TASS is a Russian state federal news agency, a former Soviet news agency.
Organizational and legal form – FSUE. Previously, the abbreviation came from “Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union,” and the current abbreviation comes from “Telegraph Agency for Communications.”
All Titles
Trade Telegraph Agency (TTA), 1902-1904.
St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency (SPbTA), 1904-1914.
Petrograd Telegraph Agency (PTA), 1914-1918.
Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA), 1918-1925.
Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS), 1925-1992.
Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (ITAR-TASS), 1992-2014.
Russian news agency “TASS” since October 1, 2014.
The TASS building is in Moscow, inside the Garden and Boulevard rings, at 1/2 Leontievsky Lane, designed in 1977 as the central office of the state news agency TASS.
Construction of the building began in 1970. Completed in 1977, architects – V. S. Egerev, A. A. Sheikhet, Z. F. Abramova, G. L. Sirota; engineers B. S. Gurvich, Yu. S. Manevich, A. Ya. Koganov.
Initially, the building was conceived as a 25-story skyscraper, on the roof of which it was supposed to install a light board with a running information line with letters one and a half meters high.
The project was rejected for possible reasons:
- The soil in this place would not withstand the pressure of such a large building;
- The line of the secret “metro-2” passing under the Nikitsky Gates square;
- In case saboteurs penetrate the TASS building, there is a possibility of hitting a target on the territory of the Kremlin with a sniper rifle.
A distinctive feature of the design of the building was a sculptural emblem made of an alloy of copper and bronze in the form of a globe located above the central entrance, symbolizing the agency’s presence around the world.
Initially, on the tape surrounding the globe, there was a transcript of the abbreviation TASS – “Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union”; in the 1990s, the inscription was changed to “ITAR • Information Telegraph Agency of Russia.”
For its appearance, the building was popularly called a “Concrete cube,” “TV set,” “talking house,” and “house with a globe.” The TASS employees themselves called it the “new building” since the old one remained – at Tverskoy Boulevard, house number 10 – in which, since 1937, part of the TASS divisions has been preserved.
Nearest metro: Tverskaya, Pushkinskaya, Lenin Library, Arbatskaya (Filyovskaya Line), Arbatskaya (Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line).
See also Architecture of Moscow, Palaces and most historic buildings of Moscow.