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A building that was never completed: The "House of the Soviets" in Kaliningrad
Photo: Vitaly Nevar / ITAR-TASS / imago images
This building has towered over Kaliningrad for decades.
The "House of the Soviets" with its 21 floors, which because of its shape is reminiscent of the head of a robot.
But the building will soon be demolished, as the regional governor Anton Alikhanov announced.
The house was never completed because the money to build it ran out in 1985.
It has stood empty since then and was also classified as structurally faulty.
Still, it became one of the city's most famous landmarks.
The robot head received special attention two years ago when a zone for the fan zone for the World Cup was set up in a huge square next to it.
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You have to look twice to see the robot head
Photo: NurPhoto / NurPhoto via Getty Images
The building's protruding covered balconies, which resembled two eyes and a mouth, led to its nickname, "The Buried Robot," a robot buried up to its head in the earth.
Regional governor Anton Alikhanov said the demolition is expected to begin early next year and officials are discussing the possibility of providing fragments of it as souvenirs, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Kaliningrad is the administrative center of the Russian exclave of the same name, which is located between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea.
Icon: The mirror
kha / AP
