A galaxy of architects worked on the building: B.M. Iofan, L.V. Rudnev, S.E. Chernyshev, P.V. Abrosimov, A.F. Khryakov, V.N. Nasonov. The sculptural decoration of the facades was made in the workshop of Vera Mukhina. During the construction, the labor of several thousand prisoners was used, and on the 22nd floor of the building, during finishing work, a camp site for 700 prisoners was organized.

Before the Triumph Palace appeared, the Moscow State University building was the tallest administrative and residential building in Moscow. Its height is 182 m, and with a spire - 240 m. There are 36 floors in Moscow State University, while on the 32nd floor there is an observation deck and a museum of geography, where sightseers are sometimes taken.

It is the largest university building in the world. It required an original frame weighing 40 tons, 175 million bricks, tens of thousands square meters granite and marble, original furniture and equipment. The main building and its 60 separate buildings have an area of ​​220,000 m 2 .

Like other administrative and residential "high-rise buildings", the main building of Moscow State University is conceived as a house with a closed communal infrastructure: there is a cinema, a post office, consumer services, and a clinic. Theoretically, a student may not leave the building at all from the beginning to the end of the academic year.

They say that......almost all "seven sisters" have older twin brothers in the US. MSU has this Manhattan Municipal Building.
... the pit during the construction of Moscow State University was frozen with liquid nitrogen, and there are refrigeration units in the basement. If they are turned off, the university will slide into the river. But in fact, Moscow State University stands on dense and dry soils, and the bike was born due to the artificial freezing of the soil used on other skyscrapers.
... a statue of Stalin was walled up in the cellars of the Moscow State University building. They wanted to install the monument on a high-rise tower, but did not have time. In fact, in the first projects of Moscow State University there was a statue, but Stalin himself rejected this option.
... a reinforced concrete building with historical, philological, philosophical, law faculties was called. It was located halfway from the main building to the circus. Therefore, students joked that GUM was a cross between a university and a circus.
... one of the German prisoners of war decided to escape from the construction site of Moscow State University. He made a flying machine to fly right off the building. Beyond that, opinions differ. Some say that everything was going well, but the wind blew, the unfortunate pilot fell and broke his leg, others say that the escape was a success, and the most bloodthirsty say that the prisoner was shot right after takeoff.
...columns of solid jasper on the 9th floor were transferred to Moscow State University from the destroyed Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Actually it is not.

Moscow State University in photographs of different years:

Yesterday I visited the main building of Moscow State University on Sparrow Hills - a few pictures under the cut.

The main building of Moscow State University (GZ MSU) has 36 floors. And the height with the spire is 240 meters. The departments and classrooms are located in the main span of the building, and the dormitories are located in the side spans. The main building houses the Faculty of Geology (3rd-8th floors), the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics (12th-16th floors) and the Faculty of Geography (17th-22nd floors) and the administration (8th-10th floors). The foundation stone of the MSU State Lore was laid in 1949, and the first classes began on September 1, 1953.

The GC MSU has its own Postal office, a radio station, a clinic, several canteens, many shops and, they say, there is even a cinema, but we did not find it.

There is also a swimming pool - it is located under the main entrance to the building.

There are a lot of bicycles near the hostel buildings...

Dorm corridors...sorry for the bad quality :).

Each door has a slot for mail.

Kitchen in the hostel of Moscow State University in GZ :)

All elevators in the building are modern, they go very fast, sometimes even pawning.

There are a lot of elevators and it is difficult to navigate, since certain elevators go only to certain floors, and there you need to change or look for the elevator that goes to the floor you need. In other words, there is no elevator that could take you to any floor of the Moscow State University.

Artifact - a plate of old lifts.

Stairs in the Moscow State University.

In the upper tower of Moscow State University there is a museum of geography, which can be freely visited.

Here is the top floor plan.

Unfortunately, on Saturday the museum is closed, but we were allowed to go to the window from which a view of Moscow opens.

Luzhniki and observation deck...

View of Moscow from the 15th floor of the hostel.

There is also a hostel in these towers - and students live there)

The Department of Climatology and Meteorology regularly post their own weather forecast.

