Wall and towers of the Moscow Kremlin
The wall and towers of the Moscow Kremlin are among the oldest surviving structures in Moscow . Originally they were built as a fortification to protect the core of the city from attack. The current complex of these city fortifications was largely built by Italian architects in the late 15th century. A continuous city wall, 20 watchtowers and a formerly hinged access bridge to one of the towers are preserved today.
general description
Today's wall with its towers represents the core of the former fortifications, which until the 19th century also consisted of an artificial moat, two natural rivers (the Moskva , which flows south of the Kremlin, and the Neglinnaja, which is now only underground, on the western section of the wall) and several bascule bridges over the moat and the Neglinnaja. The Kremlin then formed an artificial island and was considered difficult to conquer. In its form, the Moscow Kremlin served as an architectural model for a number of other citadels in old Russian cities. Some of these Kremlins are well preserved to this day (see for example Tula Kremlin , Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, etc.).
19 towers are built directly into the wall, 18 of which were built at the same time as the current wall, between 1485 and 1499. The purely decorative tsar's tower was added in 1680, and the 20th tower from the ensemble - the Kutafja tower - is the only remaining tower outside the wall. It is connected to the Trinity Tower at the same height by a bridge that was formerly over the Neglinnaya led, and served as a bridge tower to provide additional protection for this Kremlin entrance. The wall and all of its towers were built from brick , which gives them (with the exception of the Kutafja tower, which is painted white) their dark red color to this day.
Four of the 19 towers built into the wall now have through gates into the Kremlin. Only two of them - the gates of the Trinity Tower and the Borowitsky Tower - are open to tourists, the other two are only used as personal entrances and exits. Neither the wall nor its towers can currently be climbed, even if archaeologists and city historians have suggested several times that they should be opened to tourists.
history
→ See also: History of the Moscow Kremlin
The exact date of construction of the first fortress on Borovitsky Hill, on which today's Moscow Kremlin rises, is not known. The first written mention of such a citadel dates back to 1156, which is why this year is often assumed to be the founding date of the Kremlin on the Moscow River. The buildings of that time, of which nothing has survived today, were made of wood, as was the first enclosure, which fell victim to the flames in 1179 when an enemy Ryazan prince attacked.
From 1339 to 1340, the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan Kalita had a new wooden fortress built, which presumably for the first time assumed a shape slightly resembling today's Kremlin. The boundary wall and the watchtowers built into it, like the most representative buildings within the fortress, were made of oak . At least since then, the old Russian name Kremlin began to be used for the Moscow city center .
A quarter of a century later, under Grand Duke Dmitri Donskoy , a citadel was built entirely from stone - in this case white limestone from the vicinity of Moscow - on the site of the previously burned down wooden kremlin . Its walls reached almost the same length as today's and received a total of five watchtowers. This first stone Kremlin was able to be preserved for a good century and successfully fended off several attacks on Moscow.
Finally, Grand Duke Ivan III. replace the fortifications from 1367 with the wall with 19 watchtowers that is still standing today. For the construction of the new Kremlin he invited several Italian architects to Moscow, among them Aloisio da Milano , Marco Ruffo and Pietro Antonio Solari , from whose designs large parts of today's fortifications originate. The construction lasted essentially from 1485 to 1499, with the wall section on the Moskva River being the first to be completed, as the Kremlin was viewed as the most vulnerable to attack from the south side. Work on individual elements of the city fortifications, such as the artificial moat along today's Red Square , continued until after 1510.
The under Ivan III. The wall, which was essentially built on foundations from the time of Dmitri Donskoy, has largely retained its former shape to this day. The towers initially had a purely defensive function; on top of that, they were closed off by platforms covered with wooden tents, on which soldiers, guns and ammunition could be positioned in the event of an attack. In addition, they were given smaller bell towers on their roof construction, from which an alarm would ring in the event of an alarm.
