Moscow's largest palace of culture, ZIL is a multifunctional venue with a large number of platforms and stages as well as extensive programs. Every day stage productions, concerts, performances, festivals, lectures, master classes, children's activities and expositions take place here. Family members of all ages will find something to their tastes.
The center meets the most up-to-date cultural demands. Everyone can visit creative laboratories of various kinds, including painting, photography, and drama. Literary quests, shows of cult films, engaging popular lectures on art, history and natural sciences for both adults and children take place here. The "Moscow Ballet" Theater and other famous troupes give their performances at the ZIL Cultural Centre. Besides, there is a library, bookcrossing, and an English colloquial club held here. And that is just a little part of ZIL's rich programs.
One of the places of interest here is the famous historical circle of the S.L. Stein Drama Theater founded back in 1937. It is attended by children from 8 to 17 years of age. It was here that Vasiliy Lanovoy and other outstanding actors, namely Vera Vasilieva, Alexei Loktev, Valery Nosik, Igor Talankin, Vladimir Zemlyanikin and Yuri Katin-Yartsev started their way to theatrical fame.
Owned by the Likhachov Plant until 2008, the ZIL Cultural Center is housed in a unique building in the style of constructivism with rich and interesting history. Designed by the Vesnin brothers, it was built in the 1930s. The giant structure looked super modern for that time: it was impressive with large glazed surfaces and straight geometric forms. The writer Konstantin Paustovsky compared the palace with a block of rock crystal.
On the roof of the gigantic construction of ZIL there is a dome of the observatory, which is not operational today. However, visitors to the cultural center can climb up and admire the bird's flight view of the city. The center boasts a large winter garden, whereas its summer stage can hold up to two thousand people at the same time.