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# Egg, Ship and Centipede: why these Moscow houses look different
- URL: https://roadme.io/blog/moscow-egg-ship-centipede-houses-shapes-explained/
- Published: 2026-10-23T21:45:25.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T21:45:25.000Z
- Author: RoadMe
- Tags: Perspectives, #moscow

Moscow's unusual houses are easy to remember through nicknames: Egg, Ship and Centipede. Yet the names describe different architectural decisions. One building developed from a deliberate artistic image, another suggests a ship through length and silhouette, while the third draws attention to a structure lifted above the ground. Understanding that difference is more rewarding than collecting three photographs with amusing labels. Afterwards, even an ordinary residential façade can become more interesting to examine.

The buildings are the Egg House on Mashkova Street, the Ship House at 2 Bolshaya Tulskaya and the House of Aviators at 34 Begovaya. They occupy different districts and do not form a short walking route. Choose one that suits your day and keep the others for future outings. Roughly an hour to an hour and a half can cover an approach, exterior observation and a pause. This is an editorial estimate, not a measured route or a guided-tour schedule. It does not include interiors.

## Three nicknames, three different ideas

A nickname is useful for recognising a building but less reliable as an explanation of its history. Egg identifies the principal volume almost immediately. Ship encourages you to see a very long residential block as one whole. Centipede sends your gaze down towards repeated supports. That gives you three questions: how does the silhouette work, what creates the impression of length, and what changes when visible open space separates the building's main body from the ground?

> [RoadMe](https://roadme.io/?ref=roadme.io) can place your chosen architectural address in a personal walk around your interests, dates and pace. One expressive building, an easy approach and a nearby pause often make a more coherent day than three distant stops in succession.

A memorable form is not always designed for the nickname people give it. An association can emerge later through local perception and bring together several interpretations. Separate the visible shape from the project's history. Long horizontal lines may look like decks, but that does not prove the architect literally designed an ocean liner. Likewise, supports do not make a residential block a moving creature, even when the name makes its most distinctive feature easy to notice.

The difference also helps distinguish periods. Begovaya belongs to experimental Soviet housing of the 1970s, Tulskaya to large late-Soviet residential scale, and the Egg House to architectural explorations around the turn of the millennium. They are not a single style of strange buildings. Their purposes, treatment of imagery and ways of standing out from neighbouring development differ. The three nicknames are an entry into the subject, rather than a replacement for looking at the actual architecture.

## The Egg House: an architectural image on Mashkova

On Mashkova, look for the rounded reddish volume by number 1; project material gives the address as 1/11\. Check the selected location on a current map rather than expecting a museum sign. The house is associated with Sergei Tkachenko's workshop. The published project archive also identifies Oleg Dubrovsky, Sergei Anufriev and other team members. It is more accurate to describe a collaborative project led by Tkachenko than to assign every part of the work to one name from a short sightseeing caption.

The form's history began with an unrealised maternity-hospital project for Bethlehem. The egg-shaped idea later found a Moscow expression as a residential object. It is therefore misleading to say that the Moscow building actually operated as a maternity hospital: that was the idea's background, not a previous use of the Mashkova house. Associations with a festive egg and Fabergé decoration help explain the artistic intention, without making the building an enlarged exact copy of one particular piece of jewellery.

First look from far enough away to read the whole rounded outline. Then, from an accessible pavement, examine the base, recessed windows and roof. The interest is not simply a red surface: notice how the volume narrows, where the openings interrupt it and how this small object differs from the more ordinary building nearby. If you need to step back for a photograph, use a permitted crossing and public pavement rather than a traffic lane or someone else's entrance.

You may see it as a joke, a decorative gesture or a deliberately provocative object; liking it is a separate question. Ask why its recognisable silhouette stays in your memory. The house resists disappearing into a row of façades and invites a one-word description. A photograph does not establish whether the rooms are convenient or what private life inside is like. Old articles about ownership and sales are not current visitor information. For this outing, the external shape and its documented origin are enough.

![A traveler with a notebook studies an illustrative rounded red house with domed roof, 3D illustration](https://roadme.io/blog/content/images/2026/10/roadme-image-5917.webp)

![A traveler gestures along the horizontals of an illustrative long residential block, 3D illustration](https://roadme.io/blog/content/images/2026/10/roadme-image-5918.webp)

## The Ship House: length becomes the image

The building at 2 Bolshaya Tulskaya offers the opposite scale. It is not a small individual object, but an immense elongated residential block whose horizontals outweigh the normal impression of a single entrance. Associated with architects Vladimir Babad and Vsevolod Voskresensky, it belongs to late-Soviet housing, with its completed image emerging in the 1980s. For a first encounter, seeing its length matters more than memorising conflicting retellings of floor counts, apartment numbers or the precise construction chronology.

