Locals claim that this enormous expanse of cobbles is the second largest in the world after Beijing's Tiananmen Sq. 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 laid out between 1925 and 1935. A Lenin statue, which stood in the middle, was toppled by the revolutionary mob in 2014, leaving a comically lonely granite shoe on the podium.

　　The area was obscured from view at the time of research due to ongoing reconstruction. At the western end of the square, a geometric series of concrete and glass blocks and bridges, the late-1920s Derzhprom building is an example of early Soviet-era constructivist architecture. On the southern side, the Karazin university (early 1930s), formerly the Ministry of Planning, displays classic Soviet aesthetics.