Editing Red Square (section)

=== State Historical Museum ===
{{main|State Historical Museum}}
[[File:Museo Estatal de Historia, Moscú, Rusia, 2016-10-03, DD 49.jpg|thumb|State Historical Museum, as seen from Red Square]]
The striking dark red building of the State Historical Museum forms the end of Red Square from the north-western side. It was built in the years 1875–1883 and is therefore one of the younger components of the architectural ensemble of Red Square. Before it was built, the first pharmacy building in Moscow stood on this site from the beginning of the 18th century, which was rebuilt in 1755 and served as the first campus of the then newly founded [[Moscow State University]] for two decades.

Today's museum building was built especially for the historical museum, which was newly founded in 1872, and was ceremoniously handed over to its destination in May 1883. Its architect was [[Vladimir Osipovich Sherwood]], who is considered to be one of the main representatives of the "Russian style", a variant of [[historicism (art)|historicism]] based on traditional [[Russian architecture]], which was widely used at the time. The museum building looks correspondingly "Old Russian": the facades are decorated with arched windows and ornaments reminiscent of traditional Russian Orthodox churches, several decorative towers reminiscent of some of the Kremlin towers are attached to the sides, and the shape of the roof is reminiscent of the [[Great Kremlin Palace]] in the Kremlin, a form of the Russian mansion that was particularly preferred in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Today the Historical Museum is the largest and most famous history museum in Russia. In 16 specialist departments, it houses around 4.5 million exhibits on Russian history from almost all epochs and also organizes themed special exhibitions several times a year. In addition to the actual museum building, the historical museum complex also includes Saint Basil's Cathedral and the [[Novodevichy Convent]], which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.