VDNKh (exhibition), Moscow

This vast site of the Soviet exposition is a monument to the kitsch of Stalinist architecture. Each pavilion was designed initially to demonstrate economic achievements of Soviet republics, and thereafter they were grouped by industry or branch of agriculture. There was even a lavishly-designed pavilion showcasing pigs for example! In the center there is a golden fountain with sixteen female figures representing sixteen Soviet Republics. At the entrance is a famous statue of worker and peasant girl.

After collapse of Communism the site was left to fend for itself, and the result was shutting down its exposition and giving its space to shops. Nonetheless, it is still interesting to visit to study the architecture of the period.

This once has been the showpiece of the Soviet achievements, but nowadays it's just a huge marketplace where you can buy all kinds of goods.
Initially built in the 1930s and expanded in the 50s and 60s it consists of different pavillions which were dedicated either to a Soviet Republic or an economical sector. If you're interested in architecture, these pavillions are well worth looking at.
After the fall of the Soviet Union it the exhibition ground was turned into a commercial centre.

they call this place '' V V Ts'' , there you have a building for each ex-republics of USSR. You can walk and walk and.......skate a lot, very pleasant. roads are wide. Also an amusement park, with......russian mountains, but they call them ''american mountains'' don't argue :-)). Les Moscovites aiment cet endroit, beaucoup de gens, mais tellement grand que rien n'y parait.

This little museum is situated in one of the pavillions of VDNKh (straight down from the main entrance). It features things from all over Russia and you can dress yourself in ethnic clothes and photograph yourself.

Entry fee in 2005: 40 Roubles

KDNKh used to be an exposition site to show off the wondrous achievements of the Soviet Union. Now the imposing and grand buildings have been given over to shops. If you've come to Moscow looking for Soviet ghosts, this is a place to find them, living cheek by jowl with the ferocious new consumerism. And love of cats, apparently.

VDNKh or the All Russia Exhibition Centre is worth a visit for it's homage to economic & scientific accomplishments of the former Soviet Union. The displays represent different fields such as space, eduction, agriculture, technology etc. with outsized monuments depicting idealized Soviet Comrades. Some of the pavilions are now closed & others have been turned into kiosks or shops, but nevertheless still interesting. The picture taken is of a relief on the side of the Space Obelisk which stands outside VDNKh metro station.

This Space obelisk statue is in a similar vein to the Uri Gagarin statue. This one can be found at the USSR Economic Achievements Exhibition which is commonly abbreviated in Russian to VDNKh.

VDNKh is the country's largest museum, and is a huge park containing pavilions, aircraft and rockets amongst other things. I like the grandiose sculptures that were created in the Soviet era as I feel they have a certain style to them, even if a lot of them appear to be created for a megalomaniac!

The main entrance is a triumphal archway surmounted by towering statues of a tractor driver and a farm girl brandishing sheaves of wheat, which sets the scale for the avenue of fountains that leads to a Lenin statue and the Central Pavilion

The VDNKh's genesis was the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VSKhV) of 1939. This display of the fruits of Socialism and showpiece of Stalinist monumental art was intended to open two years earlier, but was delayed by the purging of many of its leading participants.

The exhibition was so successful that it was revived on a permanent basis in 1954, with some eighty pavilions spread over 578 acres.

Gradually, Western goods started appearing and the Soviet pavilions lost whatever conviction they might once have possessed. Shorn of ideological pretensions, it has now been renamed the All-Russia Exhibition Centre (VVTs) - but everyone continues to call it the VDNKh.

Conceived as a cross between World Fair and Theme Park, with monuments to Soviet science, fountains, amusement-park rides and national pavilions for all the republics of the USSR, the former Exhibition of the Achievements of the People's Economy has been denuded of most of its original exhibits and filled with goods for sale