"House on the embankment", weekend. Eraly 1930s

In 2019, the Corpus publishing house will publish the book “Government House. The Saga of the Russian Revolution” by Yu.L. Slezkin (Corpus, Moscow), which has already sparked a wide discussion in academic circles. The publishing house gives the book the following description: “Government House” is not similar to any other book about the Russian revolution and the Soviet power. Yuri Slezkin's documentary narrative, comparable to the great literary epics, such as Tolstoy's “War and Peace”, Grossman's “Life and Fate”, Solzhenitsyn's “GULAG Archipelago”, tells about the fate of the inhabitants of the prestigious housing complex, Government House, now known as the House on the Embankment. The inflexible Bolsheviks, the builders of the new world, hardened in prisons and exile, turn into high-ranking officials, overgrown with families and everyday life, undergo Stalin’s purges, execute the enemies of the people, and go to execution themselves. A new world remains for their children. From the vast array of archival materials, letters, diaries, interviews, supplemented with rare photographs, a unique saga about the Government House as the enchanted castle inhabited by ghosts of a bygone era is born”. The fragment published below helps to understand the specifics of this polemical book. Published with permission of the publisher.