ABSTRACT
The "Kremlin" rose well above them and stood higher on the Trocadero hill than its immediate neighbors, the colonial exhibits of European powers. The stone kremlin and wooden village reflected a commitment to traditional political and social forms while the marketing of kustar and promotion of state-guided railroad development demonstrated a unique approach to the rapidly changing economy. Russian commissioners and visitors described it as "a copy from nature," attractive, and "characteristic of Russian national architecture." Russian responses to the use of national style in Vienna reflected the interwoven modern and retrospective threads of Russian identity discourse. Russians expected the same, but the material evidence showed that Russia was not in the first rank of industrialized states. The most important architectural expression of the Russian Idea at world's fairs took place at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, a gargantuan end-of-the-century retrospective that attracted nearly fifty-one million visitors.
