Industry Square at the VDNkh, Exhibition square in North-Eastern Moscow, Russia

Industry Square is a square at VDNKh in Moscow, centred on a large round pond. Above the pond stands a full-size model of the Vostok rocket, which carried Yuri Gagarin into space on 12 April 1961. Nearby is the Yak-42 aircraft, the only one of three planes on the square to survive. The square is flanked by the Cosmos pavilion, with its decorated arch and sculptural group, and the Agriculture pavilion, whose green facade and plant-motif columns remain.

The square was laid out as Mechanization Square during the design of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, with V. K. Oltarzhevsky's skyscraper-like Mechanization pavilion. After I. G. Taranov took over, a 25-metre Stalin monument by S. D. Merkurov stood at its centre. The monument was dismantled in 1952 and replaced by a round pond; the 1954 reconstruction and later changes led to the square being renamed Industry Square by 1967.

The square's name changed with its pavilions: the 1939 "Cotton" pavilion became "Agriculture" in 1954, then "Geology, Oil, Chemistry" in 1956, "Chemical Industry" in 1958 and "Transport of the USSR" in 1963. Its green facade carries white moulding of branches and a sculpture of a tractor driver and collective farmer holding sheaves, a sickle and a hammer.

You can reach the square via VDNKh metro station or the Moscow Monorail with multiple entry points to exhibition areas. It is wise to wear comfortable shoes and allow time to explore the different buildings on foot.

The 25-metre Stalin monument by S. D. Merkurov stood at the centre until its removal in 1952; the round pond that replaced it now holds a full-size Vostok rocket mock-up, installed in 1967 and restored in 2010. Of three aircraft once displayed here, only a Yak-42 remains.