«Gorodok Chekistov» in Ekaterinburg

The complex of buildings in the constructivist style was built in 1929-1936, on the order of the Sverdlovsk Department of the NKVD. In the beginning of XX century this area was dominated by a wooden one-storeyed building. The construction of social district began in 1929. In the late 1920-ies a group of architects who worked on the project was headed by I. P. Antonov, and in the early 1930-ies — V. D. Sokolov. The district occupies an entire block and includes the building of a hostel of the young employees of the NKVD (today hotel "Iset") and the former House of culture named after Dzerzhinskiy (now one of the buildings of the Sverdlovsk regional local lore Museum).

In the basis of the construction was the idea of an absolutely new life of Soviet people. It was assumed that man of the new era will have no time for household issues so well-appointed and comfortable by the standards of that time apartments were deprived of, for example, kitchens. The principle of sicial district envisaged public canteen, Laundry, kindergarten and other services. The particular interest is the design of the complex. There is a version, very popular in the city, though rejected by the architects that the basis of the plan - Soviet symbols: the hammer, sickle and waving banners. Indeed, curved building of the hotel "Iset" reminds a sickle, the building of the cultural center of Dzerzhinskiy, the hammer, and connecting them to the level of the second floor of the transition - the handle of the hammer; the role of a waving banners is given to buildings that ledges leave on streets of Lunacharskogo and Kuznechnaya.