ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an imaginary archaeology of Moscow’s central district of Zaryadye located close to the Kremlin. It examines how three consecutive regimes – Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union, and the present-day Russian state – used this site for their own history politics. In the nineteenth century, the imperial legacy of the district was rediscovered by the restoration of a historical palace of the founder of the Romanov dynasty. Because of the proximity to the Kremlin, the Soviet Union used the main part of the quarter as a construction site for buildings representing the new regime. In 2006, the empty space left after the Soviet grand projects was turned into a park that was to bring Moscow in line with other global cities. With each step, the original district turned from a residential area with an individual character into a non-place, which serves only passers-by. The chapter shows how imperial cities such as Moscow are being transformed in a long-term process, which is responsible for the palimpsestic nature of their heritage, and how the imperial heritages are (de)constructed and (re)used in the capital’s cityscape.
