Первые поселения
Situated on the high left bank of the Moskva River—Borovitsky Hill—at the confluence of the Neglinnaya River, the Kremlin is an irregular triangle covering 27,5 hectares. The southern wall faces the Moskva River, the northwestern wall faces the Alexander Garden, and the eastern wall faces Red Square.
The first settlements on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin date back to the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC). A Finno-Ugric settlement dating back to the early Iron Age (second half of the 1st millennium BC) was discovered near today's Archangel Cathedral. At this time, a Dyakovo-type settlement occupied the center of the upper floodplain terrace of Borovitsky Hill (the area of today's Cathedral Square) and may have already had fortifications. To the northeast, the settlement was protected by two ravines: one, north of today's Trinity Gate, overlooked the Neglinnaya River, and the other lay between the Petrovskaya and Second Nameless Towers of the modern Kremlin.
Beginning of the 10th century
With the onset of Slavic colonization of the Oka and Moskva River basins in the 10th century, the Vyatichi settled the summit of Borovitsky Hill (possibly reclaiming the former settlement). The Vyatichi settlement on the hill presumably consisted of two fortified centers: the first, larger in area, was located on the site of today's Cathedral Square, while the second occupied the tip of the cape. Both centers were supposedly protected by a ring fortification consisting of a ditch, a rampart, and a palisade. The Vyatichi also incorporated into their defensive fortifications two ravines connected by a washout, which had served the same function in pre-Slavic times; the ravines were transformed into a ditch up to 9 meters deep and approximately 3,8 meters wide. Presumably, some kind of political and administrative center was located on the cape-like part of the settlement: a Kievan hanging seal dating back to the late 11th century was found there during archaeological excavations. Both parts likely had their own cult centers—the upper one near Cathedral Square, the lower one "under the Forest." The oldest Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist in Moscow stood on this site. The Kremlin toponyms "Makovitsa," "Gory," and "Bor" also date back to the pre-princely period. These two centers were surrounded by a trading settlement, which stretched along the Neglinnaya and Moskva rivers. The settlement's development and prosperity were linked to the trade routes that ran through the area: the Moskva River carried lively trade between East and West. In addition to the waterway, two land roads ran nearby—one to Novgorod (later Volotsk), the other from Kyiv via Smolensk to the northeast. The two roads connected at the foot of Borovitsky Hill by a ford across the Moskva River (in the area of today's Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge).
Period 1156 – 1300
In 1156, the first fortifications were built on the site of today's Kremlin, extending for approximately 850 meters and covering an area of approximately 3 hectares. The fortification was surrounded by a moat 16-18 meters wide and at least 5 meters deep. The earthen rampart was approximately 14,5 meters wide and 7 meters high. For that time, it was typical of an average Russian fortress. The rampart was reinforced with oak beams held together by tongue and groove joints. During the Mongol invasion, after five days of resistance, the Mongols captured Moscow, which was defended by Yuri's youngest son, Vladimir, and the voivode, Philip Nyanka, "with a small army." The Kremlin was destroyed, all its defenders were killed, and Vladimir Yuryevich was captured. According to the Laurentian Chronicle, all the monasteries, churches, and 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 youngest son of Alexander Nevsky) built the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior here during the first year of his reign. A legend about this event is mentioned by Kremlin history scholar Alexander Voronov.
In 1293, Moscow was taken by the army of the Tatar prince Tudan ("Dyudenev's army").
14th-15th centuries
From the very beginning of the 14th century, the conflict between the Moscow and Tver princes, which had begun under Daniil Alexandrovich, intensified. This internecine conflict continued until 1329 and ultimately resulted in a significant strengthening of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.
In 1339, oak walls and towers were built.
In the 14th century, five monasteries were established in the Kremlin. The first of these (the Transfiguration Monastery on the Bor) was founded in 1330, for the millennium of Constantinople, the "New Rome." Its center was the ancient Moscow church of the Cathedral of the Savior on the Bor, or the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior "on the Bor." Moscow princes and princesses were buried here, until the role of burial site passed to the Archangel Cathedral for men and the Ascension Monastery (also destroyed) for women. After the establishment of the Novospassky Monastery in the late 15th century, the Cathedral of the Savior on the Bor received the status of a court church. With the construction of the Kremlin Palace in the 1830s and 1840s, the Cathedral of the Savior was incorporated into the palace's courtyard. The church was destroyed on May 1, 1933, by decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Another ancient structure was the Chudov Monastery, founded by Metropolitan Alexy in 1365. It was 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 burial place of Metropolitan Alexy.
In 1483, the Church of St. Alexis was built on the monastery grounds. By order of Archimandrite Gennady of Chudov, the relics of Metropolitan Alexis were transferred to it.
Between 1501 and 1503, the ancient Church of St. Michael the Archangel was replaced by a church built by Italian masters. At the beginning of the 20th century, a crypt was constructed in the basement of the St. Alexis Church to house the remains of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who died in the Kremlin in 1905 at the hands of terrorists. The Grand Duke's crypt was located under the floor, precisely beneath the shrine of St. Alexis. In 1929, all buildings of the Chudov Monastery were demolished.
Between 1366 and 1368, under Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy, the Kremlin's wooden walls were replaced with walls and towers made of local white stone (according to archaeological evidence, the towers and most important sections of the wall, where the greatest risk of assault lay, were made of stone). From this period onward, the term "White-Stone Moscow" frequently appears in chronicles. Soon after the white-stone walls were built, they twice resisted sieges by Prince Olgerd's troops—in 1368 and 1370. In 1382, Khan Tokhtamysh deceived his way into the Kremlin and sacked it, but the fortress was quickly restored. Gradually, the dense wooden construction of the Kremlin was replaced by stone, a process facilitated by frequent fires. In 1404, Lazar the Serb assembled and installed the first clock near the Annunciation Cathedral at the courtyard of Prince Vasily Dmitrievich. By the mid-15th century, the Annunciation Cathedral in the Kremlin was rebuilt and expanded, a church, later called the Deposition of the Robe, was erected in the Metropolitan's Court, and the merchant Khovrin built the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross in front of his house.
In the late 1450s and 1460s, the Church of the Entry of the Virgin Mary with a stone chamber was built at the courtyard of the Simonov Monastery, near the Nikolsky Gate; a chapel of the Praise of the Virgin Mary was added to the Dormition Cathedral; the Church of the Epiphany was erected at the courtyard of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery; and a stone Church of John the Baptist was erected on the territory of the Grand Duke's court.
Gradually, the Kremlin's white-stone fortifications deteriorated; the material proved insufficiently durable, and the structures began to crumble. 15th-century chronicles contain numerous references to restoration work. In 1462, V.D. Ermolin carried out a large-scale renovation of the walls from the Sviblova Strelnitsa to the Borovitsky Gate.
