The next episode of the project “Moscow 200 years later” is dedicated to Lubyanka Square.
Fortunately, we know this square from the drawings of the “Russian Canaletto” Fyodor Alekseev and the paintings of his students from the very beginning of the 19th century.
This painting from 1800 shows a view towards Lubyanka Square from Myasnitskaya Street:
Now nothing is recognizable here, but back in the early 1930s. Almost all antiquities stood in their places.
On the left in the picture we see the single-domed (!) Church of the Grebnevskaya Mother of God from the late 15th century (one of the oldest in Moscow). It was demolished in 1935 after 9 years of heroic struggle of believers and cultural figures to preserve it (the decision to demolish it was made back in 1926). In the 1980s, a huge building for the KGB Computer Center was built on that site, next to the Biblio-Globus bookstore.
In the perspective of the picture one can see the tower at the Vladimir Gate of Kitay-Gorod and behind it, respectively, the Vladimir Church. All this was also demolished in the mid-30s.
By the way, the picture of F. Alekseev’s students is still not entirely reliable. In the original, in an accurate drawing by Alekseev himself, the area looked like this:
Why did the students need to depict the Grebnevskaya Church as five-domed - we will probably never know. Well, they decided, most likely, that it would be prettier this way.
Now let’s look at a drawing from about the same 1800 by Alekseev’s workshop, in which the part of the Kitay-Gorod wall facing the Lubyanka is depicted close up: 
Here we see the same ensemble of the Vladimir Tower and the Vladimir Church. In the foreground is a broken gate with a bridge that led to Bolshoi Cherkassky Lane. The ancient fortress moat had not yet been filled in.
Now in this place there is a wide expanse of asphalt. The wall stood somewhere along the dividing strip.
The same section of wall from the other side: 
Higher resolution
It is interesting to note that on the inside the breach gate was double-arched.
Now let’s compare the inside view of the Vladimir Gate in the drawing from 1852 with a modern photograph of the area: 
Higher resolution
Perhaps the only landmark is a fountain in the perspective of the gate, the location of which roughly corresponds to the modern clubhouse in the center of the square (until 1991 it was crowned by “Iron Felix”).
View of Lubyanka from the other side in the 1830s and in 2012: 
Only a few months have passed since the return of the monument to F. E. Dzerzhinsky to Lubyanka Square. There were a great many opponents and supporters of such a decision by the authorities. In order to understand the reasons for such a violent public reaction, let's try to understand the role of the personality of Iron Felix in the history of the USSR.
Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky: biography
The famous statesman of the Soviet era began his life in the family of a small nobleman, Eduard Iosifovich Dzerzhinsky, who served as a teacher at a local gymnasium. The name of the Soviet commissar - Felix - is translated from Latin as “happy.” And it was given to the child because his mother, having inadvertently fallen into an open cellar a few days before giving birth, not only did not break herself, but was also able to protect her child from injury.
The Dzerzhinsky family did not live well. After the head of the family died of tuberculosis in 1882, the mother had to raise nine children alone, the eldest of whom was twelve years old at that time, and the youngest only a year and a half.
Despite all these difficulties, Felix Edmundovich had the opportunity to study at a Lithuanian gymnasium, where in 1895 he met with representatives of the Social Democratic movement and joined the party. As for academic diligence, contemporaries assessed the young man’s knowledge as mediocre. Thus, from the documents it follows that Dzerzhinsky remained in the first grade twice and was unable to complete his studies, receiving only a certificate of completion of the eighth grade. By the way, he had unsatisfactory grades in Russian and Greek.
However, failures in studies did not interfere with successful underground activities. Since 1896, Dzerzhinsky has been actively conducting propaganda among artisans and factory workers, for which he was repeatedly tried and sentenced to exile and hard labor. Even while in prison, Dzerzhinsky was preparing for the October Revolution, organizing the first detachments of the Red Guard in Moscow, and taking part in party meetings. After the revolution, he occupied important positions in the Soviet government, became the head of the detachments of the People's Commissariat (People's Commissariat - the central authority in the union republics) and founded the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage).
Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky died of a heart attack caused by a nervous breakdown while speaking at a meeting of the Central Committee on July 20, 1926.
Government activities
Occupying government posts in the newly formed military government, Dzerzhinsky developed the same vigorous activity that was characteristic of the revolutionary during the years of underground activity. The figure of Iron Felix in the history of the formation and organization of the Soviet Union is still ambiguous. And to this day it causes a lot of controversy.
Having been appointed to the post of head of the Cheka, Felix Edmundovich established himself as a tough and cruel leader, mercilessly destroying any attempts at disobedience. It was during his reign that the policy of terror became a constant practice in the Cheka. It is no coincidence that much later in the West the most terrible rumors and secrets will be associated with the activities of the Cheka.
Dzerzhinsky believed that any measures, including mass terror, were permissible in the fight against counter-revolution. It is he who is credited with the famous statement that the repressive policy of the Cheka is extremely important and necessary, even if “its sword accidentally falls on the heads of the innocent.” He actively spoke out against restrictions on the authority of the department and openly advocated the use of the harshest measures against rioters.
At the same time, the name of the great “chekist” is also associated with more creative activities. So, after the October Revolution, about five million street children found themselves on the streets, and it was under the leadership of Dzerzhinsky that temporary boarding schools, children's homes and orphanages began to be built, where the children received all the necessary help and had the opportunity to study. Among the first graduates of such institutions are eight former street children who became academicians of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and one of them, Nikolai Petrovich Dubin, went down in history as a world-famous geneticist.
Another side of Dzerzhinsky’s political activity is his active participation in the country’s sporting life. Realizing that law enforcement officers cannot live without good sports uniform, he creates the DSO “Dynamo”, which today is one of the most popular sports societies in Russia.
Felix Edmundovich also took part in the economic development of the state. At the Supreme Economic Council he was involved in the development of small private trade, tried to create favorable conditions for the development of peasant markets, and looked for ways to reduce production costs.
The revolutionary also actively supported the policy of industrialization of the country. Under his leadership, a single metallurgical complex appears, which has become one of the most advanced in the world. At the same time, Dzerzhinsky criticized the government and saw the party’s main mistake in concentrating attention specifically on the military metal industry. Due to disagreement with such economic policies, he repeatedly asked for resignation.
