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Ok, take a good look at this building. 

See how it is NOT symmetrical...

The left and right wings have different facades. This is the Moscow Hotel, originally built under Joseph Stalin. 

Why not symmetrical?

Well, the architects submitted the plans to old Joe. Their drafts had two proposed facades, allowing Stalin to make the final design choice. 

Stalin wrote "approved" and signed off on the project. But the architects could not determine which of the facades he had chosen, and were afraid to ask for fear Stalin would think they thought he had made a mistake. 

So they built one facade on one face and the other on the other side. 

Not only interesting, but apparently TRUE!!! I have heard and seen this story in various sources--not just the Internet. 

More interesting yet. Apparently the building was not well built or something and not long ago was torn down and completely rebuilt. But, the architect decided to keep the quirky asymmetry. 

Another story about communism. In the eighties two businessmen met in a Moscow bar. They got into an argument about their respective political systems.  The American says to his Russian counterpart, "But  you do not have freedom here, Dmitri. In my country I can stand in Times Square and yell at the top of my lungs;  'the American government is corrupt. Reagan is a liar.' You cannot do that here "

"But certainly I can," Dmitry responded. "I can stand up in Red Square and shout out loud 'the American government is corrupt. Reagan is a liar.' And nobody will arrest me. 

That one was probably not a true story. Another one Irena the tour guide liked to tell was to ask the Americans what was so good about their democracy when we could not even tell who our president might be until the last minute. "Here in Russia," she jokingly bragged, "we can tell months in advance."

She also said some people say "Russia does not have a democracy. We have a Putinocracy "

But what I really got a kick out of was Irena saying how proud she was to be born in the Soviet Union, and raised in Russia. She was very, very proud to be who she was.