Fortified complex in Moscow, Russia
The
Moscow Kremlin
(
Russian
:
Московский Кремль
Moskovsky Kreml'
,
IPA:
[m??skofsk??j
?kr?eml?]
), or simply the
Kremlin
, is a fortified complex in
Moscow
,
Russia
.
[1]
Located in the centre of the country's capital city, it is the best known of the
kremlins
(Russian
citadels
) and includes five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing
Kremlin Wall
along with the
Kremlin towers
. Within the complex is the
Grand Kremlin Palace
, which served as the royal residence of the
Emperor of Russia
. It is now the official residence of the
President of the Russian Federation
. The Kremlin overlooks the
Moskva River
to the south,
Saint Basil's Cathedral
and
Red Square
to the east, and
Alexander Garden
to the west.
The name
kremlin
means "fortress inside a city" in Russian,
[2]
and is often also used metonymically in international politics to refer to the
Government of the Russian Federation
. Likewise, during the
Cold War
, it referred to the
Government of the Soviet Union
, which operated out of the city in the erstwhile
Russian SFSR
. The term "
Kremlinology
" is related to the
metonym
and refers to the study of Soviet and Russian politics.
Largely open to the public, the Kremlin offers supervised tours;
[3]
the accompanying
Moscow Kremlin Museums
reportedly attracted 1,024,610 visitors in 2023.
[4]
History
[
edit
]
Origin
[
edit
]
The site had been continuously inhabited by
Finnic peoples
(especially the
Meryans
) since the 2nd century
BCE
. The
Slavs
occupied the south-western portion of
Borovitsky Hill
as early as the 11th century, as evidenced by a metropolitan seal from the 1090s which was unearthed by Soviet archaeologists in the area. The
Vyatichi
built a
fortified structure
(or "grad") on the hill where the
Neglinnaya River
flowed into the
Moskva River
.
Up to the 14th century, the site was known as the "grad of Moscow". The word "Kremlin" was first recorded in 1331
[5]
(though etymologist
Max Vasmer
mentions an earlier appearance in 1320
[6]
). The grad was greatly extended by Prince
Yuri Dolgorukiy
in 1156, destroyed by the
Mongols
in 1237 and rebuilt in oak by
Ivan I Kalita
in 1339.
[7]
Seat of the grand dukes
[
edit
]
Dmitri Donskoi
replaced the oak
palisade
with a strong citadel of white limestone in 1366?1368 on the basic foundations of the current walls;
[7]
this fortification withstood a siege by Khan
Tokhtamysh
. Dmitri's son
Vasily I
resumed construction of churches and cloisters in the Kremlin. The newly built
Cathedral of the Annunciation
was painted by
Theophanes the Greek
,
Andrei Rublev
, and
Prokhor
in 1406. The
Chudov Monastery
was founded by Dmitri's tutor,
Metropolitan Alexis
; while his widow,
Eudoxia
, established the
Ascension Convent
in 1397.
Residence of the tsars
[
edit
]
Grand Prince Ivan III
organised the reconstruction of the Kremlin, inviting a number of skilled architects from
Renaissance Italy
, including
Petrus Antonius Solarius
, who designed the new Kremlin wall and its towers, and
Marcus Ruffus
who designed the new palace for the prince. It was during his reign that three extant cathedrals of the Kremlin, the Deposition Church, and
the Palace of Facets
were constructed. The highest building of the city and
Muscovite Russia
was the
Ivan the Great Bell Tower
, built in 1505?1508 and augmented to its present height in 1600. The Kremlin walls as they now appear were built between 1485 and 1495.
[7]
Spasskie
gates of the wall still bear a dedication in Latin praising Petrus Antonius Solarius for the design.
After construction of the new kremlin walls and churches was complete, the monarch decreed that no structures should be built in the immediate vicinity of the citadel. The Kremlin was separated from the walled merchant town (
Kitay-gorod
) by a 30-meter-wide moat, over which
Saint Basil's Cathedral
was constructed during the reign of
Ivan the Terrible
. The same tsar also renovated some of his grandfather's palaces, added a new palace and cathedral for his sons, and endowed the Trinity
metochion
inside the Kremlin. The metochion was administrated by the
Trinity Monastery
and contained the graceful
tower church
of
St. Sergius
, which was described by foreigners as one of the finest in the country.