Dzerzhinsky in art
The image of the indestructible Iron Felix was often used by writers and filmmakers. Images of the statesman adorned postage stamps. His activities were glorified in the poems of Soviet authors and the speeches of the pioneers of the USSR, and his fate was told in many bibliographic books. In addition, there are autobiographies written by Dzerzhinsky over the years, as well as a number of works devoted to the state security of the country. An ambiguous portrait of the revolutionary is also found in the literary memoirs of his contemporaries.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the name of the “great and terrible” also did not remain forgotten. During the years of perestroika, the story of one man went from being a story about an infallible hero, an associate of the revolution, into the category of stories about a ruthless criminal and terrorist.
In the modern world, debates about the significance of the figure of Dzerzhinsky in the history of the USSR also do not subside, and his image continues to inspire modern poets and writers. Thus, references to Felix Edmundovich are found in the works of such musical groups as “Aquarium”.
Settlements bearing the name of Dzerzhinsky
After his death, the name of F. E. Dzerzhinsky was given to many cities and villages in different republics of the Soviet Union. Higher educational institutions, squares, squares and parks, military units, factories and ships were named in his honor. The name of Iron Felix was given to streets and schools. The famous security officer was revered as the main supporter of the revolution and a loyal friend and comrade-in-arms of Lenin.
In modern Russia, there are more than a dozen rural settlements bearing the name of Dzerzhinsky, in addition, in the Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow regions there are cities of the same name: Dzerzhinsk and Dzerzhinsky.
On the territory of two post-Soviet republics - Belarus and Ukraine - there are also about forty different villages and towns, as well as several large cities named after the famous revolutionary. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been a number of attempts to rename or return the original names of settlements, but the matter has not progressed beyond open discussions and several votes.
Geographical objects
In addition to cities and towns, a number of geographical objects also bear the name of Dzerzhinsky. Thus, Dzerzhinsky Mountain is considered the highest point on the territory of modern Belarus. And in the Pamirs (a mountain system located in Central Asia at the junction of Tajikistan, China, Afghanistan and India), the top of the Trans-Alai Range is called Dzerzhinsky Peak.
Monuments on the territory of the Russian Federation
Monuments and busts dedicated to the memory of the great revolutionary figure exist in many cities in the Russian Federation and in some. Thus, one of the most famous is the monument to Dzerzhinsky in Volgograd, which was erected immediately after the death of Felix Edmundovich. Naturally, in the city named after this statesman, there is a monument on Dzerzhinsky Square. There is even a certain pun: in Dzerzhinsk there is a monument to Dzerzhinsky on Dzerzhinsky Street. Samara also has its own personal head of the Cheka, it is installed on the station square of the city. Of course, there is a monument to this politician in Moscow, and not in a single copy. One of them is installed on the territory of the LOETP plant, the other is on Lubyanka Square, we’ll talk about it in more detail below. The remaining monuments and obelisks are located in Donetsk, Barnaul, Astrakhan and Penza.
Particular attention should be paid to the monument located in the city of Dzerzhinsky. The fact is that here once existed one of the communes created specifically for young street children. It was the graduates of this educational institution, who later managed to “break out among the people”, who erected the first, then still plaster, monument to the famous revolutionary at their own expense. He constantly stood on the main square of the city directly opposite the red commune, which was once the building of the local monastery. However, gypsum is not a very durable material, and therefore in the fall of 2004 the monument finally collapsed. Then the city administration decided to restore the monument, but now from bronze.
It is interesting that, unlike monuments to Lenin, the monument to Dzerzhinsky is different in every city. Not only the clothes, the position of Iron Felix’s hands and head change, but even the age of the revolutionary is different. This feature, unusual for the Soviet school of sculpture, may be caused by attempts to depict different character traits and periods of Dzerzhinsky’s life. After all, for the residents of Volgograd, Iron Felix is precisely the famous security officer and immortal leader of the NKVD, and in small Dzerzhinsky he is remembered and revered as the main philanthropist who provided a happy and carefree childhood for several hundred Soviet communards.
Busts and monuments in the CIS countries
Few monuments to this statesman have survived in the post-Soviet space. Most of the sculptures and busts were dismantled in the first years of perestroika. The haste with which these measures were taken suggests that the demolition of the monument to Dzerzhinsky is some kind of obligatory ritual, vital for the transition to the era of “wild” capitalism.
Despite a series of pogroms, in some cities there are still references to the existence of Felix Edmundovich. Such “reminders” can be found in public gardens and parks in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Transnistrian Republic, and Kyrgyzstan.
Let us note that in these countries the monument to Dzerzhinsky does not represent any special cultural value. But no one is trying to get rid of them. After all, this is part of our history.
Demolition of the monument to Dzerzhinsky in Moscow
And now about the most important monument. The monument to Dzerzhinsky in Moscow was erected on a historical and almost mystical place - Lubyanka Square. It was located directly opposite the very building where, in different years, the central offices of such security forces as the KGB, MGB, NKVD, NKGB and OGPU of the USSR were located. Today, the Russian FSB is located in the same place. The sculpture was created by order of the party and Stalin’s personal order, and the design of the future monument was developed by the then famous sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich.
The sculpture stood in its rightful place until a year when an angry and disappointed crowd literally swept away the “satrap and tyrant” from his rightful pedestal. In an atmosphere of constant tension and unmotivated aggression, the demolition of the monument to Dzerzhinsky seemed to be the least of the problems facing the new government. She was in enough trouble without it.
Therefore, when the monument to Dzerzhinsky was demolished from Lubyanka Square, the monument itself was simply removed and moved to the park area. After all the unrest associated with the transition from one political system to another subsided, it turned out that the majority of the population of the city of Moscow did not feel towards the monument all the previous hatred that was so widely broadcast on television screens and “flowed” from the pages Russian and Western newspapers. Everyone suddenly forgot about the monument and itself...
The further fate of the monument
As mentioned earlier, after all the putsch, the monument to Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka was dismantled and moved to a less significant place, namely the Moscow Park of Arts. It would have stood here until the end of time, but in 2013 the public again “stirred up” and came up with a new proposal. Now the demolition of the monument to Dzerzhinsky in Moscow seemed almost the most barbaric and senseless act during the entire period of perestroika.
The Russians insisted that no matter how famous the Soviet figure was, his role in the history of the country cannot be forgotten. The results revealed that about half of the capital’s residents are in favor of restoring the monument to Dzerzhinsky in Moscow. Only about twenty-nine percent of respondents openly opposed such an initiative, and the majority were concerned not so much about the merits of re-erecting the monument, but rather about the cost of this operation.
