Another Manifestation of Moscow-Centrism: Russians Across the Country Build Models of Kremlin

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 24 – Andrey Platonov once proposed that Lenin’s mausoleum should be put on wheels so that it could tour the Soviet Union and allow workers and peasants to show their respects to the founder of the Soviet state. That never happened. But something analogous has been taking place in the Russian Federation, Ivan Kozlov says.

            In a 3,000-word and heavily illustrated article for The New Tab, the journalist describes the efforts of Russians across the country to build replicas of the Kremlin in their regions to underscore their loyalty to what has long been the symbol of Russian power (thenewtab.io/kak-i-zachem-zhiteli-regionov-sozdayut-kopii-moskovskogo-kremlya/).

            The phenomenon is clearly even larger than he can describe and shows the ways in which the symbol of Russian power remains strongly rooted in the minds of Russians from Kaliningrad to the Pacific, a physical representation of what is obviously an important component of Russian identity.