Great Kremlin Palace
The Great Kremlin Palace ( Russian Большой Кремлёвский дворец , transcribed: Bolshoi Kremlyovsky dworez ) in the heart of the Russian capital Moscow is an important part of the architectural ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin . It consists of several buildings of different styles Century. The central part of the palace complex was built in the years 1838–1849 according to a design by Konstantin Thons and originally served as the main Moscow residence of the Tsar and his family. Today, the Grand Kremlin Palace is part of the office complex of the President of Russia .
general description
Since the 19th century central building of the Kremlin Palace was added to the previously existing buildings of the Terem Palace, the Faceted Palace and the Golden Chamber of the Tsar, these are also included in the complex of the Great Kremlin Palace. The neighboring building of the armory and the Cathedral of the Annunciation are not built directly onto the palace, but are connected to it by closed passages .
In the ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin, the Great Kremlin Palace, with a facade length of the central building of 125 meters and a height to the dome of 44 meters, occupies a leading position. The building is located in the southern part of the Kremlin grounds, close to the slope to Moscow -Ufer out and is therefore particularly well from the Moskva and the opposing shore to look. The Great Stone Bridge also offers a representative view of the Kremlin and the Great Kremlin Palace. Within the Kremlin ensemble, the Great Kremlin Palace is located between the Kremlin wall in the south, the armory building in the west, the former Congress Palace (today officially: State Kremlin Palace ) in the north and the Cathedral Square (with the Archangel Michael , the Assumption of Mary and the Annunciation Cathedral) in the east.
The central palace building appears three-story from the outside, but has only two levels inside, as the five parade halls on the second floor each have two rows of windows one above the other with a ceiling height of up to 18 meters. The number of rooms inside the Kremlin Palace is around 700 with a total area of 24,000 m². If the adjoining buildings of the Terem Palace, the Faceted Palace and the Golden Chamber of the Tsar are also included, the total area of the premises is almost 35,000 m².
While the palace served as the tsar's residence in the 19th century and, among other things, for ceremonial receptions of the tsar's family when they were in Moscow, today it is part of the Kremlin museum ensemble, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site , but also part of the official working residence of the President of Russia. For this reason, the buildings (including the Terem and Facet Palaces) are generally not open to the public; However, they can be viewed from the inside as part of a special guided tour for registered groups, which is usually very expensive (depending on the size of the group, around 850 to 1000 euros per tour).
History of the palace complex
As today's Great Kremlin Palace is located on the site of the Moscow Kremlin, a former fortification that has been known since the 12th century, there were representative buildings in its place well before the 19th century, including the living quarters of the Grand Dukes of Moscow and Tsars of Russia.
Previous buildings up to the 17th century
The descriptions of the first previous buildings of today's Great Kremlin Palace have not survived; What is known, however, is that the first palace of the Grand Duke still stood here in the time of Ivan Kalita (early 14th century). The fact that the residences of the rulers over the Grand Duchy of Moscow, and later Tsarist Russia and the Russian Empire, stood precisely at this point in the Kremlin can be explained primarily by the extremely representative location of the property: the steep bank of the Moskva River stretching south of it gave the buildings, which at that time were visible from afar from the river, a special place among all structures of the fortress.
In the early 15th century, the living quarters of Princess Sofia, wife of Grand Duke Vasily I , stood on the property . The latter had the buildings expanded around 1404, with a house with a clock on the facade being built for the first time in Moscow's history. Since almost all non-sacred buildings in Moscow at that time were made of wood, conflagrations were a constant threat. During the 15th century there were numerous major fires in the Kremlin, which led to the princely apartments being partially or completely destroyed and then either restored or were newly built. It was not until 1487 that one of the first stone structures of the Kremlin was built with the Facet Palace, which has been preserved to this day. At the same time the construction of today's complex of the Great Kremlin Palace began.
