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Trinity Tower (formerly Bogoyavlenskaya, Rizopolozhenskaya,
Znamenskaya, Kuretnaya) is the central passage tower of the northwestern
wall of the Moscow Kremlin, facing the Alexander Garden. It was built in
1495-1499 by the Italian architect Aleviz Fryazin the Old. It was part
of a single link of defense with the Kutafya Tower and the Trinity
Bridge. In the Middle Ages, it served as a "family royal and patriarchal
departure". The tallest of the Kremlin towers.
In 1685, its lower
array was built on with a tent top, white stone decor was added. From
1585 to 1812 there was a chiming clock on the tower. In 1868-1870 the
building was rebuilt as the Moscow Department of the Archives of the
Ministry of the Imperial Court.
In the 21st century, Troitskaya
was the only residential and heated of all the Kremlin towers: it houses
a rehearsal base, a recording studio and office space for the
Presidential Orchestra of Russia. Before restoration in 2015, it also
housed the Kremlin's power grid control panel. The Kutafya Tower and the
Trinity Gate are also used for the entry of tourists and sightseers.
15th-17th centuries
A significant part of the surviving Kremlin
towers already existed in 1339-1340 in the wooden fortress of Prince
Ivan Kalita. There is an opinion that a blind tower stood on the site of
the modern Trinity Gate. When under Dmitry Donskoy the Kremlin was being
rebuilt into a white stone one, the Rizopolozhensky Passage Gates were
laid in its place.
Bearing the name of the Second
Rizopolozhenskaya, the tower was supposedly built in 1495-1499 under the
leadership of the Italian architect Aleviz Fryazin, when, by order of
Ivan III, the fortress was rebuilt from white stone to brick. While the
construction of many towers of that period, such as Borovitskaya and
Vodovzvodnaya, took one year, work on the Trinity Gate was delayed due
to two devastating fires in 1493: craftsmen and technicians were busy
repairing the burnt buildings.
At the end of the 15th - beginning
of the 16th century, the Kremlin was primarily a fortification complex
and was the main target for a possible enemy attack. To strengthen its
defensive power, under the leadership of Aleviz Fryazin, a "Kremlin
triangle" was formed: the walls of the fortress were turned into brick,
straightened and leveled in height. The Trinity Gates became the top of
the western part of the triangle, in a straight line from them was the
Spasskaya Tower. These two buildings were built in the same style and
received a similar internal layout: four internal floors with high
arches were surrounded by five smaller tiers, where there were stairs
and passages.
The Trinity Tower was a typical example of the
military architecture of that time: the arches of the gates were located
on a straight axis, perpendicular to the fortress wall, and rose six
meters above ground level. At the base there were rumors and climbs for
plantar combat, the upper perimeter of the tower was surrounded by
battlements and hinged loopholes-machicules. From the ground to the
walls of the tower there was a special shoot, from which it was possible
to go further through to the Middle and Corner Arsenal towers. Unlike
the Spassky Gates, the Trinity Gates received two diversion archers at
once. The first adjoined the tower closely, and the second - Kutafya -
was connected to it by the Trinity Bridge. If the enemy stormed the
Kremlin from the side of the Smolensk tract, the attackers would have to
make many turns in the firing zone and overcome significant
fortification obstacles. A low wooden bridge on piles and with a lifting
middle went through the Neglinnaya from the Kutafya Tower to the Trinity
Gates; in 1516 it was replaced with a stone one.
A prison was
located at the base of the tower in the 16th-17th centuries: during the
excavations of the 19th century, a two-story cellar was discovered under
the passage of the gate. From the upper part there were passages to the
Kremlin and the Kremlin garden. Below were two "stone bags", which could
only be entered through a hole in the ceiling. From the building of the
Judgment Order, which stood in the immediate vicinity, a staircase led
to these cellars. According to the chronicles, executions were
periodically held at the Rizopolozhensky Gate.
In 1585, a chiming
clock with dials “one arshin in length and width” and three bells was
installed on the tower. The device of the watch was different from the
modern one: the rotating disk was divided into day and night time, and
the hand remained motionless. The watchmakers of the Spasskaya Tower
maintained the mechanism in working order, although Troitskaya Tower had
its own staff of workers. Information has been preserved that their
salary was four rubles and six altyns per year:
In terms of their
status, they were lower than the watchmakers of the Spasskaya Tower.
They were often forgotten with the issuance of salaries, and when there
was serious work on the arrangement of the clock of the Trinity Tower,
it was performed by the Spassky watchmakers and the reward for the work
slipped out of the hands of the Troitsk watchmakers. In view of this,
the position of the watchmaker of the Spasskaya Tower was an object of
desire and harassment for the Trinity watchmakers, who, in turn, were
subjected to intrigues from the even more seedy watchmakers of the
Tainitsky Gate.
