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The Lubyanka ( rus, Лубянка, p=lʊˈbʲankə) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB, and its affiliated prison, on
Lubyanka Square Lubyanskaya Square (, Lubyanskaya ploshchad'), or simply Lubyanka in Moscow lies about north-east of Red Square. History first records its name in 1480, when Grand Prince Ivan III of Moscow, who had conquered Novgorod in 1471, settled many Nov ...
in the
Meshchansky District Meshchansky District (russian: Мещанский район) is a district of Central Administrative Okrug of the federal city of Moscow, Russia. Population: The district extends due north from Kitai-gorod to Kamer-Kollezhsky Val. Weste ...
of Moscow, Russia. 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. It was previously the national headquarters of the KGB. Soviet
hammer and sickle The hammer and sickle (Unicode: "☭") zh, s=锤子和镰刀, p=Chuízi hé liándāo or zh, s=镰刀锤子, p=Liándāo chuízi, labels=no is a symbol meant to represent proletarian solidarity, a union between agricultural and industria ...
s can be seen on the building's facade.


Description

The Lubyanka building is home to the Lubyanka prison, the headquarters of the Border Guard Service, a KGB museum, and a subsection of the FSB. Part of the prison was turned into a prison museum, but a special authorization is required for visits. The lower floors are made of granite with emblazoned Soviet crests.


History


Origins

The Lubyanka was originally built in 1898 as the headquarters of the All-Russia Insurance Company (''Rossiya Insurance Company''), on the spot where
Catherine the Great , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anh ...
had once headquartered her secret police. The building was designed by the architect Alexander V. Ivanov. It is noted for its parquet floors and pale green walls. Belying its massiveness, the edifice avoids an impression of heroic scale: isolated
Palladian Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...
and
Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
details, such as the minute pediments over the corner bays and the central
loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns ...
, 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. A fountain used to stand in front of the building, at the center of Lubyanka Square. Following the
Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
, in 1918 the structure was taken over by the government, for use as the headquarters of the secret police, then called the
Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...
. The prison became operational in 1920. Its prisoners included
Boris Savinkov Boris Viktorovich Savinkov (Russian: Бори́с Ви́кторович Са́винков; 31 January 1879 – 7 May 1925) was a Russian writer and revolutionary. As one of the leaders of the Fighting Organisation, the paramilitary wing ...
,
Osip Mandelstam Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam ( rus, Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам, p=ˈosʲɪp ɨˈmʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mənʲdʲɪlʲˈʂtam; – 27 December 1938) was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Ac ...
, and
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repres ...
. In Soviet Russian jokes, it was referred to as "the tallest building in Moscow", since Siberia (a euphemism for the
Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
labour camp system) could be seen from its basement. The prison is on the top floor, but since there are no windows on that floor, most prisoners, and therefore popular conception, thought they were being detained in its basement.


KGB

During the
Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...
, the offices became increasingly cramped due to staff numbers. In 1940, Aleksey Shchusev was commissioned to enlarge the building. By 1947, his new design had doubled Lubyanka's size horizontally, with the original structure taking up the left half of the facade (as viewed from the street). He added another storey and extended the structure by incorporating backstreet buildings. Shchusev's design accentuated
Neo-Renaissance Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...
detailing, but only the right part of the facade was constructed under his direction in the 1940s, due to the war and other hindrances.
Raoul Wallenberg Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. 31 J ...
was detained in the Lubyanka prison, where he reportedly died in 1947. According to the KGB, prisoners' interrogations stopped at Lubyanka in 1953 after the death of
Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
. In 1957, Russia's largest toy shop opened on the opposite side of Lubyanka Square, where a medieval cannon foundry was previously located. In 1958, the fountain at the center of Lubyanka Square was replaced by an 11-ton (or 14-ton, or 15-ton) statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky ("Iron Felix"), founder of the
Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...
. In 1972, Vasili Mitrokhin moved 300,000 KGB files from the Lubyanka building that he gave to the
British intelligence The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and ...
in 1992. The building's asymmetric facade survived intact until 1983, when the original structure was reconstructed to match the new build, at the urging of
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Enge ...
General Secretary and former KGB Director
Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the po ...
in accordance with Shchusev's plans. Although the Soviet secret police changed its name many times, their headquarters remained in this building. Secret police chiefs from
Lavrenty Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ;  – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik ...
to Andropov used the same office on the third floor, which looked down on the statue of Cheka founder
Felix Dzerzhinsky Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky ( pl, Feliks Dzierżyński ; russian: Фе́ликс Эдму́ндович Дзержи́нский; – 20 July 1926), nicknamed "Iron Felix", was a Bolshevik revolutionary and official, born into Polish nobility ...
. A prison on the ground floor of the building figures prominently in a book written by the author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, ''
The Gulag Archipelago ''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' (russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, ''Arkhipelag GULAG'') is a three-volume non-fiction text written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr S ...
''. Famous inmates held, tortured and interrogated there include
Sidney Reilly Sidney George Reilly (; – 5 November 1925)—known as "Ace of Spies"—was a Russian-born adventurer and secret agent employed by Scotland Yard's Special Branch and later by the Foreign Section of the British Secret Service Bureau, the pre ...
,
Greville Wynne Greville Maynard Wynne (19 March 1919 – 28 February 1990) was a British engineer and businessman recruited by MI6 because of his frequent travel to Eastern Europe. He acted as a courier to transport top-secret information to London from S ...
,
Raoul Wallenberg Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. 31 J ...
,
Ion Antonescu Ion Antonescu (; ; – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and ''Conducător'' during most of World War II. A Romanian Army career officer who ma ...
,
Osip Mandelstam Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam ( rus, Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам, p=ˈosʲɪp ɨˈmʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mənʲdʲɪlʲˈʂtam; – 27 December 1938) was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Ac ...
,
Genrikh Yagoda Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda ( rus, Ге́нрих Григо́рьевич Яго́да, Genrikh Grigor'yevich Yagoda, born Yenokh Gershevich Iyeguda; 7 November 1891 – 15 March 1938) was a Soviet secret police official who served as director ...
, János Esterházy, Alexander Dolgun, Rochus Misch, and
Walter Ciszek Walter Joseph Ciszek, S.J. (November 4, 1904 – December 8, 1984) was a Polish-American Jesuit priest of the Russian Greek Catholic Church who conducted clandestine missionary work in the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1963. Fifteen of th ...
. During the 1980s, the prison was turned into a cafeteria for KGB staff.


