The cheapest apartment in a "Stalinist" skyscraper will cost millions

photo: Hynek Bíla

Moscow - The cheapest apartment in one of the "seven sisters," as Moscow's oldest skyscrapers from the era of communist dictator Joseph Stalin are referred to, is currently for sale for 19 million rubles (about 11 million crowns). According to the Interfax agency, it is a studio apartment with an area of 50 m².
    The average price of residential space in a "Stalin skyscraper" is currently around 324,000 crowns per m², according to specialists in the Moscow real estate market. However, it should be considered that the price increases with each floor, on average by seven percent.
    The so-called "cheapest" studio is located on the second floor of a high-rise building built on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment at the confluence of the Moscow and Yauza rivers. A similar studio, located on the 16th floor of a skyscraper on Kudrinskaya Square, is being sold for 31.3 million rubles (about 18.3 million crowns).
    Currently, the most expensive offer for lovers of Stalinist style has a price tag of 123.6 million rubles (72.4 million crowns) and consists of an apartment with six rooms covering an area of 190 square meters on the 10th floor of a skyscraper on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment.
    The price likely reflects not only the height of the skyscraper but also the level of prestige such housing holds in the eyes of locals, as well as the fact that the supply is severely limited.
    Usually available are three-room apartments with an area of 80 meters. However, throughout the entire year, a maximum of ten apartments from Stalin's skyscrapers make it to the market. It is rare for a unit located higher than the 15th floor to appear among them.
    Market experts say that many apartments in Stalin's skyscrapers changed hands at the beginning of the millennium when these apartments were mainly purchased as an investment for the future. They claim that they have not yet appeared on the market.
    Of the "seven sisters" built in Moscow at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, only three high-rise buildings were designated for residential purposes. The others house the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lomonosov University, and the Leningradskaja and Ukraina hotels, which long boasted the title of the tallest hotel in Europe.
    Russian media stirred up excitement this summer with another offer on the Moscow real estate market: two vacant apartments in a residence near the Kremlin, where friends of President Vladimir Putin reside, were being sold for 42 and 50 million dollars (approximately 800 million to a billion crowns). These apartments, covering 846 and exactly 1000 square meters, boasted various luxurious amenities and were protected by security for constitutional officials.