Pushkin Square

Pushkin Square lies in the center of Moscow, where Tverskaya Street divides Tverskoy and Strastnoy boulevards. It is one of the capital’s best-known public spaces: a monument to Alexander Pushkin stands here, a three-line metro station operates beneath it, and the square itself has long served as a meeting place, a venue for strolling, and a site for citywide events. Until 1931 it bore a different name and had a different appearance.

From the late 16th century, this spot was occupied by the Tverskie Gate of the White City wall, from which a road led to Novgorod and Tver. In 1646 a church dedicated to the Icon of the Mother of God of the Passion was built beside the gate, and from 1654 the Strastnoy Convent for women operated here. In 1692 a bell tower was raised above its gates, and in 1855 the architect Mikhail Bykovsky built a new monastery wall with towers. The gate itself was dismantled back in 1720, and on the vacated site temporary triumphal arches were repeatedly erected during the 18th century to mark coronations — the most memorable being the 1763 arch designed by architect Dmitry Ukhtomsky.

The square retained its commercial character until the late 19th century: hay and firewood were traded here, and it served as a cabmen’s stand. A turning point came in 1880, when a bronze monument to Pushkin by sculptor Alexander Opekushin was unveiled opposite the convent — cast with funds raised by public subscription initiated by Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Later, other notable buildings appeared on the square: in 1927, the constructivist building of the Izvestia newspaper’s editorial offices, designed by architect Grigory Barkhin, and in the 1930s, a domed building with an added storey that housed the Actor’s House.

In December 1905, street fighting between insurgents and government troops took place on Strastnoy Boulevard by the convent walls, and in October 1917 the square changed hands several times between the Bolsheviks and military cadets. In 1928 the convent, which had been closed a year earlier, was turned into an anti-religious museum, and in 1937 it was demolished entirely. By that time the square was already called Pushkinskaya — a name given to it in 1931, the centenary of the poet’s death. In 1948, on Joseph Stalin’s orders, the monument to Pushkin was moved from Tverskoy Boulevard to the site vacated by the convent, and by 1950 a public garden had been laid out around it, designed by architects Zaslavsky and Minkus.

In 1961 the Rossiya cinema was built on the site of the former convent, later renamed Pushkinsky, and since 2012 a theater has operated here under the original name, Rossiya. The square remains a gathering point: people arrange to meet by the metro, and fairs, concerts, and public events take place here, while in the public garden a memorial stone and a marker commemorate the necropolis discovered on the site of the former convent.

Today Pushkin Square is more than a transport hub in the city center — it is a place where several eras of Moscow’s history converge: from the medieval city gates and the convent quarter to Soviet-era cinemas and the pedestrian life of Tverskaya Street. The monument to Pushkin, around which the square’s entire layout is built, remains one of the most recognizable symbols of Moscow.