XV-XVI centuries
In the second half of the 15th century, under Ivan III the Great, a radical reconstruction of the Moscow Kremlin began. The new Dormition Cathedral was the first to be built, as the old one, built by Ivan Kalita, had already fallen into disrepair. Construction in 1471 was initially entrusted to the Russian architects Krivtsov and Myshkin, but the building, even up to the vaults, collapsed in 1474 during an earthquake—"the lime was not glued, and the stone was not firm." Ivan III invited the Italian architect Aristotle Fioravanti, who erected the existing building by 1479, modeled on the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir. Between 1484 and 1486, Pskov craftsmen erected a new Church of the Deposition of the Robe, and between 1484 and 1489, a new Annunciation Cathedral was built on the foundations of the previous church. By that time, following Fioravanti, other Italian architects had been invited to Moscow. In 1485, construction began on the new Grand Ducal Palace, continuing, with long interruptions, until 1514. The palace's ceremonial section was completed first, of which the Faceted Chamber, built between 1487 and 1491 by the Italian architects Marco Fryazin and Pietro Antonio Solari, remains today. Aleviz Fryazin oversaw the construction of the princely chambers and the inner wall separating them from the rest of the Kremlin. He also moved the palace's ceremonial section to a new location—from the south to the east, facing Cathedral Square. Despite the fact that the palace was built by Italian architects, its architecture fully preserved the principles of ancient Russian chamber construction: separate stone and wooden structures were erected on a single, high stone basement. With the construction of the Archangel Cathedral (architect Aleviz the New) and the Ivan the Great Bell Tower (architect Bon Fryazin) in 1505–1508, as well as the Treasury Yard building between them, the formation of Cathedral Square as the main square of the Moscow Kremlin was essentially 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 John Climacus (1505-1508), the Church of St. Nicholas of Gostun, and the Church of St. John the Baptist at the Borovitsky Gate was rebuilt (1504).
Concurrent with the construction of the Grand Duke's Palace and the renovation of the Kremlin churches, new Kremlin walls and towers were being built. Beginning in 1485, over the course of a decade, under the direction of Italian architects, the white stone wall sections and towers were dismantled, and new ones of fired brick were erected in their place. The fortress's area was expanded by annexing significant territories in the northwest, reaching 27,5 hectares, and the Kremlin acquired its current outline of an irregular triangle. The shape of the towers and the battlements at the top of the walls are reminiscent of the Scaliger Castle in Verona and the Sforza Castle in Milan. The Moscow Kremlin replicates the Sforza Castle down to the smallest detail—the top of the Russian fortress walls was crowned with 1045 dovetail-shaped battlements. Even their height is the same—71 meters.
In 1508, the Aleviz Moat was dug along the walls, fed by the Neglinnaya River. The Kremlin was finally transformed into an impregnable fortress, surrounded by water on all sides, isolated from the city, which had grown by that time. During restoration of the walls and towers in 1946–1950 and 1974–1978, white stone blocks used as backfill were discovered within their brickwork, in the lower sections and foundations. These may be the remains of the white stone walls of the Kremlin from the time of Dmitry Donskoy.
In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the main Kremlin streets—Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, and Chudovskaya—were regulated and widened. By that time, the Kremlin still housed numerous courtyards belonging to boyars, clergy, and appanage princes, who settled primarily in Podol and north of Cathedral Square. Under Vasily III and Ivan the Terrible, as the struggle with the appanage princes intensified, the Grand Duke confiscated their courtyards and handed them over to his confidants. In the 16th century, construction in the Kremlin was primarily limited to the renovation and improvement of existing buildings and ensembles. Between 1532 and 1552, the Church of the Resurrection was added to the Ivan the Great Bell Tower; in the middle of the century, the Annunciation Cathedral was rebuilt; the Church of the Solovetsky Miracle Workers and the Church of the Three Hierarchs appeared in the Metropolitan's Court; the Grand Duke's (later Tsar's) Palace was repeatedly rebuilt and expanded. The Annunciation Cathedral became nine-domed, and its domes, like those of the Assumption Cathedral, were covered with gold brought from conquered Kazan. A unique tent-roofed church was erected at the Trinity Metochion. Ivan the Terrible lived for a long time in the "oprichnina court" outside the Kremlin; after the abolition of the oprichnina, new four-chambered Bedchambers were built for the tsar near the Church of the Savior on the Forest (on the site of today's St. George's Hall).
XVI-XVII centuries
The first surviving images of the Kremlin date back to the late 16th and early 17th centuries: a plan included in the "Notes on Muscovy" by the Austrian ambassador Sigismund von Herberstein and a plan published by the Dutch cartographer Gerrits Hessel, known as "Kremlingrad." The latter gives an idea of the Kremlin's layout as it existed at the time. Among the closely packed buildings, the distinct outlines of Cathedral (Tsar's) and Ivanovskaya squares are visible. From Ivanovskaya square, two streets lead through the northeastern 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 continued 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 are built in the style of Italian architects and decorated with beautiful ornaments. The Tsar's palace is especially beautiful..." He also wrote about the large number of wooden structures in the Kremlin.
In 1610-1612 the Kremlin was occupied by the Polish-Lithuanian garrison of Alexander Gonsevsky.
With the accession of the Romanovs, active construction of ecclesiastical and secular buildings resumed. In 1624, the Spasskaya Tower was added. In 1635–1636, the Terem Palace and palace churches were built.
18th-19th centuries
In 1768, a special government organization—the Kremlin Construction Expedition—was created to construct a new Kremlin Palace based on V. I. Bazhenov's design. In preparation for the new palace, the entire southeastern portion of the hill's brow was demolished, and many ancient Russian architectural monuments were destroyed, including the southern section of the Kremlin wall, along with the Taynitskaya and First Nameless Towers. Bazhenov's goal was to "renew the appearance of this ancient and disorganized city" in keeping with the then-prevalent classical aesthetic. The plan included not only building a new palace but also radically redesigning the Kremlin's main streets and squares, preserving only a few cathedrals and buildings of the Naryshkin and Petrine Baroque styles. However, in 1775, construction of the palace was cancelled, the official reason given being the settling of the Archangel Cathedral. The enormous cost of reconstruction and Catherine II's dislike of Moscow contributed to this decision. The dismantled wall and towers were soon restored to their original form.
In 1775, the Projected Plan—a plan for the reconstruction of Moscow—was approved, and the Stone Prikaz, headed by P.N. Kozhin, was created to implement it. At the end of 1776, Kozhin compiled a separate report on the reconstruction of the Moscow Kremlin, which envisioned the creation of regular squares in the Kremlin, as well as the construction of new palaces and government buildings with "the finest façades according to the rules of modern architecture." Furthermore, the new structures were to be erected at a distance from the ancient buildings, which had been carefully preserved. In 1763, by decree of Empress Catherine II, the Senate was divided into departments, and two of them—the one in charge of noble rights and the judicial department—were transferred from the capital to Moscow. To house them, the Senate Building, designed by Matvey Kazakov, was constructed between 1776 and 1787. It became the Kremlin's first major classical structure. With the construction of the Senate, the last private properties disappeared from the Kremlin grounds. During those same years, Kazakov built the Bishop's House on Ivanovskaya Square and the Gothic portico of the Chudov Monastery.
In 1797, Kazakov drew up a new plan for the overall reconstruction of the Kremlin, prompted by the coronation of Paul I. Like Bazhenov's project, Kazakov's plan for the Kremlin's reconstruction remained unimplemented, but it solidified the concept of the Kremlin as a unified architectural ensemble.
In the early years of the 19th century, the Kremlin began to be perceived by contemporaries as a symbol of Russia's historical and military glory, which led to the emergence of striking pseudo-Gothic forms in its architecture. The architect I. V. Egotov used Gothic elements in the reconstruction of the Amusement Palace and several other Kremlin buildings.
At the same time, the early 19th century saw the demolition of numerous ancient buildings. Among them were the famous Armorial Gate, the Sretensky Cathedral, part of the Amusement Palace, several churches of the Ascension Monastery, as well as the complexes of the Bread Palace, Tsareboris's Court, and the Trinity Metochion.
