Subway: Biblioteka imeni Lenina, Borovitskaya
Bus: 6, K
Open: 10am- 5pm Fri- Wed
The Moscow Kremlin is a fortified complex in the
center of Moscow, with views of the Moskva river on its southern
side. St. Basil's Cathedral and Red square are located to the East,
and Alexander garden and the grave of the unknown soldier are
located to the West. It is the most famous of the Kremlins and
includes five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Kremlin
wall with Kremlin towers. The Grand Kremlin Palace is also located
in this complex. The complex serves as the official residence of the
President of the Russian Federation.
The name "Kremlin" means
"fortress within a city", and is also often used metonymically to
refer to the government of the Russian Federation in the same sense
that "White house" is used to refer to the Executive office of the
President of the United States. It was previously used to refer to
the government of the Soviet Union (1922-1991) and its senior
members (such as General secretaries, Prime Ministers, presidents,
Ministers, and Commissars). The term "kremlinology" refers to the
study of Soviet and Russian politics.
Finno-Ugric settlement
The first settlements on the
territory of the Moscow Kremlin date back to the Bronze Age (II
millennium BC). A Finno-Ugric settlement dating back to the early Iron
Age (second half of the 1st millennium BC) was found near the modern
Archangel Cathedral. At that time, the settlement of the Dyakovo type
occupied the center of the upper floodplain terrace of Borovitsky Hill
(the area of modern Cathedral Square) and, possibly, already had
fortifications. From the northeast, the village was protected by two
ravines: one, to the north of the current Trinity Gate, went to the
Neglinnaya River, the other lay between the Petrovsky and Second
Nameless Towers of the modern Kremlin.
With the beginning of the Slavic colonization of the Oka and Moskva River basins in the 10th century, the top of Borovitsky Hill was settled by Vyatichi (perhaps, mastering the former settlement). Presumably, the Vyatichi settlement on the hill consisted of two fortified centers - the first, larger in area, was located on the site of the modern Cathedral Square, the second occupied the tip of the cape. Presumably, both centers were protected by a ring fortification, consisting of a moat, rampart and palisade. Vyatichi included in the defensive structures and two ravines connected by a ravine, which performed the same function even in pre-Slavic times; the ravines were transformed into a ditch up to 9 m deep and about 3.8 m wide. Presumably, a certain political and administrative center was located on the cape of the settlement: during archaeological excavations, a hanging seal was found here, which at first was considered the seal of the Kiev Metropolitan of the end of the 11th century, but it turned out to be later, most likely Vladimir Both parts probably had their own cult centers - the upper one in the area of Cathedral Square, the lower one - "near Bor". At this place was the oldest in Moscow Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist. The Kremlin toponyms “Makovitsa”, “Mountains” and “Bor” also belong to the pre-princely time. These two centers were surrounded by a settlement stretching along the Neglinnaya and Moscow rivers. The development and prosperity of the settlement was connected with the trade routes that ran here: there was a lively trade between East and West along the Moscow River. In addition to the waterway, two land roads passed nearby - one to Novgorod (later Volotskaya), the other from Kyiv through Smolensk to the northeast; both roads were connected at the foot of the Borovitsky Hill by a ford across the Moskva River (in the area of the current Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge).
A list of the Tver Chronicle dating back to the 17th
century reports that in 1156, on the southwestern tip of Borovitsky
Hill, on the territory of the modern Kremlin, Yuri Dolgoruky built a
city. The fortification was surrounded by a moat 16-18 m wide and at
least 5 m deep. The earth rampart was about 14.5 m wide and 7 m high.
For those times it was a typical average Russian fortress. The shaft was
reinforced with oak beams fastened with a tongue and groove. The
construction of the fortification, in which a row of log cabins was used
in the lower part, and a structure made according to the hack (hook)
technology in the upper part, has analogies with the "transfer"
structures in the upper part of the Serpentine shafts in the Kiev
region. Radiocarbon and archaeological dating of the wooden elements of
the hook structure of the rampart indicates the first half of the 12th
century.
In the autumn of 1176, Moscow and the surrounding
villages were burned during the attack of the Ryazan prince Gleb
Rostislavich, but the city was soon restored.
In 1238, during the
Tatar invasion, after a five-day resistance, the Tatars took Moscow,
which was defended by the youngest son of Yuri Vladimir and the governor
Philip Nyanka "with a small army." The Kremlin was destroyed, all its
defenders were killed, and Vladimir Yurievich was taken prisoner.
According to the Laurentian Chronicle, all monasteries and churches with
villages were burned.
Since 1264, the Kremlin has been the residence of the
Moscow appanage princes. In 1272, Prince Daniil Alexandrovich (grandson
of Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and younger son of Alexander Nevsky) built the
Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior here in the first year of
his reign. The legend about this event is mentioned by the researcher of
the history of the Kremlin Alexander Voronov.
In 1293, Moscow was
taken by the army of the Tatar prince Tudan ("Dyudenev's army").
From the very beginning of the XIV century, the conflict between the
Moscow and Tver princes escalated, which began under Daniil
Alexandrovich. This internecine conflict continued until 1329 and
eventually ended in a significant strengthening of the Grand Duchy of
Moscow.
In 1339, under Ivan Kalita, oak walls and towers were
built.
