The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia

* The foundations leaked, even after they were blocked with tombstones from the city’s cemeteries. Children jumped the fences to swim in the foundations or to fish for carp. Building was halted by the outbreak of the war in 1941. It was not resumed. But pictures of the Palace continued to appear on matchboxes, and the local Metro stop (today’s Kropotkin Station) continued to be known as the Palace of the Soviets. The site was later turned into a swimming pool.