During the
Time of Troubles
, the Kremlin was held by the
Polish
forces for two years, between 21 September 1610 and 26 October 1612. The Kremlin's liberation by the volunteer army of prince
Dmitry Pozharsky
and
Kuzma Minin
from
Nizhny Novgorod
paved the way for the election of
Mikhail Romanov
as the new tsar. During his reign and that of
his son Alexis
and grandson
Feodor
, the eleven-domed Upper Saviour Cathedral,
Armorial Gate
,
Terem Palace
,
Amusement Palace
and the palace of
Patriarch Nikon
were built. Following the death of Alexis's son, Feodor, and the
Moscow Uprising of 1682
,
Tsar Peter
escaped with much difficulty from the Kremlin and as a result developed a dislike for it. Three decades later in 1703, Peter abandoned the residence of his forefathers for his new capital,
Saint Petersburg
.
The Golden Hall, a throne room with murals painted probably after 1547, was destroyed to make place for the Kremlin Palace, commissioned by
Elizabeth of Russia
and designed by architect
Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli
in 1752.
[8]
Imperial period
[
edit
]
Although still used for coronation ceremonies, the Kremlin was abandoned and neglected until 1773, when
Catherine the Great
engaged
Vasili Bazhenov
to build her new residence there. Bazhenov produced a bombastic
Neoclassical
design on a heroic scale, which involved the demolition of several churches and palaces, as well as a portion of the Kremlin wall. After the preparations were over, construction was delayed due to lack of funds. Several years later the architect
Matvey Kazakov
supervised the reconstruction of the dismantled sections of the wall and of some structures of the
Chudov Monastery
and built the spacious and luxurious
Offices of the Senate
, since adapted for use as the principal workplace of the President of Russia.
During the Imperial period, from the early 18th and until the late 19th century, the Kremlin walls were traditionally painted white, in accordance with fashion.
[9]
French forces occupied the Kremlin from 2 September to 11 October 1812, following the
French invasion of Russia
. When
Napoleon
retreated from Moscow, he ordered the whole Kremlin to be blown up. The
Kremlin Arsenal
, several portions of the Kremlin Wall and several wall towers were destroyed by explosions and the
Faceted Chamber
and other churches were damaged by fire. Explosions continued for three days, from 21 to 23 October 1812. However, rain damaged the
fuses
, and the damage was less severe than intended. Restoration works were undertaken in 1816?1819, supervised by
Osip Bove
. During the remainder of the reign of
Alexander I
, several ancient structures were renovated in a fanciful neo-Gothic style, but many others, including all the buildings of the Trinity metochion, were condemned as "disused" or "dilapidated" and were torn down.
On visiting Moscow for his coronation festivities, Tsar
Nicholas I
was not satisfied with the Grand Palace (alias Winter Palace), which had been erected in the 1750s to the design of
Francesco Rastrelli
. The elaborate
Baroque
structure was demolished, as was the nearby church of St. John the Precursor, built by
Aloisio the New
in 1508 in place of the first church constructed in Moscow. The architect
Konstantin Thon
was commissioned to replace them with the
Grand Kremlin Palace
, which was to rival the
Winter Palace
in St. Petersburg in its dimensions and in the opulence of its interiors. The palace was constructed in 1839?1849, followed by the re-building of the
Kremlin Armoury
in 1851.
After 1851 the Kremlin changed little until the
Russian Revolution of 1917
. The only new features added during this period were the
Monument to Alexander II
and a stone cross marking the spot where in 1905
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia
was assassinated by
Ivan Kalyayev
. These monuments were destroyed by the
Bolsheviks
in 1918.
Soviet period
[
edit
]
The
Soviet
government moved from
Petrograd
(present-day Saint Petersburg) to Moscow on 12 March 1918.
Vladimir Lenin
selected the
Kremlin Senate
as his residence.
Joseph Stalin
also had his personal rooms in the Kremlin. He was eager to remove all the "relics of the tsarist regime" from his headquarters. Golden eagles on the towers were replaced by shining
Kremlin stars
, while the wall near
Lenin's Mausoleum
was turned into the
Kremlin Wall Necropolis
.
The
Chudov Monastery
and
Ascension Convent
, with their 16th-century
cathedrals
, were demolished to make room for the military school. The Little Nicholas Palace and the old Saviour Cathedral were pulled down as well.
During the
Second World War
, in order to confuse the German pilots, the towers were repainted with different colors and covered with wooden tents. Every roof was painted rusty brown so as to make them indistinguishable from typical roofs in the city. The grounds, paved with cobblestone, were covered up with sand. Tents painted to look like roofs were stretched over the gardens, and the facades of the buildings were also painted.
