Drovyanaya Square made its way into the cultural chronicles of Ekaterinburg for more reasons than the erection of the Opera Theater there alone. Even before that, in 1883, the Italian Massimiliano Truzzi, representative of the famous circus dynasty, built the first stationary circus in its place. Almost one hundred years later, in 1980, Sverdlovsk erected a modern building, which became an architectural landmark of the city. The authors of the unusual project were the duet of architects Schwarzbrein and Nikitin – the latter being the creator of the Ostankino TV Tower. A TV magazine reporting its construction poetically lauded the future glory of the new attraction: “Sverdvosk buildings have never taken on such a challenge with any object as this before. Firstly, a cunning place was selected for the circus’ location – a marshy, muddy place. Two thousand piles were padded in under the building’s foundation. Even the staircases lied on piles. Secondly, architectural and construction solutions have been proposed that are rather unexpected. One involves an open dome raised to a height of 50 meters out of cast reinforced concrete with a circus canvas hanging under it. What expertise the Klitkevich carpenter team had to have to erect the encasements for those concrete laces!.. And soon the people of Sverdlovsk will no longer be able to imagine the city’s skyline without this outlandish sphere over the river.”