After a particularly devastating fire in 1493 once again devastated a large part of the Kremlin, including the old wooden princely chambers, the construction of the first stone palace began, which was supposed to complement the mainly representative faceted palace as the main residence of the grand dukes. Master builders from Italy were commissioned to carry out the work - similar to the construction of the new walls, towers and many other structures of the Kremlin that have survived to this day. The then Grand Duke Ivan III trusted the building of the Prince's Palace in particular . "The great" to the Milanese builder Aloisio da Milano (known in Russia at the time as Alewis Frjasin). Construction began in 1499 and was completed in 1508, after the death of Ivan III. In contrast to the earlier wooden structures, the new palace was to stand for over 200 years from then on. In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries it was rebuilt and expanded several times, the best known being the Terem Palace, which was completed in 1636 and is still preserved today.
Previous buildings from the 17th to the 19th century
The previous buildings of the Great Kremlin Palace served the Russian tsars as residences in whole or in part until the end of the 17th century. This changed around 1703 during the reign of Peter I “the Great” . He founded the new Russian imperial capital Saint Petersburg and had the Tsar's seat moved there. The old Moscow apartments were hardly used for their original purpose and fell into disrepair over time. Some wooden ancillary buildings fell victim to another fire and were not rebuilt, the rest of the palace complex was used, among other things, as an administration building.
In 1749, Empress Elisabeth had part of the old tsarist rooms demolished in order to have a representative palace built in its place, which would become the new main Moscow residence of the Russian emperors. The renowned Italian architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli was commissioned with the execution . The building was completed in 1753 and was named Winter Palace . A few years later, Rastrelli also built the much more famous Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg in the same Baroque style , which from then on served as the Petersburg imperial residence. In the war against Napoleon in 1812, the Moscow Winter Palace was destroyed and restored until 1817 according to a design by the master builder Vasily Stasov .
A successor to the Rastrellis Palace, which was increasingly being viewed as out of date, was still being considered in the late 18th century under Catherine II “the great” . At that time, the two architects Vasily Baschenow and Matwei Kazakow made a major project for a palace that was to be much larger than the current building and which was to give way to several old Kremlin buildings. Over time, however, the project was ultimately rejected, not least for financial reasons, but also because the project was heavily criticized because it was far too large for the Kremlin.
The new tsar's residence in the 19th century
Only Tsar Nicholas I had Rastrelli's palace demolished in the 1830s in order to have a new Moscow Tsar's residence built in its place in a style approaching classicism , which was also considered contemporary in Russia at that time. The design of the new palace came from Konstantin Thon , who is known for a number of well-known Moscow buildings of the 19th century (including the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the reception building of the Nikolai train station ).
Construction work on the central palace building lasted from June 1838 to April 1849, and the total cost of the project was around 12 million rubles . The result was the essentially still existing complex of the Great Kremlin Palace, which, in addition to the central palace building erected between 1838 and 1849, includes the much older ancillary buildings of the Faceted Palace, the Terem Palace and the Imperial Golden Chamber. The latter two buildings were almost completely enclosed by the dominating central part, so that they have hardly been visible from the outside since then. This, as well as the fact that the new, classicist, magnificent building exhibited a clear architectural contrast to the existing ensemble of the Kremlin, which was dominated by old Russian architecture of the early modern period, earned Konstantin Thon many sharp criticisms. In a Moscow travel guide from 1917, the building, which was remarkably large in size, was even despised as a barracks .
From its completion to the fall of the Tsar , the Great Kremlin Palace, including its older extensions, was the residence of the Russian monarchs in what was then the second largest city in the empire. This is where the tsars, their families and entourage lived during their stays in Moscow, and important state ceremonies were carried out here , for example receptions of high foreign state guests or celebrations for the coronation of the tsar . The palace was also open to public excursions on non-public holidays.
