Since 1953, most of the faculties have been situated on Sparrow Hills, in the southwest of Moscow, 5 km from the city centre. The main building was designed by architect Lev Vladimirovich Rudnev. In the post-war era, Joseph Stalin ordered seven huge tiered neoclassic towers to be built around the city. It was built using Gulag labour, as were many of Stalin's Great Construction Projects in Russia. Located on Moscow's outskirts at the time of its construction, the location of the main building is now about half-way between the center of Moscow at the Kremlin and the city's current limits. The Journalism Department now occupies the university's original location in downtown Moscow across from the Manezh, steps from the Kremlin and other government buildings. Indeed, frequent student unrest, including street protests, well pre-dating 1917 may be one reason why Stalin's planners sited the university across the Moscow River, so far away.