However, the return of the monument to Dzerzhinsky did take place in 2014, after the monument had undergone repeated dismantling and careful reconstruction. The return of the monument to its rightful place was timed to coincide with the 137th anniversary of the birth of Felix Edmundovich. Thus, historical justice triumphed, it received its former appearance and the Dzerzhinsky Monument returned to its rightful place.
Expert opinion: votes for and against
At the time when the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion conducted a survey of the population about whether they wanted the monument to Dzerzhinsky restored, among other things, the opinion of Russians about the very personality of the revolutionary was analyzed.
It turned out that most of the respondents (about seventy-nine percent) were familiar with the history and activities of Iron Felix; forty-seven percent of respondents spoke favorably of him and his actions. At the same time, every third Russian expressed the idea that, despite disagreements over the methods used, the work of the famous security officer deserves respect. Another twenty-six percent of respondents said that there should be a monument on Dzerzhinsky Square, although they do not experience any strong emotions towards this person. Summarizing all of the above, we can note that, in general, modern society has a neutral-positive attitude towards this historical figure.
However, after the monument to Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka was returned to its place, expert opinions appeared against such a drastic change.
For example, independent journalist Konstantin Eggert expressed a negative opinion. He believes that the monument to Dzerzhinsky does not deserve such honors at all. Other representatives of the modern intelligentsia share a similar opinion. According to them, this monument, like the one on Red Square, is a relic of a past era that completely senselessly and absolutely undeservedly continues to live in modern Russia. Moreover, for many it was an unpleasant discovery that the monuments to the victims of NKVD repressions and their main tormentor were erected (or reinstalled) with an interval of several months. Such “duality,” according to many, borders on duplicity. And it cannot bring anything good to society.
On the other hand, a number of experts who positively assessed the return of the monument to its original location note that this was necessary, first of all, so that society would not forget about its history and its heritage. Silencing the real facts, they believe, will only lead to a repetition of past mistakes.
How to get to Lubyanka Square: st. Lubyanka metro station, trolleybuses 9, 48, 2, 12, 33, 25, 45, 63.
Lubyanka Square is located in the center of Moscow, not far from the Kremlin. The square is surrounded by: Teatralny Proezd, Nikolskaya Street, Novaya Square, Lubyansky Proezd, as well as Myasnitskaya, Bolshaya Lubyanka and Pushechnaya streets.
From the chronicles of 1480 it is known that after the Novgorod Republic fell and was forcibly annexed to the Moscow Principality, the most noble and influential Novgorodians were resettled to Moscow. By decree of Tsar Ivan III, immigrants from Novgorod were ordered to settle in the area of present-day Lubyanka. The Novgorodians gave the name to this area - it came from Lubyanitsy, a district of Novgorod. At the same time, the Church of St. Sophia was built in the likeness of the ancient St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod (1040-1050), and a little earlier, in 1472, in honor of the conquest of Novgorod, on the corner of Myasnitskaya Street, at the behest of Ivan III, the Church of the Grebnevskaya Mother of God ( destroyed in 1934).
When the Kitai-Gorod wall was erected in 1534-1538, a large area was formed, divided into two parts. The part that ended with the Cannon Yard and was located east of Rozhdestvenskaya Street and up to the present Lubyanka Square was called Cannon until the 20s of the 20th century. And the area from Bolshaya Lubyanka Street to the Varvarsky Gate was named Lubyanka.
In ancient times, on the northern side of what is now Lubyanka Square there was a wooden church of Theodosius. In 1662, unknown persons hung a letter on its fence, in which they accused the boyar Miloslavsky and the okolnichy Rtishchev, close associates of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, of abuse of power. The letter said that they were speculating with copper money, and this caused an increase in food prices. This letter was read by the archer Kuzma Nogaev in front of a large crowd of people, after which the indignant crowd, led by the Sretensky Hundred drafter Suki Zhitky, moved to the royal residence of Kolomenskoye. This event went down in history as the Copper Riot. The king brutally dealt with its instigators, executing them at the Church of Theodosius, where the riot began.
During the war with the Swedes, Peter I built new earthen fortifications around the Kremlin and Kitay-Gorod. These fortifications existed until 1823, but half of the current Lubyanka Square, located east of the bastions, was already built up in the mid-18th century. In 1820, the second Prolomny Gate was built opposite the square. Along them, up to the Ilyinsky Prolomny Gate, second-hand book sellers set up their tents. In 1830, the water intake fountain of the Mytishchi water supply system was built on Lubyanka Square. Since running water was rare in houses of that time, Muscovites took water from the fountain for domestic needs.
Journalist and Moscow expert V. Gilyarovsky wrote that at the end of the 19th century, Lubyanka Square was one of the centers of Moscow. Here there was an exchange of carriages for funeral services, among them there were quite decent carriages for gentlemen who did not have their own travel. Water carriers scurried around the fountain, drawing water into their barrels using special scoop buckets with long handles.
In the 1880s, rails for horse-drawn cars were laid across Lubyanka Square, and in 1904 the horse-drawn tram replaced the tram. In 1897-1898, according to the project of Academician A. Ivanov, on land owned by N.S. Mosolov built the building of the Russia Insurance Company, which faced Lubyanka Square.
After the October Revolution, this pale yellow brick building was nationalized and housed the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage; the service was later renamed the USSR State Security Committee, and today the Russian service. For some time the square was called Nikolskaya, and in 1927, after the death of F.E. Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet state security service, the square was renamed Dzerzhinsky Square, and only in 1991 the historical name was returned. The history of this building is interesting. In the 30s of the 20th century, it underwent reconstruction; the prison in the courtyard, which had been functioning since the post-revolutionary years, was also updated. Four floors were built over the prison, and six exercise yards with high walls were equipped on the roof of the house for prisoners to walk around. In the 40s, on the initiative of L. Beria, the building was reconstructed according to the design of the architect Shchusev.
In 1934, the Kitai-Gorod wall was broken along with the adjacent houses on Nikolskaya Street. The fountain was moved to Neskuchny Zad, making the area more spacious. In 1958, a monument to Dzerzhinsky, authored by E.I., was erected in the center of the square. Vuchetich. In 1991, the monument was dismantled and moved to the Park of Arts on Krymsky Val. In October 1990, a monument to the victims of the Gulag was erected on Lubyanka Square. The monument is a large stone brought from Solovki.
th office. But he took it.
photo of Soviet times with the monument to Dzherzhinsky
And he led from there for 15 years. So that he could then lead the entire country for two more years until his death.
