History

Bolotnaya Square is the low bank opposite the Kremlin, in Yakimanka. The name is older than the square: there really was a swamp.

The timeline below follows sources that can be checked, with stills from 2019–2026. The three “how it looked” frames are AI: two are colourisations of archival photos, one is a reconstruction around 1800. They are not documents.

The swamp

In the 11th century this was floodplain and marsh; the Volotskaya road ran along the western edge. Zamoskvorechye was built up later than the Kremlin bank. Floods continued until the 1780s, when the Vodootvodny Canal was cut along an old channel.

Churches

Next to the square stands the Church of St Nicholas on Bersenevka (main altar of the Trinity): a stone church of 1656–1657, in one ensemble with the chambers of dyak Averkii Kirillov. Uzorochye, kokoshniki, a working parish again. Photographs of the church are in a separate album.

House on the Embankment

In 1927 a commission chose Bersenevka opposite the Kremlin. By 1931 the Government House stood on the Wine and Salt Court — architect Boris Iofan, 12 storeys, apartments for the Soviet elite. In the 1920s the square was still a market of warehouses and apple carts. A planned central market tower was never built. A museum sat in the courtyard (entrance from Serafimovicha); it is closed now. Stills from 2019 remain in the House on the Embankment album.

800th-anniversary garden and Repin

In autumn 1947, for Moscow’s 800th anniversary, Vitaly Dolganov laid out the garden. The fountain followed in 1948; the bowl was cast from melted German guns. On 29 September 1958 the monument to Ilya Repin opened: sculptor Matvey Manizer, architect Igor Rozhin. From 1962 to 1993/94 the square was officially Repin Square; the name did not stick.

In 2001 Mikhail Shemyakin’s group Children Are the Victims of Adult Vices was unveiled in the garden.

2011–2012

On 10 December 2011 an opposition rally filled the square — one of Moscow’s largest since the 1990s (estimates in the tens of thousands). On 6 May 2012 came the March of Millions, then the Bolotnaya case. That is part of the place, not a news flash.

Festivals

Since the 2010s the garden has been a city stage: holidays, a rink, Day of the City, temporary fairs. Not an official culture centre and not a municipal portal — a square people walk into.

On 20 October 2025 the fountain in Repin Garden is already covered for winter, a “Summer in Moscow” pavilion beside it. Garden, canal and Repin stills are in the Bolotnaya Square album.

Along Bolotnaya Embankment, by the House on the Embankment, stands the old GES-2 power station. Renzo Piano rebuilt it in 2015–2021; on 4 December 2021 it opened as the V-A-C House of Culture. On 14 August 2021 a crane set Urs Fischer’s aluminium Big Clay No. 4. How they built it and how the clay went up is in a separate album. Not the square — the neighbouring canal bank.

On 11 July 2024 a pedestrian bridge opened across the canal: the Balchug spit (Peter the Great) to Krymskaya Embankment and Muzeon. It is not the square.

On 20 June 2026 works under Maly Kamenny Bridge are visible from the GES-2 ramp.

Since June 2026 the project cameras have been off: scaffolding on the Serafimovicha facade. The repair log is in Repair and scaffolding 2026.