Red Square

Red Square is the most famous square of Moscow at the commercial district known as Kitay-Gorod. It has 330 meters long and 70 meters wide. Since 1990 Red Square was included with the Kremlin in the list of UNESCO World Heritage.

Red Square separates the Kremlin, the royal fortress where currently resides the President of Russia, from the commercial district of Kitay-Gorod. It is the starting of the main streets of Moscow in all directions. For that reason is considered the square as the core of the city and Russia.

The area where the square is located was originally populated by wooden buildings but was cleared by Ivan III of Russia, because they were liable to burn easily. The new plaza served as a place for markets, later for public ceremonies and proclamations, even to crown the tsars.

The name of Red Square does not come from the color of the bricks around it. Neither is it reference to the red color of communism. Rather it derives from the Russian word Красная (Krasnaya), meaning "red". But in the old Russian language meant "beautiful", ie, the pretty square. The word originally was used to name the St. Basil's Cathedral (XVI century), with the sense of nice. And later the name ended up in the nearby square. It is believed that the square acquired its current name, replacing the old, Пожар (Pozhar), in the seventeenth century.

In the Red Square are the gallows, the monument to Minin and Pozharsky in addition to the world famous tomb (mausoleum) of Lenin. In the Kremlin wall they are buried great figures of the USSR and Communist militants relevant (as the leader Joseph Stalin, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the American writer and journalist John Reed, some senior military leaders, etc).