In the XIV century, five monasteries were built in the
Kremlin. The first of them (the Spaso-Preobrazhensky monastery on the
forest) was created in 1330, for the millennium of Constantinople - the
"New Rome". Its center was the ancient Moscow church of the Cathedral of
the Savior on Bor, or the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior
"that on Bor". Here the burials of Moscow princes and princesses took
place, until the role of the tomb was transferred to the Archangel
Cathedral for men and the Ascension Monastery (destroyed in 1929) for
women. After the establishment of the Novospassky Monastery at the end
of the 15th century, the Cathedral of the Savior on Bor received the
status of a court church. As a result of the construction of the Kremlin
Palace in 1830-1840, the Church of the Savior was inscribed in the
courtyard of the Palace. The temple was destroyed on May 1, 1933 on the
basis of the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the
All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Another ancient building
was the Chudov Monastery, founded by Metropolitan Alexy in 1365, located
in the eastern part of the Kremlin, adjacent to the Ascension Monastery.
It was named after the Church of the Miracle of the Archangel Michael in
Khonekh, which later became the tomb of Metropolitan Alexy. In 1483, the
Aleksievskaya Church was built on the territory of the monastery. By
order of the Chudov Archimandrite Gennady, the relics of Metropolitan
Alexy were transferred to it. In 1501-1503 the ancient church of Michael
the Archangel was replaced by a temple built by Italian craftsmen. At
the beginning of the 20th century, a tomb was built in the basement of
the Aleksievskaya Church, where the remains of Grand Duke Sergei
Alexandrovich, who died in the Kremlin in 1905 at the hands of
terrorists, were buried. The crypt of the Grand Duke was under the
floor, exactly under the shrine of St. Alexis. In 1929, all the
buildings of the Chudov Monastery were demolished.
In the years 1366-1368, under Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy, the wooden
walls of the Kremlin were replaced by walls and towers made of local
white stone (according to archeology, the towers and the most important
parts of the wall were made of stone, from where there was the greatest
danger of assault). Since this period, the name “White Stone Moscow” is
often found in the annals.
Soon after the construction of the
white stone walls, they twice - in 1368 and 1370 - withstood the siege
of the troops of Prince Olgerd; In 1382, Khan Tokhtamysh fraudulently
entered the Kremlin and ruined it, but the fortress was quickly
restored. Gradually, the dense wooden buildings of the Kremlin were
replaced by stone ones, which was facilitated by frequent fires. In
1404, Lazar Serb assembled and installed the first clock near the
Annunciation Cathedral in the courtyard of Prince Vasily Dmitrievich. By
the middle of the 15th century, the Annunciation Cathedral was rebuilt
and expanded in the Kremlin, a church was erected in the Metropolitan
Court, later called Rizopolozhenskaya, the merchant Khovrin built the
Church of the Exaltation in front of his house. In the late 1450s -
1460s, the Church of the Presentation with a stone chamber was erected
in the courtyard of the Simonov Monastery, at the Nikolsky Gates, a
chapel of Praise of the Mother of God was attached to the Assumption
Cathedral, the Church of the Epiphany was erected in the courtyard of
the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, and a stone Church of John the Baptist.
Gradually, the white-stone fortifications of the Kremlin
dilapidated; the strength of the material turned out to be insufficient
and the structures “floated” - the annals of the 15th century contain
many references to the ongoing restoration work. In 1462, a large-scale
repair of the walls from the Sviblova Strelnitsa to the Borovitsky Gates
was carried out by V. D. Yermolin.
In the second half of the 15th century, under Ivan III the Great, a
radical restructuring of the Moscow Kremlin began. The first to start
building a new Assumption Cathedral, because the old one, built by Ivan
Kalita, by that time had already become very dilapidated. The
construction in 1471 was originally entrusted to the Russian architects
Krivtsov and Myshkin, but the building, brought to the vaults, collapsed
in 1474 during an earthquake - "the lime was not gluey, and the stone
was not hard." Ivan III invited the architect Aristotle Fioravanti from
Italy, who by 1479 erected the existing building in the likeness of the
Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir. In 1484-1486, Pskov craftsmen erected
a new Church of the Robe of the Robe, and in 1484-1489, a new Cathedral
of the Annunciation on the basement of the former church. By that time,
following Fioravanti, other Italian architects were invited to Moscow.
In 1485, the construction of the new Grand Duke's Palace began, which
continued with long interruptions until 1514. The front part of the
palace was built the earliest, from which the Faceted Chamber, which was
built in 1487-1491 by Italian architects Mark Fryazin and Pietro Antonio
Solari, has survived to this day. Aleviz Fryazin was engaged in the
construction of the princely choirs and the inner wall that separated
them from the rest of the Kremlin; he also moved the front part of the
palace to a new place - from the south side to the east, facing the
Cathedral Square. Despite the fact that the construction of the palace
was led by Italian architects, its architecture completely preserved the
principles of the construction of the ancient Russian choir: separate
stone and wooden volumes were erected on a single high stone basement.
With the construction in 1505-1508 of the Archangel Cathedral (architect
Aleviz Novy) and the bell tower of Ivan the Great (architect Bon
Fryazin), as well as the building of the Treasury Court between them,
the formation of Cathedral Square as the main square of the Moscow
Kremlin was basically completed.
At the beginning of the 16th
century, Italian masters built new churches in the Kremlin: the
Cathedral of the Chudov Monastery (1501-1503), the Cathedral of the
Ascension Monastery (1519), the Church of St. John of the Ladder
(1505-1508), the Church of St. Nicholas Gostunsky, the Church of St.
John the Baptist at the Borovitsky Gate (1504).