Road to the temple
They say that Andropov sincerely believed in “good Soviet power.” And he considered it simple bad luck that before him from the Big Lubyanka House the wrong people were involved in its improvement. But what kind of “bad luck” if during the period from 1918 to 1991, out of 20 heads of the “office”, 14 left with a “loss of face”, and five (Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria, Merkulov and Abakumov) were declared criminals by the Soviet authorities themselves and shot?
No! He himself was a certain exception. And everything else became a pattern. Which, at the end of his life, Andropov himself seemed to realize. Because in the poems discovered after his death he wrote: “There are all sorts of misfortunes. Yes, people often strive for power. But there is another misfortune: people themselves spoil power.” It turns out that this “road did not lead to the Temple.”
Meanwhile, there is a Temple on Bolshaya Lubyanka. At the very end. Just opposite house No. 26, through the windows of which its domes could be seen even on the birthdays of the future Secretary General. They still look at us from behind the white wall of the recently restored Sretensky Monastery. And today there is no better place on this street where one could take a breath. Although, of course, someone will prefer a respectable cafe next door. Moreover, its name is appropriate - “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.”
Sretensky Monastery
House No. 5 on Bolshaya Lubyanka and the monument to Vorovsky
No. 24/15 - apartment building and city estate of the architect V. I. Chagin, 1902-1907. Rebuilt from the mansion of F. E. Sivers (1892, architect I. G. Kondratenko)
On July 25, 1662, Lubyanka Square became the epicenter of the Copper Riot. Lubyanka remembers many different events. Here the militia of K. Minin and D. Pozharsky fought with the invaders, knocking them out of Kitai-Gorod. In 1905, a 200,000-strong procession of workers passed through this square behind the coffin of N. E. Bauman. In 1912, a protest demonstration against the Lena execution took place across the square.
In the 18th century, Lubyanka became one of the aristocratic districts of the city: a number of eminent Moscow families lived there - the Golitsyns, Volkonskys, Dolgorukies, Khovanskys, Dadianis... But there was no escaping the terrible fate of the square: right there was the courtyard of a noblewoman famous for her cruelty to serfs Saltykova, who went down in history under the name Saltychikha.
Torturer and murderer Saltychikha.
Daria Saltykova in her youth. In Paris, her portrait was painted by François Drouet
Unlike its peers on other capital streets, the house on Lubyanka cannot boast of an abundance of owners. Throughout its hundred-year history, it had only two owners: the Rossiya insurance company and the central apparatus of the domestic intelligence service.
By the end of the century, foreigners began to settle in abundance next to representatives of the Russian aristocracy on Lubyanka. The French colony became especially numerous in this area, which left its mark on modern Moscow toponymy. The lane between Bolshaya Lubyanka and Myasnitskaya Street is still called Furkasovsky - in honor of the French wig maker Furkassier. At the same time, with monetary donations from the French, the Catholic Church of St. Louis was erected on Malaya Lubyanka Street, which has survived to this day.
In 1835, a fountain by the young sculptor Vitali appeared in the middle of Lubyanka Square. Four figures of boys, representing the four oceans, supported a large bowl of red polished granite. The fountain immediately became a favorite place for Moscow water-carriers, who filled their barrels here. The boys stood on the square for almost a hundred years and in 1932, in connection with the construction of tram tracks, they were moved to the building of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences (Leninsky Prospekt, 14).
On Lubyanka Square there was a kind of market, the so-called “carriage trade”. Vegetables, fruits, and various livestock were sold here; in winter, you could buy frozen fish from carts. Historians write that even under serfdom, on the site of today’s Lubyanka Square there was a booth with a menagerie.
Back in the early 18th century, on Lubyanka Square, in the very place where the FSB building is now located, there was a stone house and a large courtyard of the Mingrelian princes Dadiani. Immediately after the War of 1812, this plot of land with buildings was bought by Kriegsstalmeister Fedor Semenovich Mosolov. By inheritance, the plot passes to the daughters, and from 1857 it becomes the property of the Tambov landowner, retired lieutenant Semyon Nikolaevich Mosolov. He himself practically did not live in Moscow and therefore rented out the house.
In 1880, the house became the property of Mosolov’s son, titular councilor, then famous engraver and artist Nikolai Semenovich Mosolov. He occupied the second floor of a three-story building for his apartment. On the third floor there were furnished rooms where not very rich people lived: actors, writers, doctors, etc. On the lower floor there was “Moebus Photography” and the board of directors of the Warsaw Insurance Company.
By the end of the 19th century, Bolshaya Lubyanka was turning into a street of insurance companies. On its relatively short length there are as many as 15 offices. Therefore, it is no coincidence that it was Lubyanka that one of the largest insurance companies of that time, under the resounding name “Russia,” turned its attention to. The board of the company, founded in 1881, was located in St. Petersburg.
On April 12, 1894, a deed of sale was concluded, according to which Mosolov ceded his ownership of a total area of 1,110 square fathoms with all buildings to the Company for 475 thousand silver rubles. Interested in a quick return of the invested funds, the Rossiya society appeals to the Moscow authorities with a request for permission to demolish all the buildings located on the site, and in their place to build a new stone four- or five-story building with a large number of apartments, which was planned to be used as an apartment building. City authorities did not object. An open competition was announced for the design, as a result of which the project of the architect N.M. Proskurnin was recognized as the best. However, it had to be corrected: “Russia” bought another plot of land. We are talking about corner property 2, located on the other side of Malaya Lubyanka and also overlooking Lubyanka Square. In this regard, the idea arose of erecting two buildings at once, combined into one, on these neighboring plots, separated by Malaya Lubyanka. The work was entrusted to the experienced architect Alexander Vasilyevich Ivanov, the author of the National Hotel building project. Together with Proskurnin, he developed the project for the now famous Lubyanka House.
Construction of an apartment building on the former Mosolov site began in 1897 and ended in 1900. The first floor of a large apartment building was completely leased out for trade. There were shops here - a bookstore (Naumova), sewing machines (Popov), beds (Yarnushkevich), a beer shop of Vasilyeva and Voronin and others. On the third to fifth floors there were two dozen apartments, each with 4-9 rooms. A resident of such an apartment paid up to 4 thousand rubles in rent annually - other apartments in Moscow cost twice or even three times less... In general, the Rossiya society had over 160 thousand rubles in annual income from the entire building.
Photo from the 1900s.
Photo from the late 1890s.
Colorized photo postcard from the 1910s.
