Lubyanka Square
Coordinates: 55°45′34″N 37°37′37″E / 55.75944°N 37.62694°E
Lubyanka Square (Russian: Лубянская площадь, Lubyanskaya ploshchad’) in Moscow is about 900 metres (980 yd) north east of 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 the Lubyanitsy district of their native city.
Lubyanka Square is best known for Aleksandr V. Ivanov's monumental building from 1897–1898. It was originally used by the insurance company Rossiya, but it is better known for later housing the headquarters of the KGB in its various incarnations and today housing that of the FSB. The square was renamed Dzerzhinsky Square for many years (1926–1990) in honor of the founder of the Soviet security service, Felix Dzerzhinsky. Yevgeny Vuchetich's monumental statue of Dzerzhinsky (nicknamed Iron Felix) was erected in the center of the square in 1958.
On October 30, 1990, the Memorial organization 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.
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1983, with Dzerzhinsky statue
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The new monument
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A less common view
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