LUBYANKA PRISON
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Don't be fooled by the innocuous appearance and colorful walls of this large building occupying the northwestern part of the square. It has been the home of the Ministry of State Security since 1919, even before the present building was constructed in 1946. The place has seen the Cheka, the Guepeu, the NKVD, the KGB and now the FSB, all of them feared by the Russians.
During the years of mass political repression, suspects of anti-Soviet crimes were taken there and their fate was decided in the basement. Suspects were interned for the duration of their "trial" before being transferred or shot. Everything was calculated: identical rooms and cells prevented the prisoners from finding their way around. The walls of the cells are separated by a void, prohibiting communication in Morse code. However, the Lubyanka inner prison was closed in 1961, in the middle of the Cold War. Its last prisoner was the American spy Harry Francis Powers.
In August 1991, the statue of Dzerzhinsky (the founder of the Cheka), which stood on the square, was dismantled (now in Muzeon Park among the fallen comrades) and the square was given its old name, Lubyanskaya. Traditionally, the largest Christmas tree in the country is placed there. Also in 1991, thanks to the efforts of NGOs (including Memorial, closed in 2021 by the regime), a monument to the victims of the gulags was installed on the square: it is a simple stone from the Solovki Islands, the site of the first camp.
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