After the Soviet government moved from Petrograd to Moscow in March 1918, the office of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (VChK) was located in house 11 on Bolshaya Lubyanka. The commission was headed by Vladimir Lenin’s faithful comrade-in-arms, Felix Dzerzhinsky, who earned the nickname “Iron Felix” for his devotion to Ulyanov-Lenin and the principles of the victorious revolution.
As for house 2, the security officers chose its spacious apartments a little later. In accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars in December 1918, all private insurance companies, including Rossiya, were liquidated, and their property and real estate, of course, were nationalized. Initially, in May 1919, the building on Lubyanka Square was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Council of Trade Unions. But the trade unions did not like it, and just a few days later, house No. 2 became a refuge for the NKVD of the RSFSR, which within two months evicted the previous tenants from it with a scandal.
In September 1919, part of the house was occupied by the first representatives of the new Soviet secret service, represented by the Special Department of the Moscow Cheka. And a few months later, the Central Office of the Cheka settled within these walls.
By the end of the 20s, the tasks of the department at Lubyanka expanded significantly, and the staff also grew. As a result, the walls of the house on Lubyanka Square are clearly becoming cramped for the security officers. Therefore, at the turn of the 20-30s, the building of the former apartment building of the Rossiya insurance company was seriously reconstructed. Directly behind it, from Furkasovsky Lane, in 1932-1933, according to the design of architects Langman and Bezrukov, a new building was built in the style of constructivism. Its main facade of the new house for security officers faced Furkasovsky, and its two side facades with rounded corners looked at Bolshaya and Malaya Lubyanka. A new building, shaped like the letter “W” in plan, that is, as if saying “Sha!” to everyone who came here, formed a single whole with the old building, facing Lubyanka Square.
At the same time, the Inner Prison, which was located in the courtyard of building 2 and had been in operation since 1920, was significantly reconstructed. According to the new project, four more floors were added to it: there was absolutely nowhere for people to go. The architect Langman solved the problem of prisoners' walks in an original way, by arranging six exercise yards with high walls right on the roof of the building. Prisoners were brought here in special elevators or led up flights of stairs.
After Dzerzhinsky's death in 1926, the square was renamed Dzerzhinsky Square. In 1928-1931 The architect Fomin built a huge building at the beginning of Malaya Lubyanka, designed, according to the architect’s definition, in the style of “proletarian classicism”.
E. Lilje. A crowded market in Moscow. Lithography. 1855
With the arrival of the new People's Commissar Lavrentiy Beria in the house on Lubyanka, the next stage of its reconstruction begins. One of the most venerable architects of that time, the builder of the Lenin Mausoleum, Shchusev, was entrusted with starting this work. The architect had the idea to combine two buildings into a single whole, facing Lubyanka Square and separated by Malaya Lubyanka Street: house 2, built in 1900 according to the design of A.V. Ivanov, and house 1, built according to the design of N.M. Proskurnin. Design of a new building, which was supposed to expand the old one, began in 1939. Already in January 1940, the sketch of the final version of the house was approved by Beria, and Shchusev received official permission for construction. The work was interrupted by the war.
In 1958, a monument to F. Dzerzhinsky, created by the sculptor Vuchetich, was erected on the square (at that time still bearing the name of “Iron Felix”). This monument stood until 1991, when it was removed in front of a large crowd of people. The square was returned to its old name - Lubyanskaya.
Naturally, the main “attraction” of Lubyanka is the FSB building. The organization changed its name many times, but this building has acquired many horror stories and legends. Foreign tourists enthusiastically listen to the guide's stories about thousands of people tortured in dungeons, and Russians, out of habit, glance warily at the gray hulk.
In the late 70s - early 80s, at the end of the “Andropov era”, the architectural ensemble of Lubyanka Square was finally taking shape. In 979-1982, on the left corner of Bolshaya Lubyanka (Dzerzhinsky Street) and Kuznetsky Bridge, a group of architects under the leadership of Paluy and Makarevich built a new monumental building of the KGB of the USSR, where the leadership of the department moved. And on the right corner of Myasnitskaya Street (Kirova Street), in 1985-1987, according to the project of the same architects, the premises of the Computer Center of the KGB of the USSR grew.
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And a few more photos -
Solovetsky stone
Moscow. Polytechnic Museum - II half. XIX century..
(Novaya Ploshchad, 3/4) - one of the oldest scientific and technical museums in the world, located in Moscow on Novaya Ploshchad. The museum was created on the basis of the funds of the Polytechnic Exhibition of 1872 on the initiative of the Society of Lovers of Natural History, Anthropology and Ethnography with the active participation of its members, professors of Moscow University G. E. Shchurovsky, A. P. Bogdanov and others.
The construction of the museum also became possible thanks to the allocation of 500 thousand rubles by the Moscow City Duma in 1871 and the transfer of the necessary land plot on Lubyanka Square. In a temporary building on the street. In Prechistenka, the museum opened in 1872.
In 1877, according to the design of the architect I. A. Monighetti, the central part of the museum building was completed. The southern wing of the Polytechnic Museum with the Lubyansko-Ilyinsky trading premises was built according to the design of the architect N. A. Shokhin in 1883 (the construction was led by the architect A. E. Weber, with the participation of the architect I. P. Mashkov), and in 1896 the right wing of the museum was completed . The northern building was built in 1903-1907 by the architect V. I. Eramishantsev together with V. V. Voeikov. In total, the construction of the building lasted 30 years.
Today, the Polytechnic Museum is the largest technical museum in Russia, storing over 160 thousand museum objects, about 150 museum collections in various fields of technology and scientific knowledge. The museum's exhibitions tell about the history of technology and its creators, and explain the principles of operation of various technical devices. The Polytechnic Museum complex includes the Polytechnic Library (more than 3 million books and printed publications).
The modern territory of Lubyanka has been known since the founding of Moscow. According to one version, in the 12th century it was called Kuchkovo Pole - after the name of the owner of these lands, boyar Kuchka. Presumably, he owned Moscow lands before Yuri Dolgoruky.
There is no consensus on how the toponym Lubyanka appeared. One of the popular versions is that the name comes from the Novgorod region, Lyubyanitsa. Other options are associated with bast - flexible tree bark, from which bast shoes, baskets, dishes, roofing and rough fabric, matting were made.
Lubyanka has a settlement history connected with Novgorod. After the weakening of Novgorod and its annexation to the Moscow principality, Ivan III in the last quarter of the 15th century resettled the Novgorod nobility here. The first mention of Lubyanka in chronicles dates back to the same period.