From the 16th to the 20th centuries, the Kremlin towers underwent several renovations and extensions, the most important of which was carried out in the late 17th century. At that time, instead of the old wooden roofs, all wall towers received their rather decorative tent roofs with mostly slender spiers. The latter were adorned with decorative wind flags , the four current through towers were instead given double-headed eagles symbolizing the tsarist domination , which in turn had to give way to ruby-red Soviet stars in the 1930s . Also at the end of the 17th century, the small tsar's tower was erected between the redemption tower and the storm bell tower, as the only part of the fortification complex that did not date from the 15th century.
The wall
Today's Kremlin wall, which encloses an approximately triangular, 27.5 hectare area of the fortress, is 2235 meters long. Depending on the respective topographical conditions, their height varies from 5 to 19 meters at different points. The thickness of the wall is also not uniform and ranges from 3.5 to 6.5 meters.
Characteristic of the entire course of the wall of the Moscow Kremlin are the more than 1000 nearly tooth-shaped tips that were originally intended for positioning artillery pieces . They are each between 2 and 2.5 meters high and cover the open gallery running along the entire wall. Depending on the wall thickness, this gallery has a width of 2 to 4.5 meters. Towards the Kremlin side, the entire wall below the gallery has arched depressions to support the gallery, which in places resemble a row of arcades .
The towers
Most of the 20 towers built into the wall are more or less individually designed in their architecture and have different dimensions. The three corner towers have a cylindrical base, the remaining 17 are square . The tallest tower is the Trinity Tower at almost 80 meters, and the lowest at 13.5 meters is the Kutafja Tower outside the wall. Four towers - the Borowitsky, the Trinity, the Nicholas and the Redeemer towers - have through gates. The tops of these four towers, which are considered particularly representative, are adorned with symbolic, internally illuminated Soviet stars made of red ruby glass , which in the 1930s replaced the gold-plated double-headed eagles as a state symbol of Tsarist Russia undesirable by the Soviets . Such a star was also placed at the top of the water towing tower, which does not have a through gate but is visible from afar.
When they were built, all towers were set up approximately within firing range from each other so that in the event of an attack a tower that had been captured by the enemy could be defended from its neighboring towers. On some towers, which today and / or formerly had through gates, special openings can still be seen today, through which ropes for the bascule bridges were once tensioned by their pulling mechanisms.
All 20 Kremlin towers are now described in detail in clockwise order, starting with the most south-westerly point of the Kremlin, where the water towing tower is located.
Water towing tower
The water (train) tower ( Russian Водовзводная башня ) is one of the three corner towers of the Kremlin and has a cylindrical base that essentially formed the original tower from the 15th century. During the renovations in the 17th century, the water tower was given its point on top, which roughly resembles a slender cone on the outside . The tip is crowned by a red Soviet star made of ruby glass. The height of the tower is 57.7 meters up to the star and 61.3 meters including it.
The tower was built in 1488, making it one of the first in the Kremlin's fortification complex. Its architect was Antonio Gilardi , who in Russia was mostly just called Anton Frjasin (literally "Anton the foreigner"). Originally the tower was called the Swiblow Tower ( Свиблова башня ) after the court of the boyar Fyodor Swibl, which was once located nearby . The name water towing tower dates back to 1633 when a new type of water pumping system was built inside the tower , which supplied the Kremlin with drinking water from the Moscow River via the first Moscow water pipe . The author of this pump machine, which at the time was considered a miracle of technology, was the Englishman Christopher Galloway , who also created the first clock on the Tower of the Redeemer.
In 1805 the now dilapidated tower was dismantled and rebuilt true to the original, but only seven years later it was blown up by the French during the Moscow occupation by Napoléon Bonaparte . In 1819 the tower was restored again and largely assumed its current shape. The Soviet star with a diameter of about 3.5 meters at the top of the tower dates from 1937, when similar stars were placed on five Kremlin towers by order of the Soviet state power.