17th century
Until the 17th century, in the
literature and speech of Muscovites, the tower was called
differently: Rizopolozhenskaya, Bogoyavlenskaya, Znamenskaya - after
the icon over the gate and Kuretnaya - in honor of the gate of the
royal palace of the same name. By the middle of the century, like
many other buildings of the Kremlin, the tower gradually fell into
disrepair. The inventory of dilapidated items of 1646 indicated:
Under the Znamensky Gate, the descent to the ear is clogged <...>
the corners on both sides are upholstered in brick and in two and
three bricks along the circle and up the sazhen and the tower has
settled in two places. At the same tower <...> 5 shoots of stairs
crumbled, but in the tower near the dungeon the vault splayed
A 1667 inventory of dilapidated items indicated even more
serious damage:
In the tower <...> the upper vaults are crumbling
and supported by boards and many bricks are hanging. The middle
vault collapsed along the sazhen by two, and across by a sazhen.
Yes, all around the tower at the railing, the vaults are thin and
have collapsed in many places
The renovation of the Kremlin
Ensemble took place during the reign of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich and
Princess Sophia. At that time, new buildings of orders and the
Chudov Monastery were erected, walls and towers were repaired, most
of which were added hipped finials and white stone decor. By order
of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the Rizopolozhenskaya Tower was
officially named Trinity Tower in 1658, in honor of the nearby
courtyard of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. The travel arch of the
gate was decorated with an icon of temple saints.
On April 8,
1681, the watchmaker of the Spasskaya Tower, Andreyanko Danilov,
received an order to make a new clock for the Trinity Tower. It took
him two years to work, the estimate was 130 rubles. In 1683, the
Trinity Tower received a new clock, larger, with dials on both
sides. The diameter of each of them was 1 ¾ arshin. To the three
former bells, six more were added, from four to half a pood in
weight. The old clock was dismantled and transported to the village
of Preobrazhenskoye, where it was installed on the palace gates.
Danilov received 15 gold rubles for his work.
In 1685, many
buildings of the Kremlin received a new design - by that time the
fortress had lost its defensive significance and turned into a
representative royal residence. To make the appearance of the towers
more ceremonial, tent tops were attached to them and various facade
decorations were added. Five towers, including Troitskaya, received
sculptural weathercocks in the form of double-headed eagles. The
superstructure of the Trinity Tower was designed in the same style
as the Spasskaya Tower, since they were on the same line and
visually made up the overall composition.
In 1686, the master
Karp Zolotarev had to "paint the tower and gild an eagle on it." The
clock made two years ago “seemed too insignificant” against the
background of a high tent top, so already in 1686 Andreyanko Danilov
received an order for new ones: “2 ¼ arshins long, 1 ½ arshins wide,
as high as the size indicates; and the passage of eight bells, the
ninth battle bell. The former mechanism was dismantled and
transported to the Danilov Monastery. The main bell for the new
watch was cast by master Fedor Motorin.
18th century
A new
era in the history of the Kremlin began under the reign of Peter I.
By his order, in 1702, the construction of the Arsenal building
began on the burned-out part between the Trinity and Sobakin towers.
Two years later, the emperor ordered new clocks for the Spasskaya
and Troitskaya towers in Amsterdam, and already in 1705 both
mechanisms were installed. Under the guidance of master Kuzma
Ivanov, five workers from Zhitny Dvor raised 34 bells for chimes to
the tower.
With the beginning 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 bolters along the
Kremlin walls, and fill the ditches drained in the 17th century with
water. In 1707, the loopholes of the tower were expanded for heavy
cannons, and the Trinity Bastion was built at the base of the gate
on both sides of the bridge. After a series of defeats by the
Swedish army and the decisive Battle of Poltava, the threat of an
attack on Moscow disappeared, but the ditches and embankments built
were preserved for a long time.
The chimes installed by order
of Peter broke already in 1731. At the end of February 1734, master
Johann Christopher Foerster was invited from St. Petersburg to
repair them. After inspecting the tower, he submitted the following
report to the Senate:
"This Trinity Tower is located in a cramped
place, within the walls and in the wilderness, and the music from
that tower will not be heard, but it is necessary for this bell
music to be on the Spasskaya Tower, because it has become in all its
beauty and grandeur that bell music and playing in the palace and in
Moscow will be heard"
Nevertheless, in August 1734, the
Senate decided to repair the chimes on the Trinity Tower. The
missing eight bells for them were taken from the yard of the Cannon
Order: during the Swedish War, more than 600 bells "for pouring into
cannons" were transported there. There is no information about
whether the repair of Foerster was successful. During the Trinity
fire in 1737, the tower was badly damaged: the entire clock
mechanism burned out, the bells collapsed, and the main one broke
through the vault of the building.
