Red Square
"Krasnaya Ploshchad," or Red Square in Russian, has been the epicenter of Russian and Soviet political and historic events. It originated as an open square in Moscow starting in the 1400s -- soon after completion of the Kremlin walls, which make up the square's eastern border.
Over the centuries, Red Square has witnessed executions, riots, parades and ceremonies. During Soviet times, hundreds of thousands of weeping people crowded into the square for the funeral of Joseph Stalin. In subsequent years, Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev addressed the masses from atop Lenin's Tomb just outside the Kremlin gates.
During the Cold War, the annual May Day and Great October Socialist Revolution parades gave Western analysts a chance to see the latest Soviet military hardware.
One of the stranger incidents of the Cold War took place in the square in 1987 -- when West German pilot Matthias Rust landed a small passenger plane near the GUM department store across from the Kremlin walls. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ordered Rust freed -- just one of many signals that the U.S.S.R's approach to the outside world was changing.
In 1988, Gorbachev hosted Ronald Reagan in Moscow and led the U.S. president on a tour of the Kremlin, just beyond the square.
On December 25, 1991 -- Christmas Day -- the world watched as the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time, signaling the end of the U.S.S.R., the start of the Russian Republic -- and the close of the Cold War.
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