N.I Yezhov Workplace


Copyright © 1998 by Hugo S. Cunningham
file added 980720
minor change 20060724

This photograph shows the KGB headquarters in 1990, on what was then known as Dzerzhinsky Square, about 800 meters NE of the Kremlin in Moscow.

The square was named for Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (1877-1926), who founded Lenin's secret police (the Ch.K., pronounced "Cheka") in 1917. Since then, the Cheka has gone through various name changes, eg Cheka, V.Ch.K, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, MGB, and KGB, though employees were always happy to refer to themselves as "Chekists." Russia's post-Soviet successor-organization is called the FSB ("Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti" -- "Federal Security Service").

Since the collapse of the USSR in August 1991, the square has reverted to its original pre-Soviet name, "Lubyanka." The police headquarters (which also served as a notorious political prison) had always, informally, kept the historical name "Lubyanka."

The dark blur in the middle is a statue of F. Dzerzhinsky, removed soon after the Soviet collapse. Along with several other Soviet-era statues, it can still be seen in the "Park Isskustv," about 1 kilometer upstream (SSW) of the Kremlin.

The yellow stone facade of the headquarters was added in two stages since Yezhov's time, the right half about 1956, and the rest (left half) about 1980. Before then, there were two buildings separated by an alley, as can be seen in the photograph below, taken in 1918.

Source: "Ogonyok" 1936, #30, p. 3. Caption: "First anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Moscow" (a public celebration).
Click here to see a larger version of this photo.

Does anyone have a 1936 photo of this area?


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