Further information about
the state of the tower is fragmentary: it is known that in 1754 the
Gofintendant office sent the carpenter Erich to fix and put into
action the clockwork, while before the visit of Catherine II in
1775, the clock again needed repairs. The inventory of 1776
indicated the presence of "decays and cracks" in the walls of the
tower. However, at the funeral of the Moscow mayor Grigory
Chernyshev in 1784, "the bell musician played with his hands and
feet "Holy God""
19th century
The Trinity Gate was damaged in
the Patriotic War of 1812, when the Kremlin was mined during the
retreat of the French army. From the explosions and the ensuing fire
in the tower, the main hour bell collapsed again, breaking through
four vaults. The internal ceilings were repaired only in 1823, while
the clock mechanism was not restored. In 1848 the main bell was
transferred to the Borovitskaya tower.
In 1868-1870, the
tower was rebuilt as the Moscow Department of the Archives of the
Ministry of the Imperial Court, as a result of which it largely lost
its former appearance. The position of the internal floors was
changed, loopholes, slots for the hers and a passage to the upper
tiers were laid. The estimate was 31,003 rubles, another 4,589 was
the cost of a new double-headed eagle. The project was led by
architects A. Porokhovshchikov and N. Azanchevsky, according to
other sources - Alexei Martynov. Since 1870, the office of the
archive has been sitting in the adjacent outlet archer, and about
107,000 files were stored in the Trinity Tower vault.
At the
end of the 19th century, the next restoration of the tower was
carried out according to the project of Nikolai Shokhin, chairman of
the Moscow Architectural Society.
XX—XXI centuries
In
1901, the Trinity Bridge was repaired, but in the process, the ramps
and stairs built in 1821 were demolished. A year later, the
historian Pyotr Bartenev published a major study of all the
buildings of the Kremlin ensemble, where he gave the following
description of the images of the Trinity Tower:
"Icons are placed
above the passage: from the side of the Kremlin, the image of the
Holy Trinity - Abraham and three wanderers, and from the Neglinnaya
side - the image of the Sign of the Most Holy Theotokos, surrounded
by angelic faces and four symbols of the evangelists in the corners.
Both icons are framed under glass and protected from above by metal
umbrellas with lamps hung on blocks. The umbrella from the
Neglinnaya side is especially beautiful - a carved arch of the
Gothic form with a crown and a cross on it "
The same
publication contains exact measurements of the tower: 32.5 sazhens
(69.3 meters) in height, of which 14.5 (30.9 meters) fell on the
lower massif, 18 (38.4 meters) - on the hip superstructure. The
perimeter of the base was 35 fathoms (74.6 meters), inside the tower
had nine floors.
During the storming of the Kremlin by the
Bolsheviks in 1917, the icon of the Mother of God of the Sign was
pierced by a bullet. In the post-revolutionary years, traces of the
icon were lost and its further fate is unknown. Since the 1930s, the
kiot on the inside of the tower has remained empty, where the icon
of the Trinity was previously located.
In 1935, it was
decided to decorate the spiers on the Kremlin towers in the form
appropriate to Soviet ideology - the eagles, as symbols of tsarism,
were ordered to be removed, and proletarian stars to be installed in
their place. The eagle of the Trinity Tower was not monolithic, but
prefabricated, with bolted fasteners, so it was dismantled in parts
right on the spot. In 1937, the semi-precious star was replaced with
a modern ruby star weighing 1,300 kg and five meters in diameter.
In the second half of the 20th century, from 1973 to 1981, the
most extensive restoration of the Moscow Kremlin took place. The
project was headed by architects Alexei Vasilievich Vorobyov and
Alexei Ivanovich Khamtsov. Under their leadership, the Troitskaya
Tower was repaired in 1975: cracks in the masonry of the walls were
strengthened with the help of injections of a fixer and special
steel ties, the facade was tinted and covered with a water-repellent
composition. Instead of a tiled roof, a copper roof was made, and
the white stone decoration was restored separately fragment by
piece. In 2010, the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation found and
restored the over-gate icons of the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers.
It was planned to explore and restore the icons of the Trinity and
other towers.
In 2015, the last restoration of the tower took
place, the work lasted nine months. During this period, the
Presidential Orchestra, rehearsing in the tower, was transferred to
another building, but the passage through the gate was not stopped.
Particular attention was paid to the restoration of the star on the
spire: the turning mechanism and fasteners were completely replaced,
the frame was cleaned, and the three-layer glass was disassembled
into separate segments and washed by hand. The 5000-watt lamp was
replaced with an energy-saving metal halide.
Since 1918, when the Soviet government headed by Vladimir Lenin moved to the Kremlin, a separate combat unit was formed to protect it. It included a special team of 20 people - their duties included the musical accompaniment of drill exercises and the ceremonial changing of the guard. From 1922, delegations and representations of foreign states began to come to the Kremlin, and a permanent group was formed from the Kremlin musicians to hold official receptions. On September 11, 1938, she received the official title of the orchestra of the Office of the Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin. Presumably, at the same time, the Trinity Tower became his main rehearsal venue. On January 11, 1993, by order of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the orchestra received its modern name - the Presidential Orchestra of the Commandant's Office of the Moscow Kremlin of the Main Security Directorate of the Russian Federation.