GZ MSU, 9th floor, administration office :)

The main building of Moscow State University was not so long ago the tallest in Moscow; the height, together with the spire and the star, reaches 235 meters. It is one of the seven Stalin skyscrapers in Moscow. The main building of Moscow State University, or as it is sometimes called the high-rise of Moscow State University, occupies the highest geographical point above the Moscow River and to this day retains the value of one of the largest verticals of the capital.

It was the construction of a high-rise building on the Sparrow Hills that gave a powerful impetus to the development of the south-west of Moscow. Together with the Main building of the Stalin skyscraper, other buildings, alleys and parks, avenues and streets of the adjacent areas of Moscow were designed and built.

Initially, the Main Building of Moscow State University was designed by B. Iofan, who was the architect of the Palace of Soviets. According to the town-planning plan, it was supposed to orient all eight skyscrapers of Moscow exactly at the Palace of Soviets.

B. Iofan, using the same methods as when designing the Palace of Soviets, planned to place a sculpture of Mikhail Lomonosov on the roof of the skyscraper, and the skyscraper itself on the very edge of the Sparrow Hills. Joseph Stalin did not agree with such a project, and B. Iofan was suspended from work on the project a couple of days before the completion of the last drawings.

The architectural project that met all the insistence of I. Stalin was developed by L. Rudnev. The new team of architects was able to erect the Main Building of Moscow State University within the original deadline.

Experimental verification

L. Rudnev in his project provided that the Main Building of Moscow State University would be located 300 meters further from the edge of the slope descending to the Moscow River. The complexity of the situation lay in the fact that none of the architects, including L. Rudnev himself, could be sure that the Main Building of Moscow State University would not be lost behind the trees and the last floors of other houses.

It was decided to test everything experimentally. Aerostats left over from the time of Moscow's air defense during the Great Patriotic War were raised into the air over the Sparrow Hills.

Each of the balloons was raised to the appropriate height: 240 meters to indicate the height of the central volume of the building, the rest to indicate the 9 and 18-storey buildings. Architects and photographers, being in various parts of Moscow, recorded the visibility of balloons. And so it was proved that the silhouette of the Main Building of Moscow State University will be visible from afar from various points in Moscow.

In 1953, the State Construction Commission accepted the building of Moscow State University and the campus, which included a botanical garden, several dozen ponds for breeding selective fish varieties, 2 sports complexes with swimming pools and many administrative and technical buildings.

The Soviet press wrote that the Main Building of Moscow State University was built by the hands of 3 thousand young Komsomol members - participants in the Stakhanov movement. In fact, much more people worked on the construction of a skyscraper.

In connection with the work on the construction of the Main Building of Moscow State University in the late 40s, a decision was signed in the bowels of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR on the parole of more than 4 thousand convicts related to construction specialties. They worked on the construction of a skyscraper on Sparrow Hills until the end of the term, and sometimes longer.

In the years of completion construction works, it was decided in order to save money and time, to move the places for the prisoners' housing directly to the construction site. The new camp site was located on the 24th and 25th floors of the Main Building of Moscow State University under construction. This action was also justified from the point of view of security: prisoners placed at a height of more than 120 meters did not require protection, they had nowhere to run physically.

However, once on construction site nevertheless happened emergency associated with the disappearance of 2 prisoners. After the shift, the guards did not count them. Clearly realizing that the fact of the escape of the prisoners would cost many posts, and for some even freedom, all the guards were raised to their feet in alarm.

For several hours, the fugitives were searched until they were found in a glass star. As it turned out, they did not hear the end signal and continued to work, according to another version, they just played cards.

Sparrow Hills

Sparrow Hills became a stronghold of learning at the end of the 17th century, when the first school in Russia was opened in the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery on Sparrow Hills, where it became possible to study Slavic and Greek languages. Later this school turned into the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy - the predecessor of the Moscow state university.

Sparrow Hills has long attracted interest from the authorities. Starting from the 17th century, one of the royal palaces stood on Sparrow Hills. And later, in the 19th century, the territory of the Sparrow Hills was allocated for the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior according to the original project, the architect of which was A. Vitberg.

