Empire. Until 1871, it was called the Khreshchatitskaya Ploshchad (Khreshchatyk Square); it was a location for the local market and folk entertainment. In 1876, the Kyiv City Duma building was built here, and the area became known as the Dumskaya Ploshchad (Duma Square). A line from the Kyiv tram, the first electric tram built in the Russian Empire (opened 1892) reached the square in 1894. In 1913, in front of the City Duma, a monument of Pyotr Stolypin (who was assassinated in Kyiv in 1911) was constructed, and it stood there until March 1917 at the dawn of the Revolutionary war within the Empire. Soviet prewar years In 1919, the square was renamed Soviet Square. From 1935, it was called Kalinin Square, after Mikhail Kalinin, the first chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Soviet postwar years During the first couple of years after the war, the square was completely rebuilt from scratch. It was architecturally integrated with the newly constructed Khreshchatyk in the typical (for the time) neo-classical Stalinist architecture. The newly constructed Kyiv Central Post Office and Trade-Union House with its high-rise clock located in the square, is very well known and frequently appears in pictures of the center of the city. In 1976-77, as a part of metro construction, much of the square was again rebuilt, and it was renamed October Revolution Square (Ploshcha Zhovtnevoyi revolyutsii). During the reconstruction, the massive cubist monument to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution was put up as was the complex ensemble of fountains. During the Soviet period, the square was used for demonstrations and parades in honor of May 1 (until 1969), Victory Day and the October Revolution. Independent Ukraine After Ukraine's independence in 1991, the square was given its current name. The competing proposal of Liberty Square (Ploshcha Svobody) was raised at the time as well as in the years to follow, but the current name commemorating the Ukrainian independence is now firmly associated with the square (see the section below). In 2001, as the square was the major center of the "Ukraine without Kuchma" mass protest campaign, the new extensive construction of the area was abruptly ordered by the Kyiv mayor of the time, Oleksandr Omelchenko. The square was fenced off for construction and became inaccessible for the protesters and many observers claimed that the main goal of the project ordered by the city mayor