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Bessarabska Square

The Bessarabska Square is a square located at the southwest end of Khreshchatyk, the main thoroughfare of Kyiv. It is a busy intersection of Khreshchatyk, Taras Shevchenko Boulevard, Chervonoarmiiska Street, and the Krutyi Descent streets.
Until the late 1840s, the square was located on the outskirts of town, where immigrants from Bessarabia in the southern regions of Ukraine would come to sell their produce. Nowadays, the Bessarabska Square is one of three squares of the Khreshchatyk street complex, the others being the Maidan Nezalezhnosti and the European Square, located in the street's center and northeastern end, respectfully.
The Bessarabska Square, named for the large indoor Besarabsky Market (1910–1912) located at its northern end, offers a couple attractions; the relatively new office and shopping Mandarin Plaza complex, which is located on the southern end of the square, and the Metrohrad Shopping Complex (built in 2001) located underground.
Before the Besarabsky Market was built in the early 1910s, the square was known by two different names: Universytetska Square (University Square) during the mid-19th century, as it was located on the route to the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv from the Lypky neighborhood, Bohdan Khmelnytsky Square during 1869-1881. A monument dedicated to the hetman was supposed to be built on the square (it was instead erected on the Sofiivska Square in the city's upper town in 1888).