Moscow Kremlin

Moscow Kremlin

Subway: Biblioteka imeni Lenina, Borovitskaya
Bus: 6, K
Open: 10am- 5pm Fri- Wed

www.kremlin.museum.ru

 

Description of the Moscow Kremlin

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.

 

History

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.

 

Vyatichi village

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).

 

First fortress

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.

 

Princely residence

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.

 

White-stone Kremlin of Dmitry Donskoy

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.

 

Brick Kremlin of Ivan III

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.

 

The heyday of the Kremlin in the 17th century

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."

 

18th century

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.

 

19th century

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.

 

Early 20th century

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.

 

Soviet time

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.

 

Modernity

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.

 

Architecture

Walls and towers

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

 

Cathedrals

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

 

Palace buildings

Grand Kremlin Palace
Faceted Chamber
Golden Queen's Chamber
funny palace
Terem Palace

 

Other buildings

Arsenal (Zeuhgauz)
State Kremlin Palace (Palace of Congresses)
Senate Palace
Armouries

 

Squares and gardens

Ivanovskaya Square
Senate square
Palace Square
Red Square
Cathedral Square
Tainitsky Garden and the Grand Kremlin Square

 

Monuments

Tsar Cannon
The Tsar Bell
Monument to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich

 

Lost buildings and monuments

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)

 

Active organizations

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.

 

Miscellaneous

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.