workshops catering to the tenants needs in the endless labyrinth underneath the house on the embankment there were also air raid shelters there many people used them during world war two the families of the enemies of the people lived in the bomb shelters accompanied by the noise of the woodworking machines. the bush doctrine a staff of some thirty carpenters catered to the house's top notch inhabitants anything that the tenant wanted us to meet news blocks floors. but they always

expected us to show up as soon as the ordered us to come from. the basements of the house have undergone no changes since the one nine hundred thirty s. even the doors of the now nonexistent service lives that were used to move dust bins are still there. sounds ten years ago there was a big hole here some of the ground had been flushed away when they were building a sewage pipe a few other young man and i went down to a depth of twelve metres we saw there was a sunken underground been sucking in water and soil to be awarded later but it was blocked with concrete. is a professional digger he makes maps and charts of the capital's underground service lines archaeologists and rescue workers turned to him for help. while house on the embankment was still under construction your political prisoners built up bunker and the secret tunnels linking the house to the kremlin. well

according to one theory if they died there was a tunnel traveled under the mosque at a depth of seventeen or eighteen meters. but we saw several human skulls with holes at the back a large holes in the forehead. people had been shot and killed their. honeymoon highlevel found two underground passages one dates back to the sixteenth century as for the other he believes it was made when the building was under construction he couldn't examine the second passage because it was filled with concrete to prevent pavements and sidewalks above from further sinking into the aisle swampy soil but this is not the only mystery still surrounding the house on the embankment.

culture is that so much i'm going to. find. another drumbeat towards war are the us and israel preparing an attack on iran is to read a thread which made. a close up game has been to their hang me. for the first russian fleet was bill. goes to the area which holds top position in oil and gas resources. where the biggest russian salmon caviar processing factories located. and where unique species of farm fauna can be found. the cycling region. should close up. quick.

happiness and fear of side by side in this grain somber house built for the so little eat in the heart of moscow just across from the kremlin eminent tenants walked to the kremlin to report for work carefree children played in the backyards but even they didn't fail to notice that their playmates were disappearing one by one arrests of house tenants became a matter of routine in the late one nine hundred thirty s. there were more sealed uninhabited apartments then occupied ones the exodus of veteran tenants was faster than the influx of new residents. they were tenants only in two or three apartments in a block of flats. the others had been sealed up though if the place was incredibly

quiet. packed and ready to go they always had some basic necessities close at hand and whenever they had the entrance door slam during the night they thought it was their turn to be arrested that's how it was with us and some people couldn't stand the stress and committed suicide. one of the two rooms of the small museum of the house on the embankment is devoted to the repressed a tenant a tour of the museum lasted for one and a half hours museum guides and spend a lot of that time telling the stories of the families of the so-called enemies of the people most of the immediate relatives of the repressed tenants were sent to prison camps and their children to children's homes the youngest of them usually had their names changed. and it's really been a children's home soon after his talons death a sixteen year old boy wrote a letter to the radio in it he describes his childhood i grew up in the grey house

on the bank of forever my father's name was nikolai were my mother's name was alexandra each morning i was taken to the kindergarten that was in the same block of flats alexandra the boy survived the christian camp and returned she found her son using the description contained in his letter although his name had been changed. reality and fiction all of that is intertwined in the house on the embankment even in conspicuous engineering concepts or mistakes in construction are often held up as examples of malicious tricks of special operation services. but the. ceiling in this corridor is much lower than inside the roots of the earth means that anyone would have had no difficulty at all so in getting into the air ducts used to be right here above me. there he could have seen and heard everything that was going on inside this room. no doubt he was about this. in those days it was not necessary to

collect incriminating evidence to arrest someone the procedure was much simpler and much more menacing that if they wanted to take someone away they just came and whisk them away and then they said they were spying for china or something. tryphena curator of the museum of the house on the embankment knows all of the legends surrounding the house and the real events in its history. in one way or another happy and a joyous event concerning its stem from the grim past of this place. the bright side of it is their return of people from prison camps one of them was the mother of ury tryphena of my late husband god rest his soul at the gate has given this house its name by writing a great book about it that his mother came back alive is a miracle and a great joy. the status of the houses tenants underwent