[10]
The residence of the Soviet government was closed to tourists until 1955. It was not until the
Khrushchev Thaw
that the Kremlin was reopened to foreign visitors. The Kremlin Museums were established in 1961, and the complex was among the first Soviet patrimonies inscribed on the
World Heritage List
in 1990.
Although the current director of the Kremlin Museums,
Elena Gagarina
(
Yuri Gagarin
's daughter), advocates a full-scale restoration of the destroyed cloisters, recent developments have been confined to expensive restoration of the original interiors of the Grand Kremlin Palace, which were altered during Stalin's rule.
Overall, during the Soviet rule (1917?1991), 28 out of 54 historic buildings in the Kremlin were destroyed (among them 17 out of 31 churches and cathedrals), most of them centuries-old.
[11]
State Kremlin Palace
[
edit
]
The
State Kremlin Palace
(alias Kremlin Palace of Congresses), was commissioned by
Nikita Khrushchev
as a modern arena for Communist Party meetings and was built within the Kremlin walls 1959?1961. Externally the palace is faced with white marble and the windows are tinted and reflective. The construction replaced several heritage buildings, including the old neo-classical building of the State Armoury, and some of the rear parts of the
Grand Kremlin Palace
. The Palace was constructed and integrated into the larger complex of the
Great Kremlin Palace
with walkways linking it to the
Patriarchal Chambers
and the
Terem Palace
.
Buildings
[
edit
]
The existing
Kremlin walls
and
towers
were built by Italian masters from 1485 to 1495. The irregular triangle of the Kremlin wall encloses an area of 275,000 square metres (2,960,000 sq ft). Its overall length is 2,235 metres (2,444 yards), but the height ranges from 5 to 19 metres (16 to 62 ft), depending on the terrain. The wall's thickness is between 3.5 and 6.5 metres (11 and 21 ft).
Originally there were eighteen
Kremlin towers
, but their number increased to twenty in the 17th century. All but three of the towers are square in plan. The highest tower is the
Troitskaya
, which was built to its present height of 80 metres (260 ft) in 1495. Most towers were originally crowned with wooden tents. The extant brick tents with strips of colored tiles date to the 1680s.
Cathedral Square
is the heart of the Kremlin. It is surrounded by six buildings, including three
cathedrals
. The
Cathedral of the Dormition
was completed in 1479 to be the main church of Moscow and where all the
Tsars
were crowned. The massive
limestone
facade, capped with its five golden
cupolas
, was the design of
Aristotele Fioravanti
. Several important metropolitans and patriarchs are buried there, including Peter and
Makarii
. The gilded, three-domed
Cathedral of the Annunciation
was completed next in 1489, only to be reconstructed to a nine-domed design a century later. On the south-east of the square is the much larger
Cathedral of the Archangel Michael
(1508), where almost all the Muscovite monarchs from
Ivan Kalita
to
Ivan V of Russia
are interred. Also
Boris Godunov
was originally buried there but was moved to the
Trinity Monastery
.
There are two domestic churches of the Metropolitans and Patriarchs of Moscow, the
Church of the Twelve Apostles
(1653?1656) and the exquisite one-domed
Church of the Deposition of the Virgin's Robe
, built by
Pskov
artisans from 1484 to 1488 and featuring superb icons and frescoes from 1627 and 1644.
The other notable structure is the
Ivan the Great Bell Tower
on the north-east corner of the square, which is said to mark the exact center of Moscow and resemble a burning candle. Completed in 1600, it is 81 metres (266 feet) high. Until the Russian Revolution, it was the tallest structure in the city, as construction of buildings taller than that was forbidden. Its 21 bells would sound the alarm if any enemy was approaching. The upper part of the structure was destroyed by the French during the Napoleonic Invasion in 1812 and has been rebuilt. The
Tsar bell
, the largest bell in the world, stands on a pedestal next to the tower.
The oldest secular structure still standing is
Ivan III
's
Palace of Facets
(1491), which holds the imperial thrones. The next oldest is the first home of the royal family, the
Terem Palace
. The original Terem Palace was also commissioned by Ivan III, but most of the existing palace was built in the 17th century. The Terem Palace and the Palace of Facets are linked by the
Grand Kremlin Palace
. This was commissioned by
Nicholas I
in 1838. The largest structure in the Kremlin, it cost 11 million
rubles
to build and more than one billion dollars to renovate in the 1990s. It contains dazzling reception halls, a ceremonial red staircase, private apartments of the tsars, and the lower story of the Resurrection of Lazarus church (1393), which is the oldest extant structure in the Kremlin and the whole of Moscow.