Simultaneously
with the construction of the Grand Duke's Palace and the renovation of
the Kremlin churches, the construction of new Kremlin walls and towers
was going on. Starting from 1485, for a whole decade, under the guidance
of Italian architects, the white-stone curtain walls and towers were
dismantled, and in their place new ones were erected from baked bricks.
The area of the fortress was increased due to the annexation of
significant territories in the north-west and reached 27.5 hectares, and
the Kremlin received the modern shape of an irregular triangle. The
shape of the towers and the completion of the wall in the form of
battlements are reminiscent of the Scaliger castle in Verona and the
Sforza castle in Milan. The Moscow Kremlin repeats the Sforza Castle
down to the smallest detail - the top of the walls of the fortress in
Russia was crowned with 1045 teeth in the shape of a dovetail. Even the
height of the Filaret Tower, where the entrance to the Sforza Castle is
located, and the Spasskaya Tower are the same - 71 m.
In 1508,
the Alevizov ditch was dug along the walls, the water to which came from
Neglinnaya. The Kremlin finally turned into an impregnable fortress
surrounded by water on all sides, isolated from the city that had grown
by that time. During the restoration of walls and towers in 1946-1950
and in 1974-1978, white stone blocks were found inside their brickwork,
in the lower parts and foundations, used as backfill. It is possible
that these are the remains of the white stone walls of the Kremlin from
the time of Dmitry Donskoy.
At the end of the 15th - beginning of
the 16th centuries, the main Kremlin streets were adjusted and expanded
- Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Chudovskaya. By that time, there were still
quite a few courts of boyars, clergy and specific princes in the
Kremlin, who settled mainly in Podil and north of Cathedral Square.
Under Vasily III and Ivan the Terrible, as the struggle with the
specific princes intensified, the Grand Duke confiscated their courts
and transferred them to his entourage. In the 16th century, construction
in the Kremlin was reduced mainly to the renovation and improvement of
existing buildings and ensembles. In 1532-1552, the Resurrection Church
was added to the bell tower of Ivan the Great, in the middle of the
century the Annunciation Cathedral was rebuilt; the churches of the
Solovetsky Wonderworkers and the Three Hierarchs appeared in the
Metropolitan Court; The Grand Duke's (later the Tsar's) Palace was
repeatedly rebuilt and expanded. The Annunciation Cathedral became
nine-domed, and its heads, like the heads of the Assumption Cathedral,
were covered with gold taken from the conquered Kazan. A unique tent
church was erected on the Trinity Compound. Ivan the Terrible lived for
a long time in the "oprichny yard" outside the Kremlin; after the
abolition of the oprichnina, new bed chambers were built for the tsar in
four chambers not far from the Church of the Savior on Bor (on the site
of the current St. George's Hall).
The first images of the
Kremlin have been preserved from the end of the 16th - beginning of the
17th centuries: a plan placed in the "Notes on Muscovy" by the Austrian
ambassador Sigismund Herberstein, and a plan published by the Dutch
cartographer Gerrits Gessel, called "Kremlenagrad". The latter gives an
idea of the then existing nature of the development of the Kremlin.
Among the closely standing buildings, the distinct outlines of the
Cathedral (Tsarskaya) and Ivanovskaya squares are visible; from
Ivanovskaya Square, two streets lead through the north-eastern part of
the fortress to the Spassky (then Frolovsky) and Nikolsky gates; the
entire southwestern part is occupied by a new palace complex, the
construction of which went on throughout the reign of Boris Godunov and
was completed in 1601-1603. The Iranian diplomat Oruj-bek Bayat, who
visited Moscow in 1599, concluded in his notes: “The houses in the
Kremlin were built in the style of Italian architects and decorated with
beautiful ornaments. The king's palace is especially beautiful…”; he
also wrote about a large number of wooden buildings in the Kremlin.
In 1610-1612, the Kremlin was occupied by the Polish-Lithuanian
garrison of Alexander Gonsevsky.
With the accession of the Romanovs, the active construction of church and secular buildings resumed. In 1624, the Spasskaya Tower was built on. In 1635-1636, the Terem Palace and palace churches were built. During the reign of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich (1676-1682) and Princess Sophia (1682-1689), a large-scale restructuring of the Kremlin ensemble was carried out, as a result of which it received its logical conclusion. New buildings of Orders and the Chudov Monastery, riding gardens, chambers of queens and princesses were erected, and all the towers of the Kremlin (except Nikolskaya) received multi-tiered superstructures with tents decorated with colored tiles. At the same time, the Kremlin changed its color: from red-brick, it became white. On July 7, 1680, as one ancient historical act says, Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich "instructed the city of the Kremlin to be whitewashed with lime."
With the beginning of the reign of Peter I, the
significance of the Moscow Kremlin changed markedly - the tsar moved
first to Preobrazhenskoye, and then to St. Petersburg, and the fortress
lost the status of a permanent royal residence. At the beginning of the
18th century, the nature of the Kremlin buildings also changed: after
the devastating fire of 1701, Peter issued a decree in 1704 prohibiting
the construction of wooden buildings inside the Kremlin. In 1702, on the
burnt-out part between the Trinity and Sobakin towers, the construction
of the Arsenal building (Tseikhgauz) began, which continued
intermittently until 1736. With the outbreak of the Northern War, there
was a threat of an invasion of Moscow by the troops of Charles XII, in
connection with which Peter I ordered to build bastions along the
Kremlin walls, and fill the ditches drained in the 17th century with
water. However, it was not necessary to use these fortifications - after
the victory of the Russian army near Poltava, the danger passed.
