 Until the late 19th century, there hadn't been any embankments at all, just river banks reinforced with paving stones.During the Great Patriotic War, military hardware and anti-aircraft weapons were stationed near Krymsky Bridge, and by the late 1940s, a vast, empty space had appeared that became the city's largest snow-dumping ground.Architects proposed building everything from the Academy of Sciences to the Palace of the Soviets on the site, but Culture Minister Yekaterina Furtseva insisted on the Central House of Artists (CHA), which broke ground in 1965 amidst wooden shanties.