Borowitsky Tower
As one of the four Kremlin towers that now have a through gate, the Borovitsky Tower ( Боровицкая башня ) is also adorned with a red star. Up to this star the tower is 50.7 meters high, up to the top of the star 54 meters. The gateway in the tower base, in the immediate vicinity of which is the entrance to the armory , now serves as one of the two visitor entrances to the Kremlin. It also serves as a passage in and out of the Kremlin for the Russian President and members of his administration .
The tower, more precisely its base, was built by Pietro Antonio Solari in 1490 and named after Borowitsky Hill, the natural elevation on which the Kremlin stands. Its name could in turn derive from the Old Russian word bor for (coniferous) forest. In the 1680s, the Borowizki Tower was given its current height and shape through additions above the base. In the 18th and 19th centuries there were several farm buildings on the Kremlin side near the Borovitsky tower, which is why the tower's gate was primarily used as an industrial entrance. Until the beginning of the 19th century, a folding bridge led from the outside over the Neglinnaya River to the Borovitsky Gate. After its river bed was laid underground by 1823 and the Alexander Garden was created instead along the western Kremlin wall , the bridge was removed and replaced by an access ramp to the gate that still exists today.
In terms of its architecture, the Borowitski Tower is one of the most unusual of the 20 Kremlin towers: after the renovation in the 1680s, it consists of a broad base in which the gate is carved and on which, slightly offset to the side, three unequally large, cuboids that become smaller with each level follow. This four-tier construction is completed by the spire, which consists of a decorative bell tower and the following octagonal tent roof. Since the course of the Kremlin wall makes a slight bend on the Borowizki tower, when the tower was rebuilt in the 1680s, the platform intended for artillery riflemen was set up on the north side instead of the usual main facade, which gives the tower its somewhat asymmetrical appearance Gives structure.
Armory tower
The comparatively small Armory Tower ( Оружейная башня ) with a height of 32.7 meters owes its name to the State Armory Building on the Kremlin side of the wall at the height of this tower . Its architecture is simple and its structure is reminiscent of several other small Kremlin towers: a rectangular base section is followed by a square tent roof construction in the shape of a small bell tower , clad with dark green tiles and provided with decorative carved recesses , which is closed by an octagonal tip with a weather vane.
The tower was built in the years 1493–1495 by the Milanese master builder Aloisio da Milano (his exact name is not known with certainty, possibly his name was Aloisio da Carezano , in Russia at that time he was simply called Alewis Frjasin or "Alewis the foreigner") . The armory tower took its current shape including the tent roof during the renovation in the years 1676–1686. Originally there was a horse stable at the height of the tower, to which a through gate in the tower led, so the tower's original name was Horse Stable Tower ( Конюшенная башня ). In the 19th century the gate, which was no longer needed, was walled up, and the tower was given its current name with the construction of the armory building.
Commanders Tower
The commanders' tower ( Комендантская башня ) was also created by Aloisio from Milan, so it is not surprising that the tower looks very similar to the neighboring armory tower. It was also built between 1493 and 1495 and is 41.3 meters high including the top. It was increased at the same time as the armory tower until 1686. Unlike the latter, however, the commandant's tower never had a through gate.
The current name dates back to 1851, when the pleasure palace in the immediate vicinity of the tower was occupied by the Kremlin commandant's office . Previously, the name horse-drawn carriage tower ( Колымажная башня ) was known for the tower , as the so-called carriage yard for the storage of equipages belonging to the tsar and his followers was located near it .
Trinity Tower
The Trinity Tower ( Троицкая башня ) is one of the most famous Kremlin towers, not least because most tourists nowadays enter the Kremlin through its gate. The height of the Trinity Tower is 76.4 meters below the Soviet star at its top and 80 meters including the star, making it the tallest Kremlin tower. It should be noted, however, that its height is slightly lower when viewed from the Kremlin side, as the tower is located directly on the slope of the Kremlin Hill. The tower consists of the six-storey base part and the 17th century extension with decorative turrets and keel-arched ornaments made of white limestone and a slender bell tower with a tent roof.