In the 30s of the 16th century, fortifications of Kitay-gorod were erected on the Kremlin side. This is how a gate appeared that opened onto the square. Their names changed over time: Vladimirsky, Nikolsky, Sretensky. From them, through Cannon Square (on the site of which New Square is now located), one could drive to another gate - Varvarsky (present-day Slavyanskaya Square).
The Neglinka River flowed in front of Kitay-Gorod, which was later collected into a sewer
Reconstruction of buildings in Kitay-Gorod. Vladimir Gate - the one below
At the beginning of the troubled 17th century, in the Lubyanka area, the troops of Minin and Pozharsky stormed Kitay-Gorod to drive the Poles out of there. Fifty years later, in 1662, during the Russo-Polish War, a crowd gathered here to protest against increased taxes and the release of rapidly depreciating copper coins. The protest became known as the "Copper Riot". Having bypassed the ditches that then lay along the Kitai-Gorod wall, people headed towards the Kremlin.
Anticipating an invasion by Swedish troops, during the time of Peter the Great, earthen bastions were erected on parts of the square. They were torn down after the fire of 1812. The fire destroyed the previous buildings in the area. The modern layout of streets and squares appeared just after it.
Under Catherine the Second, on the side of Myasnitskaya Street there was a branch of the Secret Expedition - the secret service of the 18th century. During the demolition of buildings at the beginning of the 20th century, the remains of prisoners and torture chambers were discovered here in the basements.
THE SQUARE ACQUIRES CURRENT FEATURES
The construction of the 19th century shaped the modern configuration of Lubyanka - right down to the circle in the center of the square. There has been a fountain on the site of the current flowerbed since 1835. It received water from the Mytishchi water supply system, which was used for domestic needs. The fountain was designed by the sculptor Ivan (Giovanni) Vitali, called Nikolsky and represented four figures of boys holding a large bowl and personifying the Volga, Dnieper, Don and Neva rivers. The small bowl was supported by a group of three bronze eagles, which have been lost. The fountain itself stood on the square for almost a hundred years and during the reconstruction of the square in 1934 it was moved to the Alexandrinsky (Neskuchny) Palace, where it still stands.
Lubyanka Square, 1910–1917. In the foreground is the Giovanni Vitali fountain, behind it are the Kitai-Gorod Wall and the Vladimir Gate, behind which runs Nikolskaya Street. On the site of Lubyansky Passage (on the right) there is now “Children’s World” Photo: K. Fisher / pastvu.com/p/283413
In the 18th-19th centuries, on the site of the current Polytechnic Museum, menageries were located - townspeople could not only marvel at exotic animals, such as an anaconda or a puma in the Kreisberg menagerie, but also watch a show with trained animals. There is a well-known story about an elephant that almost escaped. He broke out of the enclosure and moved towards the crowd, only a company of soldiers was able to cope with him. After the closure of the menageries, animal auctions took place on the square.
A huge whale 14 fathoms long and a panorama, located in a large booth on Lubyanka Square, can be seen at Maslenitsa every day from 1 o’clock in the morning to 7 o’clock in the evening; between the ribs of the whale there is a choir of musicians playing different pieces
"Russian word"
Yesterday, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, a wolf appeared from somewhere on Myasnitskaya Street. The wolf ran down the middle of the street from the Myasnitsky Gate to Lubyanka Square. The appearance of a wolf on the street caused confusion among the public and frightened many horses, who shied away. The policeman, together with the janitors, drove the wolf into the yard of Davydov’s house, and then into a large box. After some time, the huntsman of the wolf’s owner, student N.P., came here. Pakhomova. According to the huntsman, the wolf is tame. He is only 6 months old. He ran from his kennel from the yard of Kabanov’s house, on Chistye Prudy. The wolf was returned to the owner against receipt.
Vladimir Gilyarovsky
"MOSCOW AND MUSCOVITES"
Somehow, back in serfdom, a wooden booth with a menagerie and a huge elephant appeared on Lubyanka Square, which mainly attracted the public. Suddenly, in the spring, the elephant went berserk, tore out the logs from the wall to which it was chained, and began to sweep away the booth, trumpeting victoriously and striking fear into the crowds of people surrounding the square. The elephant, irritated by the shouts of the crowd, tried to escape, but he was held back by the logs to which he was chained and which were stuck in the rubble of the booth. The elephant had already managed to knock down one log and rushed at the crowd, but by this time the police had brought a company of soldiers, who killed the giant in several volleys. Now the Polytechnic Museum stands on this site.
The modern large building of the Polytechnic Museum was built in several stages over 30 years, and was completed in 1907. At the same time, the Great Auditorium appeared - a famous city venue for performances by scientists and cultural representatives. The building was not always used for its intended purpose - during the First World War there was an infirmary there.
Between the Polytechnic and the square there was the so-called “Shipovskaya Fortress”, built in the first half of the 19th century on the site of Nikolai Novikov’s printing house. From the fortress there was only the name and essence. The fact is that the general established original rules: he did not charge a fee for renting out apartments, and he did not monitor the number of residents. The “fortress” was inhabited by a rabble hiding from the police. They didn’t find anything or anyone in it. Stolen goods could be conveniently sold at the neighboring markets of the Old and New Squares.
At the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, Lubyanka was one of the aristocratic districts of the city: the Golitsyns, Volkonskys, Dolgorukys, and Khovanskys lived here. On the site where the main administrative building of the FSB now stands, there was a large courtyard of the Mingrelian princes Dadiani. In the mid-19th century, the square transformed into an active business and trading space. The nobles sell off their real estate and business merchants take their place.
Between Teatralny Proezd and Sofiyka (as Pushechnaya Street was then called), at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, the Lubyansky passage of the Alekseev merchants appeared. The three-story buildings of the arcade were rented out as shops and shops. He continued to work after the revolution.
The roadway of Lubyanka Square was very busy in the first half of the 20th century. There were cab stops, tram routes, and wandering pedestrians here. In 1911, there was even a plan to create a tunnel under Kitay-Gorod to relieve congestion in the area. The tram junction was improved to increase capacity, and an electrical substation was built nearby, near the Kitai-Gorod wall.
"Moscow Life"
Yesterday, one of the representatives of the French colony sent the mayor a clipping from French newspapers with a message about a new bill to combat pornography. A French citizen writes in this regard that Moscow no less needs to protect the population from sellers of pornographic cards. Now this trade is carried out openly. The author of the letter has to walk from Lubyanka Square to Teatralnaya Square every day, and in this area he is accompanied by booksellers offering to buy cards of famous content. Taking advantage of the general interest in the personality of Leo Tolstoy, who recently died, these dealers offer the public his brochures, and between the pages of the books they store cards with pornographic content. The mayor sent this letter at the discretion of the mayor.
