Moscow Club

Absences from three or more such seminars without valid reason, or failure in the exams, meant expulsion from the institute. The Aviation Institute was at the corner of Leningradskoye Shosse and Volokolamskoye Shosse, wide asphalt-paved streets with large office and apartment buildings and many shops. Like the compound of the Russian Embassy in Peking, where Volodya had spent the early years of his life, a wall surrounded the institute, with a guarded security entrance at one end and gates at the other. Behind the gates ran the railroad to Riga. Inside the compound were the buildings that contained the classrooms, auditorium, and administrative offices, the hangar and wind tunnel, the machine shops and student club. At the entrance to the administration building stood a heroic-style bust of Stalin. As with almost all the buildings in Moscow, those of the institute were made of brick and covered in part with either plaster or stone or concrete blocks. There were also volleyball, basketball, and tennis courts and a soccer field ...»