Regarding the exact construction time of the tower, no information has been handed down, but it must have been completed by the completion of the western section of the wall in 1499 at the latest. Aloisio da Milano also built the Trinity Tower, making the tower one of the most important works of this otherwise little-known master builder. The name Trinity Tower was given to the structure in 1658, as there was a property belonging to the Trinity Monastery of Sergiev Posad in its vicinity . Previously, several different, unofficially used names were common for the tower.
It is known that a larger clock with carillon was attached to the west facade of the tower until it was raised in the 17th century, similar to the clock of the Savior Tower that still exists today. Around 1683 the original clock was dismantled and at the same time the tower, like the other Kremlin towers, received its tent roof extension. A new clock from the Netherlands was later installed on the tower , but it was destroyed in a fire during the fighting in 1812 and was later not replaced. The gateway in the base of the tower served as one of the parade entrances to the Kremlin in the 17th century, among other things because the tsar's ( Terem Palace ) and the Patriarch's ( Patriarch 's Palace ) apartments were located near the tower . In the war of 1812 it was also the Trinity Tower through which Napoléon's troops advancing from the west entered the Kremlin and emerged a few weeks later when they withdrew. Today the Trinity Gate can only be passed on foot. The spacious interior of the base part housed the archives of the Tsar's court in the 19th century; today they are used as a rehearsal room by the brass band of the Kremlin garrison. In 1937 the spire received its red Soviet star instead of the double-headed eagle from the 1680s.
Kutafja Tower and Trinity Bridge
In the wall area in the amount of the Trinity tower is the only preserved to this day part of the attachment complex is outside the Kremlin wall: This is the only 13.5-meter-high Kutafya -Turm ( Кутафья башня ), a typical Barbican , and it connects with the Trinity tower arch bridge, which after the tower is usually referred to as the Trinity Bridge ( Троицкий мост ). The two now serve as entrance structures to the Kremlin: Visitors enter the citadel via the Trinity Bridge and then via the gate of the Trinity Tower after they have passed a security gate in the Kutafja Tower . On both sides of the Kutafja Tower there are today ticket offices of the Kremlin museums, to the right of it a flight of stairs leads to the Alexander Gardens and to the common entrance to three metro stations .
From the 16th to the 18th centuries, when the Kremlin was surrounded by water on all sides, there were similar structures at all of its entrance gates: the only way to get into the Kremlin was to cross one of the bridges over the Neglinnaya or the artificial moat on Red Square that could be folded up in the event of a defense in order to cut off any access to the wall for the attacker. One of these bridges was the Trinity Bridge, which was built in 1516 on the site of an even older wooden bridge over the Neglinnaja, which was artificially dammed in this area and therefore relatively wide. Also in 1516 also Kutafya tower was built, which its function because - here originally were lifting mechanisms for the fold-up bridge - sometimes Vorbrückenturm ( Предмостная башня was called). Its architect was the builder of the Trinity Tower, the Italian Aloisio da Milano (Russian Алевиз Фрязин).
In 1685 the Kutafja tower, like the other Kremlin towers, was noticeably rebuilt and received its decorative stone attic , which is still in existence today, through which the tower externally reminds a little of a crown. Almost a century later, the tower's vaulted ceiling was removed so that it has been open at the top ever since. The Trinity Bridge from 1516 was significantly rebuilt twice in its history: On the one hand at the beginning of the 19th century, when the river bed of the Neglinnaja was moved underground and the Alexander Garden was laid out in its place, and on the other hand in 1901 when it was almost completely rebuilt. The railings of today's bridge are stylistically strongly linked to the neighboring Kremlin wall with its tooth-shaped tips.
