Lobnoe Mesto

From Moscowiki

Lobnoe mesto is a stony area near monument to Minin and Pozharsky, surrounded by a low barrier of white stone with a cast-iron fence.

In 1786 this construction replaced the ramshackle brick erection with a hipped roof, which was built in the first half of the XVI century. Situated on the highest place on the Red Square, it symbolises the Golgofa Mountain, where Jesus Christ was crucified (Golgofa means “forehead” – “lob” in Russian). For ages it functioned as a rostrum from which Russian tsars addressed the nation on special occasions. The legend that it was used as a scaffold is not completely true: no one was ever executed on the Lobnoe mesto, but the special scaffolds were usually built quite near by.