20th century and present
After the fall of the monarchy in Russia and the October Revolution in 1917, the buildings of the Great Kremlin Palace lost their function as the tsar's residence. At the same time, the new state power from Saint Petersburg moved back to Moscow, and the Kremlin again became the location of the most important state authorities. Like many other Kremlin buildings, the former palace of the tsars was now used for administrative purposes: from the 1930s onwards, among other things, meetings of the Supreme Council of the USSR and the Russian SFSR , congresses of the Comintern and, before the construction of the Kremlin Congress Palace in 1961, party conferences were held there carried out by the CPSU . In addition, the five ballrooms of the central palace were used for festive events such as honoring the heroes of the Soviet Union . Some changes were also made to the architecture of the palace during the Soviet era: two ballrooms were converted into one large conference room in 1934, in which the larger conferences took place from then on, and the facades were now adorned with the Soviet state symbols instead of the double-headed eagle of the Tsarist Empire.
After the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, the palace complex passed into the administration of the President of Russia and is still officially part of the President's office today. The renovations made during the Soviet era were reversed in the course of an extensive renovation of the building complex between 1994 and 1999, so that the current interior of the palace largely corresponds to the original state of the 19th century. The large reception rooms on the second floor of the central palace building are still used for ceremonial acts of state, such as the inauguration of the president.
The palace buildings
If you look at the complex of the Great Kremlin Palace as a whole, it is a combination of several buildings from different epochs, which also differ greatly in their style. It should be noted, however, that the central building, which dates from the 19th century, has certain similarities with the Terem Palace in some places - an intention of Konstantin Thon, who wanted to integrate his work as harmoniously as possible into the existing ensemble.
The central palace building
Exterior architecture
The central tsar's palace, built between 1838 and 1849, plays a representative role for all buildings in the palace complex. From the outside, its structure appears relatively simple: the elongated main facade, which faces the Moskva , is crowned in the middle by a dome structure, in the middle of which there is a clock with four gold-plated side dials. The dome is rounded off by a likewise gold-plated flagpole on which the Russian national flag (previously: the flag of the Soviet Union ) has been attached since the early 1990s . The two-story palace building has three rows of windows one above the other, the lower part of the facade being slightly wider than the two upper ones and also protruding a few meters to the front, so that an open gallery extends directly above it along the entire facade . Overall, the main facade of the rather monotonous building looks less like a magnificent tsar's seat and more like a typical administrative building in the Russian Empire of the 19th century - it was this property in particular that brought Konstantin Thon into the crossfire of criticism at the time.
When building the palace, Thon attempted to achieve the highly desirable stylistic link to the neighboring Kremlin architecture, especially with facade details. In the central part of the building it is particularly the Kokoschnik ornaments on the elevation of the facade under the dome, the shape of which is somewhat reminiscent of the old Russian architecture of the 16th and 17th centuries. There are also five double-headed eagles from the Russian national coat of arms , which were restored in the 1990s after they were replaced by images of the Soviet coat of arms by the Soviet authorities . Diagonally above the five eagles, six somewhat smaller relief images can be seen depicting the coats of arms of the provinces of Poland , Kazan , Moscow , Astrakhan , Finland and Tauris , which were formerly part of the Russian Empire . The two upper rows of windows of the building are also based somewhat on the old Kremlin architecture: the shape of the window cladding made of white limestone is reminiscent of the windows in the upper part of the Terem Palace. The row of windows in the lower third of the building is very different from the upper third and is more like a row of arcades , whereby the main entrance in the middle is hardly noticeable when viewed superficially.
In terms of style, the Thonsche Palast is usually viewed as an eclectic mix of simple classicism from the early 19th century and elements of traditional Russian architecture from the 16th and 17th centuries, even if the Russian component is much less pronounced than most of the known ones historical architectural monuments of Moscow (such as the History Museum on Red Square ).
Inside of the great palace
The relatively simple shape of the central palace contrasts with its extremely splendid interior, which was largely based on the original state of the 19th century during the reconstruction in the 1990s. The majority of the interior design of the Thon Palace was designed by the architects Fyodor Richter and Nikolai Tschitschagow when it was built.
