Moscow, 1937

by Karl Schlogel

  The construction of the Moscow–Volga Canal had a predecessor in the White Sea Canal, the first canal to be built and the greatest building project of the First Five-Year Plan. The economic and strategic purpose of the White Sea Canal was disputed at the time, but of even greater significance is the fact that, even then, the canal entered the consciousness of contemporaries as a uniquely monstrous human and technical experiment. At stake was not simply a building project but also the ‘transformation’, the ‘reforging’ (perekovka) of human beings through work – or, more to the point, the use of forced labour to transform hundreds of thousands of prisoners. A prison zone, indeed an entire prison universe, came into being along the canal route between Lake Onega and the White Sea with its centre in Medvezhegorsk, from where the prisoners’ work was directed. In October 1932, 125,000 prisoners were engaged there. Working in unspeakable conditions, they built a canal of 227 kilometres, together with its locks, ports and bridges, smashing and excavating their way through the rocky and swampy terrain of Karelia. The mortality rate in 1933, for example, was 10.56 per cent – 8,870 people in all. In the building of this first canal, those in authority tried out forms of organization, approaches to work, provisioning and operating methods that built into their calculations the deaths of tens of thousands of people through overwork and exhaustion. This canal provided the template for future major projects of the Gulags. It was made famous and also notorious by the book that appeared on the completion of the canal in 1934 as a work of collective reportage by a group of prominent Soviet writers. Slave labour was celebrated in the book as a form of resocialization, as a ‘way back into life’. In this respect, too, Dmitlag became heir to Belbaltlag, and the Moscow– Volga Canal became heir to the Belomor or White Sea Canal.13

  In many respects the second canal was a straightforward sequel to the first. The route of the White Sea Canal was plundered for its barracks and working implements, such as wheelbarrows, panniers, cranes and cement-mixers, which were transferred to the new route. Key personnel who had performed outstandingly in Karelia, and who had been rewarded with honours, assumed management roles in the new project. Above all, however, human beings, workers, prisoners from Karelia who had not yet served out their term or who had been condemned to further punishment, were also sent to the new construction site. As the camp zone on the White Sea Canal contracted, the prison population grew in the camp linked to the new route – it was like a system of connected pipes. It involved a huge transfer of organizational know how and manpower! The same process was repeated at the end of the construction of the Moscow–Volga Canal. As early as autumn 1936, prisoners and free workers were sent to new building sites on the Volga – such as the building of the new power station at Kuibyshev.

  The number of prisoners at Dmitlag grew as follows: 1932: 10,400; 1933: 51,502; 1934: 156,319; 1935: 188,792; 1936: 192,034; 1937: 146,920; 1938: 16,068.14

  In April 1933, when the White Sea Canal was flooded, the first steps were taken towards setting up the building site for the new canal. Initially, the management of the site was entrusted to the People’s Commissariat for Water (Narkomvod); but from 1 June 1932 this was transferred to the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU). That was a crucial date. The management of the Moskva–Volga Stroi [‘Construction’] (MVS) was moved from Moscow to Dmitrov, an old provincial town on the future canal route, which would become the capital of the Dmitlag camp complex – at first known as Dmitrovlag, DLAG or DITL. Former managers of the White Sea Canal project – Lazar' Kogan, Yakov Rapoport, Naftalii Frenkel', Aleksandr Fridman, Semen Firin and others – were all transferred from Medvezhegorsk to Dmitrov on the future canal route.15 Workers were brought together from every direction: from work camps in Karelia, Central Asia and Saratov. Guards with experience were mobilized from Solovki and guard dogs from the camp on the Svir. Dmitlag grew so fast that the camp authorities lost control of the numbers of inmates and had to set aside a day to count them in order to obtain at least an approximate idea of the labour force at their disposal. The count took place on New Year’s Eve, 31 December 1932.16

