Theme Week Moscow – The Lubyanka Building
Wednesday, 19 September 2012 - 01:30 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: Russia / Russland General
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Lubyanka Building © Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/GFDL
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The Lubyanka is the popular name for the headquarters of the
KGB and affiliated prison on
Lubyanka Square in
Moscow . It is a large
Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick designed by Alexander V. Ivanov in 1897 and augmented by
Aleksey Shchusev from 1940 to 1947.
The Lubyanka was originally built in 1898 as the headquarters of the All-Russia Insurance Company . It is noted for its beautiful parquet floors and pale green walls. Belying its massiveness, the edifice avoids an impression of heroic scale: isolated Palladian and Baroque details, such as the minute pediments over the corner bays and the central loggia, are lost in an endlessly-repeating palace facade where three bands of cornices emphasize the horizontal lines. A clock is centered in the uppermost-band of the facade.
Lubyanka Building - All-Russia Insurance Company, before1917 © PD-Russia-2008
After the dissolution of the KGB, the Lubyanka became the headquarters of the
Border Guard Service of Russia , and houses the Lubyanka prison and one directorate of the
Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). In addition a museum of the KGB (now called
Историко-демонстрационный зал ФСБ России , Historical-demonstration hall of the Russian FSB) was opened to the public.
In 1990, the
Solovetsky Stone was erected across from the Lubyanka to commemorate the victims of political repression.
Read more on
Wikipedia Lubyanka Building . Photos by Wikipedia Commons.
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