The interior of the central palace can be roughly divided: on the one hand into the representative part, which was and is used for receptions and celebrations, and on the other hand into the former living quarters (so-called own half ) for the tsars and their family members. The former living quarters are all located on the ground floor of the palace, while the upper floor mainly contains the ballrooms - including four of the five most representative ones, which were named after the five most famous state medals awarded in the Russian Empire. The two floors are connected to one another by the large stone parade staircase from the entrance vestibule.
Georgssaal
The George Hall ( Георгиевский зал ) is located on the upper floor behind the right side facade of the palace building. The room is 61 meters long, 20.5 meters wide and 17.5 meters high. Named after the highest state decoration of the Tsarist Empire, the Order of St. George (also known as the George Cross), founded in 1769 and awarded for outstanding military achievements , it is considered the most magnificent hall of the Great Kremlin Palace and has always been used for ceremonies of honors and highest awards. For example, the honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded here during the Soviet era ; The space pioneer Juri Gagarin was honored here in 1961 and the winner in the war against Nazi Germany in 1945 . In addition, international conferences and particularly important diplomatic receptions are held in the Georgssaal today.
The vault of the Georgssaal, adorned with rich ornaments, is supported by 18 mighty pylons , each of which is supplemented in the lower part by white marble statues by the Italian-Russian sculptor Giovanni Vitali , which symbolize the provinces and principalities of the Russian Empire in allegorical figures. This ensemble is complemented by the large high relief images of the order's eponymous Saint George at both ends of the room: The motif of George riding a dragon killing the dragon with a lance is widespread in Russia and is, among other things, the central city symbol of Moscow The George reliefs were created by the well-known German-born sculptor Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg . The Georgssaal is illuminated on the one hand by the two rows of windows one above the other on its eastern wall, on the other hand by 40 wall lights and six pompous bronze chandeliers on the vault, which were made in the St. Petersburg foundry by Felix Chopin and each of which weighs around 1300 kg. The floor of the Georgssaal is also very elaborate and, with a series of patterns from a total of over 20 different colored and valuable types of wood, is reminiscent of a huge carpet. The actual purpose of the George Hall is reminiscent of marble slabs on its walls, on which a total of over 11,000 names of all the bearers of the George Order are applied.
Andreassaal
The Andreassaal ( Андреевский зал ) is also located on the upper floor of the palace and extends along with the neighboring Alexander Hall along the main south facade. It is named after the order of St. Andrew the First Called , which was founded in 1698 by Peter the Great and was awarded exclusively to high-ranking military personnel. Corresponding to the shape of the order - blue enamel depicting the St. Andrew's cross and blue ribbon to wear the order - the hall was also clad with blue moiré . Stylized gold-plated ornaments can also be seen on the vault, which is supported by pylons similar to the Georgssaal, which form a St. Andrew's cross between each pair of pylons. Above the two rows of windows there are images of the coats of arms of provinces of the Tsarist Empire.
During a renovation in 1934, the partition wall between the Andrea's Hall and the Alexander's Hall was removed, so that a new meeting room with a capacity of over 2500 people was created in its place. Important political events were held there up until the 1980s. In the course of the reconstruction in the 1990s, the two halls were restored to their original state. In 2000, 2004 and 2008 the inauguration ceremonies of the Russian President took place in the Andreassaal ( Vladimir Putin 2000 and 2004 and Dmitri Medvedev 2008).
Alexander Hall
The second ballroom behind the southern main facade, called the Alexander Hall ( Александровский зал ), was also given its original shape in the 1990s. It was named after the Alexander Nevsky Order , founded in 1725 , for which the canonized Grand Duke and national hero Alexander Nevsky was named. Accordingly, the Alexander Hall is extensively decorated with motifs about his life and work: Both on the vault and on the columns, numerous frescoes and reliefs can be seen, including scenes of the battle won by Newski's troops on Lake Peipus . The walls of the Alexander Hall are clad with rose-colored artificial marble, which, in combination with gold-plated ornaments, picture frames and chandeliers, gives it the red and gold color scheme corresponding to the shape of the Alexander Nevsky Order.