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 the Kremlin through a secret passage under threat from the spreading fire. Retreating, Napoleon ordered the Kremlin buildings mined and blown up. Although most of the charges failed to detonate, the damage was significant. The Arsenal, Vodovzvodnaya, Petrovskaya, and First Nameless Towers were blown up, the Corner Arsenal Tower and annexes to the Ivan the Great Bell Tower were seriously damaged, and the Senate was partially damaged. The restoration was overseen by the architect F.K. Sokolov; several towers were rebuilt according to the designs and under the supervision of O.I. Bove. During the reconstruction of Red Square, Bove gave the Nikolskaya Tower a Gothic appearance. The Arsenal was restored and refinished later, between 1815 and 1828, according to designs by Moscow architects A. N. Bakarev, I. L. Mironovsky, I. T. Tamansky, and E. D. Tyurin. At the same time, captured cannons, sent to Moscow by special order of Alexander I, were placed around the Arsenal. In total, it took more than twenty years to clean up the aftermath of the Kremlin explosion, with the final work completed in 1836.
In 1817, a parade ground for a military parade was established on Ivanovskaya Square, for which the ancient Church of St. Nicholas of Gostun was dismantled overnight. In 1823, the royal palace was expanded according to a design by V. P. Stasov, but again proved too small. In 1824, the Metropolitan's house, previously purchased by the treasury, was also expanded and became known as the Small Nicholas Palace in 1831. In the early 1830s, restoration work began on the ancient monuments of the Kremlin. One of the first to be restored was the Terem Palace, between 1836 and 1849, by Academician F. G. Solntsev and architect P. A. Gerasimov. In 1836, the architect A. Montferrand raised and installed the Tsar Bell, which had fallen in the fire of 1737 and lain in a pit since then, on a special pedestal.
By the 1830s, the idea of building a new royal palace on the southern slope of the hill along the river was revived. In 1839, Nicholas I commissioned the construction of the Grand Kremlin Palace to the architect K. A. Ton, whose designs were also being used to construct the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Construction of the building took approximately ten years and was completed by 1849. Even before its completion, the small Church of St. John the Baptist on the Bor was dismantled, as its scale was inappropriate for the new structure. All the old palace buildings were also dismantled at the same time, with the exception of the Terem Palace, the Faceted Chamber, and the Small Golden Chamber, which were incorporated into the overall design of the new palace. Between 1844 and 1851, a new Armory building was erected according to Ton's designs; the old chamber was converted into barracks.
In the second half of the 19th century, no significant reconstruction took place in the Kremlin, with the exception of N. A. Shokhin's restoration of the Amusement Palace, which restored the building to its 17th-century appearance. From 1893 to 1898, a monument to Alexander II was built on the southeastern slope of the Kremlin hill with public funds (designed by sculptor A. M. Opekushin, artist V. V. Zhukovsky, and architect N. V. Sultanov).
20th-21st centuries
In 1908, a memorial cross was erected between the Senate and Arsenal buildings near the Nikolskaya Tower at the site of the death of Prince Sergei Alexandrovich.
Access to the Moscow Kremlin was free for everyone. It was customary to enter through the Spassky Gate, after bowing before the icon of the Savior. The Emperor and his family rarely visited their Moscow residence, so by purchasing a free ticket from the palace office, visitors were entitled to tour all the Kremlin palaces.
During the armed uprising in October–November 1917, the Kremlin, where detachments of military cadets were stationed, was seriously damaged by artillery fire from revolutionary troops. The walls, the Spasskaya Tower and Spassky Clock, the Nikolskaya Tower, the Beklemishevskaya Tower, and almost all the churches within the Kremlin were severely damaged, and the Small Nikolaevsky Palace sustained significant damage.
With the advent of Soviet power, the capital was moved to Moscow, and the Kremlin once again became the political center.
According to historian V. F. Kozlov, at a meeting of the Moscow City Council, the People's Commissars were presented with three possible locations: the Noble Women's Institute, the Reserve Palace near the Red Gate, and the Kremlin. At the Council of People's Commissars meeting, objections were raised against the latter, as the Moscow Kremlin is a favorite promenade for Muscovites, and if the government were to be located there, public access would be restricted or even eliminated. The closure of the Kremlin cathedrals would provoke discontent among believers and the population, and it was also unbecoming for the government of a Soviet republic to be located in the residence of the tsars. However, the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Ya. M. Sverdlov, ended all debate: "Undoubtedly, the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie will howl, claiming that the Bolsheviks are desecrating sacred sites, but this should be the least of our concerns. The interests of the proletarian revolution are above prejudice."
The Petrograd Collegium for the Protection of Ancient Monuments and Artistic Treasures sent a desperate appeal to the government, calling for it to leave the Kremlin, since "...the government's occupation of the Kremlin poses a monstrous threat to the integrity of monuments of the greatest global 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, the Kremlin walls and towers were restored under the direction of architect N. V. Markovnikov; I. E. Bondarenko, I. V. Rylsky, and D. P. Sukhov took part in the work.
During the years of Soviet rule, the architectural ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin suffered significantly. Konstantin Mikhailov, author of a study on the destruction of Kremlin monuments during this period, writes in his book "The Destroyed Kremlin" that "more than half of the architectural ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin was destroyed in the 20th century." Early 20th-century Kremlin plans show 54 structures within the Kremlin walls. More than half of these—28 buildings—no longer exist. In 1918, with the personal involvement of Lenin, the monument to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was demolished. That same year, the monument to Alexander II was destroyed. In the mid-1920s, the chapels over the gate icons at the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, and Borovitskaya towers were demolished.
In 1922, during the campaign to "confiscate church valuables," over 300 poods of silver, over 2 poods of gold, thousands of precious stones, and even the reliquary of Patriarch Hermogenes from the Assumption Cathedral were confiscated from the Kremlin cathedrals. The Grand Kremlin Palace was converted into a venue for Soviet congresses and congresses of the Third International; the Golden Chamber became a kitchen, and the Faceted Chamber, a public dining hall. The Small Nikolaevsky Palace was converted into a club for employees of Soviet institutions, the Catherine Church of the Ascension Monastery was converted into a gym, and Chudovo became a Kremlin hospital.
In the late 1920s, a major wave of demolition of ancient Kremlin structures began. P. G. Palamarchuk, author of the fundamental study of Moscow churches, "Forty by Forty," calculated that on the eve of 1917, 31 churches with 51 altars stood in the Moscow Kremlin. On September 17, 1928, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) adopted a resolution setting a timeframe for the demolition of church buildings and ancient structures in the Moscow Kremlin. Information about the impending destruction of these monuments reached the Main Directorate of Science of the People's Commissariat of Education only in mid-June 1929. By then, the Church of Saints Constantine and Helena had already been demolished. A. V. Lunacharsky, head of the People's Commissariat of Education, sent a letter to M. I. Kalinin, chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, condemning the planned demolition and its implementation in circumvention of the scientific community. At a Politburo meeting, this letter was called “anti-communist and obscene in tone.”
Between 1929 and 1930, two ancient Kremlin monasteries, Chudov and Voznesensky, were completely demolished, along with all their temples, churches, chapels, necropolises, and outbuildings, as well as the Small Nicholas Palace adjacent to Chudov Monastery, which housed the headquarters of the defending cadets. Thus, the entire eastern part of the Kremlin, from Ivanovskaya Square to the Senate Palace, lay in ruins until 1932. In late 1932, the neoclassical All-Russian Central Executive Committee Military School was erected on the site of the destroyed monuments. In 1933, the Church of the Annunciation in Zhitny Dvor, an 5th-century addition to the Annunciation Tower, was demolished. That same year, Moscow's oldest church, the Cathedral of the Savior on Bor, located in the courtyard of the Grand Kremlin Palace, was destroyed. In 1934, a five-story outbuilding was built in its place. Not even the foundations of the church remain, with the exception of fragments of the foundation of the western narthex, which were discovered in 1997. In total, 17 churches with 25 altars were destroyed during the Soviet era.
