Independence Avenue in Minsk had different names, each of which reflected a particular stage in the country's history. In the XVI century, the first governor of Minsk, Zakhary Korneev, redesigned the postal tract into a wide street, which was named Zakharyevskaya in his honor.
When the city was conquered by the French in 1812, they gave the street the name «New Town», and the German occupiers in 1918 renamed it Hauptstrasse. Then it was Sovetskaya, with breaks for the names 25 March St., Adam Mickiewicz, and Hauptstrasse again.
During the Great Patriotic War, Sovetskaya was bombed into ruins, and only about a dozen buildings survived here. In 1952, a project was developed to restore the street by transforming it into the broad Stalin Avenue.
It was in the postwar years that it became what we see now - built up with majestic buildings - now monuments of Stalinist architecture and constructivism. The avenue is conventionally divided into three sections separated by beautiful squares. The central section, where Stalinist Empire architecture dominates, is a candidate for inclusion on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list.