Katharinensaal
The Katharinensaal ( Екатерининский зал ) can be found in the western part of the upper floor behind the north facade of the palace. Names factor in this space is the Russian Order of St. Catherine , which in 1711 by Peter the Great in honor of his wife I. Catherine was donated. This medal was given relatively rarely and generally only to women (for example for merits in charity). In accordance with the color scheme of this order, light silver tones also dominate the design of the Katharinensaal. Similar to the other ballrooms on the upper floor, there are several gilded bronze chandeliers hanging from the vault of the hall, the light of which is complemented by six decorative stand lamps made of lead crystal made in Saint Petersburg . The pylons supporting the vault, which are decorated with fine mosaic patterns made of dark green malachite gravel , are an important sight of the Katharinensaal .
At the time of the Russian Empire, the Katharinensaal served as a reception hall for the Tsar's wives. The throne of the empress used to stand here on the eastern wall . Today the hall is sometimes used for high diplomatic receptions and conferences.
Vladimir Hall
The Vladimir Hall ( Владимирский зал ) is on the ground floor of the Thon Palace and is dedicated to the Order of St. Vladimir , founded in 1782 . With a width of around 16 meters and a height of 18 m, the hall is significantly smaller than the three parade halls on the upper floor and also differs from them in its architecture. Under its vault, it forms a uniform space without separating pylons or columns, which is adorned exactly in the middle by a powerful bronze chandelier. The daylight does not enter through the windows here, but through a small glazed dome on the vault. Since the Vladimir Hall is located in the central part of the building, the connecting corridors to the other buildings of the palace complex are located precisely here, namely to the Terem Palace (via the stairs), to the sacred hall of the Faceted Palace and to the Golden Chamber of the Tsar, as well as to the State Kremlin Palace, which is not to the Complex heard. The arched windows in the upper row under the vault separate the Vladimir Hall from the Golden Chamber of the Tsar and the former residential and service buildings for the guards in the Tsar’s chambers, which have merged into the Thon building.
Private rooms of the royal family
The former living rooms and lounges of the Tsar and his family, known as their own half ( Собственная половина ) are located on the ground floor of the western half of the building and, due to their sumptuous furnishings, which were created exclusively by Russian masters of applied arts when the palace was built at the time, are located next to the ballrooms another attraction of the palace.
Mention should be made, among other things, of the emperor's former cabinet, which is located behind the west facade and whose walls are clad with solid ash wood . To the left of the central building is the side extension via a transition gallery, which in the 19th century contained living quarters for the emperor's children. Two particularly splendid rooms of these rooms - the so-called Silver Guest Room ( Серебряная гостиная ) and the Heir apparent Apartments ( Апартаменты наследника престола ) - have been faithfully preserved. The Silver Guest Room got its name from the fact that the accessories (including mirrors, chandeliers and some pieces of furniture) were actually made of solid silver. The former guest, dining or bedroom on the left half of the south facade are also part of the own half. Massive pylons, which separate the rooms into several parts, are typical of these rooms, each of these parts being decorated and furnished in its own style (including baroque , rococo and classicism ).
The Faceted Palace
The as Palace of Facets ( Грановитая палата known) house, which connects the east to the central palace building, is not only the oldest part of the Great Kremlin Palace is, but also the oldest extant secular building in Moscow. From the outside, the Faceted Palace can be seen on its southern and particularly striking eastern facade, which is located directly on the Kremlin's Cathedral Square, between the Annunciation and the Assumption Cathedral . The name derives from the shape of the eastern facade, as it is adorned with horizontal rows of sharp-edged stones that give the impression of a faceted surface.