Under Elizaveta Petrovna, in 1743-1750, the ancient Dining Room,
Reciprocal and Golden Chambers of the palace were dismantled and
replaced with a small richly decorated building of the Winter Palace
designed by V. V. Rastrelli, built under the supervision of D. V.
Ukhtomsky. At the same time, Ukhtomsky erected on the site of the
demolished building of the Great Treasury the gallery of the Armory and
was engaged in the restructuring of the Orders. When the Kremlin
buildings were dilapidated, the task was first of all to repair them,
and if it was impossible, the old buildings were allowed to be
demolished and restored "the same appearance as they were before."
In 1768, for the construction of a new Kremlin Palace according to
the project of V. I. Bazhenov, a special state organization was created
- the Expedition of the Kremlin Building. In preparing the site for the
new palace, the entire building of the southeastern part of the hill's
edge was liquidated, many monuments of ancient Russian architecture were
destroyed, including the southern part of the Kremlin wall, along with
the Tainitskaya and First Nameless towers, were dismantled. Bazhenov set
himself the goal of "renewing the look of this dilapidated and
disorganized city with antiquity" in accordance with the then dominant
aesthetics of classicism - it was supposed not only to build a new
palace, but also to carry out a radical redevelopment of the main
streets and squares of the Kremlin, leaving only individual cathedrals
and buildings of Naryshkin and Petrovsky baroque. However, in 1775 the
construction of the palace was canceled, the official reason for which
was the sediment of the Archangel Cathedral; This decision was
facilitated by the huge costs of reorganization and Catherine II's
dislike for Moscow. The dismantled wall with towers was soon restored to
its former forms.
In 1775, the Projected Plan was approved - a
plan for the reconstruction of Moscow, for the implementation of which
the Stone Order was created, headed by P.N. Kozhin. At the end of 1776,
Kozhin compiled a separate report on the reconstruction of the Moscow
Kremlin, which included the creation of regular squares in the Kremlin,
the construction of new palaces and government buildings with "the best
facade according to the rules of the latest architecture." At the same
time, the construction of new buildings was supposed to be carried out
at a distance from the ancient buildings, which were carefully
preserved. In 1763, by decree of Empress Catherine II, the Senate was
divided into departments, and two of them - in charge of the rights of
the nobles and the judiciary - were transferred from the capital to
Moscow. To accommodate them, in 1776-1787, according to the project of
Matvey Kazakov, the building of the Offices (Senate) was built, which
became the first major building of the Kremlin in the style of
classicism. With the erection of the Senate, the last private properties
disappeared from the territory of the Kremlin. In the same years,
Kazakov built the Bishop's House and the Gothic portico of the Chudov
Monastery on Ivanovskaya Square.
In 1797, Kazakov drew up a new
plan for the general reconstruction of the Kremlin, which was caused by
the coronation of Paul I. Like Bazhenov's project, Kazakov's plan for
the reconstruction of the Kremlin remained unfulfilled, but approved the
idea of the Kremlin as a single architectural ensemble.
In the early years of the 19th century, the Kremlin
began to be perceived by contemporaries as a symbol of the historical
and military glory of Russia, which caused the appearance of bright
pseudo-Gothic forms in its buildings. The architect I.V. Egotov used
Gothic elements in the reconstruction of the Poteshny Palace and a
number of other Kremlin buildings.
At the same time, at the
beginning of the 19th century, many ancient buildings were demolished.
Among others, the famous Heraldic Gates, the Sretensky Cathedral, part
of the Poteshny Palace, several temples of the Ascension Monastery, as
well as the complexes of the Bread Palace, Tsareborisov Yard and the
Trinity Compound were destroyed.
In 1812, Moscow and the Kremlin
were captured by Napoleon's army. The French army entered the Kremlin on
September 2, 1812, and Napoleon himself on September 3. However, the
very next day he fled from the Kremlin through a secret passage under
the threat of spreading fire. Retreating, Napoleon ordered to mine and
blow up the Kremlin buildings. Despite the fact that most of the charges
did not explode, the damage was significant. The Arsenal, Vodovzvodnaya,
Petrovskaya and First Nameless Towers were blown up, the Corner Arsenal
Tower and extensions to the Ivan the Great Bell Tower were seriously
damaged, and the Senate was partially damaged. The restoration was
carried out by the architects F. K. Sokolov, Gilardi D. I.; a number of
towers were rebuilt according to designs and under the supervision of O.
I. Bove. During the reconstruction of Red Square, Beauvais gave the
Nikolskaya Tower a Gothic look. The arsenal was restored and received a
new finish later - in 1815-1828 according to the project of Moscow
architects A. N. Bakarev, I. L. Mironovsky, I. T. Tamansky and E. D.
Tyurin. At the same time, captured cannons were placed around the
Arsenal, which were sent to Moscow by special order of Alexander I. In
total, it took more than twenty years to eliminate the consequences of
the explosion in the Kremlin: the last work was completed by 1836.
In 1817, a parade ground for a military parade was arranged on
Ivanovskaya Square, for which the ancient church of St. Nicholas
Gostunsky was dismantled in one night. In 1823, according to the project
of V.P. Stasov, the royal palace was built on, which again turned out to
be small, and already in 1824, the Metropolitan’s house bought earlier
by the treasury was also built on and from 1831 became known as the
Small Nikolaevsky Palace. In the early 1830s, restoration work began on
the ancient monuments of the Kremlin. One of the first Academician F. G.