Work began in 1823, but was stopped due to the peculiarities of the soil - a landslide slope with an extensive network of springs. And the second problem was the impossibility of delivering the stone because of the extremely low level of the Moskva River in this area.

Just like B. Iofan, architect A. Vitberg was removed from construction, accused of embezzlement and exiled to Vyatka. The territory in the Volkhonka area next to the Kremlin was chosen as a new site for the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

The temple was built according to the project of the new architect K. Ton for almost 40 years. But in less than half a century, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was destroyed by an explosion to build the Palace of Soviets in its place according to the project of the same B. Iofan. Again, the project never materialised.

Expansion of Moscow State University. Lomonosov

Initially, the Main Building of Moscow State University on Sparrow Hills was conceived as a hotel. However, in the late 40s, I. Stalin considered that in the country that defeated the Nazi army, the level of science was very low, new scientific research was not carried out, and scientists were trying to primitively copy Western developments.

Doubting the strength of the leadership of Moscow University, Joseph Stalin proposed to make two universities from one university: in one to collect natural science faculties (physics, chemistry, physico-technical, biological, mathematical and soil-geographical faculties), and in the second - faculties of public (social sciences). ) Sciences (historical, legal, philological, and philosophical faculties). In the old building of Moscow State University overhaul and leave it to the social sciences, and build new buildings for the natural sciences.

Ideas to expand Moscow University existed before. In the 18th century, the university management turned to Catherine II with a request to allocate funds and a plot of land for the construction of new premises for the university on Sparrow Hills.

Unfortunately, the expansion of Moscow University took place much later, and in the old building on Mokhovaya Street near the Kremlin, Moscow State University met Napoleon, the October Revolution and survived the years of the Great Patriotic War.

Projects for the construction of new university buildings have been prepared and discussed since the mid-1930s. At first, it was supposed to locate new buildings on Hertsin and Gorky Street. In the future, a plan arose to build on the existing building up to 3-4 floors.

Proposals were put forward to choose a site in the area of ​​Kaluzhskaya Square, since it was planned to build a metro there. For a long time, the position about the need to keep Moscow State University in the center of the capital, as the cultural and educational center of the country, prevailed. This is how the skyscraper on Sparrow Hills became a symbol of the new Soviet students in Moscow.

The main building of Moscow State University today

Now on the 34 floors of the building there are classrooms, an assembly hall, administration, a museum, a library, student dormitories, apartments for teaching staff, as well as a cinema, post office, shop, laundry, gym, etc. The skyscraper was conceived as a closed communal system. Students and teachers had the opportunity not to leave the walls of the palace of science during the entire academic year.

Today on the territory of Moscow State University there is a botanical garden with a beautiful arboretum, where excursions are held from May to October, the Palace of Pioneers of Moscow State University, the Museum of Earth Science of Moscow State University. Unique museum exhibits are collected in the Main Building of Moscow State University.

The Museum of Geography of Moscow State University occupies the 29th and 32nd floors of the Main Building. The 30th and 31st floors of the skyscraper are occupied by technical rooms. The 33rd floor under the dome occupies a large meeting room.

On the 34th technical floor there is a door leading to the spire, in which, according to some information, there was one of the operational posts of the KGB to monitor the situation in the center of the capital, including the routes of movement of top officials of the state.

In view of the hasty alteration of the architectural plan by B. Iofan himself, miscalculations in the design and construction could not be avoided. Fountains on the square in front of the main entrance to the building appeared in connection with the need for a ventilation system, which the builders and architects simply forgot about.

Fountains and flowerbeds mask the huge air intakes, and the tunnels below them leading to air purification plants. By the way, through these tunnels you can quietly go around all the buildings of the complex, and look into the dining room or audience.

According to rumors, during the construction and decoration of the Main Building of Moscow State University, materials collected from the ruins of the German Reichstag were used, in particular, pink marble and unusually dark granite are often mentioned. It is only known for certain that captured German ventilation mechanisms are used in the ventilation system, and surprisingly, many of them still work fine.

