Red Square

The square itself is not very big (695 meters long and 130 meters wide), it impresses one by the richness and variety of its forms, which merge in austere harmony. The Kremlin and the Lenin Mausoleum, which stands by its walls, dominate the ensemble. Red Square is indissolubly linked with the city's heart, the Kremlin. It owes its birth to the need to defend Moscow. After the erection of the Kremlin new walls and towers at the end of the fifteenth century, Grand Prince Ivan III of Moscow issued a decree forbidding any building on the area to the east of the Kremlin, which was not protected by water on this side. The houses, booths and other buildings were removed from this spot, thus creating a large square by the Kremlin walls, in which only trade by peddling was allowed. Echoing the Kremlin is the picturesque multi-domed Intercession Cathedral (the Church of St. Basil the Blessed) on the south side of the square and the pointed tent roofs of the State History Museum on the north side. From the east the long building of GUM, the largest department store of the country, flanks the Red Square. The powerful tent roofs of the Savior and St. Nicholas towers emphasize the key position of this memorial place, which links the old ensemble with the present day.

Red Square has been the arena of many historic events in the life of the capital and the state as a whole. The Day of International Workers' Solidarity and the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution were celebrated here. The square is rarely empty even on weekdays. There are always people here-schoolchildren, young people and tourists who have come to Moscow from many other towns and countries. Cosmonauts come here before their space flights. The square is mentioned for the first time in a fifteenth-century chronicle as the Torg, which shows that it was used for trading. Since then both its name and its shape have changed many times. In the sixteenth century it was called Trinity Square, and following the devastating conflagration of 1571 it was referred to as the Fire. It acquired its present name in the seventeenth century. The word krasnaya meant "beautiful, fine, the best" in old Russia, as well as "red". Our age, while preserving the former significance of the square's name, has given it a new, symbolical meaning by linking it with the red banner of the Revolution, the state Hag of the USSR. Beyond the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed you can see the small Church of St. Nicholas near the Moskva River, and beyond the latter four rows of booths and two tiny churches.


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