Solntsev and architect P. A. Gerasimov restored the Terem Palace in
1836-1849. In 1836, the architect O. Montferrand raised and installed on
a special pedestal the Tsar Bell, which had fallen in the fire of 1737
and had lain all this time in a pit.
By the 1830s, they returned
to the idea of building a new royal palace on the southern slope of the
hill along the river. In 1839, Nicholas I commissioned the construction
of the Grand Kremlin Palace to the architect K. A. Ton, according to
whose project the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was being built at the
same time. The construction of the building took about ten years and was
completed by 1849. Even before its completion, the small church of John
the Baptist on Bor was dismantled, the scale of which did not correspond
to the new structure. At the same time, all the old palace buildings
were dismantled, with the exception of the Terem Palace, the Faceted and
Small Golden Chambers, which were included in the general system of the
new palace. In 1844-1851, according to the project of Ton, a new
building of the Armory was erected; the old chamber was rebuilt into
barracks.
In the second half of the 19th century, no significant
reconstructions were carried out in the Kremlin, with the exception of
the restoration by N. A. Shokhin of the Poteshny Palace, which returned
the building to the appearance of the 17th century.
In 1893-1898,
on the southeastern side of the slope of the Kremlin hill, a monument to
Emperor Alexander II was built at the expense of the people (project by
sculptor A. M. Opekushin, artist V. V. Zhukovsky and architect N. V.
Sultanov), which was solemnly opened in 1898 Emperor Nicholas II.
In 1908, a cross-monument was erected between the
buildings of the Senate and the Arsenal near the Nikolskaya Tower at the
site of the death of Prince Sergei Alexandrovich. Access to the
territory of the Moscow Kremlin was free for everyone. It was customary
to enter through the Spassky Gate, bowing to the icon of the Savior. The
emperor and his family rarely visited his Moscow residence, therefore,
by taking a free ticket at the palace office, the visitor had the right
to walk around all the Kremlin palaces. Several film clips shot in 1908
in the Kremlin have been preserved: "Ivanovskaya Square"; "Arsenal. Tsar
Cannon".
During the armed uprising in October-November 1917, the
Kremlin, on the territory of which there were detachments of junkers,
was seriously damaged by artillery shelling carried out by revolutionary
troops. The walls, the Spasskaya Tower and the Spassky Clock, the
Nikolskaya Tower, the Beklemishevskaya Tower, almost all the churches on
the territory of the Kremlin were badly damaged, the Small Nikolaev
Palace was badly damaged.
The Kremlin again becomes the political center of the
Russian state, after the Soviet government headed by V. I. Lenin moved
to Moscow in March 1918. Palaces and cavalry corps became his residence
and place of residence for the leaders of the Soviet state, and
therefore free access to the territory of the Kremlin for ordinary
Muscovites is prohibited. Temples are closed, and the Kremlin bells are
silent for many years.
According to the historian V.F. Kozlov, at
the meeting of the Moscow Council, the people's commissars were offered
three options for accommodation: the Noble Women's Institute, the
Reserve Palace at the Red Gate and the Kremlin. At a meeting of the
Council of People's Commissars, there were objections to the latter,
since the territory of the Moscow Kremlin is a favorite place for
Muscovites to walk, and if the government is located there, free access
will be limited, if not completely terminated, the closure of the
Kremlin cathedrals will cause discontent among believers and the
population, and it does not befit the leaders of the Russian The
republics of Soviets will be located in the residence of the tsars, but
all the debate was stopped by the chairman of the All-Russian Central
Executive Committee, Ya. The interests of the proletarian revolution are
above prejudice.”
The Petrograd Collegium for the Protection of
Antiquities and Art Treasures sent an appeal to the Soviet government
with a call to leave the Kremlin, since "... the occupation of the
Kremlin by the government creates a monstrous threat to the integrity of
the greatest monuments in their world and exceptional significance."
This appeal (published in 1997 by T. A. Tutova, an employee of the
Kremlin museums) was not even considered.
In 1918-1919, under the
guidance of the architect N. V. Markovnikov, the walls and towers of the
Kremlin were restored; I. E. Bondarenko, I. V. Rylsky, and D. P. Sukhov
took part in the work.
During the years of Soviet power, the
architectural ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin suffered significantly. The
author of a study on the destruction of the Kremlin monuments during
this period, Konstantin Mikhailov, in the book “The Destroyed Kremlin”
writes that “in the 20th century, the architectural ensemble of the
Moscow Kremlin was destroyed by more than half.” On the plans of the
Kremlin at the beginning of the 20th century, one can distinguish 54
structures that stood inside the Kremlin walls. More than half of them -
28 buildings - no longer exist. In 1918, with the personal participation
of Lenin, the monument to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was
demolished. In the same year, the monument to Alexander II was
destroyed. In the mid-1920s, the chapels near the gate icons were
demolished near the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers.
In 1922, during the campaign to “seize church valuables” from the
Kremlin cathedrals, more than 300 pounds of silver, more than 2 pounds
of gold, thousands of precious stones, and even the cancer of Patriarch
Hermogenes from the Assumption Cathedral were seized. The Grand Kremlin
Palace began to be adapted for holding congresses of Soviets and
congresses of the Third International, a kitchen was placed in the
Golden Chamber, and a public dining room was placed in the Faceted
Chamber. The Small Nikolaevsky Palace turned into a club for workers of
Soviet institutions, it was decided to build a gym in the Catherine's
Church of the Ascension Monastery, and a Kremlin hospital in Chudovoye.
