#6402 Quinta Avenida, Mirar District, Havana
Engelke and Rochegov's Soviet Embassy in Havana, Cuba
Architecture of Revolutionary Belatedness
Title Text
Title Text
"I don’t even know how many floors there are. I certainly haven’t been to all of them. It’s just a lot of offices and old cables, I think."
Andrei V. Mitrofanov, assistant to the Russian consul in Cuba, when asked about the height of the embassy building.
Author interview, Havana, March 2017
Soviet and US architecture of diplomacy 1950 - 1980
Helsinki (Romodin, 1952)
Washington (Posokhin, 1979)
Rio de Janeiro (Posokhin, 1968)
Berlin (Struzhevsky, 1953)
Paris (Pokrovsky, 1976)
Accra (Weese, 1958)
Baghdad (Sert, 1961)
Tangier (Stubbins, 1958)
One can trace a straight line along the Malecon from the US Embassy to the Soviet one.
Harrison and Abramovitz, 1953
Diplomatic relations: 1953-1961/ 2015 - embassy reopened
Detail: the US embassy's balcony faces Florida.
Rochegov, 1978- 1987
Diplomatic relations: 1902-1942/ 1960- present
Detail: the "eyes" of the USSR embassy see in all directions.
By the mid 1980s, 8,000 Cubans had studied in the USSR and 140 educational centers were built by the Soviet Union on the island.
Photos: cubanos.ru, a nostalgic online platform by Soviet people formerly stationed on the island.
There is a history of Soviet architecture in Cuba: in the 1960's, Cuba adopted Soviet prefabricated panel construction as a solution to its housing crisis - today there is a district in Havana - Alamar - colloquially termed the "Russian barrio"
HAVANA, April 1— The guest is Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the smooth salesman of new Communist pragmatism, who preaches economic experimentation, social liberalization and peaceful coexistence.
The host is Fidel Castro, the khaki-clad revolutionary ideologue, who has said of Mr. Gorbachev's new doctrine: ''Perestroika is another man's wife. I don't want to get involved.'
"Gorbachev-Castro Face-Off: A Clash of Style and Policies" in NYTimes, April 1, 1989
Nov 4, 1987 edition of Pravda features a letter from F. Castro
Gorbachev's visit to Cuba on pages of Pravda April 3 and 4, 1989.
Alexander Rochegov (1917- 1998)
Rebuilding of Tashkent, 1966
Volgo-Donskoj Canal, 1952
Moskovsky Department Store, 1962-83
Alexander Rochegov (1917- 1998)
Moskovsky Department Store
USSR Embassy, detail
The construction of the skyscrapers in Moscow was initiated after a 1947 decree by Stalin titled "On the building of many-storied buildings in Moscow." Seven buildings were all started in the same day, September 7, 1947, commemorating the 800 year anniversary of Moscow.
Hotel Leningradskaya
(Architect: Polyakov. Facade design: Rochegov, 1954)
Interiors in Leningradskaya "Hilton" (above)
USSR Embassy, fresco by Anna Rochegova (below).
Other images of embassy interior not found.
Design for interior and exterior of Palace of the Soviets ( 1934-35) in Architecture of Soviet Russia
Three towers: Palace of the Soviets,
USSR Embassy, Leningradskaya
"I don't even know how many floors there are. I certainly haven't been to all of them. It's just a lot of offices and old cables, I think. "
- Andrei V. Mitrofanov, assistant to the Russian Consul in Cuba. In an interview with the author.
Havana, March 2017
Bibliography and Images:
Arkhitektura SSSR. Moskva. (1975-1991)
Granma. Havana (1986-1987)
Pravda. Moscow (1986-1987)
Bain, Mervyn. "The Glasnost Effect on Soviet/Cuban Relations." Journal of Transatlantic Studies. (2004): 125-142. Print.
Bellat, Fabien. Amériques-URSS: architectures du défi. Paris: Éditions Nicolas Chaudun, (2014): 304. http://bellat.portfolio.free.fr/co140708_usurs.htm
Derrida, Jacques. Spectres De Marx: L'état De La Dette, Le Travail Du Deuil Et La Nouvelle Internationale. Paris: Editions Galilée, 1993.
Humphrey, Caroline. "Ideology and Infrastructure: Architecture in the Soviet Imagination," 2005
Loeffer, Jane. "The Architecture of Diplomacy" in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 1990
Tarkhanov, Alexei., Sergeĭ Kavtaradze, and Mikhail Anikst. Stalinist Architecture. London: L. King, 1992.
Katalog: Tyrannei des Schönen. Architektur der Stalin-Zeit, Prestel 1994
Katalog: Architecture of Soviet Russia, eds. Rochegov and Zhuravlev. Moscow: Stroizdat, 1987 (bilingual)
¡Hasta la victoria siempre!
Maria Engelke and Alexander Rochegov, 1957 (image: Maria Engelke, 2008)