A barricade set up in the autumn of 1917 across Ostozhenka, by the Church of the Resurrection of the Word

A barricade set up in the autumn of 1917 across Ostozhenka, by the Church of the Resurrection of the Word. In the bell tower of the church is a Bolshevik firing point.

This is dreadful not only as a fact of civil war but as a symbol. A bell tower, turning its whiteness towards the sky, reminds the world of a conversation with the Lord, of the joy of creation, of a lofty calling. But when this sacred vertical becomes a line of sight, and where a bell should ring there is the roar of gunfire, and the voice of prayer is drowned out by weapons, the language of the spirit is replaced by the language of violence.

Who could have done such a thing? Whom could it have occurred to look upon a holy place as a convenient height from which to shoot at people? A sad illustration of how the revolution shifted the boundaries of reality.

It was from this very firing point that shots were directed at the headquarters of the Moscow Military District on Prechistenka, which stood in opposition to the Bolsheviks.

In 1933 the church was closed, and in 1935 it was destroyed.

Today on this spot there is a small public garden and a bus stop, the very ones opposite the Multimedia Art Museum.