Moscow Guide
Krasnaya Presnya, Fili and the southwest
The White House
The White House or Beliy dom, a marble-clad hulk crowned by a gilded clock and the Russian tricolour, is known around the world for its starring role in two confrontations broadcast by CNN. When the building was completed in 1981 to provide spacious offices for the Council of Ministers of the Russian Federation, nobody dreamed that its windowless Hall of Nationalities would serve as a bunker ten years later, despite the paranoid foresight that specified the construction of a network of escape tunnels from the building. All this changed after the Russian Parliament took up residence and Yeltsin was elected president with a mandate to take on the apparat. When the old guard staged a putsch against Gorbachev on August 19, 1991, the democratic opposition made the White House their rallying point, and a hundred thousand Russians from all walks of life formed human barricades fifty layers deep around the building, where Yeltsin, Rutskoy and Khasbulatov were holed up on the third floor, phoning around the garrisons and broadcasting defiance.
Two years later, the White House became the crucible of conflict between parliament and president, culminating in what Russians call the October events. The dubious legality of Yeltsin's dissolution of parliament and his sanctions against the deputies who occupied the White House enabled Khasbulatov and Rutskoy to claim that they were only defending the constitution when they urged a mob of supporters to seize the Ostankino TV centre on October 3. Next day, the army bowed to Yeltsin's orders and shelled the White House into submission.
Since then the building has been renamed the House of Government (dom Praiteltsva) and its occupants have taken precautions against future trouble by erecting a tall ornamental fence around the perimeter through which you can peer. The White House is best seen from the embankment side, where an outpost flying the Iraqi flag added a bizarre touch to the defences in 1993.