Tsar Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) commissioned the construction of St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow between 1555 and 1561 to commemorate the Russian capture of Kazan from the Tatars. Designed by architects Postnik Yakovlev and Barma, the cathedral features nine individual chapels arranged around a central church, each with its own colorful onion dome. Its unique design blends Russian traditional architecture with oriental influences.

St. Basil's Cathedral has been a symbol of Russian national identity in poetry from the Romantic period to the present, appearing in the works of Alexander Pushkin and the Symbolist poets. In the twentieth century, the cathedral became a symbol of Russian resilience and the mystical character of the Russian soul, inspiring poets from Marina Tsvetaeva to Joseph Brodsky, who used its colorful domes as a metaphor for the complexity and strangeness of Russian history.