The Aeroflot Building. D. Chechulin. 1934

In 1934, the attention of the whole world was focused on the fate of the crewmen of the ice-breaker "Chelyuskin", who were adrift on an ice-floe after the ship went down in the Sea of Chukotsk. In the summer of the same year Moscow greeted the courageous survivors and the pilots who had rescued them, and who were the first to be granted the "Hero of the Soviet Union" award. The new traditions of socialist life demanded the perpetuation of the memory of this outstanding feat in monumental form. The "Aeroflot" building, which was to be erected on the square beside the Byelorussky railway station, was planned by architect D. Chechulin as a monument to the glory of Soviet aviation. Hence the sharp-silhouette, "aerodynamic" form of the tall building and the sculpted figures of the heroic airmen A. Lyapidevsky, S. Levanevsky, V. MÏlÏkÏv, N. Kamanin, M. Slepnev, M. Vodopyanov, I. Doronin, crowning seven openwork arches, perpendicular to the main facade and comprising a distinctive portal. I. Shadr, the sculptor of the airmen's figures, took part in the project's design. The project was never realised in its original design or intention. Almost half a century later, the general ideas of the project were incorporated into the complex housing the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR on thÅ ërasnÏÒÇÅsnenskÁÕÁ åmbankment (nÏwadÁÕs - óÏvernment îÏuse).