  The Moscow–Volga Canal was a project full of superlatives. The route was 128 kilometres long. Like the White Sea Canal, the new route took advantage of existing natural waterways and lakes, but, even so, massive interference with the natural environment was unavoidable. Vast earthworks were needed. Of the 128 kilometres, 108 kilometres consisted of an artificial waterway, 85.5 metres wide and 5.5 metres deep. Admittedly, the White Sea Canal was longer, at 227 kilometres, at 5.5 metres deep and with nineteen locks, but it required the excavation of only 21 million cubic metres of earth and the addition of around 400,000 cubic metres of concrete. The Moscow–Volga Canal needed the removal of around 200 million cubic metres of earth and the addition of approximately 3 million cubic metres of concrete. Another major project of the heroic age of industrialization – the DneproGES, the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station with its dam – required only 1 million cubic metres of concrete.

  The Moscow–Volga Canal stands out even in international comparisons. The construction of the 80 kilometre-long Panama Canal called for the removal of 160 million cubic metres of earth and 3.8 million cubic metres of concrete. In addition, Soviet design engineers claimed that both Suez and Panama posed far fewer hydrological problems.17

  Between Moscow and the Volga there are several changes of level. The route rises up to the Iksa; it runs on a level as far as Khlebnikovo, and then sinks down to the Moscow River. At its highest point, the route exceeds the level of the Volga by 38 metres. To bring the water up to that level, five pumping stations were built, each of them raising the water level by 8 metres.18

  The canal was also to be a source of water supply. This involved the installation of a 28 kilometre-long water supply line, 9 kilometres of which ran underground. The water supply line consisted of two parallel pipelines, so that at any time one could be shut down, e.g. for cleaning. More than 200 buildings were constructed along the route of the canal, and they too were built in record time. The most important of them were themselves major projects: eleven reinforced concrete dams, eight earth dams, seven reservoirs, six underground water ducts, five pumping stations with propeller pumps (the largest pumping stations in the world), eight hydroelectric stations supplying the capital with additional electricity and seven reinforced concrete bridges – many of these structures were highly sophisticated civil engineering projects in their own right. In addition, there were settlements and dwellings for the operating and maintenance personnel servicing the canal.19 The canal route must have been one vast building site. The canal was originally due for completion by the end of 1934. Even if that date could not be adhered to, we can see with hindsight that the projects followed one another in rapid succession.

  Once the plenum of the Central Committee had reached its ‘historic decision’ on 15 June 1931, following Kaganovich’s presentation, building began in September 1932. On 10 July 1935, the General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow was approved. On 9 September 1935, Sovnarkom’s report on the progress of the canal construction works was published. On 23 March 1937, the damming of the Volga began. On 17 April, the entire canal was flooded. On 22 April, Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov and Yezhov went on a boat trip on the canal. On 1 May, the eight landing-stages were brought into service. On 1 June, the port terminal in Khimki was inaugurated. On 5 July, a Sovnarkom resolution proclaimed the completion of the canal. On 14 July, a Soviet government decree ordered the release of 55,000 Dmitlag prisoners as shock workers; others received decorations, distinctions and gifts. On 15 July, the ‘canal army’ (kanalarmeitsy) informed the government, the Party, the entire nation and the ‘leader of the nations’ that the canal had been completed. And on the same day, a regular passenger and freight service was launched.20

  A canal as a Gesamtkunstwerk: the aesthetics of a man-made riverscape

  But this canal was not like other canals. A volume on the architecture of the canal contains the assertion that
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  The Moscow–Volga Canal is an authentic work of art of our great, heroic Stalinist epoch. It is the clear expression of the powerful creative and cultural renaissance of our nation. As the most important link in Stalin’s plan for the reconstruction of the waterways of the Soviet nation, this canal enriches our capital with great waterscapes, new parks, stadiums, and, together with its architectural forms, its idealist and artistic expressivity, it reflects the greatness and the heroic character of our age.21