History and architecture
In 1487 Grand Duke Ivan III. "The great" erect the Facetted Palace as one of the first stone structures of the Kremlin after a series of fires repeatedly devastated the fortress, which had been dominated by wooden structures. Marco Ruffo and Pietro Antonio Solari were commissioned with the construction of the two Italian master builders who, in the course of their work in Russia, had one of the strongest influences on the Kremlin ensemble: in particular, a large part of the Kremlin's wall towers were designed by either Ruffo or Solari . The palace was completed in 1492 and from then on served as the most important room for ceremonial receptions of the tsar, coronation celebrations, feasts, state acts and similar ceremonies. There were historically known events in the walls of the Facetted Palace: Tsar Ivan IV "the terrible" celebrated his military victory over the Kazan Khanate for three days there in 1552 , while Peter I "the Great" celebrated his victory over Sweden in 1709 the Battle of Poltava and in 1721 the signing of the Peace of Nystad and the end of the Great Northern War . One of the so-called Semsky Sobors also met in the Facet Palace in 1654 , at which the unification of Russia and Ukraine, later sealed with the Treaty of Perejaslav , was decided.
Over the centuries, the Facetted Palace essentially retained its function as a party and conference room, even if it repeatedly suffered damage in major fires and was redesigned or rebuilt several times in its history. Even in recent times, festive receptions have been held there, albeit extremely rarely, for example during the state visit of the British Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 .
Although the cuboid building looks three-story from the outside, it actually has one floor, to which the two rows of windows, which are not always symmetrically arranged on the façades, belong, as well as a basement that is only used for commercial purposes. The cladding of all four facades of the palace is made of white stone, which makes the building one of the typical architectural monuments of early modern Moscow, where the white limestone, which was abundant in the area at the time, was one of the most widely used building materials alongside wood. The eponymous facets can only be found on the eastern facade facing the Cathedral Square. On its west side, the palace is directly connected to the central building of the Great Kremlin Palace in the area of the Vladimir Hall, where there is also a transition between the two houses.
Another striking detail of the Faceted Palace is the external staircase on the south facade, which is adorned with stylized lion sculptures on the railing and rounded off in the lower part by two decorative portals arranged at right angles to each other. This construction has always been the parade entrance to the palace and is also known as the Beautiful Terrace ( Красное крыльцо ). During the important celebrations (such as the coronation of tsars and emperors), tsars appeared here after the obligatory service with the head of the church in the neighboring Cathedral of the Assumption in front of the cheering people. Of course, this terrace also served as the scene of less glorious events: During the First Strelizre uprising in 1682, unpopular boyars were murdered by the rebels by impaling them alive on spears. During the Soviet era , the Schöne Terrasse disappeared from its place for several decades when a canteen was built in its place in the 1930s. In 1994 this was removed again and the beautiful terrace and stairs restored.
Interior of the Faceted Palace
The interior of the palace essentially consists of two show rooms: the vestibule, also known as the Holy Hall ( Святые сени ), and the actual ballroom . The former owes its name to the fact that during the coronation ceremonies the tsars received the highest dignitaries of the Russian Orthodox Church here, who gave them their blessings here. Particularly striking are the three richly ornamented, gilded door portals in the sacred hall, which lead into the ballroom of the Faceted Palace on the one hand and the Vladimir Hall and the Terem Palace on the other.
The almost 500 m² main hall of the Facetted Palace adjoins the Holy Hall and has an extremely splendid architecture, which is aesthetically comparable to the interior of the parade halls of the central palace. The cross vault of the room is nine meters high and rests on a mighty four-sided pillar, the lower part of which has gold-plated ornamental patterns similar to the door portals. Above this, as well as on the entire vault and on the walls, you can see elaborate frescoes with numerous motifs from the history of the Russian state and the Russian church. There were similar wall paintings there as early as the late 16th century. Thanks to the well-known icon painter Simon Ushakow , who fully documented them in 1668, the works that were lost in the 18th century could be faithfully reproduced in the 1880s, which was commissioned by Alexander III. was carried out by master icon painters from Palech .