a gradual change towards the end of the one nine hundred forty s. now communist and other top most officials were not the only inhabitants of the house world war two heroes and prominent scientists created a new atmosphere of their own. for the war they were fountains and each culture. but when the war was over they were in a state of decay. because of public pressure the fountains were replaced. there was a volleyball net about five meters high and there were also two professional volleyball players living in the house at the time and managed to not together a cute team. although as a result people from all over moscow came here to play for all it will still be where sometimes they played until dusk and. soviet citizens were not allowed to purchase private property in those days only the state

provided housing. an official paper authorizing the right to move into the house on the embankment was a very prestigious sign the kind of apartment you got was also important and. family was moved into a smaller apartment in a different block his father a red army officer had disappeared without a trace. seen as enemies of the people my mother was a daughter of an enemy of the people so she was. life was hard and she had to work by night as a dressmaker. so private enterprise was banned it literally was hush hush business . today only the walls of the house and the museum serve as a reminder of times gone by the consumer goods shop the outpatients clinic and the laundry are all gone the rooftop kindergarten is no longer there.

the time was when there were some nice looking cup a troll is here or. there was a concierge and a telephone but the with the still later the cuppa trainers only reached the fifth floor and all of them were removed and the telephone disappeared and the concierge went away everything was then as it is now if. the club were only house tenants were admitted it is now a popular variety theatre the theatres bar is a pale semblance of a vast canteen that fed thousands of residents at a time there are no children's hobby clubs anymore only the stage and tennis court have survived. this will well here was a tool that sorry for the details. and there was a canteen for personnel. bert's the rest was the saying of those the most important tosk was to turn this building into

a theater. so well but unfortunately we can't climb up right now because of the tennis court above us weighs down on the theatre below it was actually built in the early nineteenth thirty's when the house was under construction. when the became the theatres artistic director in the late one nine hundred ninety s. he saw to it that the style of decorations in the auditorium and on stage was preserved as much as possible in line with the original design. it's ridiculous. so here you see these here is the coat of arms of the soviet union was pretty mild and actually those music sheets on the over there there are the notes for the saw the at national anthem those things have survived actually to this day i see them as the most vivid maint of a great and tragic period in the life of russia just look at the columns the

architecture and the imperial power demonstrated by this construction but there he kicked already. the government elite moved out of the house a long time ago. however having an apartment in the house is still regarded as a symbol of prestige. though many are deterred by its ill fame. actually i first played with the idea of moving into this building in the mid seventy's but my wife she told me she would never answer it because she said the walls in the shed she has here. others however would like to live here precisely because a large stratum of russia's history is associated with this house. as a historian i have always wanted to touch history with my own hands to experiment and

explore different options or i me it's. a prominent political analyst in the one nine hundred ninety s. is a relatively new resident of the house on the embankment he bought an apartment and moved here in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine since then he's been enjoying life here. when i first answered disappointment i was surprised by the fact that there was very little light in it. that the leo left almost no light there but that's how it was with the. there was a. small rooms on both sides of it. perhaps the architect thought that was enough for living. so i knocked on all the old walls you know all that's left now are the windows and

a bookshelf. more secure fun designed the building in such a way so as to offer a good view of the kremlin for most of the apartments some of them boasted enormous recessed balconies. as a student of the italian school of architecture if you want to get as much from the rare sunlight here is it possible to come to that and he designed a vast verandas like this one third out it's a very large indeed. there are even larger of around as elsewhere show boards legend has it that in winter time water was poured over them so that people could skate there was a couple many modern day businessmen buy apartments here but they don't live in them instead they regard them as a profitable investment in real estate others move into the building for the sheer pristine but the descendants of the victimized tenants make it a point of not walking anywhere near it if an apartment has new plastic windows

this is a sign that it was only a short time ago the few descendants of eminent ancestors prefer old frames made of wood but their numbers are on the decline. some people living in this house might keep in touch some hall but as a rule there were no close relationship the atmosphere is guns that's for sure. this house doesn't feel the same. hungry for the full story we've got it first hand the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers on.

it.

all. every month we give you the future the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world. join us for technology update on our jeep now with i.b.m. this is data data generated from an electrical grid. the data and you can do to do it in california.