  The significance attached to the building of the canal in the USSR is also reflected in the fact that a large illuminated relief map of the project was sent to the International Exhibition in Paris in May 1937. What the designers, engineers and architects regarded as special and indeed unique in their work was that they had produced an ensemble in which all the aspects of a major project had been considered holistically and that the best possible solutions had been found. In their view, the canal was a Gesamtkunstwerk, combining architecture, technology, engineering, hydraulic engineering and landscape design. And all this had been achieved under enormous time pressure so as to be ready for the anniversary of the October Revolution. The engineers and architects were concerned not just with functionality but also with beauty, with the marriage of art and nature. Visitors should be able to see from the finished product that it was the creation of the entire Soviet nation – hence there were building workers from Kramatorsk, Krivoi Rog and Leningrad; building materials from the Urals, the Donbass and Siberia. They wished to demonstrate that the construction had been achieved entirely by their own efforts, i.e. exclusively with ‘the technology of the fatherland’. At stake was nothing less than the utter transformation of a large territory into a completely new type of man-made landscape, the harmonious synthesis of technology and transport in a large landscaped park – and all this cheek by jowl with the capital, in a popular dacha district. There were to be over 200 major buildings – locks, pumping stations, dams, administration buildings – and they were all to be brought together in a single harmonious style, a corporate design. Never before had anyone created such an ambitious ensemble covering such a vast area – 128 kilometres in all.22 As was the case with the Moscow Metro, the aim was to establish common aesthetic ideas in order to guarantee the unity of the scheme.

  Figure 18.1 The northern river terminal building of the Moscow–Volga Canal, completed in 1937 after a design by A. Rukhliadev and W. Krinskii

  ‘At stake was nothing less than the utter transformation of a large territory into a completely new type of man-made landscape, the harmonious synthesis of technology and transport in a large landscaped park.’

  The declared intention of combining beauty with function and developing a ‘socialist realism’ in construction went together with abandoning the pure functionalism that had been cultivated in industrial architecture by the Constructivists, who were still in a dominant position in the early 1930s. But it went hand in hand also with a criticism of eclecticism. ‘We must wage war both on functionalism and formalistic games, but also on eclecticism.’23 This led to great aesthetic unity and coherence in the designs of the most important buildings. The locks are impressive constructions and not just in functional terms, thanks to the volume of the lock chambers and the size and movement of the lock gates. Over and above that, these features are underscored by the design of their entrances and their towers, which contain the machinery, the entire technology for activating them and making them function. The rhythmic, monumental impression they make is enhanced by their having been built in pairs or in groups, as is the case in a number of places – when two or three lock gates follow each other in quick succession. From these towers, with their balconies and balustrades, the officer in charge of the locks can survey the scene like a ship’s captain on his bridge. But the journey is of absorbing interest for the ship’s passengers too. They can read the stories inscribed in the reliefs and frescoes on the buildings – mainly the history of the construction of the canal. The façades of the buildings have individual designs – with columns, pilasters and reliefs; and they are finished in a variety of materials – granite, marble, labradorite and diorite. Ornamental sculptures and statues have been distributed strategically. One recurrent motif is a model of the Santa Maria, Christopher Columbus’s caravel, which features repeatedly between the towers at the northern and southern entrances to the canal. The unity of the ensemble is further underlined by the pair of monumental sculptures of Lenin and Stalin designed by Sergei Merkurov – each of them 30 metres high – surrounded by parkland and flanking the entrance into the canal.24 The architects hoped to make an impact with the scale of their buildings and the effort they put into every last detail. The design of the landscape forms part of the architecture of the canal – the avenues, paths and embankments, the uniform design for the moorings, and the shapes of the lanterns and benches.