The Terem Palace
History and architecture
Among the buildings of the Great Kremlin Palace, the Terem Palace ( Теремной дворец ; Terem from ancient Greek τò τέραμνον "residence", "chamber") stands out due to its very solemn shape, which, however, did not prevent Konstantin Thon at the time from making this building almost completely from the To enclose wings of the central palace building. As a result, the Terem Palace, which is located in the middle of a building complex that is closed to the public, cannot be viewed from the outside today either. Only at one point outside the western Kremlin wall, near the building of the Russian State Library , is there a sparse view of the upper floors and the roof of the palace.
When it was built in 1635–1636, the Terem Palace was one of the first stone-built residential buildings in the Moscow Kremlin. It added to the tsar's chambers built in 1508, which stood on the site of the present central building of the Great Kremlin Palace, and after its completion served as a residence for the then Russian tsar Michael and his family. In contrast to the palace built in 1508, the Terem Palace was built exclusively by Russian builders, namely the architects Antip Konstantinow, Baschen Ogurzow, Trefil Sharutin and Larion Ushakow. A special feature of the building is that it was built on a previously existing residential building, which was also part of the complex of the old palace, by adding a total of five floors. This also explains the visual difference between the lower and upper areas of the facade of the Terem Palace: its three upper floors are particularly attractive from an architectural point of view, where the shape of the tent roof, painted in a checkerboard-like manner, is quite typical for Russian representative buildings of the 17th century notices. Next to it is a small decorative tower construction, which was probably originally used as a lookout tower. The richly decorated outer walls were kept in the colors red, yellow and orange, the artfully formed white window frames are adorned with elaborate red carving patterns. The entire upper part of the palace dates from the years 1635–1636.
The Terem Palace served as the tsar's residence until the end of the 17th century when Russia's capital was relocated to Saint Petersburg. After that, the building, like the other former tsarist chambers of the Moscow Kremlin (or what was left of them after a fire), was increasingly forgotten. After a new imperial residence based on a design by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli was built on the site of the old apartments in 1753 , the Terem Palace was used as a residential building for the servants of the new palace. In the 19th century, when the Terem Palace was already part of the Great Kremlin Palace, it housed an archive, among other things. Today, like the entire Grand Kremlin Palace, it is part of the office complex of the President of Russia.
inside rooms
The former parade entrance of the Terem Palace was built over when the Thon Palace was built and is now in the Vladimir Hall. A faithfully reproduced interior can be found primarily on the two upper floors of the palace, where the tsar and his sons originally lived. Until the end of the 17th century, the third floor housed the bathing room and the tsarina's chambers, while the two lower floors were used exclusively for commercial purposes.
One of the particularly splendid rooms on the fourth floor is the so-called Golden Room ( Золотая комната ), which served as the tsar's work cabinet. The room got this name because of its wall and vault cladding, which consisted of a continuous leather cover with gold-colored paintings of animal and plant figures. The Tsar's throne once stood in the same room, and high-ranking state officials and boyars were often received here. One of the windows of the Golden Room was used in the 17th century to send petitions to the Tsar , which anyone could put in a special box. This was then pulled up directly into the tsar's cabinet through this window.
The bedroom ( Опочивальня ), also on the fourth floor, has a different shape and served as such for the tsar himself. The wall paneling here has light green tones and is decorated with stylized depictions of plants and occasionally with relief medallions on biblical motifs.
The top, fifth level of the Terem Palace was originally built as living space for the tsar's sons, later it was also used for larger boyar receptions. It is located directly under the tent roof and, as it is a little narrower than the four levels below, has an open gallery all around. The largest room on the fifth floor is also known as Teremchen ( Теремок ).
All representative rooms of the Terem Palace have in common the presence of wall and vault frescos as well as windows made of multi-colored panes reminiscent of colorful stained glass. The frescoes date from the 1870s and were executed by the art academician Fyodor Solntsev in place of the original paintings that were destroyed in the great fire during the war against Napoleon in 1812 . The multi-colored window panes have only been there since the 19th century in place of old mica windows .
House churches
One of the components of the Terem Palace are also the five small church buildings that were erected in front of the palace or at the same time as it and that have completely merged into the palace building. They can be recognized from the outside through eleven neat, thin onion domes with gold-plated domes, which are clearly visible from the cathedral square, for example.
