Theatre Square (Russian: Театральная площадь, Teatralnaya ploshchad), known as Sverdlov Square between 1919 and 1991, is a city square in Tverskoy District of Moscow, Russia. It's located at the junction of Kuznetsky Bridge Street, Petrovka Street and Theatre Drive (north-west of the latter; the square to south-east of Theatre Drive is a separate Revolution Square).
The square is named after the three theatres situated there — Bolshoi Theatre, Maly Theatre, and Russian Youth Theatre. The square is served by the Teatralnaya Moscow metro station on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line, Okhotniy Ryad on the Sokolnicheskaya Line and Ploshchad Revolyutsii on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line.
The square emerged after the Fire of 1812 and conversion of the Neglinnaya River into an underground channel; the river still flows diagonally around the square green. It was designed in a symmetrical neoclassical style by Joseph Bove (1820s), however, in the second half of the 19th century the ensemble was ruined by new additions in eclectic style, considerably taller than the original side buildings. The square also contains the neo-gothic TsUM (ЦУМ), a luxury department store.
It was during a meeting in Sverdlov Square 5 May 1920, that an iconic picture of Lenin was taken.
Famous quotes containing the words theatre and/or square:
“Compare ... the cinema with theatre. Both are dramatic arts. Theatre brings actors before a public and every night during the season they re-enact the same drama. Deep in the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual. The cinema, by contrast, transports its audience individually, singly, out of the theatre towards the unknown.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)