Explore the real-world places that appear in Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Lubyanka Building, Solovetsky Stone, Butyrka Prison, Lefortovo Prison, The Kremlin and 5 more.
Lubyanka Square — Secret police headquarters and interrogation site
Koestler never names the secret police headquarters, but the interrogation machinery Rubashov faces matches the Lubyanka. Nicholas Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik, is questioned in turn by his former friend Ivanov and by the younger, brutal Gletkin. Gletkin uses sleeplessness, a blinding lamp and relentless pressure to push him toward signing a false confession that he conspired against No. 1.
The building was erected in 1898 as an insurance company headquarters. After the Revolution it housed the Cheka and its successors, the OGPU, NKVD and KGB. It had an internal prison and was a center of the Great Purge interrogations of 1936-38.
The building houses offices of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). It is closed to the public and can only be viewed from outside.
Lubyanka Square — Memorial to victims of political repression
Rubashov's fate, like that of countless real Old Bolsheviks, is to be broken in secret by the state he helped build. He tells himself that the Party's logic demands his sacrifice, and he is finally shot in a cellar after signing the confession. This memorial stands opposite the building where such confessions were extracted.
The granite boulder was brought from the Solovetsky Islands, the site of one of the earliest Soviet camps. It was installed in 1990 by the Memorial society on the eve of the Soviet collapse. It was the first monument in Russia to the victims of political repression.
The stone stands in a small garden on Lubyanka Square. Each October 29, volunteers read aloud the names of those executed in the Moscow region in the Terror.
Visit: Solovetsky Stone (monument)
Novoslobodskaya Street — Historic Moscow remand prison
Rubashov's cell, where he paces four and a half steps and taps out messages to his neighbor No. 402, belongs to the novel's unnamed prison. Butyrka is the closest real counterpart among Moscow's prisons. The tapping code he uses with the old Tsarist officer in the next cell is one of the novel's most memorable images of human contact under isolation.
Butyrka dates to the 18th century and became a major transit and remand prison under both the Tsars and the Soviets. Many prominent figures from the Purge years passed through it. It held thousands of political prisoners in 1937-38.
Butyrka remains a functioning pretrial detention center. It is not open to visitors.
Lefortovo District — NKVD investigative prison
The novel's final pages show Rubashov led down to the cellars for execution after the show trial. The prison basements of the Terror, such as those at Lefortovo, were used for this. Rubashov hears the sounds of the prison and recalls the fates of those he sent to their deaths. A shot to the back of the neck ends his life.
Lefortovo was built in the 19th century as a military prison. In the 1930s the NKVD used it for investigations that involved torture. Many Purge victims were held there.
It is still used as an investigative isolation prison, now under the Russian Ministry of Justice, and it is closed to visitors.
Moscow Kremlin — Seat of the real-world analogue of No. 1
No. 1, the unseen leader whose portrait with its heavy mustache watches over everything, rules the Party that Rubashov served. He is the force behind the policy shifts that make Rubashov an enemy. In the Soviet context, the Kremlin is the center of that rule, where decisions on purges and trials were made.
The fortified complex dates to the 14th century and has been the heart of Russian power for centuries. Stalin lived and worked there during the 1930s. Many decisions of the Great Purge were made within its walls.
The Kremlin is the official residence of the Russian president. Its cathedrals, Armoury Chamber and grounds are open to tourists.
Visit: Moscow Kremlin Museums (museum)
Red Square — Stage of Party ceremony and the cult of No. 1
The cult of No. 1 and the massed devotion of the Party's followers are central to Rubashov's world. The loyal crowds and the vast portraits are reminders of the state's power. Rubashov reflects on the Revolution's ideals turning into the worship of a single leader.
Red Square has been Moscow's main public space since the 15th century. In Soviet times it hosted parades and demonstrations of state power. Lenin's Mausoleum stands on its western side.
The square is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the most visited places in Russia. It is open to the public, with St. Basil's Cathedral and the State Historical Museum on its edges.
Visit: Red Square (landmark)
Okhotny Ryad — Site of the Moscow Show Trials
Rubashov is groomed to confess publicly at a show trial, as other Old Bolsheviks have done before him. In the novel the trial is the goal of Gletkin's interrogation. Rubashov's public recantation is meant to demonstrate that the Party's opponents are traitors.
The building was an 18th-century noble club and later the House of the Unions. Its Hall of Columns hosted the major Moscow Trials of 1936-38, including that of Nikolai Bukharin, which Koestler used as the model for Rubashov's fate. Lenin's funeral was also held there in 1924.
The Hall of Columns is used for concerts and ceremonies. The building is a cultural venue and its public events are open to visitors.
Visit: House of the Unions (landmark)
Tverskaya Street — Comintern residence for foreign Communists
Rubashov's past as an international revolutionary agent, sent abroad to enforce Party discipline, recalls the world of the Comintern. The Lux housed foreign Party cadres in Moscow. In his memories, Rubashov recalls comrades such as Little Loewy and Richard who were sacrificed to the Party line.
The hotel was built in the 1900s and became a residence for Comintern functionaries after the Revolution. Many of its foreign guests were arrested and executed in the Great Purge. It was the setting of constant denunciations.
The building at Tverskaya 10 is now a hotel and offices. Its history as the Lux is not widely marked.
Petrovka Street — Museum of the camp system
Rubashov's regime sends millions to camps and prisons, and he reflects on the human cost of Party policy. The book shows the fear of the camps through characters such as the peasants and officials swept up by No. 1's policies. He accepts the logic that justified such suffering.
The museum was founded in 2001 by historian Anton Antonov-Ovseenko, whose father was shot in the Purge. It documents the Gulag system and the political repression of the Soviet era. It occupies a building on Petrovka Street.
The museum holds exhibitions, archives, documents and recreated cells. It is open to the public as a major center of Gulag memory.
Visit: State Museum of GULAG History (museum)
Sakharov Avenue — Russia's national monument to Terror victims
Rubashov's story is that of one of the many Old Bolsheviks who were eliminated by the regime they had helped create. The novel gives a voice to such victims. Koestler wrote it as an indictment of the logic that sacrificed individuals to an abstract future.
The Wall of Grief, a bronze relief by sculptor Georgy Frangulyan, was unveiled in 2017 on Sakharov Avenue. It was opened by President Putin as a national memorial to victims of political repression. It depicts a mass of faceless figures.
The monument is a public site where people leave flowers and remember victims. It is open at all times.
Visit: Wall of Grief (monument)
More by Arthur Koestler: All Arthur Koestler books
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