The oldest surviving house church is the Church of Our Lady of the Nativity ( Церковь Рождества Богородицы ), which was built in 1514 by the Italian builder Aloisius the New on the site of a wooden church that had existed since 1360 and originally had three steeples, but only one since a renovation in 1684. This church is best known for the fact that it was there in 1862 that the writer Leo Tolstoy married his wife Sofia Bers, who was of German descent. The Katharinenkirche ( Екатерининская церковь ) was built in 1627 by a possibly German-born architect named Jan (or John) Thaler and is now invisible from the outside as it was raised a few decades later by the Church of the Resurrection ( Воскресенская церково ). The Upper Church of the Redeemer ( Верхоспасская церковь ) was built together with the Terem Palace, while the Church of the Crucifixion ( Распятская церковь ) was not built above the Upper Church of the Redeemer until 1682.
The Golden Chamber of the Tsars
The relatively small building in the extreme northeast of the palace complex and near the Dormition Cathedral and the immediately adjacent Church of the Deposition of the Virgin Mary's Robe is called the Golden Chamber of the Tsar ( Золотая Царицына палата ). That too was practically completely overbuilt when the Great Kremlin Palace was completed in the 1840s, so that you can only get there through the Vladimir Hall of the palace.
The exact year the chamber was built is not known, but it was probably built during the reign of Fyodor I , i.e. in the late 16th century, and at that time served as a living and reception room for his wife (Tsarina) Irina Fyodorovna, who was also the sister of later Tsar Boris Godunov . In the interior of the Tsar's Chamber there is a rather spacious reception hall, the walls of which are decorated with numerous portraits of well-known Tsaresses and princesses of the Christian-Orthodox culture. The building probably owes its name to the execution of these paintings on a gold-colored background.
References and comments
- ↑ See also: ICOMOS report of October 24, 1989 (checked on January 14, 2009; PDF; 722 kB)
- ↑ Information on the tours in Russian (checked on May 5, 2018)
- ^ Romanjuk, p. 136.
- ↑ While Alewis is nothing more than the Old Russian equivalent of the first name Alois (or Aloisio), Frjasin ( Фрязин ) was a pseudo-family name, which in the linguistic usage of the time meant something like "Italian" and was used to name several Italian Kremlin builders. Their correct family names have mostly not been passed down with certainty; Karamsin and other historians spoke of Aloisio da Milano with Alewis Frjasin and Marco Ruffo with Mark Frjasin . See also: Slovo, 57/2008 (reviewed January 14, 2009).
- ↑ Matwei Kazakow on russianculture.ru ( Memento from September 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Romanjuk, p. 142.
- ↑ Kiselëv, p. 114.
- ↑ Bundeskunsthalle.de, on the history of the Kremlin ( Memento from September 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Ortho-rus.ru ( Memento of February 10, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (checked on January 14, 2009)
- ↑ Genrogge.ru: Немецкие архитекторы в России (checked on January 14, 2009)
literature
- Moscow Kremlin - tourist guide . Art Courier, Moscow 2002, ISBN 5-93842-019-9 .
- AJKiselëv (Ed.): Moskva. Kremlin i Krasnaya Ploščadʹ . AST / Astrel, Moscow 2006, ISBN 5-17-034875-4 .
- SKRomanjuk: Kremlʹ i Krasnaya Ploščadʹ . Moskvovedenie, Moscow 2004, ISBN 5-7853-0434-1 .
Web links
- Great Kremlin Palace. In: Structurae
- Faceted Palace. In: Structurae
- Terem palace. In: Structurae
- Description of the Grand Kremlin Palace on the official website of the President of Russia (in Russian)
- Description and picture gallery on the official website of the Moscow Kremlin Museum Reserve (Russian)
Coordinates: 55 ° 45 ′ 0.6 ″ N , 37 ° 36 ′ 56.8 ″ E