Arsenal central tower
The Arsenal Central Tower ( Средняя Арсенальная башня ) is 38.9 m high. It was built by Aloisio da Milano in the years 1493–1495 and provided with a tent roof and a spike in the 1680s. Stylistically, the tower was kept largely following the same pattern as the other two small towers built by Aloisio (the armory and the commanders' tower). In the 14th century, under the Moscow Grand Duke Dmitri Donskoy , there was probably a corner tower in the same place, as the Kremlin territory did not extend as far to the north as it did at the end of the 15th century.
When the Kremlin arsenal was erected in this area of the wall, its building, completed in 1736, was built directly onto the tower. Since then, the tower has had its current name, Arsenal Central Tower, due to its location in the central area of the western Arsenal facade . Before that, the name facetted tower ( Гранёная башня ) was common, which probably came from the arched niches on the facade of the tower. When the Alexander Gardens were laid out in the 1820s, a decorative grotto was created on the outside of the Kremlin wall exactly at the height of the central arsenal tower , which has since formed a coherent ensemble with the tower.
Arsenal corner tower
The arsenal corner tower ( Угловая Арсенальная башня ) is also named after the elongated arsenal building . At this northernmost point of the Kremlin, the wall bends south and runs from there along Red Square to the banks of the Moscow River. The tower borders the northwest corner of the arsenal building and, as one of the three corner towers of the Kremlin wall, is equipped with a cylindrical base. The height of the tower including the top is 60.2 m.
Originally known as the Sobakin Tower ( Собакина башня ) after the nearby court of the Sobakin boyar family , the tower was built in 1492 based on a design by Pietro Antonio Solari . It was rebuilt and the spire added, along with other Kremlin towers in the 17th century. During the war of 1812, when Napoléon's troops blew up the arsenal, the force of the explosions caused the tent roof to fall off the tower, and there were numerous cracks at the base as well. A few years later the city architect Joseph Bové restored the tower. It was also he who had the Alexandergarten laid out at the same time , over which the tower has risen ever since. The tomb of the unknown soldier was erected in the Alexander Garden in 1967 exactly in the area of the Arsenal corner tower .
When it was erected, the corner tower of the Arsenal, at the point where the artificial moat on the eastern Kremlin wall drained from the Neglinnaja, was given a particularly solid construction. The foundation walls in the area of the base cylinder with 16 edges are up to four meters thick and were additionally equipped with loopholes for artillery barrels in 1707, during the Great Northern War . Originally there was also a secret underground escape route to Neglinnaja as well as a well, through which the fortress was supplied with drinking water until the pumping station in the water tower was built. With additions from the 17th century, the tower now represents a step-like combination of the base, a cylinder base with a smaller diameter and a slim octagonal roof construction with 16 decorative recesses standing on it.
Nikolausturm
The section of the Kremlin wall on Red Square begins from the north with the Nikolausturm ( Никольская башня ). This tower, architecturally unusual in many respects, has a red star at the top as one of the four through towers of the Kremlin and is 67.1 m high up to this star and 70.4 m including the same. The name Nicholas tower he has the mounted above the entrance gate icon of by Orthodox Russians revered St. Nicholas owed. This icon was said to have a miracle effect well into the 20th century. Its rectangular white stone border can still be seen today above the gate, which is normally closed.
The Nikolausturm was originally built in 1491 by Pietro Antonio Solari. Unlike the other Kremlin towers, it did not get its roof structure at the end of the 17th century, but only in the 1780s. The square tent roof erected at that time was replaced a little later, in 1806, by today's tip based on a design by Luigi Rusca , which is stylistically strongly linked to the Gothic . In 1812, Napoléon's troops blew up the Nikolausturm, the new Gothic roof structure was almost completely destroyed, and the base also suffered considerable damage. In 1816, Joseph Bové had the tower restored to its original state. In the 19th century, the gateway to the St. Nicholas Tower was used by believers in particular, as the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin was located near it . In memory of the liberation of Russia from the Polish invaders on October 22nd, 1612, when the people's army around Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitri Poscharski were just entering the Kremlin through the Nikolaustor , there was a solemn procession of the cross from the Kremlin through the Nikolaustor every year Kazan Cathedral located opposite the tower on Red Square .