The spire and star of the skyscraper on Sparrow Hills have been sparkling with gold for more than sixty years. Only now there is no gold and never was. The gold coating is very impractical, under the influence of atmospheric phenomena it will quickly become unusable, and therefore, in the construction of the spire and star, yellow glass plates were used, on the inner surface of which a thin layer of pure aluminum was applied.

Botanical Garden of Moscow State University, Pharmaceutical Garden

The Apothecary Garden of the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University has a long history. Long before the construction of the complex of buildings of Moscow State University, including the agrobotanical garden, the first Apothecary garden in Russia was created in Moscow.

At the direction of Peter I, at the beginning of the 18th century, behind the Sukhorevskaya Tower, by then standards, the very outskirts of Moscow, an apothecary garden was planted, in which medicinal plants were grown. Cultivated plants were used both for the preparation of medicinal formulations and for teaching botany to future doctors, chemists and gardeners.

Pharmaceutical garden survived difficult times. It was almost completely burned down in 1812, plundered in 1918. And until the 50s of the 20th century it was abandoned and packed. The revival of the garden was associated with the opening of the Prospect Mira metro station, which was then called the Botanical Garden. And in 1953, the Pharmaceutical Garden became a branch of the newly erected Agrobotanical Garden of Moscow State University.

The restored and greatly enlarged collection of rare plants was divided between the sites. Developing the new territory of the Botanical Garden on Sparrow Hills, the management of Moscow State University encouraged expeditions of biologists who brought unique seeds and plants from different parts of the USSR.

Model houses at Moscow State University

In the depths of the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University, you can find an amazing, almost toy-like structure. A small one-story building, which now houses the Botanical Garden division, gives the impression of an architectural misunderstanding.

The wall of the building is made of cladding panels of the Main Building of Moscow State University. It seems that for the construction of this small structure they used building materials left over from the construction of the university building.

However, no - this is not the result of the most severe savings in building materials. This small building is one of two model houses of Moscow State University, used to demonstrate architectural solutions. The same materials were used on the model as on the facade of the Main Task of Moscow State University, including the granite lining of the plinth.

At the construction site of Moscow State University, not only the model of the exterior decoration of the Main Building was presented, but also models of rooms for students and professors. According to the project, students were supposed to live alone, but at a meeting in the Kremlin it was decided to place students in two in a room, since single living would have a bad effect on the formation of the personality of young Komsomol members.

The apartments for professors consisted of three rooms: a large corridor, a bathroom and a kitchen. There was even a small room for servants, in which only a small table and chair could fit. AT life size even a balcony was made in the model house.

After the completion of work on the Main Building of the University, the department of flora of the Botanical Garden was located in the model house. Despite the past years, all the premises of the Main Building of Moscow State University have retained their nobility and solidity.

Erection in 1949–1953 the main building of Moscow State University on the Lenin (Sparrow) Hills was one of the largest construction projects of the post-war USSR. Before the appearance of the Triumph Palace, the building was the tallest administrative and residential building in Moscow, and before the construction of the Messeturm in Frankfurt in 1990, it was also the tallest building in Europe. Height - 182 m, with a spire - 240 m, number of storeys of the central building - 36.