In 1905, a whole wave of demonstrations and armed uprisings swept through Moscow. During the October demonstration that took place on Nemetskaya Street, revolutionary Nikolai Bauman, who then headed the Moscow Bolshevik Organization, was killed. Farewell to Bauman's body was organized in the building of the Imperial Moscow Technical School. Many people came to see it, and a procession of two hundred thousand workers with the coffin passed on October 20 through Lubyanka Square to the burial site at the Vagankovskoye cemetery. After the Bolsheviks came to power, Nemetskaya Street was renamed Bauman Street. In the spring of 1912, the square will again be filled with protesters - a demonstration will take place through Lubyanka after the Lena shooting, when workers who went on strike were killed.
In the fall of 1914, patriots protesting against German and Austrian subjects marched through the area: “The crowd moved to the Lubyansko-Ilyinsky trading premises, where the Einem store was located,” wrote the Russkoe Slovo newspaper. - In an instant, the partnership store was destroyed. Nothing inside the store survived. Everything is crushed, beaten, broken, torn. Then the windows of the Dresden store and some others on Myasnitskaya Street, Harrach and Ferman on Kuznetsky Most were broken.”
In the 19th century, gradually all buildings began to be rented out, and the area turned into a concentration of insurance company offices. On Bolshaya Lubyanka alone there were 15 branches of different insurance companies. That is why the large insurance company Rossiya in 1894 bought land northeast of the square from the Tambov landowner Mosolov for the demolition of all the buildings that existed there.
Vladimir Gilyarovsky
"MOSCOW AND MUSCOVITES"
Opposite Mosolov's house on Lubyanka Square there was an exchange for hired carriages. When Mosolov sold his house to the Rossiya insurance company, he gave the carriage and horses to his coachman and “Noodles” was listed on the stock exchange. An excellent harness gave him the opportunity to earn good money: riding with Noodles was considered chic. (...)
Near Mosolov's house, on the land that belonged to the consistory, there was a common people's tavern "Uglich", a cab driver's tavern, although it did not have a yard where horses usually feed while their owners drink tea. But at that time in Moscow there was “simplicity,” which was brought out in the mid-nineties by Chief of Police Vlasovsky.
And before him, Lubyanka Square also replaced the cabman's yard: between Mosolov's house and the fountain there was a carriage exchange, between the fountain and Shilov's house there was a dray exchange, and along the entire sidewalk from Myasnitskaya to Bolshaya Lubyanka there was a continuous line of passenger cabs milling about the horses.
The new owners decided to build a large apartment building. It was designed by architects Nikolai Proskurin and Alexander Vasilyevich Ivanov (author of the National building). The first floors were rented out for retail space. And the upper ones are for housing and offices. This building housed the company Scherer, Nabholz and Co., which was engaged in photography. Many photographs of Lubyanka Square were taken from the window of this company.
There are turrets on the roof of the building. On the central one there is a clock. They were crowned by two figures of women - symbols of Justice and Consolation. It is not immediately possible to recognize the current FSB building in the facade of this house and the symbols of the figures, but it is this building that is destined to become the symbol of Lubyanka of the Soviet period.
CHECKIST HQ
Only in the 20th century did Lubyanka become associated with the powerful department of the security forces. When the Bolshevik government moved from Petrograd to Moscow and nationalized, several buildings on Lubyanka in 1918 went to the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission.
A year and a half later, the department organized the internal prison that later became famous. One of her first arrests were Olga and Sergei, surprisingly, Lenins. According to one version, they helped Vladimir Ulyanov with a foreign passport in 1900, borrowing the document of their father Nikolai. Two decades later, Vladimir Ilyich, who successfully returned from abroad, did not spare his assistants.
The prison was originally intended for special prisoners and persons under investigation, who were not allowed to communicate not only with the outside world, but also with each other. In the harshest times, prisoners here were “broken”, in addition to torture during interrogations, severely constrained conditions of detention or, conversely, complete loneliness. For example, when escorting prisoners along corridors and staircases, guards had to hide them from each other's eyes, and there were gaps between the walls to prevent prisoners from knocking on each other.
Orientation in space was difficult for prisoners not only because of the walls surrounding them. The elevator in the building rose so slowly that, having ridden in it, the prisoners might have thought that they had risen from a deep basement, and not from the first floor of the prison to the upper sixth. A joke arose regarding the number of floors of the security officers' building in the city: “Which building is the tallest in Moscow? Answer: Lubyanka Square, building two. From its roof you can see Kolyma.” Kolyma was not the worst option for prisoners.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “The Gulag Archipelago”
Ivanov-Razumnik in the Lubyanka foster “dog walker” calculated that for whole weeks there were THREE people per 1 square meter of floor (think about it, you can fit in!), there was no window or ventilation in the dog walker, the temperature from bodies and breathing was 40-50 degrees (!), everyone was sitting in the same underpants (with winter clothes underneath them), their naked bodies were pressed together, and their skin developed eczema from other people’s sweat. They sat like this for WEEKS, they were given neither air nor water (except gruel and tea in the morning).
The prisoners were walking in the courtyard-well. There were two places to walk - on the lower floor and on the upper floor, from where only the sky was visible. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who was in prison during the investigation, described how soot fell from the stove chimney on walkers. The writer suggested that documents and investigation materials were burned in the oven. He recalled that it was possible to obtain prohibited literature in the prison library, but it was not confiscated from there. But the order was strict: for the slightest offense or at the whim of the guards, conditions of detention could be worsened.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “The Gulag Archipelago”:
We walked under the stove chimney - in a concrete box, on the roof of Bolshaya Lubyanka, at the sixth floor level. The walls above the sixth floor also rose to three human heights. With our ears we heard Moscow - the roll call of car sirens. But they saw only this chimney, the sentry on the tower on the seventh floor, and that unlucky piece of God’s sky that happened to stretch over the Lubyanka.