In addition to the destruction of monuments, some buildings were remodeled. Near the Faceted Chamber, the "Red Porch," the grand staircase used by Russian tsars and emperors to ascend to their coronations in the Assumption Cathedral, was destroyed (it was restored in 1994). Before the Revolution, the façade of the Grand Kremlin Palace contained five white-stone bas-reliefs in the form of the Russian coat of arms—a double-headed eagle—and several smaller bas-reliefs in the form of the coats of arms of the historical possessions of the Russian Empire (Moscow, Kazan, Astrakhan, and others). After the Revolution, these were cut down, and the central double-headed eagle was replaced by a bas-relief in the form of the USSR coat of arms, flanked by the letters "C" and "C" on the left and "C" and "R" on the right. During the restoration of the Grand Kremlin Palace in 1994, all of the historical bas-reliefs on the façade were recreated.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the premises of the Moscow Kremlin were also used as residential premises: the leaders of the Soviet state, the Communist Party, and members of the Kremlin commandant's office officially resided there. In 1920, 2100 people were registered in the Kremlin; by 1935, this number had dropped to 374. As of 1939, 31 people were permanently residing 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. Andreyev, N. A. Voznesensky, and relatives of V. I. Lenin, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, and others. The Kremlin remained a permanent residence until the late 1950s. The last person 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 Kremlin's main gatehouse towers—Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Troitskaya, and Borovitskaya—were replaced with gilded copper stars covered with Ural gemstones. In 1937, the gemstone stars were replaced with ruby glass stars. A ruby star was also installed for the first time on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower.
During the Great Patriotic War, the Kremlin was camouflaged to prevent its destruction. Streets and the facades of other buildings were depicted on the walls, the green roofs were repainted, and the ruby stars were extinguished and covered. The mausoleum was hidden under a two-story fake structure. The architect B. M. Iofan supervised the work. The Germans were unable to carry out targeted bombing of the Kremlin, as it had visibly disappeared. During the war, 18 high-explosive aerial bombs weighing between 50 and 500 kg and about 150 incendiary bombs were dropped on the Kremlin and Red Square, without causing catastrophic damage.
Since 1955, the Kremlin has been partially open to the public, becoming an open-air museum. That same year, a ban on residency within the Kremlin was introduced. In 1967, a monument to Lenin was unveiled in the Kremlin (sculptor V. B. Pinchuk, architect S. B. Speransky). The last major Kremlin structure completed during the Soviet era was the Palace of Congresses, built from 1958 to 1961 according to designs by architects M. V. Posokhin, A. A. Mndoyants, E. N. Stamo, P. P. Shteller, and N. M. Shchepetilnikov. To make way for the new building, the old Armory, the Synodal Administration, the Officers', Kitchen, and Grenadier Buildings, and two of the Kremlin's three Cavalier Buildings were demolished.
During restoration work in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the clay tiles on the Kremlin towers were replaced in many places with metal sheets painted to resemble the tiles. Furthermore, in connection with the construction of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial, a section of the surface layer of the wall between the Corner and Middle Arsenal Towers was chipped away to a depth of 1 meter and then re-laid to create a uniform surface in color and texture, intended to serve as a backdrop for the memorial.
In 1990, the Kremlin was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
In the 1990s, restoration work was carried out on the Kremlin grounds, resulting in the restoration of the Red Porch of the Faceted Chamber, the Alexander and St. Andrew's Halls of the Grand Kremlin Palace, and the restoration of the Senate Palace. From 1996 to 2000, restoration of the Kremlin walls and towers was completed.
In 2001, renovations began on the 14th Kremlin building on Ivanovskaya Square. By 2011, all presidential administration offices had been relocated to Staraya Square. The interior of the office of Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, was moved to the Yeltsin Presidential Center in Yekaterinburg.
In July 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed not to restore Building 14, which has no architectural or historical value, but to instead recreate the historical appearance of the Moscow Kremlin and restore the ancient monasteries on its site: Chudov, founded by Metropolitan Alexy, and Voznesensky, founded by Evdokia Dmitrievna, Dmitry Donskoy's widow. The proposal was discussed at a meeting with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Deputy Director of the Moscow Kremlin Museums and a specialist in ancient Russian architecture, Alexander Batalov, Rector of the Moscow Architectural Institute Dmitry Shvidkovsky, and Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin Sergei Khlebnikov. The proposal generated keen interest among the participants, especially since Building 14 had been practically dismantled several years earlier.
Правление
During the reign of Tsar Feodor Alekseevich (1676–1682) and Tsarevna Sophia (1682–1689), a large-scale reconstruction of the Kremlin complex was undertaken, bringing it to its logical conclusion. New buildings for the Prikazy and Chudov Monastery, upper gardens, and chambers for the tsaritsas and tsarevnas were erected, and all the Kremlin towers (except Nikolskaya) received multi-tiered superstructures with tents decorated with colored tiles. At the same time, the Kremlin changed its color: from red brick to white. On July 7, 1680, as one ancient historical document states, Tsar Feodor Alekseevich "ordered that the city of the Kremlin be whitewashed with lime."
With the beginning of the reign of Peter the Great, the significance of the Moscow Kremlin changed significantly. The tsar moved first to Preobrazhenskoye and then to St. Petersburg, and the fortress lost its status as the permanent royal residence. In the early 18th century, the nature of the Kremlin's development also changed: after the devastating fire of 1701, Peter issued a decree in 1704 prohibiting the construction of wooden buildings within the Kremlin. In 1702, construction of the Arsenal (Zeughaus) began on the burned-out section between the Trinity and Sobakina Towers, continuing intermittently until 1736. With the outbreak of the Northern War, the threat of an invasion of Moscow by Charles XII's troops arose, leading Peter I to order bastions to be built along the Kremlin walls and the moats, drained in the 17th century, to be filled with water. However, these fortifications were never used—the Russian army's victory at Poltava ended the danger.
Under Elizabeth Petrovna, the palace's ancient Dining Room, Reception Room, and Golden Chambers were dismantled between 1743 and 1750, replaced by a small, richly decorated building, the Winter Palace, designed by V.V. Rastrelli and built under the supervision of D.V. Ukhtomsky. At the same time, Ukhtomsky erected the Armory Gallery on the site of the demolished Great Treasury building and oversaw the reconstruction of the Prikazy (Order) Buildings. As the Kremlin structures fell into disrepair, the first priority was to repair them. If this was impossible, old buildings were allowed to be demolished and restored "to their former appearance."
In March 1918, the Soviet government, headed by V. I. Lenin, moved into the Kremlin. Palaces and the Cavalier Corps became its residence and the home of Soviet leaders. Soon, free access to the Kremlin grounds for ordinary Muscovites was prohibited. Churches were closed, and the Kremlin bells fell silent for a long time.
In 1991, the Kremlin became the residence of the President of Russia.
Interesting fact
How many of the Kremlin towers are round and how many are rectangular?
3 towers are round, 17 towers in the Kremlin are rectangular.
Now
In the spring of 2016, Building 14 was completely dismantled. This opened up the possibility for the first time of large-scale archaeological exploration of the Kremlin Hill and the layers of cultural and spiritual heritage hidden within it from the 12th to early 20th centuries. The research was conducted by the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Following the excavations, a public garden was established in their place while a project to restore the monasteries was being developed. In the winter of 2017, Moscow's first "archaeological windows" were opened on Ivanovskaya Square, allowing visitors to explore the well-preserved ancient foundations of the Small Nikolaevsky Palace and the Chudov Monastery. The discovered remains of the foundations of the Catherine Church of the Ascension Monastery are located beneath Spasskaya Street and are hidden from the view of Kremlin visitors.
The Moscow Kremlin State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve has opened a new tourist route introducing Muscovites and visitors to the capital to the history of its destroyed holy sites.
For visitors to the Moscow Kremlin who have viewed the new museum exhibition, an exit through the Spasskaya Tower directly onto Red Square is now open.