The northern corner of the Kremlin is occupied by
the Arsenal
, which was built for
Peter the Great
in 1701. The southwestern section of the Kremlin holds the
Armoury building
. Built in 1851 to a
Renaissance Revival
design, it is currently a museum housing Russian state
Regalia
and
Diamond Fund
.
The haloalkaliphilic methylotrophic bacterium
Methylophaga muralis
(first called
Methylophaga murata
) was first isolated from deteriorating marble in the Kremlin.
[12]
Helipad
[
edit
]
To stop disruptions to traffic caused by motorcades, Russian President
Vladimir Putin
authorized the construction of a helipad in the Kremlin. The helipad was completed in May 2013. The Russian President will now commute back and forth to the Kremlin using a
Mil Mi-8
helicopter. Careful consideration was taken in choosing the location of the helipad. The location chosen is said to be of no threat to the architecture of the Kremlin.
[13]
Stations of the Moscow Metro
[
edit
]
The nearest
Moscow Metro
stations to the Kremlin are:
Okhotny Ryad
and
Biblioteka Imeni Lenina
(
Sokolnicheskaya Line
),
Teatralnaya
(
Zamoskvoretskaya Line
),
Ploshchad Revolyutsii
(
Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line
),
Arbatskaya
(
Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line
),
Alexandrovsky Sad
(
Filyovskaya Line
), and
Borovitskaya
(
Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line
).
References
[
edit
]
Citations
[
edit
]
- ^
Paul, Michael C. (January 2004). "The Military Revolution in Russia 1550?1682". The Journal of Military History. 68 (1): 31.
doi
:
10.1353/jmh.2003.0401
. S2CID 159954818.
- ^
"Кремль"
[Kremlin].
Vasmer
Etymological dictionary
.
Archived
from the original on 4 December 2022
. Retrieved
2 June
2014
.
- ^
"Moscow Kremlin Museums: VISIT US"
.
kreml.ru
.
Archived
from the original on 24 October 2022
. Retrieved
14 October
2020
.
- ^
"The Moscow Kremlin Museums welcomed more than 1 million guests in 2023"
.
www.kreml.ru
. Retrieved
14 May
2024
.
- ^
Agrawal, Premendra (4 February 2012).
Silent Assassins. Jan 11, 1966
. Agrawal Overseas. p. 184.
ISBN
9789350878453
. Retrieved
13 August
2015
.
- ^
Фасмера, Макс.
"Этимологический Словарь Фасмера"
[Vasmer's Etymological Dictionary] (in Russian). p. 321.
Archived
from the original on 27 October 2017
. Retrieved
12 October
2012
.
- ^
a
b
c
Paul, Michael C. (January 2004). "The Military Revolution in Russia 1550?1682".
The Journal of Military History
.
68
(1): 31.
doi
:
10.1353/jmh.2003.0401
.
S2CID
159954818
.
- ^
Rowland, Daniel B. (2020).
God, Tsar, and people : the political culture of early modern Russia
. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
ISBN
978-1-5017-5211-7
.
OCLC
1145926960
.
- ^
Semenko, Xenia (25 November 2013).
"Почему кремлевские стены красили в белый цвет"
[Why the Kremlin walls painted white].
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
(in Russian).
Archived
from the original on 18 May 2017
. Retrieved
18 May
2017
.
- ^
MANAEV, GEORGY (9 May 2019).
"How the Russians made the Kremlin 'disappear' during"
.
Russia Beyond
.
Archived
from the original on 16 January 2022
. Retrieved
16 January
2022
.
- ^
"Константин Михайлов: Уничтоженный Кремль"
.
Archived
from the original on 21 August 2023
. Retrieved
8 February
2023
.
- ^
Doronina NV; Li TsD; Ivanova EG; Trotsenko IuA. (2005). "Methylophaga murata sp. nov.: a haloalkaliphilic aerobic methylotroph from deteriorating marble".
Mikrobiologiia
.
74
(4): 511?9.
PMID
16211855
.
- ^
Rosenberg, Steve (27 May 2013).
"Vladimir Putin gets Kremlin helipad to ease congestion"
(Embedded video).
BBC News
.
Archived
from the original on 13 March 2017
. Retrieved
18 May
2017
.
Bibliography
[
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]
External links
[
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]
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Kremlin Wall
and
Towers
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Administrative
buildings
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Churches
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Squares
and gardens
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Monuments
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Former
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Russian imperial palaces and residences
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Imperial residences
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Grand ducal residences
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Outside the Russian Federation
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In Crimea
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Historical
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