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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
To the east of the cathedral the Place of the Brow can be seen clearly. Past it runs a wooden bridge from the St. Florus (Saviour) Gate of the Kremlin to Ilyinka Street. A similar bridge runs from the St. Nicholas Gate to St. Nicholas Street (Nikolskaya). Between these bridges the sketch shows four small churches and a wooden house. On the spot where the History Museum now stands are two wooden houses and to the east of them rows of trading booths and odd buildings.
As we can see, by this time Ivan Ill's decree forbidding building on Red Square had faded into oblivion, and the square was covered with a network of "trading points", booths, shops and simple counters. The trading rows, of which there were more than a hundred, stretched into the square: the pancake- and pie-makers were by St. Nicholas Gate, ceruse and rouge could be purchased by ladies of fashion near St. Basil's, the cobblers' booths were by the old Moskvoretsky Bridge, and next to the Saviour Tower on either side of the bridge across the moat were booths which traded in manuscript and printed books, woodcuts and engravings.
Red Square. Painted by F. Hilverding. 1795
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The square was thronged with people from dawn to dusk. A guidebook Walking Round Moscow, published in 1917, describes Red Square, the centre of Moscow's political and social life in the seventeenth century, as follows: "This square was to Moscow what the Forum was to Ancient Rome. Here was the Place of the Brow a tribune like the Roman 'rostra' ..."
The advent of the eighteenth century was heralded by the building of the Main Apothecary Shop in the north part of Red Square (where the History Museum now stands). Its walls were adorned with tiles on the outside and murals on the inside. Its three storeys and three-tiered tower made it possible to accommodate rooms for a variety of functions-a storehouse for medicinal plants, a laboratory, a library, and rooms for the doctor and apothecary. On the orders of Peter the Great chinaware bearing the state emblem and the Emperor's monogram was brought from China for the apothecary shop. The Danish ambassador Just Jul, who visited the apothecary in 1710, left this admiring description of it: "It can truly be considered one of the finest apothecary shops in the world both in respect to the size of the rooms, and in relation to the variety of the medicaments, the order which reigns in it and the elegance of the jugs for the medicines."
In 1702 next to the Main Apothecary Shop just in front of the St. Nicholas Gate construction began on Peter the Great's orders of the first public theatre, the Comedy Chamber. Before this only a few Muscovites were familiar with the professional theatre. Performances in which actors took part were put on for the Tsar and his court in the Kremlin and also in the houses of certain boyars.
The Comedy Chamber was a rather large building, with an auditorium which could accomodate about 500 people.
The theatre troupe, led by lagan Kunscht, consisted of eighteen people chosen from under-secretaries and merchants. In addition there were also musicians, painters and carpenters.
The theatre on Red Square was open to all and sundry. The season began in December. Performances were given twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. To attract spectators, Peter the Great ordered that people passing through the city gates after performances should not have to pay the usual tax and that the gates should remain open later than usual on days when performances were given.
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