In the late 1920s, a large series of demolition of the ancient
structures of the Kremlin began. P. G. Palamarchuk, the author of a
fundamental study on the Moscow churches “Forty Sorokov”, calculated
that on the eve of 1917 there were 31 churches with 51 altars in the
Moscow Kremlin. On September 17, 1928, the Presidium of the All-Russian
Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution that determined the
timing of the demolition of church buildings and ancient structures of
the Moscow Kremlin. Information about the upcoming destruction of the
monuments reached the Glavnauka of the People's Commissariat for
Education only by mid-June 1929. By that time, the Church of Saints
Constantine and Helena had already been demolished. The head of the
People's Commissariat of Education, A. V. Lunacharsky, sent a letter to
the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the
Central Executive Committee of the USSR, M. I. Kalinin, condemning the
planned demolition and the implementation of such a decision bypassing
representatives of the scientific community. At a meeting of the
Politburo, this letter was called "anti-communist and obscene in tone."
In 1929-1930, two ancient Kremlin monasteries, Chudov and
Voznesensky, were completely demolished, with all the temples, churches,
chapels, necropolises, outbuildings, as well as the Small Nikolaev
Palace adjoining the Chudov Monastery, where the headquarters of the
defending junkers was located. Thus, the entire eastern part of the
Kremlin from Ivanovskaya Square to the Senate Palace until 1932 was
completely ruins. At the end of 1932, on the site of the destroyed
monuments, the building of the military school named after the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee was built in the neoclassical
style. In 1933, the Church of the Annunciation at Zhitny Dvor, which was
attached to the Annunciation Tower in the 18th century, was demolished.
In the same year, the oldest temple in Moscow, the Cathedral of the
Savior on Bor, located in the courtyard of the Grand Kremlin Palace, was
destroyed. In 1934, a 5-storey service building was built in its place.
Not even the foundations of the temple remained, with the exception of
fragments of the foundation of the western narthex, which was discovered
in 1997. In total, during the years of Soviet power, 17 churches with 25
altars were destroyed.
In addition to the destruction of
monuments, some buildings have undergone alteration. At the Faceted
Chamber, the “Red Porch” was broken, the main staircase along which
Russian tsars and emperors passed to the coronation in the Assumption
Cathedral (restored in 1994). The facade of the Grand Kremlin Palace
before the revolution contained 5 white-stone bas-reliefs in the form of
the coat of arms of Russia - a double-headed eagle - and several more
small bas-reliefs in the form of the emblems of the historical
possessions of the Russian Empire (Moscow, Kazan, Astrakhan, etc.).
After the revolution, they were cut down, the place of the central
double-headed eagle was taken by a bas-relief in the form of the coat of
arms of the USSR, and the letters “C” and “C” on the left and “C” and
“R” on the right were located around. During the restoration of the
Grand Kremlin Palace in 1994, all the historical bas-reliefs on the
facade were recreated.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the premises on
the territory of the Moscow Kremlin were also used as residential: the
leaders of the Soviet state, the Communist Party, and employees of the
Kremlin commandant's office lived in them. In 1920, 2100 people were
registered in the Kremlin, by 1935 their number had dropped to 374
people, as of 1939, 31 people permanently lived in the Kremlin,
including I. V. Stalin, K. E. Voroshilov, V. M. Molotov, L. M.
Kaganovich, A. I. Mikoyan, M. I. Kalinin, A. A. Zhdanov, A. A. Andreev,
N. A. Voznesensky, relatives of V. I. Lenin, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, G.K.
Ordzhonikidze and others. The Kremlin was used as a place of permanent
residence until the end of the 1950s. The last to move from the Kremlin
was K. E. Voroshilov, who lived there with his family until 1962.
In 1935, the double-headed eagles that crowned the main travel
towers of the Kremlin: Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Troitskaya and
Borovitskaya were replaced by gilded copper stars covered with Ural
gems. In 1937, the gemstone stars were replaced with ruby glass stars.
The ruby star was first installed on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower.
During the Great Patriotic War, the Kremlin was disguised in order to
avoid its destruction. Streets and facades of other buildings were
depicted on the walls, green roofs were repainted, ruby stars were
extinguished and covered. The mausoleum was hidden under a two-story
fake building. The architect B. M. Iofan supervised the work. The
Germans could not carry out targeted bombing of the Kremlin, since the
Kremlin visually disappeared. During the war, 18 high-explosive bombs
weighing from 50 to 500 kg and about one and a half hundred incendiary
bombs were dropped on the territory of the Kremlin and Red Square, which
did not cause catastrophic destruction.
Since 1955, the Kremlin
has been partially open to the public, becoming an open-air museum. From
the same year, a ban on residence on the territory of the Kremlin was
introduced. In 1967, a monument to V. I. Lenin was unveiled in the
Kremlin (sculptor V. B. Pinchuk, architect S. B. Speransky). The last
major building of the Kremlin during the years of Soviet power was the
Palace of Congresses, built in 1958-1961 according to the project of
architects M. V. Posokhin, A. A. Mndoyants, E. N. Stamo, P. P. Shteller
and N. M. Shchepetilnikov . To clear space for the new building, the old
Armory, the Synodal Administration, the Officers', Kitchen and
Grenadier's buildings and two of the three Cavalier buildings of the
Kremlin were demolished.