Первые поселения
Situated on the high left bank of the Moskva River—Borovitsky Hill—at the confluence of the Neglinnaya River, the Kremlin is an irregular triangle covering 27,5 hectares. The southern wall faces the Moskva River, the northwestern wall faces the Alexander Garden, and the eastern wall faces Red Square.
The first settlements on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin date back to the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC). A Finno-Ugric settlement dating back to the early Iron Age (second half of the 1st millennium BC) was discovered near today's Archangel Cathedral. At this time, a Dyakovo-type settlement occupied the center of the upper floodplain terrace of Borovitsky Hill (the area of today's Cathedral Square) and may have already had fortifications. To the northeast, the settlement was protected by two ravines: one, north of today's Trinity Gate, overlooked the Neglinnaya River, and the other lay between the Petrovskaya and Second Nameless Towers of the modern Kremlin.
Beginning of the 10th century
With the onset of Slavic colonization of the Oka and Moskva River basins in the 10th century, the Vyatichi settled the summit of Borovitsky Hill (possibly reclaiming the former settlement). The Vyatichi settlement on the hill presumably consisted of two fortified centers: the first, larger in area, was located on the site of today's Cathedral Square, while the second occupied the tip of the cape. Both centers were supposedly protected by a ring fortification consisting of a ditch, a rampart, and a palisade. The Vyatichi also incorporated into their defensive fortifications two ravines connected by a washout, which had served the same function in pre-Slavic times; the ravines were transformed into a ditch up to 9 meters deep and approximately 3,8 meters wide. Presumably, some kind of political and administrative center was located on the cape-like part of the settlement: a Kievan hanging seal dating back to the late 11th century was found there during archaeological excavations. Both parts likely had their own cult centers—the upper one near Cathedral Square, the lower one "under the Forest." The oldest Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist in Moscow stood on this site. The Kremlin toponyms "Makovitsa," "Gory," and "Bor" also date back to the pre-princely period. These two centers were surrounded by a trading settlement, which stretched along the Neglinnaya and Moskva rivers. The settlement's development and prosperity were linked to the trade routes that ran through the area: the Moskva River carried lively trade between East and West. In addition to the waterway, two land roads ran nearby—one to Novgorod (later Volotsk), the other from Kyiv via Smolensk to the northeast. The two roads connected at the foot of Borovitsky Hill by a ford across the Moskva River (in the area of today's Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge).
Period 1156 – 1300
In 1156, the first fortifications were built on the site of today's Kremlin, extending for approximately 850 meters and covering an area of approximately 3 hectares. The fortification was surrounded by a moat 16-18 meters wide and at least 5 meters deep. The earthen rampart was approximately 14,5 meters wide and 7 meters high. For that time, it was typical of an average Russian fortress. The rampart was reinforced with oak beams held together by tongue and groove joints. During the Mongol invasion, after five days of resistance, the Mongols captured Moscow, which was defended by Yuri's youngest son, Vladimir, and the voivode, Philip Nyanka, "with a small army." The Kremlin was destroyed, all its defenders were killed, and Vladimir Yuryevich was captured. According to the Laurentian Chronicle, all the monasteries, churches, and 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 youngest son of Alexander Nevsky) built the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior here during the first year of his reign. A legend about this event is mentioned by Kremlin history scholar Alexander Voronov.
In 1293, Moscow was taken by the army of the Tatar prince Tudan ("Dyudenev's army").
14th-15th centuries
From the very beginning of the 14th century, the conflict between the Moscow and Tver princes, which had begun under Daniil Alexandrovich, intensified. This internecine conflict continued until 1329 and ultimately resulted in a significant strengthening of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.
In 1339, oak walls and towers were built.
In the 14th century, five monasteries were established in the Kremlin. The first of these (the Transfiguration Monastery on the Bor) was founded in 1330, for the millennium of Constantinople, the "New Rome." Its center was the ancient Moscow church of the Cathedral of the Savior on the Bor, or the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior "on the Bor." Moscow princes and princesses were buried here, until the role of burial site passed to the Archangel Cathedral for men and the Ascension Monastery (also destroyed) for women. After the establishment of the Novospassky Monastery in the late 15th century, the Cathedral of the Savior on the Bor received the status of a court church. With the construction of the Kremlin Palace in the 1830s and 1840s, the Cathedral of the Savior was incorporated into the palace's courtyard. The church was destroyed on May 1, 1933, by decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Another ancient structure was the Chudov Monastery, founded by Metropolitan Alexy in 1365. It was 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 burial place of Metropolitan Alexy.
In 1483, the Church of St. Alexis was built on the monastery grounds. By order of Archimandrite Gennady of Chudov, the relics of Metropolitan Alexis were transferred to it.
Between 1501 and 1503, the ancient Church of St. Michael the Archangel was replaced by a church built by Italian masters. At the beginning of the 20th century, a crypt was constructed in the basement of the St. Alexis Church to house the remains of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who died in the Kremlin in 1905 at the hands of terrorists. The Grand Duke's crypt was located under the floor, precisely beneath the shrine of St. Alexis. In 1929, all buildings of the Chudov Monastery were demolished.
Between 1366 and 1368, under Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy, the Kremlin's wooden walls were replaced with walls and towers made of local white stone (according to archaeological evidence, the towers and most important sections of the wall, where the greatest risk of assault lay, were made of stone). From this period onward, the term "White-Stone Moscow" frequently appears in chronicles. Soon after the white-stone walls were built, they twice resisted sieges by Prince Olgerd's troops—in 1368 and 1370. In 1382, Khan Tokhtamysh deceived his way into the Kremlin and sacked it, but the fortress was quickly restored. Gradually, the dense wooden construction of the Kremlin was replaced by stone, a process facilitated by frequent fires. In 1404, Lazar the Serb assembled and installed the first clock near the Annunciation Cathedral at the courtyard of Prince Vasily Dmitrievich. By the mid-15th century, the Annunciation Cathedral in the Kremlin was rebuilt and expanded, a church, later called the Deposition of the Robe, was erected in the Metropolitan's Court, and the merchant Khovrin built the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross in front of his house.
In the late 1450s and 1460s, the Church of the Entry of the Virgin Mary with a stone chamber was built at the courtyard of the Simonov Monastery, near the Nikolsky Gate; a chapel of the Praise of the Virgin Mary was added to the Dormition Cathedral; the Church of the Epiphany was erected at the courtyard of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery; and a stone Church of John the Baptist was erected on the territory of the Grand Duke's court.
Gradually, the Kremlin's white-stone fortifications deteriorated; the material proved insufficiently durable, and the structures began to crumble. 15th-century chronicles contain numerous references to restoration work. In 1462, V.D. Ermolin carried out a large-scale renovation of the walls from the Sviblova Strelnitsa to the Borovitsky Gate.
