In the early 1980s, a reporter for Pravda based in the city then known as Gorky learned of a new general plan from the Soviet government for his hometown. The plan was to abolish the entire historical center of the picturesque city, which was founded in the 13th century at the point where the Volga and Oka rivers cross. In place of the old city's gracefully carved wooden and stone mansions, Soviet architects proposed the construction of monstrous concrete housing blocks. Remarkably, the critical article the reporter wrote describing the historical and cultural importance of the city's architecture slipped past the grabby hands of the paper's censors and came out in print.
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