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1. Students of the school of working youth against the backdrop of the main building of Moscow State University under construction (1951)
2. In 1948, employees of the department of the Central Committee of the Party, which oversaw science, received a task from the Kremlin: to work out the issue of building a new building for Moscow State University. They prepared a memorandum together with the rector of the university - academician A.N. Nesmeyanov, proposing to build a skyscraper for the "temple of Soviet science". Papers migrated from the Central Committee to the Moscow authorities. Soon Nesmeyanov and a representative of the “scientific” department of the Central Committee were invited to the city committee of the party: “Your idea is unrealistic. Too many elevators for a high-rise building. Therefore, the building should not be higher than 4 floors.
3. A few days later, Stalin held a special meeting on the "university issue", and he announced his decision: to erect a building for Moscow State University with a height of at least 20 floors on top of the Lenin Hills - so that it could be seen from afar.
4. The design of the new university building was prepared by the famous Soviet architect Boris Iofan, who designed the skyscraper of the Palace of Soviets. However, a few days before the approval "at the top" of all the drawings of the architect, this work was removed. The creation of the largest of the Stalinist skyscrapers was entrusted to a group of architects headed by L.V. Rudnev.
5. Iofan's intransigence is considered the reason for such an unexpected replacement. He was going to build the main building right over the cliff of the Lenin Hills. But by the fall of 1948, experts were able to convince Stalin that such an arrangement of a huge structure was fraught with disaster: the area was dangerous from the point of view of landslides, and the new university would simply slide into the river! Stalin agreed with the need to move the main building of Moscow State University away from the edge of the Lenin Hills, but Iofan did not like this option at all, and he was removed. Rudnev moved the building 800 meters deep into the territory, and created an observation deck at the place chosen by Iofan.
6. In the original draft version, it was supposed to crown the skyscraper with a sculpture of impressive size. The character on the sheets of Whatman paper was depicted as an abstract figure - a figure of a man with his head raised to the sky and his arms spread wide to the sides. Apparently, such a pose should symbolize the craving for knowledge. Although the architects, showing the drawings to Stalin, hinted that the sculpture could get a portrait resemblance to the leader. However, Stalin ordered to build a spire instead of the statue, so that the upper part of the Moscow State University building would be similar to the other six skyscrapers being built in the capital.
7. The solemn ceremony of laying the first stone of the high-rise building of Moscow State University took place on April 12, 1949, exactly 12 years before Gagarin's flight.
8. Reports from a shock construction site on the Lenin Hills reported that 3,000 Stakhanovite Komsomol members were building a skyscraper. However, in reality, many more people worked here. Specially "under the university" at the end of 1948, the Ministry of Internal Affairs prepared an order for the parole of several thousand prisoners who had construction specialties from the camps. These convicts were to spend the rest of their term at the construction of Moscow State University.
9. In the GULAG system, there was "Construction-560", which was transformed in 1952 into the Directorate of the ITL of the Special District (the so-called "Stroylag"), whose contingent was engaged in the construction of a university skyscraper. The construction was supervised by General Komarovsky, head of the Main Directorate of Camps industrial construction. The number of prisoners in Stroylag reached 14,290 people. Almost all of them were imprisoned under "everyday" articles, they were afraid to bring "political" ones to Moscow. A zone with watchtowers and barbed wire was built a few kilometers from the “object”, near the village of Ramenki, in the area of ​​​​the current Michurinsky Prospekt.
10. When the construction of the high-rise building was nearing completion, it was decided "to bring the places of residence and work of prisoners as close as possible." The new camp site was equipped right on the 24th and 25th floors of the tower under construction. Such a decision made it possible to save money on protection as well: there is no need for either watchtowers or barbed wire - there is still nowhere to go. 11. As it turned out, the guards underestimated their sponsored contingent. A craftsman was found among the prisoners, who in the summer of 1952 built a kind of hang glider from plywood and wire and ... Rumor interprets further events in different ways. According to one version, he managed to fly to the other side of the Moscow River and safely escaped. According to another, the guards shot him in the air. There is a variant with a happy ending to this story: allegedly, the “flyer” was already seized on the ground by the Chekists, but when Stalin became aware of his act, he personally ordered the brave inventor to be released ... It is even possible that there were two winged fugitives. By at least, so claimed a civilian high-rise builder, who himself saw two people gliding from the tower on makeshift wings. According to him, one of them was shot down, and the second flew away towards Luzhniki. 12. Another unusual story is connected with the unique “high-altitude camp zone”. This incident was even considered then an attempt to assassinate the leader of the peoples. One fine day, vigilant guards, checking the territory of Stalin's "near dacha" in Kuntsevo, suddenly found a rifle bullet on the path. Who was shooting? When? The uproar was serious. They conducted a ballistic examination and found out that the ill-fated bullet had arrived ... from a university under construction. In the course of further investigation, the picture of what happened became clear. At the next change of guard guarding the prisoners, one of the escorts, handing over his post, pulled the trigger of his rifle, in the barrel of which there was a live cartridge. A shot rang out. According to the law of meanness, the weapon turned out to be directed towards a government facility located in the distance, and the bullet nevertheless "reached out" to Stalin's dacha.
13. The main building of Moscow State University immediately broke many records. The height of the 36-storey skyscraper reaches 236 meters. It took 40 thousand tons of steel for the steel frame of the building. And the construction of walls and parapets took almost 175 million bricks. The spire is about 50 meters high, and the star that crowns it weighs 12 tons. On one of the side towers there is a champion clock - the largest in Moscow. The dials are made of stainless steel and have a diameter of 9 meters. The clock hands are also very impressive. The minute hand, for example, is twice as long as the minute hand of the Kremlin chimes and has a length of 4.1 meters and weighs 39 kilograms.
14. View from the building of Moscow State University, 1952
15. Private sector in the vicinity of the construction site.
17. Local residents were subject to resettlement. 18. Before the grand opening of the "Temple of Science" on September 1, 1953, Stalin did not live for several months. Had he lived a little longer, and Moscow State University would have become instead of “the name of M.V. Lomonosov" - "named after I.V. Stalin." Plans for such a renaming took place. The change of Vasilyevich to Vissarionovich was going to be timed to coincide with the commissioning of a new corps on the Lenin Hills. And in the winter of 1953, the letters for the new name of the university were already prepared, which were supposed to be installed above the cornice of the main entrance to the high-rise building. But Stalin died, and the project remained unfulfilled. 20. Sometimes a rumor is mentioned that materials from the destroyed Reichstag were used in the decoration of the interiors of the building, in particular rare pink marble. In fact, either white or red marble is found in the GZ. However, the fact is known that the building of the Faculty of Chemistry is equipped with captured German fume hoods, which indirectly confirms the use of materials of German origin in construction.
21. Outwardly, it seems that the spire, as well as the star crowning it and the ears of corn, are covered with gold, but this is not so. The spire, star and ears of corn are not covered with gold - under the influence of wind and precipitation, the gilding will quickly become unusable. The spire, star and spikes are lined with yellow glass plates, the inner side of the glass plates is covered with aluminum. Currently, some of the glass parts have collapsed and crumbled, if you look through binoculars, you can see that holes are gaping in various places.