During the several days of fighting for the Kremlin in the October Revolution , the Nikolausturm was again badly damaged and restored in the 1920s. The icon of St. Nicholas, which fell during the artillery bombardment, was not reattached to the tower. In the 1930s, the communists also had the two chapels, consecrated to St. Nicholas and the canonized Grand Duke Alexander Newski , demolished, which had stood on St. Nicholas Tower since the 19th century as a souvenir of the war of 1812.
With its gothic decorated top, the Nikolausturm, which looks very slender overall, is one of the most architecturally unusual of the Moscow Kremlin towers. The rich ornamentation on the roof was made of white limestone , as were the Baroque decorations on the base, which were created in the 1730s at the same time as the construction of the arsenal adjoining the tower , and the four pointed fial turrets above the corners of the base. The square spire with its red Soviet star (which replaced a gold-plated double-headed eagle in 1937) is somewhat reminiscent of the top of a Catholic church building.
Senate Tower
The 34.3 m high Senate Tower ( Сенатская башня ) follows the Nikolaus Tower in a southerly direction. It owes its name to the Senate Palace in the Kremlin, whose east facade and dome can be seen directly behind the tower and the Kremlin wall and the tower was unnamed before it was built at the end of the 18th century. The tower, built by Pietro Antonio Solari in 1491, is architecturally rather inconspicuous in contrast to the two neighboring towers; The rectangular base erected by Solari is followed by a square turret with a tented roof from 1680, which can hardly be distinguished from the outside of the corresponding additions to other small Kremlin towers.
The Lenin mausoleum , where the embalmed corpse of the revolutionary leader Lenin rests , has stood on the side of Red Square since 1930, exactly at the height of the Senate Tower . Behind it, the so-called necropolis on the Kremlin wall extends around the Senate Tower, on the entire section of the Kremlin wall between the Nicholas and the Redeemer Tower . This most important cemetery of honor in the Soviet Union contains the graves of important Soviet statesmen (including Stalin , Brezhnev , Andropov and Chernenko ) as well as urns built into the Kremlin wall of particularly deserving Soviet citizens, politicians and foreign communists. This cemetery of honor can now be visited free of charge at certain times of the day, together with the Lenin mausoleum.
Redeemer Tower
One of the most famous watchtowers of the Moscow Kremlin is the Savior Tower ( Спасская башня ), which is the tallest structure on Red Square with its 67.3 meters including the top. Since 1937, the tower has been crowned one of five Kremlin towers with a ruby-glass Soviet star, including the height of the tower is 71 meters. The passage gate in the tower is now used exclusively for the entry and exit of official vehicles, but it was the most important parade entrance to the Kremlin until the beginning of the 20th century.
The tower, built by Solari in 1491 , was originally called the Frol Tower ( Фроловская башня ) after its white stone predecessor built in the 14th century, which in turn probably owes its name to a nearby church of Saints Frol and Lavr. In 1658 Tsar Alexei I issued an ukase , after which the tower bore its current name. This is based on the icon with a portrait of Christ the Redeemer , erected in 1514 above the gateway of the tower , which Grand Duke Vasily III. 1514 after his conquest of Smolensk had had it manufactured. Simultaneously with the renaming of the tower, Alexei I instructed all Kremlin visitors to enter the fortress through the Savior Gate only on foot and with bare heads; those who did not adhere to it had to bow fifty times before the icon of the Savior as a punishment. This had become an established tradition well into the 20th century, which even the tsars had to follow.
