(5 Jun 2018) LEADIN:
It's often called the world's largest "open air constructivist museum." The Russian city of Yekaterinburg is home to around 140 constructivist buildings.
Tourists and football fans are set to roam through its streets when Russia's World Cup kicks off this month.
STORYLINE:
It's a combination of modern technology and engineering methods with the ethos of Soviet Communism.
Constructivism - as it's known - was an innovative architectural style that became popular during the Soviet industrial boom in the 1920s.
Constructivism in Sverdlovsk - as the city was known during Soviet times - started in the 1930s.
Subordinating to Soviet ideology aimed at creating a new world, many architects implemented daring projects across the Soviet Union.
As a booming industrial centre, Yekaterinburg became one of the biggest magnets.
Pre-revolutionary wooden houses on its main street were replaced by 'City of the Future' forms, which symbolised the new social structure.
"Here, the creation of new world was taking place through these functional structures," says historian Igor Yankov.
"Here, we can see a living area of different quality. And we can see various social services detached: that's a cafeteria, that's a club, that's a bathhouse, that's a laundry, that's a kindergarten and so on, and so on."
One of the most famous examples of constructivism in Yekaterinburg is the Dynamo Sports Centre.
Shaped like a moving ship, it's located on a small peninsula on a city lake.
V-shaped bay windows resemble a bow, windowed balconies look like lifeboats, and a roof structure on top of the main pavilion could almost be a captain's bridge.
Nowadays, the monument is the centre of ongoing debate - many fear a proposed new church nearby may destroy the architectural homogeneity of the area.
The Printing House with its continuous windows, stretching along the entire perimeter, a rounded façade supported by a single column and protruding stairwells encased in semi-circular glass cages, used to accommodate printing facilities and newspaper offices.
Now it's occupied by cafés, a bookstore and a nightclub.
The General Post Office was designed in the shape of a tractor to glorify agricultural workers.
It initially housed a kindergarten, an 800-seat radio theatre and rooms for hobby groups as well as an intercity phone station, telegraph and post office that's still in operation today.
"The Post Office, I found it a very striking landmark," says Hanna Nabila, a visitor from Indonesia.
"Because it's obvious, it's located in the centre. It's such a great representative."
Lenin Street and its surroundings also host a series of residential complexes, called 'Towns,' which were built for particular professions.
Builders' Town for construction workers, Justice Town for judges and penitentiary workers, Medical Town for doctors, and - the most famous of them all - the Chekists' Town, for employees of the secret police. Cheka, later known as the KGB.
The Chekists' Town's central architectural landmark is Iset Hotel, a former hotel-type dormitory, built in the shape of a semi-circle and resembling a sickle.
Constructivist housing was full of experiments that affected people's lives.
There were no kitchens or bathrooms in the apartments, as everyone was supposed to eat in common cafeterias, wash clothes at a common laundry and bath in a common bath.
Chekists' Town is also widely known by locals for underground tunnels, which are surrounded by sinister urban legends.
Nowadays, the complex is decaying like many other constructivist buildings in the city.
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