Moscow, at the Red Square

 

For us knowing Red Square in Moscow from the Red Army parade at the square to commemorate the October Revolution it can’t be helped that our image of the Red Square is that of the Red Army, communism and blood. So, if we come there we would expect to see a cold square with monuments of Lenin, or Stalin or Marx, along with red communist propaganda posters and banners, something like that. How wrong are we. 

When we come from Ploshchad Revolyutsii metro station to the Red Square we enter through the front gate of the city from the side of Tverskaya street and Manezhnaya Square. This is the Kilometer Zero of Moscow, it has red brick color walls with white linings and two archways. In the inside of the gate there is an icon depicting the resurrection of Christ, therefore the gate is named the Resurrection Gate. Ironically the gate has been demolished and resurrected a number of times, first appeared in 1534 and was reconstructed in 1680, torn down by Stalin to make way for large-scale Soviet ceremonies in the square. The Gate was once again assembled between 1994 and 1995.

Going further, we can see a huge department store in the late 19^th century Russian Architecture. It is the GUM (Glawny Uniwersalny Magasin) Department Store, occupying the majority of the Red Square’s East side flanked by Nikolskaya and Ilyinka streets. It is the largest in Russia, selling luxury goods with walls in intricate forms, with abundance of decor, composition and picturesque glass windows and roofs. But we should know that Red Square originally began as a slum, a shanty town of wooden huts clustered beneath the Kremlin walls that housed a collection of peddlers, criminals and drunks whose status left them outside the official boundaries of the medieval city. It was cleared on the orders of Ivan III at the end of the 1400's, but remained the province of the mob, the site of public executions, and rabble rousing, until much later. Today GUM stands brightly at the side of Red Square presenting itself to the locals and visitors as a noble shopping center characterised by boutiques in the upper price ranges. 

In front of the GUM Shopping Mall stands a cathedral with various colorful onion shaped cupolas, it is St Basil cathedral, the iconic building of Russia, and is probably the first image that comes to mind when people visit Russia.  The cathedral’s fame might be due to its distinctive, eccentric design, the 10 onion shaped cupolas with the vibrant clash of colors. 

At the center of the square we can see a multi-tiered pyramid building, which is Lenin Mausoleum. Made of granite and labradorite, it shows the character of the mausoleum as a monumental burial place, designed by the renowned architect Alexey Shchusev. Inside the mausoleum, the lavishly embalmed corpse of Vladimir Lenin rests in an armored glass sarcophagus. To this day, the mausoleum is open to visitors on certain days. 

The Red Square ('Krasnaya Ploschad' in Russian), is indeed dominated by the brick red color of the buildings in the square, so perhaps that is why many of us associated the Red Square name with the color of the buildings there. Many people also believe that Red Square is so named because communism and Russia are associated with the color red, even further associated with blood(shed). But, actually the word Krasnaya originally means beautiful in old Russian language but now in modern times it means ‘red’. Therefore, common assumptions that the 'Red' in Red Square referred to the red brick colour of the buildings, Communism, or even bloodshed - are misunderstood. 

The Red Square is indeed a beautiful square, with beautiful churches overshadowing the Lenin Monument, and the privately-run luxurious GUM Department Store overshadowing the socialistic way of the country. And it is a pity that the image of this square is misrepresented by the military parades of the Red Army broadcasted on television worldwide.

  

THE END

 

Sources:

https://www.local-life.com/moscow/articles/red-square