XV-XVI centuries
In the second half of the 15th century, under Ivan III the Great, a radical reconstruction of the Moscow Kremlin began. The new Dormition Cathedral was the first to be built, as the old one, built by Ivan Kalita, had already fallen into disrepair. Construction in 1471 was initially entrusted to the Russian architects Krivtsov and Myshkin, but the building, even up to the vaults, collapsed in 1474 during an earthquake—"the lime was not glued, and the stone was not firm." Ivan III invited the Italian architect Aristotle Fioravanti, who erected the existing building by 1479, modeled on the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir. Between 1484 and 1486, Pskov craftsmen erected a new Church of the Deposition of the Robe, and between 1484 and 1489, a new Annunciation Cathedral was built on the foundations of the previous church. By that time, following Fioravanti, other Italian architects had been invited to Moscow. In 1485, construction began on the new Grand Ducal Palace, continuing, with long interruptions, until 1514. The palace's ceremonial section was completed first, of which the Faceted Chamber, built between 1487 and 1491 by the Italian architects Marco Fryazin and Pietro Antonio Solari, remains today. Aleviz Fryazin oversaw the construction of the princely chambers and the inner wall separating them from the rest of the Kremlin. He also moved the palace's ceremonial section to a new location—from the south to the east, facing Cathedral Square. Despite the fact that the palace was built by Italian architects, its architecture fully preserved the principles of ancient Russian chamber construction: separate stone and wooden structures were erected on a single, high stone basement. With the construction of the Archangel Cathedral (architect Aleviz the New) and the Ivan the Great Bell Tower (architect Bon Fryazin) in 1505–1508, as well as the Treasury Yard building between them, the formation of Cathedral Square as the main square of the Moscow Kremlin was essentially 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 John Climacus (1505-1508), the Church of St. Nicholas of Gostun, and the Church of St. John the Baptist at the Borovitsky Gate was rebuilt (1504).
Concurrent with the construction of the Grand Duke's Palace and the renovation of the Kremlin churches, new Kremlin walls and towers were being built. Beginning in 1485, over the course of a decade, under the direction of Italian architects, the white stone wall sections and towers were dismantled, and new ones of fired brick were erected in their place. The fortress's area was expanded by annexing significant territories in the northwest, reaching 27,5 hectares, and the Kremlin acquired its current outline of an irregular triangle. The shape of the towers and the battlements at the top of the walls are reminiscent of the Scaliger Castle in Verona and the Sforza Castle in Milan. The Moscow Kremlin replicates the Sforza Castle down to the smallest detail—the top of the Russian fortress walls was crowned with 1045 dovetail-shaped battlements. Even their height is the same—71 meters.
In 1508, the Aleviz Moat was dug along the walls, fed by the Neglinnaya River. The Kremlin was finally transformed into an impregnable fortress, surrounded by water on all sides, isolated from the city, which had grown by that time. During restoration of the walls and towers in 1946–1950 and 1974–1978, white stone blocks used as backfill were discovered within their brickwork, in the lower sections and foundations. These may be the remains of the white stone walls of the Kremlin from the time of Dmitry Donskoy.
In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the main Kremlin streets—Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, and Chudovskaya—were regulated and widened. By that time, the Kremlin still housed numerous courtyards belonging to boyars, clergy, and appanage princes, who settled primarily in Podol and north of Cathedral Square. Under Vasily III and Ivan the Terrible, as the struggle with the appanage princes intensified, the Grand Duke confiscated their courtyards and handed them over to his confidants. In the 16th century, construction in the Kremlin was primarily limited to the renovation and improvement of existing buildings and ensembles. Between 1532 and 1552, the Church of the Resurrection was added to the Ivan the Great Bell Tower; in the middle of the century, the Annunciation Cathedral was rebuilt; the Church of the Solovetsky Miracle Workers and the Church of the Three Hierarchs appeared in the Metropolitan's Court; the Grand Duke's (later Tsar's) Palace was repeatedly rebuilt and expanded. The Annunciation Cathedral became nine-domed, and its domes, like those of the Assumption Cathedral, were covered with gold brought from conquered Kazan. A unique tent-roofed church was erected at the Trinity Metochion. Ivan the Terrible lived for a long time in the "oprichnina court" outside the Kremlin; after the abolition of the oprichnina, new four-chambered Bedchambers were built for the tsar near the Church of the Savior on the Forest (on the site of today's St. George's Hall).
XVI-XVII centuries
The first surviving images of the Kremlin date back to the late 16th and early 17th centuries: a plan included in the "Notes on Muscovy" by the Austrian ambassador Sigismund von Herberstein and a plan published by the Dutch cartographer Gerrits Hessel, known as "Kremlingrad." The latter gives an idea of the Kremlin's layout as it existed at the time. Among the closely packed buildings, the distinct outlines of Cathedral (Tsar's) and Ivanovskaya squares are visible. From Ivanovskaya square, two streets lead through the northeastern 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 continued 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 are built in the style of Italian architects and decorated with beautiful ornaments. The Tsar's palace is especially beautiful..." He also wrote about the large number of wooden structures in the Kremlin.
In 1610-1612 the Kremlin was occupied by the Polish-Lithuanian garrison of Alexander Gonsevsky.
With the accession of the Romanovs, active construction of ecclesiastical and secular buildings resumed. In 1624, the Spasskaya Tower was added. In 1635–1636, the Terem Palace and palace churches were built.
18th-19th centuries
In 1768, a special government organization—the Kremlin Construction Expedition—was created to construct a new Kremlin Palace based on V. I. Bazhenov's design. In preparation for the new palace, the entire southeastern portion of the hill's brow was demolished, and many ancient Russian architectural monuments were destroyed, including the southern section of the Kremlin wall, along with the Taynitskaya and First Nameless Towers. Bazhenov's goal was to "renew the appearance of this ancient and disorganized city" in keeping with the then-prevalent classical aesthetic. The plan included not only building a new palace but also radically redesigning the Kremlin's main streets and squares, preserving only a few cathedrals and buildings of the Naryshkin and Petrine Baroque styles. However, in 1775, construction of the palace was cancelled, the official reason given being the settling of the Archangel Cathedral. The enormous cost of reconstruction and Catherine II's dislike of Moscow contributed to this decision. The dismantled wall and towers were soon restored to their original form.
In 1775, the Projected Plan—a plan for the reconstruction of Moscow—was approved, and the Stone Prikaz, headed by P.N. Kozhin, was created to implement it. At the end of 1776, Kozhin compiled a separate report on the reconstruction of the Moscow Kremlin, which envisioned the creation of regular squares in the Kremlin, as well as the construction of new palaces and government buildings with "the finest façades according to the rules of modern architecture." Furthermore, the new structures were to be erected at a distance from the ancient buildings, which had been carefully preserved. In 1763, by decree of Empress Catherine II, the Senate was divided into departments, and two of them—the one in charge of noble rights and the judicial department—were transferred from the capital to Moscow. To house them, the Senate Building, designed by Matvey Kazakov, was constructed between 1776 and 1787. It became the Kremlin's first major classical structure. With the construction of the Senate, the last private properties disappeared from the Kremlin grounds. During those same years, Kazakov built the Bishop's House on Ivanovskaya Square and the Gothic portico of the Chudov Monastery.
In 1797, Kazakov drew up a new plan for the overall reconstruction of the Kremlin, prompted by the coronation of Paul I. Like Bazhenov's project, Kazakov's plan for the Kremlin's reconstruction remained unimplemented, but it solidified the concept of the Kremlin as a unified architectural ensemble.
In the early years of the 19th century, the Kremlin began to be perceived by contemporaries as a symbol of Russia's historical and military glory, which led to the emergence of striking pseudo-Gothic forms in its architecture. The architect I. V. Egotov used Gothic elements in the reconstruction of the Amusement Palace and several other Kremlin buildings.
At the same time, the early 19th century saw the demolition of numerous ancient buildings. Among them were the famous Armorial Gate, the Sretensky Cathedral, part of the Amusement Palace, several churches of the Ascension Monastery, as well as the complexes of the Bread Palace, Tsareboris's Court, and the Trinity Metochion.
