Dolgorukiy was the Grand Prince (Velikiy Knyaz) of the Kievan Rus' (Kiev) and a member of the Rurik dynasty.

The original statue erected in 1912 in Tverskaya Square was of General Mikhail Skobelev, a hero of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877.

Following the October Revolution of 1917, a decree concerning monuments "erected in honour of tsars and their servants" was issued.

It had been hastily and cheaply made from low-grade materials; the obelisk was built in brick and plastered "like granite".

The head of the Statue of Liberty survived and was placed in the Tretyakov Gallery[3] A settlement had existed at the site of Moscow at least 200 years prior to its official founding in 1147 by Yuriy Dolgorukiy.

In 1946, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin sent the archaeologist and anthropologist Mikhail Mikhaylovich Gerasimov (1907 – 1970) from Kiev to find remains of Yuriy Dolgoruky.

He opposed to the text on the monument dedication, reading, "To the founder of Moscow from the Soviet government".

Moscow's anniversary marked the simultaneous launches of several large-scale projects all of which required special funding.

The rider, having stopped the horse and raised in the stirrups, with an imperious gesture as if indicating the place for a new fortress.

It is noteworthy that along with folklore images of Slavonic mythology in the relief are widely used antique motifs, perceived by Old Russian masters through the Byzantine art.

[7] Dolgorukiy had previously been officially considered an "exploiter of the peasantry and the tax collector of the feudal system".

[8] At the unveiling of the statue, the writer, Zinovy Samoylovich Papernov [ru] said, "It is not a good likeness".