Where St Basil's Cathedral stands, used to be a busy marketplace marked by what was originally called Trinity church, however Trinity church burnt down n 1583. During the Russo-Kazan wars, Ivan the Terrible ordered a wooden structure to be built each time Russia was victorious, and by the time construction started there were seven wooden structures built. The cathedral was designed by Russian architects Postnik and Barma who are thought to actually be one person! It is also thought that the Italian architect, whose identity is unknown, who created the cathedral was blinded so that nothing like it could ever be created. In 1990, the church, Kremlin and Red Square were declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

St Basil's Cathedral is 47.5 metres tall and is made up of two spires and ten chapels, eight of which surround the ninth, which is the Church of Intercession (the central church), and the tenth was added over St Basil's grave. The individual chapels are made with red brick and have vibrantly coloured, candy-striped domes with swirling or crisscrossing patterns. The domes are onion-shaped and sit ontop of cylindrical bases and crosses sit ontop of orb-like domes which sit ontop of the domes.