This monument, built by Ivan Petrovich Martos (1754–1835) in 1818, commemorates the national heroes Kuzʹma Minin (died ca. 1616, standing on the left) and Dmitrij M. Požarskij (1578–1642, sitting). In 1612, they assembled a voluntary army from all over the Russian territory and successfully defeated the Polish-Lithuanian forces which were threatening Moscow. The monument, which had originally been placed in the centre of Red Square in Moscow, was moved closer to St. Basil's Cathedral in 1936 because its position was inconvenient during Communist parades.
Ivan Petrovich Martos (1754–1835), Monument to Minin and Pozharsky in front of Saint Basil's Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow, Russia, bronze statue, colour photograph, 2008, photographer: Steven Pavlov; source: Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monument_to_Minin_and_Pozharsky_in_Moscow.jpg, Creative Commons License Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Germany (CC BY-SA 3.0 DE Deed), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en.