From 1624 to 1625, the Redeemer Tower was the first of all Kremlin towers to be expanded and provided with the richly ornamented upper part including the bell tower and a spire later crowned with the Tsarist double-headed eagle. The construction of the upper part was directed by the Russian architect Baschen Ogurzow, who a few years later also participated in the construction of the Terem Palace in the Kremlin. At the same time, the Scottish architect and clockmaker Christopher Galloway (the same one who later designed the pumping machine in the water tower) built the elaborate clockwork for the first known tower clock of the Savior Tower. With its dial around five meters in diameter, it was considered a masterpiece of watchmaking at the time. Under Peter I , this clock was replaced by a Dutch one in 1709, and it was also the first clock in the Tower of the Redeemer with a carillon and a modern 12-hour dial.
In the war against Napoléon in 1812, when a major fire broke out across Moscow, parts of the Redeemer Tower were damaged, including the clock. Napoléon's plan to demolish the tower failed, however, as most of the explosives used may not detonate due to heavy rain. The clock was repaired in 1815 and finally replaced by the current one in 1851–52. It contains four dials - one on each side of the tower - with a diameter of 6.12 m each and an extremely complex clockwork, which is spread over three floors of the tower. The bells, which are located in the bell tower below the top of the Savior Tower, strike the time every quarter of an hour and today they play the melody of the Russian national anthem twice a day - at noon and at midnight .
As the most important parade entrance to the Kremlin, it was the Savior Gate through which all crowned Russian tsars and emperors entered the Kremlin during their solemn coronation ceremony . The fact that the parade entrance to the Kremlin was on Red Square underscored the traditionally close historical and cultural ties between these two oldest parts of the Russian capital.
Tsar Tower
Strictly speaking, the Tsar's Tower ( Царская башня ) is not a (guard) tower, but a 14.5 meter high decorative house with a tent roof placed on the wall. It was not erected in the years 1485–99, like the other Kremlin towers, but only in 1680 by an architect whose name has not been passed down. The tower owes its pompous-sounding name to the fact that in its place there was once an observation point on the Kremlin wall, from which, according to some traditions in the 16th century, Tsar Ivan the Terrible observed the events on Red Square.
The structure of the turret is relatively simple: a rectangular open gallery, closed off by an octagonal tent roof that rests on four “pot-like” supports. A number of additional decorative elements, including four pointed turrets above the columns, white ornaments and a gilded weather vane at the top, give the tsar's tower a very neat appearance.
Storm bell tower
Built in 1495 by Pietro Antonio Solari and 1676-86 extended to the upper part resembling Sturmgeläut- or alarm bell tower ( Набатная башня ) with its four-sided and clad with green tiles tent the Arsenal central tower and some other smaller Kremlin towers. Its height to the top of the tower is 38 meters.
Originally, a bell was hung in the tower, which was always pressed when the city and its residents threatened danger, for example when attackers appeared or during major fires. The tower was later named after this alarm bell, which sounded a storm chime (Russian набат ( nabat )) in an emergency . In 1674 the bell broke during an operation and was re-cast in 1714 by the master Iwan Motorin, who two decades later became known as the author of the famous Tsar Bell . When Moscow was struck by a particularly devastating plague epidemic in 1771 , which ultimately led to a mutiny of desperate crowds against the supposedly inactive state power, this bell was also rang, which was immediately understood as a call to unrest. The then Tsarina Catherine the Great was so angry that after the mutiny was put down, she ordered the bell to have its clapper removed as a kind of punishment. The now silent bell hung on the tower until the beginning of the 19th century, when it was first shipped to the arsenal as a museum exhibit and later to the armory . It is exhibited there to this day.
Konstantin Helenen Tower
The Konstantin Helenen Tower ( Константино-Еленинская башня ) is roughly on the middle path between St. Basil's Cathedral on the south side of Red Square on the one hand and the bank of the Moskva on the other, on the slope of Borovitsky Hill . It was built by Solari in 1490 and is 36.8 m high. Architecturally, it differs from other towers primarily through its wide, almost square base part, which makes the tower look comparatively “thick” overall. Accordingly, the upper part added in 1680, albeit similar in structure to the neighboring storm bell tower, was kept a little wider, so there are three instead of two decorative windows on each of its four facades.
