Cuba’s Russian Embassy by Manuel Castro licensed under the terms of CC BY-SA 2.0
Constructed starting in 1978 and completed in 1987, what is now the embassy of Russia opened as a haven of the Soviets. This was a time when the USSR had enormous influence in Cuba—at one time they had 7,000 troops stationed on site!
The embassy is built in an architectural style known as Constructivism, which became popular in the Soviet Union due to its goal of integrating a utopian ethos into everyday life. The building has been compared to a sword or even a syringe.
It seems that depending on who was looking at it, the embassy might have appeared as a beacon of safety… or as a towering menace. Today, it looks like it belongs to another era.
