ABSTRACT:This article analyses one of the first extensive ‘acculturation’ projects undertaken by the Soviet leadership, the construction of Gorky Park, Moscow, between its inception in 1921 and the 1930s. It undertakes a close reading of the developing conceptualization of Gorky Park as, to borrow Timothy Colton's phrase, a ‘fairground for “building the new man”’ and the practical limits of this ambition.