Red Square used to be a market square adjoining the merchants’ area in Kitay Gorod. It has always been a place where occupants of the Kremlin chose to congregate, celebrate and castigate for all the people to see. Back in the day, Red Square was the top spot for high-profile executions such as those of the Cossack rebel Stepan Razin in 1671 and the Streltsy (Peter the Great’s mutinous palace guard) in 1698.
The first gateway, built in 1680, was destroyed because Stalin thought it an impediment to the parades and demonstrations held in Red Square. The present-day exact replica was built in 1995. Through the gateway is the bright Chapel of the Iverian Virgin, originally built in the late 18th century to house the icon of the same name.
Soviet rulers chose Red Square for their military parades, perhaps most poignantly on 7 November 1941, when tanks rolled straight off to the frontline outside Moscow; and during the Cold War, when lines of ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missile) rumbled across the square to remind the West of Soviet military might. On Victory Day in 2008, tanks rolled across Red Square for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Nowadays Red Square is closed to traffic, which means the space is filled with tourists, bridal parties and businesspeople snapping photos and marvelling at their surroundings. The square empties out at night, but this is also when it is at its most atmospheric. The Kremlin towers and St Basil’s domes, illuminated by floodlights and set against the night sky, create a spectacular panorama (even better in person than on a postcard).