The exhibition area was established in 1935, in the former Ostankino Park, as the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VSKhV). A Master plan by Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky was completed in 1936 and in 1938 Joseph Stalin had the designer arrested for ideological reasons: the exhibition was considered too modest. In 1959 the park became an Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (VDNKh), then the VDNH, and then, in 1992 it became the VVC (Vserossiyskiy Vystavochny Centr). VDNH remains the parks popular name and it is as fine an example of Stalinist landscape architecture as one could wish for. Wanting to prove that Communism was an even more magnificent system of government than Louis XIV's autocracy or American democracy, Stalin decided to adopt the European High Baroque as his chosen design style. Exact comparisons can be made with the design of Versailles and Washington DC.
