Lobnoye Mesto

Lobnoye Mesto is a stone platform on Red Square opposite the Spasskaya Tower, a monument of medieval Russian architecture that for centuries served as a venue for church ceremonies and the proclamation of state decrees. The expression itself long ago became a byword for a scaffold, although historians point out that executions were practically never carried out on the platform itself — scaffolds were erected nearby, in the southern part of Red Square, at various periods.

The name itself derives from the Gospel translation of "Golgotha" as "Place of the Skull" (Lobnoye Mesto), a rendering already found in pilgrimage literature of the 12th century. Modern historians associate the idea of building such a platform in Moscow with Metropolitan Macarius, who envisioned turning the area near the Cathedral of the Intercession — a symbol of the Heavenly Jerusalem — into a likeness of the biblical city. The first chronicle mention of the platform dates to 1549, when the young Ivan IV delivered a speech from it addressed to the participants of the Assembly of the Land (Zemsky Sobor).

For a long time the structure served as the stage for the solemn church rite of the "Procession on the Donkey" held on the feast of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem: the patriarch, riding a "donkey," symbolically entered the city while the tsar led the animal by the bridle. The ceremony was considered obligatory viewing for foreign envoys until it was abolished by a church council in 1678. The platform was originally built of brick, then rebuilt in stone and enclosed with a railing under Boris Godunov in 1599; the structure acquired its present appearance after a restoration in 1786.

The present platform, circular in plan, thirteen meters in diameter and about a meter high, with a stone parapet, took on a dramatically new political significance during the Time of Troubles: crowds of townspeople were rallied here for decisive uprisings more than once. On June 1, 1605, envoys of False Dmitry I read out at Lobnoye Mesto a letter accusing Boris Godunov, which triggered an uprising and the storming of the Kremlin, and less than a year later a crowd gathered on the very same spot to tear the pretender himself to pieces.

Under Peter I, the square near the platform became the site of public executions on several occasions: in 1697 the remains of conspirators who had plotted against the tsar's life were put on display here, and after the Streltsy uprising of 1698, thirty streltsy were executed on a temporary scaffold in a single day, February 13, 1699. The posts bearing accusatory placards were removed from the square only in 1727, by decree of Peter II, after which no more executions were carried out here.

Today Lobnoye Mesto remains one of the oldest surviving monuments of civil architecture on Red Square and continues to be used for individual church ceremonies, standing as a symbol of the centuries-long history of Russian statehood and one of the most recognizable features of the country's main square.