During the restoration work of the late
1960s and early 1970s, clay tiles on the Kremlin towers were replaced in
many places with metal sheets painted to look like tiles. In addition,
in connection with the construction of the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier”
memorial, a part of the surface layer of the wall between the Corner and
Middle Arsenal towers was cut to a depth of 1 m and then laid out again
to create a surface that was monotonous in color and texture, designed
to serve as a background for the memorial.
In 1990, the Kremlin
was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Since 1991, the Kremlin has been the residence of the
President of Russia. In 1993-1994, the Red Porch of the Faceted Chamber
was rebuilt, from 1994 to 1998 - the Andreevsky and Alexander Halls of
the Grand Kremlin Palace. In 1995, a monument to V. I. Lenin was
dismantled in the Tainitsky Garden (the monument was first transferred
to the "Park of Arts", later - to Leninskiye Gorki). From 1992 to 1996,
the restoration of the Senate Palace took place.
In 1996-2000,
the Kremlin walls and towers were restored.
In 2001, the repair
of the 14th building of the Kremlin on Ivanovskaya Square began. By
2011, all presidential administration services were transferred to
Staraya Square. Interior of B.N. Yeltsin was transferred to the
Presidential Center named after him in Yekaterinburg.
In July
2014, President of Russia V.V. Putin proposed not to restore the 14th
building, which has no architectural and historical value, but to
recreate the historical appearance of the Moscow Kremlin and restore the
ancient monasteries on this site - Miracles, founded by Metropolitan
Alexy and Voznesensky, founded by the widow of Dmitry Donskoy Evdokia
Dmitrievna. The proposal was discussed at a meeting with Moscow Mayor S.
S. Sobyanin, Deputy Director of the Moscow Kremlin Museums, specialist
in ancient Russian architecture A. L. Batalov, Rector of the Moscow
Architectural Institute D. O. Shvidkovsky and commandant of the Moscow
Kremlin S. D. Khlebnikov. The proposal aroused keen interest among the
participants in the discussion, especially since the 14th Corps was
practically dismantled several years ago.
In the spring of 2016,
the building of the 14th building was completely dismantled. For the
first time, opportunities have opened up for a large-scale
archaeological study of the Kremlin Hill and the layers of cultural and
spiritual heritage of the 12th - early 20th centuries hidden in it.
Research work was carried out by the Institute of Archeology of the
Russian Academy of Sciences. At the end of the excavations, a square was
laid out in their place for the duration of the project for the
restoration of the monasteries. In the winter of 2017, the first
“archaeological windows” in Moscow were opened on Ivanovskaya Square,
which allow you to get acquainted with the well-preserved ancient
foundations of the Small Nikolaevsky Palace and the Chudov Monastery.
The discovered remains of the foundations of the Catherine's Church of
the Ascension Monastery are located under Spasskaya Street and are
hidden from the eyes of visitors to the Kremlin.
The Moscow
Kremlin State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve has opened a new
tourist route that introduces Muscovites and guests of the capital to
the history of destroyed shrines.
For visitors to the Moscow
Kremlin who have familiarized themselves with the new museum exposition,
an exit is now open through the Spasskaya Tower directly to Red Square.
The existing walls and towers were built in 1485-1516.
The total length of the walls is 2235 m, their height is from 5 to 19 m,
and the thickness is from 3.5 to 6.5 m[66]. In plan, the walls form an
irregular triangle. The top of the wall, according to the Lombard
tradition, is decorated with battlements in the form of a dovetail,
there are 1045 battlements along the top of the wall. Most of the
battlements have slit-like loopholes. There are wide embrasures covered
with arches in the walls. From the outside, the walls are smooth, from
the inside they are decorated with arched niches - a traditional
technique designed to facilitate and strengthen the structure of the
structure.
There are 20 towers along the walls. Three towers
standing at the corners of the triangle have a circular section, the
rest are square. The highest tower is Troitskaya, it has a height of
79.3 m.
Most of the towers are made in a single architectural
style, given to them in the second half of the 17th century. The
Nikolskaya Tower stands out from the general ensemble, which was rebuilt
in the pseudo-Gothic style at the beginning of the 19th century.
In 1485-1516, the construction of the Kremlin walls was headed by
Italian architects Anton Fryazin, Mark Fryazin, P. A. Solari and Aleviz
Fryazin Stary. Brick walls were placed along the line of white stone
ones, with a slight retreat to the outside. Starting from the Spasskaya
Tower, the territory of the Kremlin was enlarged to the east. In 1485,
the Taynitskaya Tower was laid first on the south side, and five years
later the entire southern part of the fortress was built. For the
construction of walls and towers, large (30 × 14 × 17 cm or 31 × 15 × 9
cm) bricks weighing up to 8 kg each were used. The front walls were laid
out of brick, which were filled with white stone. The highest walls were
erected along Red Square, where there was no natural water barrier.
Spasskaya, Nabatnaya, Konstantin-Eleninskaya, Troitskaya,
Borovitskaya, Annunciation and Petrovskaya towers had shoots on the
walls. Initially, inside the wall through all the towers there was a
through passage, covered with barrel vaults. Most of the passage was
eventually covered with construction waste, the section between the
Konstantin-Eleninskaya and Nabatnaya towers has been preserved. There
were also caches and passages under the walls, in some cases going far
beyond the line of fortifications.
At the beginning of the 18th
century, Neglinnaya was moved away from the walls. In anticipation of
the invasion of the Swedes, loopholes were cut out to install new guns
on the towers, and bastions were built around the Kremlin wall. At the
same time, the originally existing plank roofs of the walls burned down.
