Kremlin-style govt buildings seen in Beijing suburb  

北京门头沟政府新办公楼被指酷似“克里姆林宫”

“我们小区对面新盖起了四栋楼，看着像克里姆林宫一样。”昨天，家住门头沟区滨河路的杜先生告诉北京青年报记者，小区东面新建起的四栋楼，楼顶装着金光灿灿的大金球，其风格与俄罗斯总统官邸克里姆林宫有几分相似。[查看全文]

(ECNS) -- A set of new government buildings in Beijing's Mentougou District has sparked public debates as the buildings' design is similar to Moscow's Kremlin, the Beijing Youth Daily said on Monday.

With onion-shaped golden domes, white walls, and semicircular windows, the exotic-looking structures were built on the east side of Binhe Road in the district.

"Those buildings look like European-style churches when seen from afar," said a local resident surnamed Zhang.

The buildings have been under construction for about one year, and were recently been finished, Zhang added.

The buildings remind visitors of the magnificent architecture of the Cathedral of Annunciation, a five-century-old Russian Orthodox church located inside the compound of the Kremlin.

Five boards hang outside one of the buildings, indicating that the structure is a government building for the district's meteorological bureau.

It was the first to move into the new compound. Three others will house the district's seismological bureau, water bureau, and the bureau of landscape and forestry, the newspaper said.

One of the buildings in the compound cost 9.34 million yuan ($1.5 million) on design, according to government documents.

A largely rural district in western Beijing, Mentougou has an area of 1,321 square kilometers and some 270,000 residents.