Kaluga Square is one of many Moscow squares located on the Garden Ring. It is known to many residents and guests of the capital by the monument to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who, with his own hand, indicates the direction towards Gorky Park and Krymsky Bridge. However, few people know that this place has a long history.
History of Kaluga Square
The origin of the place goes back to the distant 16th century, when the territory of the capital ended immediately behind the modern Garden Ring. The area was the southwestern borders of the capital city, the entrance to the Earth city, from which Moscow began. On the north side was an earthen rampart with wooden gates, which were later replaced by stone ones. In the 17th century, it was here that Russian troops repelled the assault on the combined Polish-Lithuanian forces.
A century later, the area becomes commercial, while still maintaining its military function. Across the whole area, shopping malls stretched all the way to the next - Serpukhov outpost. Until the end of the 18th century, a prison was also located here, whose inhabitants later moved to the famous Butyrka prison.
The shaft and gate existed until the 19th century, when they were demolished for the construction of residential buildings. At the same time, the square takes the form of a circle, for which it is often called a “frying pan”. The houses built here were demolished a century later, when the square was waiting for new transformations.
In the 20th century, the area was renamed, and it is called October. This can be traced today in the name of metro stations overlooking Kaluga Square. The last cardinal restructuring of the square took place already in the 1970s at the same time as the reconstruction of the Garden Ring: an automobile tunnel now passes under the square, and massive buildings surround it along the perimeter in the spirit of Brezhnev’s brutalism.
Modernity
Several streets flock to the square at once: Leninsky Prospekt begins here and ends with Bolshaya Yakimanka, from here Mytnaya and Zhitnaya streets begin, and Zemlyanaya and Koroviy ramparts adjoin the square.
The main attraction of Kaluga Square in Moscow is the monument to Lenin, erected in 1985. At the southern end is the Russian State Children's Library, and at the northern end is the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation.
How to get to Kaluga Square?
Since the square is directly in the path of several large road arteries of the city, it is not difficult to get to it.
Trolleybuses M4, 4 and 7 pass through the square and then follow Leninsky Prospekt. If the former passes through Kaluga Square, then the latter has a final stop. The same applies to buses: route 111 bus completes its journey here, while buses M1 and 144 pass through it. There is also a truncated route 144K, the final stop of which is at the very beginning of Leninsky Prospekt. Bus routes B and T10 run along the Garden Ring.
Several tram routes take their start from Kaluga Square at once: routes No. 14, 26, 47 and A - the famous “Annushka”. The stop is located on Shabolovka street, south of the square itself.
You can also get here by metro: exits from the Oktyabrskaya metro station of the ring line and the Kaluzhsko-Riga station of the same name are directed to the square.