Lubyanka Square, Moscow

Lubyanka Square is a historic public space whose name is traditionally connected with Novgorod settlers resettled in this area by Grand Prince Ivan III in the late fifteenth century. The name Lubyanka is generally linked to Lubyanitsa, a district of medieval Novgorod, and appears in written sources from 1480.

Over time, the square developed into an important urban junction near the old Kitay-Gorod commercial district. The square is dominated by the Lubyanka Building, originally constructed in the late nineteenth century for the Rossiya Insurance Company and later occupied by successive Soviet state-security organizations, including the Cheka, OGPU, NKVD, and KGB. From 1926 until 1990, the square was officially named Dzerzhinsky Square after Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder and first head of the Cheka. A large statue of Dzerzhinsky, created by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich, stood at its center from 1958 until August 1991, when it was removed during the political upheaval surrounding the failed Soviet coup. Another important landmark is the Solovetsky Stone, unveiled on October 30, 1990 as a memorial to victims of political repression.

The granite boulder was brought from the Solovetsky Islands, site of the Solovki prison camp established in 1923, and placed opposite the state-security headquarters. Its presence gives the square a contrasting layer of memory, setting a memorial to victims of repression beside one of the buildings most closely associated with the Soviet security apparatus.