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 the Kremlin through a secret passage under threat from the spreading fire. Retreating, Napoleon ordered the Kremlin buildings mined and blown up. Although most of the charges failed to detonate, the damage was significant. The Arsenal, Vodovzvodnaya, Petrovskaya, and First Nameless Towers were blown up, the Corner Arsenal Tower and annexes to the Ivan the Great Bell Tower were seriously damaged, and the Senate was partially damaged. The restoration was overseen by the architect F.K. Sokolov; several towers were rebuilt according to the designs and under the supervision of O.I. Bove. During the reconstruction of Red Square, Bove gave the Nikolskaya Tower a Gothic appearance. The Arsenal was restored and refinished later, between 1815 and 1828, according to designs by Moscow architects A. N. Bakarev, I. L. Mironovsky, I. T. Tamansky, and E. D. Tyurin. At the same time, captured cannons, sent to Moscow by special order of Alexander I, were placed around the Arsenal. In total, it took more than twenty years to clean up the aftermath of the Kremlin explosion, with the final work completed in 1836.
In 1817, a parade ground for a military parade was established on Ivanovskaya Square, for which the ancient Church of St. Nicholas of Gostun was dismantled overnight. In 1823, the royal palace was expanded according to a design by V. P. Stasov, but again proved too small. In 1824, the Metropolitan's house, previously purchased by the treasury, was also expanded and became known as the Small Nicholas Palace in 1831. In the early 1830s, restoration work began on the ancient monuments of the Kremlin. One of the first to be restored was the Terem Palace, between 1836 and 1849, by Academician F. G. Solntsev and architect P. A. Gerasimov. In 1836, the architect A. Montferrand raised and installed the Tsar Bell, which had fallen in the fire of 1737 and lain in a pit since then, on a special pedestal.
By the 1830s, the idea of building a new royal palace on the southern slope of the hill along the river was revived. In 1839, Nicholas I commissioned the construction of the Grand Kremlin Palace to the architect K. A. Ton, whose designs were also being used to construct the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Construction of the building took approximately ten years and was completed by 1849. Even before its completion, the small Church of St. John the Baptist on the Bor was dismantled, as its scale was inappropriate for the new structure. All the old palace buildings were also dismantled at the same time, with the exception of the Terem Palace, the Faceted Chamber, and the Small Golden Chamber, which were incorporated into the overall design of the new palace. Between 1844 and 1851, a new Armory building was erected according to Ton's designs; the old chamber was converted into barracks.
In the second half of the 19th century, no significant reconstruction took place in the Kremlin, with the exception of N. A. Shokhin's restoration of the Amusement Palace, which restored the building to its 17th-century appearance. From 1893 to 1898, a monument to Alexander II was built on the southeastern slope of the Kremlin hill with public funds (designed by sculptor A. M. Opekushin, artist V. V. Zhukovsky, and architect N. V. Sultanov).
20th-21st centuries
In 1908, a memorial cross was erected between the Senate and Arsenal buildings near the Nikolskaya Tower at the site of the death of Prince Sergei Alexandrovich.
Access to the Moscow Kremlin was free for everyone. It was customary to enter through the Spassky Gate, after bowing before the icon of the Savior. The Emperor and his family rarely visited their Moscow residence, so by purchasing a free ticket from the palace office, visitors were entitled to tour all the Kremlin palaces.
During the armed uprising in October–November 1917, the Kremlin, where detachments of military cadets were stationed, was seriously damaged by artillery fire from revolutionary troops. The walls, the Spasskaya Tower and Spassky Clock, the Nikolskaya Tower, the Beklemishevskaya Tower, and almost all the churches within the Kremlin were severely damaged, and the Small Nikolaevsky Palace sustained significant damage.
With the advent of Soviet power, the capital was moved to Moscow, and the Kremlin once again became the political center.
According to historian V. F. Kozlov, at a meeting of the Moscow City Council, the People's Commissars were presented with three possible locations: the Noble Women's Institute, the Reserve Palace near the Red Gate, and the Kremlin. At the Council of People's Commissars meeting, objections were raised against the latter, as the Moscow Kremlin is a favorite promenade for Muscovites, and if the government were to be located there, public access would be restricted or even eliminated. The closure of the Kremlin cathedrals would provoke discontent among believers and the population, and it was also unbecoming for the government of a Soviet republic to be located in the residence of the tsars. However, the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Ya. M. Sverdlov, ended all debate: "Undoubtedly, the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie will howl, claiming that the Bolsheviks are desecrating sacred sites, but this should be the least of our concerns. The interests of the proletarian revolution are above prejudice."
The Petrograd Collegium for the Protection of Ancient Monuments and Artistic Treasures sent a desperate appeal to the government, calling for it to leave the Kremlin, since "...the government's occupation of the Kremlin poses a monstrous threat to the integrity of monuments of the greatest global 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, the Kremlin walls and towers were restored under the direction of architect N. V. Markovnikov; I. E. Bondarenko, I. V. Rylsky, and D. P. Sukhov took part in the work.
During the years of Soviet rule, the architectural ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin suffered significantly. Konstantin Mikhailov, author of a study on the destruction of Kremlin monuments during this period, writes in his book "The Destroyed Kremlin" that "more than half of the architectural ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin was destroyed in the 20th century." Early 20th-century Kremlin plans show 54 structures within the Kremlin walls. More than half of these—28 buildings—no longer exist. In 1918, with the personal involvement of Lenin, the monument to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was demolished. That same year, the monument to Alexander II was destroyed. In the mid-1920s, the chapels over the gate icons at the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, and Borovitskaya towers were demolished.
In 1922, during the campaign to "confiscate church valuables," over 300 poods of silver, over 2 poods of gold, thousands of precious stones, and even the reliquary of Patriarch Hermogenes from the Assumption Cathedral were confiscated from the Kremlin cathedrals. The Grand Kremlin Palace was converted into a venue for Soviet congresses and congresses of the Third International; the Golden Chamber became a kitchen, and the Faceted Chamber, a public dining hall. The Small Nikolaevsky Palace was converted into a club for employees of Soviet institutions, the Catherine Church of the Ascension Monastery was converted into a gym, and Chudovo became a Kremlin hospital.
In the late 1920s, a major wave of demolition of ancient Kremlin structures began. P. G. Palamarchuk, author of the fundamental study of Moscow churches, "Forty by Forty," calculated that on the eve of 1917, 31 churches with 51 altars stood in the Moscow Kremlin. On September 17, 1928, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) adopted a resolution setting a timeframe for the demolition of church buildings and ancient structures in the Moscow Kremlin. Information about the impending destruction of these monuments reached the Main Directorate of Science of the People's Commissariat of Education only in mid-June 1929. By then, the Church of Saints Constantine and Helena had already been demolished. A. V. Lunacharsky, head of the People's Commissariat of Education, sent a letter to M. I. Kalinin, chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, condemning the planned demolition and its implementation in circumvention of the scientific community. At a Politburo meeting, this letter was called “anti-communist and obscene in tone.”
Between 1929 and 1930, two ancient Kremlin monasteries, Chudov and Voznesensky, were completely demolished, along with all their temples, churches, chapels, necropolises, and outbuildings, as well as the Small Nicholas Palace adjacent to Chudov Monastery, which housed the headquarters of the defending cadets. Thus, the entire eastern part of the Kremlin, from Ivanovskaya Square to the Senate Palace, lay in ruins until 1932. In late 1932, the neoclassical All-Russian Central Executive Committee Military School was erected on the site of the destroyed monuments. In 1933, the Church of the Annunciation in Zhitny Dvor, an 5th-century addition to the Annunciation Tower, was demolished. That same year, Moscow's oldest church, the Cathedral of the Savior on Bor, located in the courtyard of the Grand Kremlin Palace, was destroyed. In 1934, a five-story outbuilding was built in its place. Not even the foundations of the church remain, with the exception of fragments of the foundation of the western narthex, which were discovered in 1997. In total, 17 churches with 25 altars were destroyed during the Soviet era.
