Picturesque Susaninskaya pl was built as an ensemble under Catherine the Great’s patronage after a fire in 1773. It was nicely revamped on the occasion of Romanov dynasty's 400-year anniversary in 2013. Its centrepiece is the immense Trading Arcade which used to house hundreds of shops selling goods shipped up and down the Volga. These days one can only imagine how this capitalist anthill might have looked like in its heyday around 1880.
The opposite side of the square is graced by an imposing 19th-century Fire Tower , which houses a history exhibition, and a former Guardhouse (Здание бывшей гауптвахты). All the buildings in the square were freshly revamped on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty.
The monument , standing in a small park between the arcades, celebrates local hero Ivan Susanin. Susanin guided a Polish detachment hunting for Mikhail Romanov into a swamp and subsequently to their deaths. He didn't survive either. His deed was lionized by Mikhail Glinka in the opera A Life for the Tsar .
