The Moskva - a landmark for decades - is being rebuilt

A ton of World War II explosives has been found at the site of the landmark Moskva Hotel in central Moscow.

The find has been linked to Soviet plans to blow up key buildings if Nazi German troops reached the city.

Construction workers were laying the foundations for the new Moskva Hotel when they came upon the crates of TNT, which have now been removed.

Experts say there were no detonators and the explosives had decomposed so there was no danger of an explosion.

The explosives were packed into 20kg crates. The site lies just beyond Red Square and the Kremlin's walls.

Russian NTV said the hotel had been mined in case Hitler's troops had taken Moscow. The German forces made it to the outskirts in 1942, but Russian troops stopped them pushing into the centre.

The Moskva was the first hotel to be built in Moscow after the 1917 communist revolution. A replica is being built in its place.