Post-KGB

After the dissolution of the KGB in 1991, the Lubyanka became the headquarters of the Border Guard Service of Russia, as well as the Lubyanka prison, and is one directorate of the
Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) RF; rus, Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации (ФСБ России), Federal'naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Feder ...
(FSB). 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, an employee of the Lubyanka, Katya Mayorova, became Miss KGB, the first official "security services beauty title". In 1990, the
Solovetsky Stone The Solovetsky Stone (russian: Солове́цкий ка́мень) is a monument on Lubyanka Square in Moscow to the victims of political repression. It is in close proximity to the Lubyanka Building, headquarters since 1918 of Soviet securit ...
was erected across from the Lubyanka, to commemorate the victims of political repression. In August 1991, the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky was dismantled and removed from the center of the Lubyanka Square. That same year, Western visitors were allowed to tour the building's prison for the first time. Remains of
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
, as well as those of
Joseph Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the m ...
and
Magda Goebbels Johanna Maria Magdalena "Magda" Goebbels (née Ritschel; 11 November 1901 – 1 May 1945) was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. A prominent member of the Nazi Party, she was a close ally, companion, and politic ...
, were presented at the Lubyanka in a 2004 documentary. In 2015, the Lubyanka's front door was set on fire by Pyotr Pavlensky, a performance artist. He was released from jail six months later. In 2017, a huge church was consecrated next to the Lubyanka building on the grounds of the Sretensky Monastery. The church is dedicated to the
New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church New Martyrs and Confessors of Russian Church (russian: Новомученики и исповедники Церкви Русской, before 2013 - New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, russian: Новомученики и исповедники � ...
, including those who were executed at Lubyanka. In December 2019, a shooting took place around the Lubyanka.


Modernity

In 2008, the wing of the house from Myasnitskaya Street received the status of a cultural heritage site. In 2011, it underwent reconstruction. During this period, information appeared about the installation of a helipad on the roof of the building. According to the head of Rosokhrankultura Viktor Petrakov, it has existed for a long time. Although the roof of the building was not protected, representatives of the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage stated that the project was not approved and the reconstruction was carried out without proper documentation. Details of the restoration of the facades, which took place in 2013-2014, were not disclosed due to the secret status of the object. Thanks to the activities of government agencies that worked in the building, the toponym "Lubyanka" has become a household name. Phraseological units associated with the house appeared at different times. In 2015, before the opening of the reconstructed " Children's World ", which is located opposite, they released a stylistic advertisement: "Do you love a child? Take me to the Lubyanka." It caused a strong negative reaction in society.   Rallies and pickets are regularly held near the walls of the FSB building and the nearby
Solovetsky Stone The Solovetsky Stone (russian: Солове́цкий ка́мень) is a monument on Lubyanka Square in Moscow to the victims of political repression. It is in close proximity to the Lubyanka Building, headquarters since 1918 of Soviet securit ...
monument. In October 2018, endless single-person rallies were held near the house in support of prisoners in the cases of the and organizations. In November 2016, the artist
Petr Pavlensky Pyotr (or Petr) Andreyevich Pavlensky (russian: link=no, Пётр Андреевич Павленский; born 8 March 1984) is a Russian contemporary artist. He is known for his controversial political art performances, which he calls "events of ...
held an action - setting fire to the main entrance of the building as a protest "against continuous terror." He was fined for damaging a cultural heritage site, although it later emerged that the original door had been removed long ago.


See also

* Lefortovo Prison *
Prisons in Russia Prisons in Russia consist of four types of facilities: pre-trial institutions; educative or juvenile colonies; corrective colonies; and prisons. The corrective colony is the most common, with 705 institutions (excluding 7 corrective colonies for ...


References


External links

* {{coord, 55, 45, 39, N, 37, 37, 42, E, region:RU_type:landmark, display=title Buildings and structures built in the Soviet Union Buildings and structures in Moscow Government buildings completed in 1898 Intelligence agency headquarters KGB Prison museums in Russia Prisons in Russia Prisons in the Soviet Union 1898 establishments in the Russian Empire