III.
The capital city, Moscow, is split into three parts; the first of them, called Kitai-gorod, is encircled with a solid thick wall. It contains an extraordinary beautiful church, all clad in shiny bright gems, called Jerusalem...Here is where the most illustrious princely, noble and merchant families live. Here is, also, the main muscovite marketplace: the trading square is built as a brick rectangle, with twenty lanes on each side where the merchants have their shops and cellars.
Text: Peer Peersson of Erlesunda, History of the Great Duchy of Moscow, 1620 OBI: Fedor Yakovlevich Alekseev, "Red Square in Moscow," 1801. Oil on canvas. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. http://img15.nnm.ru/6/c/c/d/b/4cad1d6aaffb1a820a529d648be.jpg