"There has never been such a thing in the world": how Russian skyscrapers have grown from 55 to 462 meters

The first "skyscraper" in Russia can be considered the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, built in 1479. Its height reached a record 55 meters for that time. The current Russian record holder is the 462–meter Lakhta Center located in St. Petersburg. Oleg Shulyatyev, Deputy Director of the N.M. Gersevanov National Research Institute of High-Rise Buildings in Russia in terms of geotechnical features, spoke about the history of Russian high-rise buildings during the webinar 100+ TechnoBuild and JSC SIC Stroitelstvo.

After the construction of the Assumption Cathedral, the next building so tall was built only 29 years later – the 60-meter Bell Tower of Ivan the Great (almost a hundred years later it was completed to 81 meters). The 100-meter mark was overcome only by 1733, when the Peter and Paul Cathedral was built with a height of 122.5 meters. And the next record was already in the 20th century – in 1952, an apartment building was built in Moscow on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment with a height of 176 meters. It was one of the seven Stalinist skyscrapers that were called "sisters" because of their common design features. They began to be built on the orders of Joseph Stalin in order to overtake the skyscrapers of the United States, which were being built in Manhattan.

"Stalin's skyscrapers were built on sand and clay. There has never been such a thing in the world – Manhattan stands all on rocky ground," Oleg Shulyatyev said. – Moreover, the height of MSU is 264 meters, it is a fairly large building and high pressure. What has been done? First, a box-shaped foundation has been erected. And secondly, a pyramidal shape was used to redistribute the loads on this box-shaped foundation. Additionally, a foundation pit about 10-15 meters deep was dug under each building to reduce additional pressure on the ground."

A new milestone in the construction of skyscrapers in Russia has already occurred in the 21st century. In 2004, the Triumph Palace was built in Moscow with a height of 264.1 meters. Then the construction of Moscow City began, making Russia one of the leaders in high-rise construction in Europe.

Nowadays, the tallest buildings outside the capital are in St. Petersburg (Lakhta Center, 462 meters), Yekaterinburg (Iset Tower, 209 meters), Khimki (Mayak railway station, 157 meters) and Vladivostok (Aquamarine, 155 meters).

Oleg Shulyatyev noted that during the construction of modern high-rise buildings, including the Lakhta Center, a lot of research was carried out, which allowed to create new developments. For example, it was possible to reduce the length of piles from 30 to 7-8 meters, while at the same time increasing their bearing capacity to 4.5 thousand tons. Earlier, in an interview with 100+ TechnoBuild, Vitaly Kryuchkov, General Director of NIC Stroitelstvo, said that the institute had received an Award from the Government of the Russian Federation for its developments for the Lakhta Center.

Another speaker of the webinar on geotechnical aspects of construction was Andrey Alekseev, Head of the Center for Geocryological and Geotechnical Research at the N.M. Gersevanov National Research Institute of Natural Sciences, PhD. He spoke about the peculiarities of the construction of buildings in the Arctic zone, where previously the height of buildings did not exceed 9-12 floors, and now, thanks to new developments and legislative changes, 20-storey buildings are also appearing.

You can watch the recording of the webinar on YouTube. Download the presentations of the speakers by following the link.