In 1949–1951, draft designs for the new university were repeatedly published. Instead of the sculptural composition that B.M. Iofan, L.V. Rudnev, a statue was placed on top of the central tower.

In one version, it was a statue of I.V. Stalin, however, according to legend, the modest leader rejected this option. This explains the fact that the sketch “with Stalin” was not published in those years and remained in the storeroom. Instead, sketches and photographs of Moscow State University models with a sculpture of V.I. Lenin (there are also variants with a sculpture of the founder of Moscow State University M.V. Lomonosov and a figure of a worker).

On November 20, 1948, the Moscow University newspaper publishes information about a speech at the Council of Moscow State University by academician of architecture L.V. Rudnev, who, as the head of the project team “showed to the members of the Council of Moscow State University sketches and a model of the building and gave explanations to them”.

February 11, 1949 L.V. Rudnev gives a long interview, where, in particular, he says: "The central twenty-six-story tower, crowned at a height of two hundred meters with a sculpture of the brilliant creator of the Soviet state, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, symbolizes the aspiration of our science to the heights of knowledge."

Design of the Main Building of the Moscow State University (Stalin Prize, I degree, 1949).

The planned figure on the tower could have a height of 35-40 meters. The appearance of the statue, by analogy with the statue of the Palace of the Soviets, would give the university building the appearance of a giant pedestal for a relatively small sculpture. After the construction of the high-rise building of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Smolenskaya Square, it became clear that there was only one way to make the buildings absolutely proportional: by completing them in the form of spiers.

Thus, having received a spire with a star 58 meters high instead of a sculpture, the building won significantly.

Scheme of building the facade of the high-rise part of Moscow State University with height marks in meters (Rudnev, 1953) and a photo of the spire (1975 and modern).

