Independence Avenue
Belarus, Minsk, Independence Avenue
Description:
On the eve of the First World War, Minsk was located on the Moscow-Warsaw highway and the military-political situation obligated the city to need a new broad highway. This is how Independence Avenue came to be. Initially, it was called Zakharyevsky, after the chief engineer and later changed 15 names. The widest street of the city was called Sovetskaya, Pushkinskaya and Adam Mickiewicz, the avenue was renamed after Francis Skaryna, Stalin and Lenin.
Over the years of perestroika and expansion, the main street of the city changed a lot. In place of merchant shops and houses of wealthy citizens came newspapers and private workshops, then hotels and restaurants. In the summer of 1941, German bombers destroyed almost all the buildings and the avenue had to be redesigned.
When the city was still rising and rebuilt after the war, the first building on the then still new avenue was the KGB building. Nearby is the modern building of GUM and the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus.