It's pretty easy to identify Moscow by its skyline. It's relatively flat if you compare it to New York or Chicago but there are 7 distinct landmarks that make it unmistakably Moscow. Known as the 7 Sisters, these 7 monolithic buildings rise up across the city reaching for the sky.
They are distinctly Soviet in design, just as Stalin had wanted them to be, big, bold, a few frills but definitely noticeable. There should have been 8 with the last one being the grandest - also to be known as the Palace of the Soviets but that plan never came to be and personally 7 sisters sounds so much better than 8 sisters doesn't it?
Am not sure what they were originally built for but they now have different functions. Moscow State University, perched high above the city is probably the grandest one of them all, then there is the Kotelnicheskaya Apartment Building (one of the pricier addresses to live in), Krasnaya Presnya (also an apartment building), Hotel Ukraina and Hotel Leningradsky, the Foreign Ministry building and the Transport Ministry.
If you get up close enough you can see the Soviet inspired statues but probably the biggest giveaway that this is inspired by the communist system is the sheer size of these buildings. Some are said to have been built by German prisoners of war. Makes you wonder how much bigger the Palace of the Soviets would have been.
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