Red Square

Red Square (Russian: Кра́ная пло́щадь, tr. Krásnaya Plóshchaď; IPA: [ˈkrasnəjə ˈploɕːətʲ]) is a city square (plaza) in Moscow, Russia. It separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel and currently the official residence of the President of Russia, from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod. Red Square is often considered the central square of Moscow since Moscow's major streets, which connect to Russia's major highways, originate from the square.

Origin and name

The name Red Square does not originate from the pigment of the surrounding bricks (which, in fact, were whitewashed at certain periods) nor from the link between the color red and communism. Rather, the name came about because the Russian word красная (krasnaya), which means "red," was applied to a small area between St. Basil's Cathedral, the Spassky Tower of the Kremlin, and the Lobnoe Mesto (place of execution), and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich officially extended the name to the entire square, which had previously been called Pozhar, or "burnt-out place", in reference to the fact that several buildings had to be burned down to make place for the square. Several ancient Russian towns, such as Suzdal, Yelets, and Pereslavl-Zalessky, have their main square named Krasnaya ploshchad.

Neglinnaya River

The Neglinnaya River (Russian: Неглинная), also known as Neglinka, Neglinna, Neglimna (Неглинка, Неглинна, Неглимна), is a 7.5-km long underground river in the central part of Moscow and a tributary of the Moskva River. It flows in the tunnels under Samotechnaya Street, Tsvetnoy Boulevard, Neglinnaya Street and Alexander Garden and Zaryadye. The Neglinnaya discharges into the Moskva River through two separate tunnels near Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge and Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge.

History

The river in its natural state used to flow openly from the northern parts of Moscow to the south across the very centre of the city. The Kremlin was built on a hill east of the Neglinnaya, using the river as a moat. The moat did not stop foreign invasions, but slowed down development of territories west of the Kremlin; initially, the city grew eastward, into Red Square and Kitai-gorod. When Muscovites began settling on the western side, territories around the Neglinnaya remained vacant due to frequent flooding.

Moscow

Moscow (/ˈmɒskaʊ/ or /ˈmɒskoʊ/; Russian: Москва́, tr. Moskva; IPA: [mɐˈskva]) is the capital and the largest city of Russia, with 12.2 million residents within the city limits and 16.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a federal city in Russia.

Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. By broader definitions Moscow is among the world's largest cities, being the 14th largest metro area, the 17th largest agglomeration, the 16th largest urban area, and the 10th largest by population within city limits worldwide. According to Forbes 2013, Moscow has been ranked as the ninth most expensive city in the world by Mercer and has one of the world's largest urban economies, being ranked as an alpha global city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and is also one of the fastest growing tourist destinations in the world according to the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth. It is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe; the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe; and the Moscow International Business Center. By its territorial expansion on July 1, 2012 southwest into the Moscow Oblast, the area of the capital more than doubled; from 1,091 square kilometers (421 sq mi) up to 2,511 square kilometers (970 sq mi), and gained an additional population of 233,000 people.

Square

In geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle in which two adjacent sides have equal length. A square with vertices ABCD would be denoted ABCD.

The square is the n=2 case of the families of n-hypercubes and n-orthoplexes.

A square has Schläfli symbol {4}. A truncated square, t{4}, is an octagon, {8}. An alternated square, h{4}, is a digon, {2}.

Properties

A square is a special case of a rhombus (equal sides, opposite equal angles), a kite (two pairs of adjacent equal sides), a parallelogram (opposite sides parallel), a quadrilateral or tetragon (four-sided polygon), and a rectangle (opposite sides equal, right-angles) and therefore has all the properties of all these shapes, namely:

Manezhnaya Square

Manezhnaya Square, Russian: Манежная площадь — the name of squares in Moscow and Saint Petersburg in Russia: