Vodovzvodnaya Tower (Sviblova, formerly Svirlova) is the southwestern
corner tower of the Moscow Kremlin. It is located on the corner of the
Kremlin Embankment and the
Alexander Garden near the bank of the Moskva River. It was built in
1488 by the Italian architect Antonio Gilardi (Anton Fryazin).
The original name of Sviblov came from the surname of the 14th-century
boyar family Sviblo, whose courtyard adjoined the tower from the
Kremlin. Vodovzvodnaya received its modern name in 1633 after the
installation of the Christopher Galovey lifting machine, which supplied
water from the Moskva River to the Kremlin (and the name Sviblov
eventually began to be used for the Beklemishevskaya Tower, but is not
relevant now). It was the first pressure water supply system in Moscow,
with the help of which water from the tower was diluted through the
inner palaces and gardens through a system of lead pipes.
In 1805, the tower was dismantled due to extreme
dilapidation and rebuilt according to archival drawings in 1807 on the
old foundation. In 1812, it was blown up by Napoleon's soldiers during
the retreat from Moscow. Seven years later, under the leadership of Osip
Bove, the building was restored, but some changes were made to the
exterior.
Since 1937, the top of the tower has been decorated
with a ruby star with a beam span of three meters.
At the end of the XV century, Russia finally got rid of the
Tatar-Mongol yoke and entered the international political arena in a new
status of an influential and independent power. Moscow, as the center of
a developing state, needed a new, more reliable and modern defense
complex. Since 1471, Russian ambassadors began to travel to Italy to
invite craftsmen to work in the capital from there. A whole galaxy of
Italian architects has been involved in changing the appearance of the
city for decades. Most of them received the nickname Fryazin: according
to one version, from the Old Russian word "fryaz" — a foreigner,
according to another — from their common saying fre — modified Italian
freddo, that is, "cold".
Since 1485, the radical restructuring of
the Kremlin walls began: the white stone masonry was dismantled and
replaced with brick. The southwestern part was rebuilt under the
leadership of Pyotr Fryazin(Pietro Antonio Solari). In its corner area
at the confluence of the Neglinka with the Moskva River, since 1462
there has been a Sviblova Strelnitsa, on the site of which the Italian
architect Anton Fryazin built a new Sviblova Tower in 1488. It became
the second chronologically after Taynitskaya, and together with
Beklemishevskaya (Moskvoretskaya) (built by Mark Fryazin) they completed
the fortification "triangle" and turned the Kremlin into an impregnable
fortress. These three towers were particularly strong, their walls
reached three meters thick, and a secret well was dug in the basement of
each in case of a siege.
The exterior of the Sviblovaya Tower at
the end of the XV century was significantly different from the modern
one. It can be represented by the example of the fortifications of the
Castello Sforzesco in Milan: a squat cylindrical tower with wide walls
and minimal decor expanded at the base and ended with a flat roof of
large diameter. Round loopholes were located above the basement, above
there was a kind of brickwork with alternating protruding and recessed
rows. The upper part was framed by an arcature belt made of white stone,
the composition was completed by machicolations and teeth in the shape
of swallowtails. In addition to the shape, the tower also differed in
color: until the end of the XIX century, the brick buildings of the
Kremlin were periodically painted with whitewash.
In the XIII—XV centuries, the Kremlin did not lack water — it was
taken from wells for drinking, and the Moskva River and Neglinka were
enough for household needs. For example, in the wall near the Sviblovaya
Tower there were Port-washing gates through which laundresses carried
washing clothes to the raft on the Moskva River. However, by the
beginning of the 17th century, the Kremlin had become a major economic
center: numerous manufactories were located around the royal palace.
Among them were a brewery, a brew house, a honey factory, a cooperage
and a wax factory, several cookeries and a Bread palace. Nearby there
were laundry and baths, a stable for 150 horses, cooks and gardens. More
than three hundred hired workers worked only under the command of the
Weapons Order and the Barrel Order. Water was required for the full
operation of all these industries, but it was expensive and difficult to
deliver it. It was impossible to lift heavy barrels up the steep and
precipitous promontory at the Sviblova Tower. To bring water by carts,
it was necessary to travel a long way along the only gentle, but very
winding road from Neglinka to the Borovitsky gate. The cost of delivery
to the steep Kremlin hill was three altyns.
In 1621, the "master
of watchmaking and waterworks" Christopher Galovey was invited to Moscow
and accepted into the royal service. He was instructed to develop and
bring water from the Moskva River to the Kremlin. Galloway took the
London system of lifting water from the Thames as a basis, but improved
it and made it more reliable. In 1633, a "water supply" was installed in
the Sviblova Tower: water from a well on the lower floor rose up into a
lead-lined pool. From there, it passed through lead pipes to a pressure
tank ("Water supply tent") near the Old Money Yard and the Upper
Embankment Garden. Further, through a system of lead pipes, water was
diluted in palaces, chambers and manufactories. It took two hundred
rubles a year to maintain this water pipeline, and the water lifting
machine itself cost several barrels of gold. However, after installing
the new system, the cost of delivering a bucket of water has been
reduced several times.
[Christopher Galloway] conducted the water
by means of a wheel, arranging wheels and devices in order to raise
water night and day without any difficulty and supply the royal court
with it for all needs. He dug 4-5 wells, built domes, pipes and gutters
over them and made an iron wheel outside: if water is needed, turn the
wheel with one hand, and water flows in abundance when needed.
Numerous modern and archival sources claim that the water lifting
mechanism was located in the tower itself. It is more likely that only
part of the mechanism was located inside, primarily due to the limited
space. Since the XIV century, the horse-drawn wheel has become
widespread in Europe, but it had a significant drawback: the working
animals were located directly above the well and the water could easily
become contaminated. By the 17th century, the most modern was the manege
drive, which required a free space with a diameter of at least seven
meters. Evidence that a part of this mechanism was installed in the
Sviblovaya Tower is found in archival images of the Kremlin. For
example, on the Moscow plan of the work of the 17th-century German
traveler Olearius, a large non-residential building marked "water
supply" is marked, and on the engraving by the Dutchman Peter Picard, a
number of buildings adjoin the Water Supply Tower. Presumably, it was an
arena and stables, as well as the housing of the staff.
The pipe
and water pump system required constant monitoring. Historian Peter
Bartenev, in his study "The Towers and Walls of the Kremlin", mentions
the second master who maintained the Galovey water supply in working
order:
In 1650, a native of the “French lands from the city of
Paris”, Paskazius Potevin, arrived in Moscow from the Glass Tower
(Stockholm) with the okolnichy Boris Ivanovich Pushkin, who “is very
keen on the water business, knows how to arrange a garden and grapes and
plant and cut all sorts of herbs and faces and animals on copper boards,
etc.
After another fire in the Kremlin in 1737, the water supply
through the tower mechanism was probably not restored.
Based on the surviving drawings and engravings, historians claim that
until 1672 only the Coat of Arms and the Spasskaya Towers had high tent
tops. In the 1680s, another renovation of the Kremlin began, during
which
simultaneously with the repair of the ruins and
dilapidations, the superstructure was made on the towers of the
currently existing stone tops, replacing the former low wooden tents
that had hitherto covered them.
By 1686, all the towers were
built on, including the Vodovzvodnaya.
Since 1683, Galaktion Nikitin has been responsible for the Kremlin
water supply. In 1737, during the Trinity Fire, the tower was severely
damaged, and the broken system was not repaired. Only four decades
later, on August 13, 1773, architect Vasily Bazhenov submitted a report
to the Expedition of the Kremlin building that "The Kremlin Water Supply
Tower threatens to fall, because several bricks fell out of the castle."
Probably, after this report, a decision was made to dismantle the tower
and then rebuild it. However, on March 12, 1773, Catherine II personally
signed an order "To repair the water tower, not to break it." The
architect continued to insist that "the tower is not capable of repair,
because it is very dangerous to dig external pits and under the
foundation." Bazhenov was even summoned to the police chief for trial.
For another twenty-five years, the tower stood without repair. The
issue of its restoration was returned only in 1792. On April 16, a
special commission was created, which included architects Egor
Blankennagel, Matvey Kazakov, Anton Gerard and collegiate assessor
Karin. According to the results of the inspection of the tower on April
27, they provided the Moscow commander-in-chief Alexander Prozorovsky
with a report that disputed Bazhenov's conclusions. According to him,
the cracks in the walls did not increase and only the lower part of the
tower needed to be repaired: "there is no danger, but we only consider
it necessary to fix the wall from below, which was slightly damaged from
dampness, being covered with earth, and also to seal up cracks on the
alabaster from below by one yard."
Despite this, work began only
in 1805, and the tower was still decided to be dismantled. Architect
Ivan Yegotov was appointed head, who provided the following report on
April 18:
The foundation laid out of white stone [turned out to
be] in perfect strength without any cracks <...> why I suppose the
construction of that tower should be carried out on this old foundation
with the correction of the upper rows of stone.
For greater
strength, an additional wall one and a half arshins wide was erected
inside the foundation, and the empty part remaining in the center was
filled with rubble.
In 1807, the construction was completed. Just
five years later, Napoleon Bonaparte's army, retreating from Moscow,
blew up the tower. It began to be restored in 1817, and the project was
entrusted to the young architect Osip Bove. According to his drawings,
the tower was rebuilt in two years, while making some changes in the
exterior design. The walls were treated with rust, the loopholes were
replaced with round and semicircular windows. The dormers were decorated
with Tuscan porticos with columns and pediments.
In 1868, the
tower (and other parts of the Kremlin Wall) it was restored again,
approximately in this form it has reached our days. In 1912, the
historian Peter Bartenev gave this description:
The Vodovzvodnaya
tower is an integral, completely finished work of architecture - its
proportions are beautiful, the architectural treatment is rich and at
the same time moderate. But it does not have the same originality as in
the Beklemishevsky Tower.
From the middle of the XVII century until the revolution, the tops of
most Kremlin towers were decorated with sculptural double-headed eagles,
and the spire of the Vodovzvodnaya Tower was crowned with a gilded
flag-weather vane. After 1917, the new government decided to replace the
symbols of imperial Russia with red stars more suitable for Soviet
ideology. In 1937, a star was installed on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, the
smallest of all the Kremlin ones. The span of its rays is three meters,
inside there was an incandescent lamp of 3.7 kW. In 2015, the
replacement of incandescent lamps in the Kremlin stars with metal halide
lamps of lower power began, while maintaining the same brightness.
From 1973 to 1981, a large-scale restoration took place in the
Kremlin, the project was led by architects Alexey Vasilyevich Vorobyov
and Alexey Ivanovich Khamtsov. During the work on the Vodovzvodnaya
Tower, the elements of the white stone decor were repaired, the
dilapidated parts were replaced with exact copies. The tiles on the
hipped roof were replaced with copper sheets of identical shape. The
exterior of the tower's brickwork was cleaned with steam, then coated
with silicate paint and a water-repellent emulsion was applied.
After the collapse of the USSR
Since December 1990, the tower, as
part of the entire Kremlin ensemble, has been included in the list of
UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites. A year later, her image was chosen
for the design of the inside cover of the passport of a citizen of the
Russian Federation.
Kremlin stars undergo inspection and
maintenance every five to seven years. The main damage occurs due to the
weather. For example, the last repair of the star on the Water Tower was
carried out after a part of the ruby glass melted from a lightning
strike. According to the commandant of the Moscow Kremlin, Sergei
Khlebnikov, in the period from 2017 to 2020, it is planned to carry out
a comprehensive restoration of all the walls and towers of the ensemble.