  The architects of the canal complex included not just the outstanding masters of the old school but also members of the younger generation, such as Aleksandr Pasternak, Aleksei Rukhliadev and Vladimir Krinskii, who had all gone through the Constructivist school. Viktor Vesnin, too, was always to be seen on the canal building site. These men were thoroughly conversant with the technical and aesthetic debates of their day, and they developed the style of the entire complex through dialogue with developments on the international scene. Hence they rejected Le Corbusier’s contempt for rivers and actually emphasized the effect of the Moscow River as an urban artery and an urban space. They used the industrial architecture of Peter Behrens or the Fiat Works in Turin as a reference point, and were influenced by the new overseas terminal in the port of Genoa as well as the houses of culture that were built for sailors in the Netherlands. All of these played a role in the development of an architectural and technical idiom for giving shape to the new, specifically ‘Soviet’ landscape. In the process they succeeded in achieving astonishing syntheses, combining the harmony of nature with the dynamism of a new age. Thus in one instance a lock formed the meeting point of a waterway, railway and road. That was the case where the canal crossed the road to Volokamsk, which was led through a spacious tunnel beneath the canal. At another point a bridge was built to carry the railway over the canal to Kalinin.25 Entirely in accord with the spirit of the age, many photographs or posters of the time feature an aeroplane, thus drawing together the whole world of transport and communication. It cannot be doubted that, for contemporaries, the fascination of such a huge building project lay in the fact that it represented a manifesto of connectivity, of networking, of the compressed significance of a nation that was extending and expanding in every direction. It was a symbol of the idea that mountains could be moved, but also that a gigantic country could be bound together to produce a global organism.

  Journeys on the canal began or finished as a rule in the harbour terminal building in Khimki designed by Aleksei Rukhliadev. In its transparency and airy brightness, an almost excessive italianità, it stands for the utopian element of an Arcadia typical of the entire project. It is 15 kilometres from the centre of town, and can be reached via the Leningrad Highway. It is situated on the banks of the Khimki reservoir, one of the largest artificial lakes along the canal. The building stretches for 150 metres along the banks of the reservoir and, with its 75 metre-high spire crowned by a star, it extends vertically into the air, symbolizing the future. Both horizontals and verticals play with the watery reflections of the seascape and the functionality of the port. In architectural terms, this is the USSR’s first river port terminal building to be provided with sculptures, frescoes and high-quality interiors, a model for further buildings of this sort in the years to come. A broad flight of steps leads down to the quay; an avenue lined with sculptures leads up to the Leningrad Highway. The building, two storeys tall and built in the shape of a ship, opens up to the outside with galleries ornamented with columns and arcades. The northern river station features a fountain symbolizing the Russian north, with a polar bear in marble, the southern river sta
tion showcases the Russian south, with a fountain with dolphins. With its entrance hall, waiting room and restaurant, the interior aims at functionality but at the same time is not unlike a sanatorium; it creates a pleasant atmosphere of retreat and recuperation. It has space for 430 people. The principal room is the entrance hall in the centre, decorated with symbols of the USSR – the hammer and sickle, ears of corn and the coats of arms of the Soviet republics. There is also a statue of Stalin. From the entrance hall our gaze passes into the wings, into the restaurant and from the waiting room up to the fountains, which are located in the rotundas at the end of each wing. Everything is open to the outside, is light and bright, and invites visitors to stroll at their leisure before taking their departure. The restaurant walls are finished in imitation marble, decorated with pictures and mosaics representing the cruiser Aurora, the icebreaker Krasin and, once again, Columbus’s caravel, all symbolizing seafaring in general.26 The harbour building is embedded in a park landscape which is also home to the Dynamo swimming stadium. Built to accommodate 2,000 visitors, it is, with its reinforced concrete stands and yacht moorings, one of the most interesting examples of a classical late modern building style. Its clean-cut lines were a constant attraction to the photographers of those years. The grounds of the sports complex are full of frescoes, reliefs and sculptures, representing pilots, shock workers, Chekists, canal builders, workers, collective-farm peasants and sportsmen.27 Rukhliadev’s harbour building is an act of homage to a city by the sea. Soviet cinema of the time grasped this immediately. In more films than one, sailing across the canal became a cheerful, summery regatta, and the harbour in Khimki became the radiant white setting for a story with a happy end.