Kim’s reconstruction plans date to 1951, and work began shortly after the war ended in 1953. The city was laid out according to the Soviet model employed in the post-war reconstruction of cities such as Stalingrad and Minsk by teams of architects and urban planners who had been trained in the Soviet Union. Central Square (later renamed Kim Il Sung Square) on the northern bank of the Taedong River became the ideological heart of Pyongyang immediately following the war; one day after the armistice a parade was held at the site, at the time nothing more than a clearing in the rubble.
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