Lubyanka Square
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Stalin ordered all the historic Lubyanka churches to be demolished in order to highlight the dominant position of the NKVD headquarters. |
Lubyanka Square in
Moscow is not far from
Red Square. The name is first mentioned in 1480, when
Ivan III settled many
Novgorodians in the area. They built the church of St Sophia, modelled after
St Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, and called the area
Lubyanka after Lubyanitsy district of their native city.
Lubyanka Square is best known for
Alexey Shchusev's large yellow brick building which has been the
headquarters of the KGB in its various incarnations. The square was renamed Dzerzhinsky Square for many years, in honor of the founder of the Soviet security service,
Felix Dzerzhinsky, nicknamed
Iron Felix. Vuchetich's monumental statue of Dzerzhinsky was erected in the center of the square.
On
October 30,
1990, the organization
Memorial erected a monument to the victims of the
Gulag, a simple stone from
Solovki. In
1991 the statue of Dzerzhinsky was removed, following the failure of the coup against
Mikhail Gorbachev, and the square's original name was officially restored.
The
Moscow Metro station
Lubyanka is located under Lubyanka Square.
