Ploshcha Svobody

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  • Address
    pl Svobody, City Centre
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Lonely Planet review

Locals claim that Ploshcha Svobody is the second largest square in the world after Beijing's Tiananmen Square (although Moscow's Red Square might have something to say about that). Whatever, at 750m long it's indisputably huge and is certainly Kharkiv's most unique sight.

Planned as an ensemble of Ukrainian government buildings when Kharkiv was the republican capital, it was built between 1925 and 1935. (Damaged during WWII, it was largely rebuilt by German POWs.) The late-1920s Derzhprom (House of State Industry) at its western end was the first Soviet skyscraper - a geometric series of concrete and glass blocks and bridges.

On the southern side of the square is the university (early 1930s), formerly the House of Planning, which displays classic Soviet aesthetics. Lenin still proudly stands in the midst of it all, his hand outstretched across the vast open space.