In addition to the destruction of monuments, some buildings were remodeled. Near the Faceted Chamber, the "Red Porch," the grand staircase used by Russian tsars and emperors to ascend to their coronations in the Assumption Cathedral, was destroyed (it was restored in 1994). Before the Revolution, the façade of the Grand Kremlin Palace contained five white-stone bas-reliefs in the form of the Russian coat of arms—a double-headed eagle—and several smaller bas-reliefs in the form of the coats of arms of the historical possessions of the Russian Empire (Moscow, Kazan, Astrakhan, and others). After the Revolution, these were cut down, and the central double-headed eagle was replaced by a bas-relief in the form of the USSR coat of arms, flanked by the letters "C" and "C" on the left and "C" and "R" on the right. During the restoration of the Grand Kremlin Palace in 1994, all of the historical bas-reliefs on the façade were recreated.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the premises of the Moscow Kremlin were also used as residential premises: the leaders of the Soviet state, the Communist Party, and members of the Kremlin commandant's office officially resided there. In 1920, 2100 people were registered in the Kremlin; by 1935, this number had dropped to 374. As of 1939, 31 people were permanently residing 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. Andreyev, N. A. Voznesensky, and relatives of V. I. Lenin, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, and others. The Kremlin remained a permanent residence until the late 1950s. The last person 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 Kremlin's main gatehouse towers—Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Troitskaya, and Borovitskaya—were replaced with gilded copper stars covered with Ural gemstones. In 1937, the gemstone stars were replaced with ruby glass stars. A ruby star was also installed for the first time on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower.
During the Great Patriotic War, the Kremlin was camouflaged to prevent its destruction. Streets and the facades of other buildings were depicted on the walls, the green roofs were repainted, and the ruby stars were extinguished and covered. The mausoleum was hidden under a two-story fake structure. The architect B. M. Iofan supervised the work. The Germans were unable to carry out targeted bombing of the Kremlin, as it had visibly disappeared. During the war, 18 high-explosive aerial bombs weighing between 50 and 500 kg and about 150 incendiary bombs were dropped on the Kremlin and Red Square, without causing catastrophic damage.
Since 1955, the Kremlin has been partially open to the public, becoming an open-air museum. That same year, a ban on residency within the Kremlin was introduced. In 1967, a monument to Lenin was unveiled in the Kremlin (sculptor V. B. Pinchuk, architect S. B. Speransky). The last major Kremlin structure completed during the Soviet era was the Palace of Congresses, built from 1958 to 1961 according to designs by architects M. V. Posokhin, A. A. Mndoyants, E. N. Stamo, P. P. Shteller, and N. M. Shchepetilnikov. To make way for the new building, the old Armory, the Synodal Administration, the Officers', Kitchen, and Grenadier Buildings, and two of the Kremlin's three Cavalier Buildings were demolished.
During restoration work in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the clay tiles on the Kremlin towers were replaced in many places with metal sheets painted to resemble the tiles. Furthermore, in connection with the construction of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial, a section of the surface layer of the wall between the Corner and Middle Arsenal Towers was chipped away to a depth of 1 meter and then re-laid to create a uniform surface in color and texture, intended to serve as a backdrop for the memorial.
In 1990, the Kremlin was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
In the 1990s, restoration work was carried out on the Kremlin grounds, resulting in the restoration of the Red Porch of the Faceted Chamber, the Alexander and St. Andrew's Halls of the Grand Kremlin Palace, and the restoration of the Senate Palace. From 1996 to 2000, restoration of the Kremlin walls and towers was completed.
In 2001, renovations began on the 14th Kremlin building on Ivanovskaya Square. By 2011, all presidential administration offices had been relocated to Staraya Square. The interior of the office of Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, was moved to the Yeltsin Presidential Center in Yekaterinburg.
In July 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed not to restore Building 14, which has no architectural or historical value, but to instead recreate the historical appearance of the Moscow Kremlin and restore the ancient monasteries on its site: Chudov, founded by Metropolitan Alexy, and Voznesensky, founded by Evdokia Dmitrievna, Dmitry Donskoy's widow. The proposal was discussed at a meeting with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Deputy Director of the Moscow Kremlin Museums and a specialist in ancient Russian architecture, Alexander Batalov, Rector of the Moscow Architectural Institute Dmitry Shvidkovsky, and Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin Sergei Khlebnikov. The proposal generated keen interest among the participants, especially since Building 14 had been practically dismantled several years earlier.
Правление
During the reign of Tsar Feodor Alekseevich (1676–1682) and Tsarevna Sophia (1682–1689), a large-scale reconstruction of the Kremlin complex was undertaken, bringing it to its logical conclusion. New buildings for the Prikazy and Chudov Monastery, upper gardens, and chambers for the tsaritsas and tsarevnas were erected, and all the Kremlin towers (except Nikolskaya) received multi-tiered superstructures with tents decorated with colored tiles. At the same time, the Kremlin changed its color: from red brick to white. On July 7, 1680, as one ancient historical document states, Tsar Feodor Alekseevich "ordered that the city of the Kremlin be whitewashed with lime."
With the beginning of the reign of Peter the Great, the significance of the Moscow Kremlin changed significantly. The tsar moved first to Preobrazhenskoye and then to St. Petersburg, and the fortress lost its status as the permanent royal residence. In the early 18th century, the nature of the Kremlin's development also changed: after the devastating fire of 1701, Peter issued a decree in 1704 prohibiting the construction of wooden buildings within the Kremlin. In 1702, construction of the Arsenal (Zeughaus) began on the burned-out section between the Trinity and Sobakina Towers, continuing intermittently until 1736. With the outbreak of the Northern War, the threat of an invasion of Moscow by Charles XII's troops arose, leading Peter I to order bastions to be built along the Kremlin walls and the moats, drained in the 17th century, to be filled with water. However, these fortifications were never used—the Russian army's victory at Poltava ended the danger.
Under Elizabeth Petrovna, the palace's ancient Dining Room, Reception Room, and Golden Chambers were dismantled between 1743 and 1750, replaced by a small, richly decorated building, the Winter Palace, designed by V.V. Rastrelli and built under the supervision of D.V. Ukhtomsky. At the same time, Ukhtomsky erected the Armory Gallery on the site of the demolished Great Treasury building and oversaw the reconstruction of the Prikazy (Order) Buildings. As the Kremlin structures fell into disrepair, the first priority was to repair them. If this was impossible, old buildings were allowed to be demolished and restored "to their former appearance."
In March 1918, the Soviet government, headed by V. I. Lenin, moved into the Kremlin. Palaces and the Cavalier Corps became its residence and the home of Soviet leaders. Soon, free access to the Kremlin grounds for ordinary Muscovites was prohibited. Churches were closed, and the Kremlin bells fell silent for a long time.
In 1991, the Kremlin became the residence of the President of Russia.
Interesting fact
How many of the Kremlin towers are round and how many are rectangular?
3 towers are round, 17 towers in the Kremlin are rectangular.
Now
In the spring of 2016, Building 14 was completely dismantled. This opened up the possibility for the first time of large-scale archaeological exploration of the Kremlin Hill and the layers of cultural and spiritual heritage hidden within it from the 12th to early 20th centuries. The research was conducted by the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Following the excavations, a public garden was established in their place while a project to restore the monasteries was being developed. In the winter of 2017, Moscow's first "archaeological windows" were opened on Ivanovskaya Square, allowing visitors to explore the well-preserved ancient foundations of the Small Nikolaevsky Palace and the Chudov Monastery. The discovered remains of the foundations of the Catherine Church of the Ascension Monastery are located beneath Spasskaya Street and are hidden from the view of Kremlin visitors.
The Moscow Kremlin State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve has opened a new tourist route introducing Muscovites and visitors to the capital to the history of its destroyed holy sites.
For visitors to the Moscow Kremlin who have viewed the new museum exhibition, an exit through the Spasskaya Tower directly onto Red Square is now open.