Ship is a useful visual association. Repeated balcony lines and the long mass suggest decks and a hull, even though this is housing on a city street. Do not look for a compulsory set of bow, stern and cabins. The comparison works through overall impression and changes with your position. Up close, entrances and everyday uses become apparent; farther away, a broad façade band emerges. That change of distance explains the nickname better than a literal search for nautical decoration.

For an independent look, use the Tulskaya metro area as your starting reference, choose a current exit and first observe the block from a public pavement. Then follow a modest accessible section rather than making a full circuit compulsory. To compare the whole with a detail, select two lawful positions with a clear path between them. Distances and wide roads matter here. A straight line on a map does not necessarily provide a convenient crossing to the opposite side of the façade.

Stories about the house include dramatic claims about strength, unusual apartments and special technical functions. Do not accept every story as an explanation of its shape. The nickname House of Nuclear Workers and its institutional background do not prove every protective-building legend. A reliable basis is enough: this is a residential block whose scale and horizontal rhythm create a ship-like association. You can observe it without drawing engineering conclusions from photographs or entering stairwells to verify a story.

![A traveler watches an illustrative residential block on tall supports from a public pavement, 3D illustration](https://roadme.io/blog/content/images/2026/10/roadme-image-5919.webp)

## The Centipede House: space beneath the block

At 34 Begovaya, the principal question lies at ground level. The House of Aviators, designed by Andrey Meerson and built in 1978, stands on reinforced-concrete supports. The city's published reference material describes forty legs, making the centipede association understandable. Counting every one is not necessary to appreciate the effect. Notice how repeated supports separate a large residential volume from the lower level. Air between structure and ground alters the impression of mass more strongly than an extra decorative feature on an ordinary ground floor.

The project's background includes plans for a hotel for the 1980 Olympics; the result became housing for workers at the Znamya Truda aircraft factory. House of Aviators explains its occupants, while Centipede describes the visible structural image. Do not attribute the building to Le Corbusier. The influence of his residential ideas and buildings on supports does not make this Moscow block his own project. Meerson's design has its own local history, easily lost behind a quick comparison with a famous European name.

Plan the exterior visit from an accessible public approach. First choose a position that shows both block and supports, then notice the rhythm of façade panels and the projecting stair volumes. From below, the mass seems separated from the ground; at a distance it becomes a large whole again. Two positions offer more than one tightly cropped photograph beneath the legs. Do not assume passages under the building or courtyard connections are open tourist corridors. Respect present barriers, working entrances and any restrictions.

Compare the house with Tulskaya in your mind, without immediately travelling to another district. Both reveal a substantial residential volume, but they organise attention differently: one uses a long horizontal sweep, the other a gap between mass and ground. The nickname becomes a beginning for analysis. Even if concrete architecture is not to your taste, you can understand the device that distinguishes the building from its neighbours without declaring it either a technical miracle or a mistake on first sight.

## Compare the forms without making a catalogue

Try three successive observations at your chosen building. First, silhouette: which simple figure remains in memory? Then rhythm: what repeats, whether windows, balconies, panels or supports? Finally, the relationship with the street: are entrances close to pedestrians, is the principal body raised, and how far back must you stand for an overall view? These questions require no architectural qualification. They take you from it looks like an egg towards a more precise account of what you have actually seen.

> If you want to continue exploring architecture, [RoadMe](https://roadme.io/?ref=roadme.io) can shape a personal walk for your interests, dates and pace. Make one building the main stop and add a suitable nearby place while keeping time for careful observation.

A note can be one sketch or three short words rather than an exact façade copy. Draw the Egg's outline and openings, the Ship's long bands, or a raised rectangle and supports for the Centipede. This is a way to explain the composition to yourself, not an engineering drawing. With a child, invite an original comparison before revealing the established nickname. The name then avoids dictating the answer in advance, and the outing becomes more than guessing a funny animal or object.

## Choose one address and an easy finish

Mashkova can be a small architectural addition to a day around Chistye Prudy. Tulskaya suits its own local stop, while Begovaya offers a separate encounter with Soviet housing experiment. Select your precise starting point using current transport and mapping, rather than a resemblance between station and street names. A short pause and return towards your chosen exit are enough afterwards. If you want all three in one day, calculate transfers beforehand and treat it as a trip with several stops, not a compact pedestrian route.

Residential buildings do not come with a promised tourist entry hour. Do not seek an unlocked stairwell, private courtyard or apartment visit merely because an address is famous online. Photograph overall views from public places, leave residents room to pass and avoid lingering by private windows for close-ups. Weather and repair work can change the available angle without removing the main purpose: understanding the form, its history and its relationship with the street. One carefully observed building already offers enough for that.