In 1702-1736, for the construction of the Arsenal, part of the wall was
dismantled, later restored. In 1771–1773, for the construction of the
Kremlin Palace according to the project of V.I. Nameless towers. In
1802-1807, the towers were overhauled (Vodovzvodnaya was rebuilt),
almost all the diversion archers were dismantled. The war of 1812
inflicted heavy damage on the walls, especially the Vodovzvodnaya, 1st
Nameless and Petrovsky towers, the Nikolskaya tower and the walls along
the Neglinnaya also suffered. Repair and restoration of the
fortifications were carried out from 1817 to 1822. During the repair
work, pseudo-Gothic decor details were added to the external appearance
of the Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya towers.
In 1866-1870, the
walls and towers of the Kremlin were restored by the architects N. A.
Shokhin, P. A. Gerasimov, F. F. Richter, who sought to give the
buildings their original appearance. During the restoration process,
pseudo-Gothic decorative details disappeared from the Borovitskaya
Tower, however, many elements of the original details of the walls and
towers of the Kremlin were lost and replaced with inaccurate copies.
Damage to the towers and walls was caused during the alterations of the
second half of the 19th century in the course of adapting their premises
for household needs.
In 1911-1912, a serious restoration of the
Spasskaya Tower was carried out.
After the October battles of
1917, the damaged Nikolskaya and Beklemishevskaya towers were repaired
in 1918. Examination and partial restoration of the walls were carried
out in 1931-1936. In 1935-1937 ruby five-pointed stars were installed on
five towers. The next restoration of the walls and towers of the Kremlin
was carried out in 1946-1953, during which the walls were cleaned and
repaired, loopholes and parapets were restored, details were revealed on
a number of towers, the tops of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Nikolskaya
towers were upholstered with sheet copper. The restoration commission
included prominent scientists and restorers: I. E. Grabar, V. N.
Lazarev, M. V. Alpatov, P. D. Korin, D. P. Sukhov and others
Vodovzvodnaya tower
Borovitskaya tower
weapon tower
Commandant's Tower
Trinity Tower
Kutafya Tower
Middle Arsenal
Tower
Corner Arsenal Tower
Nikolskaya tower
Senate Tower
Spasskaya Tower
Royal tower
alarm tower
Konstantin-Eleninskaya
Tower
Beklemishevskaya tower
Petrovskaya Tower
Second Nameless
Tower
First Nameless Tower
Taynitskaya
Annunciation Tower
Assumption Cathedral
Blagoveshchensky cathedral
Cathedral of the Archangel
Ivan the Great belltower
Church of the
Deposition of the Robe of the Mother of God in Blachernae
Patriarchal
Palace and Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles
Verkhospassky Cathedral
Church of the Nativity of the Virgin on Senya
Grand Kremlin Palace
Faceted Chamber
Golden
Queen's Chamber
funny palace
Terem Palace
Arsenal (Zeuhgauz)
State Kremlin Palace (Palace of
Congresses)
Senate Palace
Armouries
Ivanovskaya Square
Senate square
Palace Square
Red Square
Cathedral Square
Tainitsky Garden and the Grand Kremlin
Square
Tsar Cannon
The Tsar Bell
Monument to Grand Duke
Sergei Alexandrovich
Afanasievsky Monastery
Ascension Monastery
Kremlin St. Cyril Compound (Metochion of the Kirillo-Belozersky
Monastery)
Kremlin Krutitsy Compound (Metochion of the Krutitsy
Monastery)
Chudov Monastery
Cathedral of the Savior on Bor
Church of the Annunciation at Zhitny Dvor
Church of St. Nicholas
Gostunsky
Church of Saints Constantine and Helena
Palace of Queen
Natalya Kirillovna
Small Nicholas Palace
Old Armory
Lion gate
Monument to Alexander II
Monument to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich
14th building of the Kremlin
Subsequently, the monument to Grand
Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was recreated in its original place (2017)
The following organizations operate on the territory
of the Moscow Kremlin:
the official office of the President of the
Russian Federation (located in the Senate Palace);
museum-reserve
"Moscow Kremlin";
The Grand Kremlin Palace is the venue for official
ceremonies (delivery of state awards, credentials, etc.) with the
participation of the President of the Russian Federation;
State
Kremlin Palace (formerly the Palace of Congresses) - a venue for various
events;
Russian Orthodox Church (uses the Archangel, Annunciation and
Assumption Cathedrals and the Church of the Deposition of the Robe);
catering complex "Kremlyovsky" (provides state receptions, protocol
events and celebrations on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin).
The Service of the Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin, which is part of
the Federal Security Service, is responsible for ensuring security in
the Moscow Kremlin, as well as for maintaining the buildings and
structures of the Kremlin in the proper form.
The Moscow Kremlin is the largest surviving and still
functioning fortress in Europe.
The battlements of the Kremlin walls
in the form of a dovetail (merlons) have the same appearance as the
distinctive battlements of the Italian Ghibelline castles.
According
to historical descriptions and picturesque images, from the early 1680s
to the early 1880s, the walls of the Kremlin were painted white.
Currently, the walls of the Kremlin are periodically tinted with red
matte paint.
During the Great Patriotic War, in order to disguise it
as a residential building, windows were painted on the walls of the
Moscow Kremlin, the walls themselves were partially repainted yellow,
and a “street”, depicted by a wide canvas thrown over the wall, led to
the embankment from the garden.