During the “Great Purge”, those who, in fact, previously led it, also ended up in prison. According to some data, in 1937 alone, almost 30 thousand people passed through the internal prisons of the main NKVD complex. Only a few were released from it, the rest were sent to other Moscow prisons or to be shot. The inner prison of the main building is quite famous. But besides it, there are underground dungeons under the block behind the main building at a shallow depth, disguised as the basements of houses. In late Soviet times, under the complex of special services buildings, underground structures were dug at great depths below the metro level in order to protect against a nuclear attack, spreading over the entire block. The structures are still in use today. There is also talk about a tunnel allegedly connecting the headquarters of the security officers with the Kremlin. In addition to other scary places, Lubyanka is known for its poison laboratory. In it, intelligence agencies tested toxic substances on prisoners. There is no single version of when the prisons in the KGB buildings on Lubyanka were closed. According to one version, this happened in the 1960s, when, by order of KGB Chairman Vladimir Semichastny, the last people under investigation on economic charges were transferred to Lefortovo. The bulk of the prisoners from the “nutryanka” were transferred back in 1953. According to another, the last occupant was Viktor Ilyin, who attempted to kill Brezhnev, who shot at a car with astronauts near the Borovitsky Gate of the Kremlin in 1969 (he confused it with the Secretary General’s car). He was released from here in 1988, but he allegedly only sat here for a few hours. In 1989, the six chambers of the “interior” were turned into a museum with limited access, and the remaining rooms of the building house a dining room, warehouses and offices.
It is curious that in the first two decades after the creation of the Cheka, the office of human rights activists - the Political Red Cross and Pompolit - was located very close to their building. They quite legally helped convicts until 1937. One of the key persons of the organizations was Ekaterina Peshkova, informally Gorky’s ex-wife and a relative of Sergo Beria through her granddaughter.
In 1926, the security officers appropriated the name of the square - Lubyanskaya became the square of Dzerzhinsky, who died of cardiac arrest that same year. This name will also be inherited by the metro station built under the square 9 years later. The former name of the square and station will be returned in 1990.
In memory of Comrade Dzerzhinsky, the Presidium of the Moscow Council decided to rename Lubyanka Square and Bolshaya Lubyanka Street to Square and Street named after. Comrade Dzerzhinsky.
"Last news"
In Moscow, a question has been raised about the demolition of the Kitai-Gorod wall, erected in the 16th century. under Elena Glinskaya. After restoration work, it was recognized that the Kitai-Gorod Wall has no museum value. They are demolishing it because it clutters up traffic, especially on Lubyanka Square and Varvarka
During reconstruction, tram traffic was removed from Dzerzhinskaya Square, as from other squares in Moscow, in 1934, and a metro was built underneath it.
A little earlier, the Kitai-Gorod Wall and the Panteleimon Chapel, the architectural dominant of the square, were demolished. The chapel, designed by Alexander Kaminsky at the end of the 19th century, looked like a real temple and had a similar height to the wall tower.
At the same time, Lubyanka lost the ancient Temple of the Grebnevskaya Icon of the Mother of God, built in the middle of the 16th century. The land on which it stood was transferred for the construction of the metro. In place of the demolished small church with a bell tower, a ventilation booth will be installed.
Architectural changes loomed over the square according to the Stalinist general plan of Moscow, which would never be implemented due to the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. This will be especially noticeable at Lubyanka: according to the design of the architect Alexei Shchusev, the NKVD building was supposed to be built on and united with the neighboring building by a common facade, but only the right half was reconstructed. It remained in this form until 1983.
In the 1960s, the block between the square and the Polytechnic Museum was demolished, leaving behind an unnamed square. In 1958, a monument to their parent, Felix Dzerzhinsky, was erected opposite the headquarters of the security officers. The monumental sculptural composition by Evgeny Vuchetich and architect Grigory Zakharov visually connected the heterogeneous development of the square.
It so happened that there were children next to the security officers. This happened during the first years of Bolshevik power. A children's version of the May Day demonstration took place at Lubyanka. District delegations marched, chanted slogans and sang songs.
"Is it true"
Lubyanka Square was a place for proletarian children to watch. By 2 o'clock the first columns of children of Krasnaya Presnya appear on the square. Banners are spread wide. Children's faces glow with spring joy. Above the motley heads flutter the inscriptions: “Walk along, young hearts! You are the red army”, “Grow us up - we will support you”, etc.
In the 1950s, architect Alexey Dushkin designed a large complex of the Detsky Mir department store on the site of the block between Dzerzhinsky Square and Zhdanova Street (as Rozhdestvenka was then called). It is curious that Dushkin was chosen as the author of the project as a person admitted (since he worked on the construction of the metro) to state secrets due to the proximity of the department store building to secret objects. But at this time, the struggle against architectural excesses began, and the project underwent changes, because of which the architect fell into a deep depression. Dushkin lived for another 20 years, but the Children's World building became his last completed project.
The department store opened on June 6, 1957. In times of shortage, it seemed like a kingdom of abundance of children's goods. The building with massive glazed arched windows became the main architectural dominant of the square until the 1980s. In the same year, the Book World store opened on Kirov Street in the former apartment building of Nikolai Stakheev, which later turned into Biblio-Globus.
The facades of this building will remain, although the interior will be destroyed in the 1980s and will become part of the KGB Computer Center. The law enforcement agency, by the way, will expand the bookstore to enormous sizes. It will become one of the largest in Europe. The KGB took up the job that the Moscow City Council had refused and restored the trading platform on its own, doubling its area. The Mayakovsky Museum, which moved to Lubyanka in 1968, remains in the same building.
At the same time, at the corner of what is now Bolshaya Lubyanka and Pushechnaya streets, a new monumental KGB building with a gray facade is being built. It still houses the main offices of the reformed intelligence service, and not in the old building, as is commonly believed.
According to the representative of the then Glavmosarchitecture Boris Paluy, Dzerzhinsky Square at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the only one in Moscow that had a “finished look.”
MODERN RUSSIA
In modern times, the appearance of the square has been changed by politics. In 1990, several people's deputies proposed to transfer part of the premises of the KGB buildings to the Memorial society. This issue could hardly be discussed seriously - the infrastructure of the special services buildings was too expensive. But Memorial managed to install a large stone, which was brought from the Solovetsky Islands, in an unnamed park adjacent to the Polytechnic Museum.
For more than six months, the monument to the founder of the department that imprisoned people stood a hundred meters from the stone of those who were imprisoned. In August 1991, after the defeat of the State Emergency Committee, the “Iron Felix” was demolished. This was perhaps the most famous dismantling of a monument in the history of modern Russia. On August 22, a crowd of Democratic supporters surrounded the pedestal and painted it with the words “Executioner,” “To be demolished,” a swastika and a red star. The figure was removed using a crane. The actions were supported by the decision of the Moscow City Council. On the same days, another Dzerzhinsky in the form of a bust was taken away from Petrovka, 38 - from the building of the main department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