In good weather, the golden spire, crowned with a star in a wreath of ears, can be seen for many tens of kilometers. The emblem, which seems openwork from the ground, is a very large structure: the diameter of its wreath is 9.5 meters, and the diameter of the star is 7.5 meters. The grain of the ear framing the star reaches one meter and forty centimeters, the length of two ears is twelve meters. The spire, almost 60 meters high, is equal to the height of a 16-storey building. This height was a record for its time. The building of the Peter and Paul Fortress in Leningrad is completed by a spire 33 meters high, the spire on the Admiralty building is 29 meters high.

Montage of the frame of the star crowning the high-rise building of the Moscow State University (1951) and a modern photo of the star (2012, ).

Today, the name of the person who first proposed to crown the spiers of high-rise buildings in Moscow with stars is no longer known. However, the idea to install a star at the top mark of the constructed frame was first realized by the builders on the Lenin Hills.

“The builders of Moscow State University have a tradition to light a star on the highest point of the metal frame of the main building on holidays,” writes P. Zhavoronkov, foreman of the steeplejacks. “November 7, 1949, on the day of the 32nd anniversary of the Great October Revolution, a huge star dotted with hundreds of electric lights lit up on the sixth floor. On the day of Comrade Stalin's seventieth birthday, Muscovites saw her on the twelfth floor. On May 1, 1950, the star of the construction competition of the Palace of Science lit up on the twentieth floor. On the day of the 33rd anniversary of the great October, the builders lit a star on the twenty-sixth steel frame of the building. Not only the team of builders of the university, but the whole of Moscow could follow our progress, seeing how the star of the socialist competition of the builders of the Palace of Science rises higher and higher. (Palace of Science. Stories of the builders of the new building of Moscow State University. All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, 1952. P. 65).

Perhaps it was this tradition that prompted the architects to make changes to government-approved high-rise buildings and decorate all spiers with stars.

The installation of the MSU spire was an extremely responsible operation. Its assembly was carried out using a self-elevating crane UBK-15. Some structures weighing 10-15 tons could not be lifted by this crane at full reach (this would lead to deflection of the support beams), so they were lifted through a shaft temporarily left inside the building. Railroad tracks were laid under the mine. Inside the same shaft, the spire frame was assembled. The spire was made of 12 sections 4.5 meters high. These sections, each weighing from 5.5 to 6.5 tons, are installed one on top of the other. The first five sections were lowered through the shaft by a UBK-15 crane to a special site, where two teams of steeplejacks-installers carried out their docking and assembly. The sections were connected to each other by welding, these operations were assigned to four welders. Then the UBK-15 tower crane was dismantled. The dismantling was carried out using a mast derrick, which was installed nearby, the remaining sections of the spire were mounted using it. 65).

Preparation of the frame of the GZ MGU star () and the KBK-15 crane on top of the building.

The spire was installed at the parking lot of the dismantled crane UBK-15 along the axis of the building. The weight of the spire was 120 tons. In order to lift it, two powerful winches and a complex chain hoist system were installed in the tower part of the building, with the help of which the entire structure was slowly pulled up as it was lined with golden aluminized glass. The assembly and installation of the spire were completed in a short time. Then a giant star was raised to a height of two hundred meters. Its frame was welded in advance downstairs on the site in front of the future assembly hall. E. Martynov was spoiled to make the last welding.

Electric welder E. Martynov welding an ear in the wreath of the star of the GZ MGU (1951).

“... Climbing the stairs to the star, I was a little worried,- recalled the electric welder E. Martynov, - You always feel this feeling if you know that many eyes are watching you. But when I climbed up and sat down on one of the links of the wreath, so that it would be more convenient to work, I immediately calmed down. Moscow was hidden from me by a thick fog rising over the Moskva River. Only the tops of high-rise buildings on Smolenskaya Square and on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment looked out from the foggy veil, as if interested in what their counterpart on the Lenin Hills was decorated with. “That's my dream come true! flashed through my head. “I became a real builder. Once I made a promise to myself to build the same school to replace the school destroyed by the Nazis. And now I have to weld the star that crowns the Palace of Science…”(Palace of Science. Stories of the builders of the new building of Moscow State University. All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, 1952. P.76).

The star on the spire of the Palace of Science, embodying the might of the Motherland and the peaceful labor of the Soviet people, shone over the Lenin Hills on the eve of the 34th anniversary of the October Revolution.