> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Did you know that the Gran Vía, Madrid's main street, was renamed in 1937 Gran Vía Avenida de Rusia, Russia Avenue, and soon afterwards Avenida de la Unión Soviética, Soviet Union Avenue?
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/vy-znali-chto-gran-via-glavnaia-ulitsa-madrida-v-1937-godu-byla-pereimenovana-v-gran-via-avenida-de-rusia-prospekt-rossii-a-vskore-posle-etogo-v-avenida-de-la-iunion-sovetika-prospekt-s/
- Published: 2025-04-28T11:11:32.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:30:22.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Architecture, Madrid, Society

Shortly before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, sympathy with and interest in the workers' and revolutionary movement in Eastern Europe led to the founding in Spain of the Association of Friends of the Soviet Union, which soon became a counterweight to Francoist propaganda.

In 1937, at the height of the Civil War, Spain was receiving aid from Soviet Russia: volunteers, advisers, humanitarian and military cargoes arrived in the country by the thousand, among them armoured vehicles, aircraft, tanks, artillery pieces, machine guns, rifles, aerial bombs, up to 862 million cartridges and 3.5 million shells.

Thanks to Soviet support, only a few months after the outbreak of the war something highly unusual took place in Madrid. In October 1937, portraits of Stalin, of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Litvinov and of Voroshilov, the coat of arms of the USSR and a banner bearing the words “Long live the USSR” were displayed on the Puerta de Alcalá, the monument to independence, in honour of the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution.

Another token of admiration for the Soviet Union was the renaming of Madrid's main thoroughfare the Vía de la Unión Soviética, which survived until the fall of the Republican government and the establishment of Franco's dictatorship on 1 April 1939, when the Avenida de la Unión Soviética was renamed, in honour of the founder of the Spanish Falange, the Avenida de José Antonio. The avenue recovered its historical name only in 1981, after the restoration of democracy in Spain.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_16234@28-04-2025_14-11-32.jpg)