four thirty in the morning here in moscow and here's our top stories for this hour polish prime minister. not to politicize the investigation into the. former president as well as. the pilots. some blame on the russian controllers.

laws. seven thousand dollars for giving away. which he claims. to achieve an independent palestinian state. the middle east to discuss energy cooperation and the peace process in the region. also. ahead for the world's biggest economic heavyweights. as well as human rights. over. exclusive address from the soviet era it's the only apartment building within a mere three hundred meters from the kremlin here's the tenants unusual tales.

thirty two in the heart of just. imposing even. a new. three hundred metres of the. tennis. every. time. it was meant for soviet russia ruling elite revolutionaries communist functionaries government ministers and members of parliament. a coveted key to the country's best . of its tenants had been repressed.

the special house for special people was popularly known as the house of pretrial incarceration. buildings in 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 food 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 peasants. as a result many of them were doomed to starvation. very extensive. executions without troil. did what they had to by providing the nation with an adequate supply of. 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. a graduate of the italian academy of fine arts . that was the first add up project up it's a city 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 nine hundred twenty eight food minister alexander was to be one of the first tenants but he didn't live long enough to see the end of construction so died of a heart attack in that same year. however his family was allowed to move into the house. thirty two my grandad's family moved out of the kremlin and into a five room apartment just like this one with

a good deal in the one nine hundred forty i was brought there from the maternity home to my three uncles and a 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 for a large and growing family compared to the tiny flat the family had lived in before the. palace stove. and hot water on tap were seen as marvels of engineering. the architects had a host of technical novelties to make the tenants 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 and didn't the building if they didn't want to all utilities catering to their daily needs were close at hand shops an outpatient clinic

a cinema close to outsiders a tennis court a canteen and even hobby clubs for children. playing. you would be. hard put to find anything missing what there was a crash and there was a kindergarten the kindergarten was in that cabin on the rooftop where there was a large veranda on the other side of 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. moving nice and yes there will believed in was three minutes into jail it's not clear if it was demanded to be that way but the more if architect. it sends to the trend of the times in any case that's the way that world was constructed and finding a closed courtyards and a system in general isn't about anyone entering or leaving the building was taken

every movement was known and taught there was a total control of everybody and everything. that never even occurred to the tenants of the modern house they were living in a large golden cage there were small fountains in the middle of the courtyard with a staff of gardeners looking after flower beds around them 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 apartment. special service agents always stood guard inside this gate we knew they were because they were wearing a stricken koehler's they let no outsiders into the house. and sometimes took advantage of the situation by seeking safe haven in the house from all sorts of

unpleasant situations with their. parents had no worries about their children they knew their kids were under constant observation but. under total control that. made the job of the special security units easier the repression machine was gaining momentum in the soviet union in the late one nine hundred thirty s. at that time five hundred five families occupied five hundred five apartments in the complex three hundred eight of them were repressed in one nine hundred thirty seven. such cars were commonly known as craven believed to have been used to take people to prison. the detainee was bundled into. between two men in the special security force so do you miss me a detainee was guarded by two special services officers and the driver of the car had no room for.

the raven in russia was considered to be a burden who brought unhappiness that's why people called. the model on which this car was based was presented to soviet russia by henry ford. was shown the car in the kremlin in one thousand thirty three. plated time. he touched the grill and wondered why they were so much chrome on it if. it was told that in that way soviet engineers had wanted to out to ford. too much chrome was not a good idea as ford does he ordered. 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.

margarita 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. in january one nine hundred thirty seven margarita's parents spent a long time in her father's study talking in whispers margarita 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 then he said 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 hotel in less than a month and he was arrested on the street his formal divorce he 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 one of them took my dog. i didn't really play with dolls but this one my father brought from england on the way it was a rag doll but it had a head made of porcelain one of them took and smashed the doll against the wall.

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. structurally necessary for some thirty carpenters catered to the houses 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 tunnel linking the house to the kremlin. to one theory if they died there. travel down to the mosque at a depth of seventeen thousand meters. but we saw several human skulls with holes at the back a little thing

a large holes in the forehead. clearly people had been shot and killed their bodies . suddenly 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 isles swampy soil but this is not the only mystery still surrounding the house on the embankment. culture is that so much of the taxpayers' money i mean i get what i say give it a real created the one hundred dollar question the rising price of oil the cost of

petroleum has been increasing steadily over the past few weeks and months. which brightened if you move the sun from phones to freshen. these phones don't talk t.v. dot com. happiness and a fear of side by side in this grain summer house built for the soviet elite 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 there. inmates 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 than occupied ones the exodus of veteran tenants was faster than the influx of new residents. they were tenants only two or three apartments in a block of flats. the others had been sealed up though the new different place was incredibly quiet but 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. 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 attendants a tour of the museum lasts 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 talents that a sixteen year old boy wrote a letter to the radio in it he describes his childhood i grew up in a big gray house on the bank of forever my father's name was nikolai work you were my mother's name was aleksandra each morning i was taken to the kindergarten that was in the same block of flats alexandra the boy's mother 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 operations services. but the. ceiling in this corridor it is much lower than inside the roots of the earth means that any one 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. it 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 then they said they were spying for china or something. curator of the museum of the house on the embankment knows all of the legends surrounding the house and of 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. with the

bright side of it is there a turn 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 there. for the war there were found. 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. and there were also two professional volleyball

players living in the house at the time and managed to not together a team. as a result people from all over moscow came here to play for label sometimes they played until. 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 the end of the war alexander family was moved into a smaller apartment in a different block his father a red army officer had disappeared without a trace during the war. missing soldiers were seen as enemies of the people my mother was a daughter of an enemy of the people so she was denied official employment. 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 kindergarden is no longer there. time was when there were some nice looking cup a troll is here or. it was a concierge and a telephone but the with a still later the cuppa trainers only reached the fifth floor then 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 made 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. visible well here was a tool that sorry for the details. and there was a canteen for personnel. the rest was the saying of those the most important tosk was to turn this building into a theater. but unfortunately we can't climb up right now tennis court above us weighs down on the theatre. 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 give well

here you see is here is the coat of arms of the soviet union with 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 me because 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. size of it. perhaps the architect thought that was enough for living. so i knocked on all the old walls in all that's left now are the windows and the bookshelves. morsi designed the building in such a way as to offer a good view of the kremlin for most of the apartments some of them boasted enormous recessed balcony. as a student of the italian school of architecture wanted to get as much from the rare sunlight here is possible. to that and he designed a vast verandas like this one. it's a very large indeed a group there are even larger of around as elsewhere 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 by 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 are no close relationship the atmosphere is guns that's for sure. this house doesn't feel the same.

in the. home.