A special feature is an arched niche at the very bottom of the facade facing the Red Square. Once there was a gateway to the Kremlin, more precisely to the local church of Saints Constantine and Helena, which ultimately gave the tower its name. Traces of special openings through which the ropes for lifting the bridge leading to the gate were once stretched over the artificial moat can also be seen today. During the expansion of the tower in 1680, the passage gate was locked with bars, and later a torture cellar was set up inside the tower for interrogating arrested criminals. When the moat was filled in at the beginning of the 19th century, the lifting bridge leading to the tower was demolished and the former gateway was finally bricked up. The niche that marks the former gate has sunk to a considerable extent in the ground due to piling up.
Beklemishev Tower
The Beklemishev Tower or Moskva River Tower ( Беклемишевская башня or Москворецкая башня ) is the third corner tower of the Kremlin wall. This makes an approximately right-angled bend towards the west and then runs along the left bank of the Moskva until it veers off to the north at the water towing tower. The Beklemischew tower is 46.2 m high and is characterized by its high cylindrical base with several artillery cards carved into it and the very slender tip that follows, which is closed by a weather vane.
The base was built in the years 1487-88 by Marco Ruffo , one of the most important Italian builders of today's Kremlin, who in Russia was usually only called Mark Frjasin, literally "Mark of the foreigners". The name Beklemishev Tower is based on the property of the boyar Nikita Beklemishev, which was once behind the Kremlin wall, right next to the tower , while the alternative name of the Moskva River Tower goes back to the location on the bank of the building. Until the construction of the treatment plant in the water draft tower in the 17th century, the Beklemischew tower, like the corner tower of the Arsenal, had a well to supply the Kremlin with water. The top with a point dates from 1680. When the Kremlin was bombarded by artillery during the October Revolution of 1917, the part was badly damaged and was put back up a year later.
Petersturm
One of the smallest towers of the Moscow Kremlin is the 27.2 meter high Petersturm ( Петровская башня ). With a square base, an equally square, simple top and the wide octagonal tent roof, its architecture is extremely simple, which is what its originally purely defensive significance Moskva-facing and potentially very vulnerable tower underlines.
The tower was built in 1485 as one of the first Kremlin towers: Grand Duke Ivan III left the section of the wall along the Moscow River, which was considered particularly endangered. build in front of the other two sections. For a while the tower housed a small church of Saint Metropolitan Peter inside and has therefore been called Petersturm since then. In 1612, during the so-called Smuta , the tower was badly damaged by the Russian army in an artillery bombardment of the Kremlin, which was occupied by Polish-Lithuanian invaders. It was later restored and increased in 1676–86. In 1771 the tower was demolished in the course of preparations for the planned construction of a new Tsar's palace, but restored in 1783 after these plans were discarded. In 1812 it was blown up by Napoléon's troops and destroyed again, and a few years later it was rebuilt by Joseph Bové .
Second nameless tower
The second nameless tower ( Вторая безымянная башня ) was built in the 1480s; the year of construction and the exact assignment to an architect have not been handed down.
Like all the other towers on this section of the wall, the second nameless tower was also intended for purely technical defense purposes. It originally had an entrance gate and housed an iron forge inside. The gate was walled up in the 18th century, the tower was demolished in the 1770s, like the other towers in this section of the wall, and restored a few years later. With the tent roof added at the end of the 17th century, it reaches a height of 30.2 meters, which is why it became known as the second nameless tower, in contrast to its a few meters to the west, also nameless but slightly higher neighbor.
First nameless tower
The first nameless tower ( Первая безымянная башня ) is 34.2 meters high. It was built around the same time as the second nameless tower and looks similar to it in terms of structure, but is slightly higher and has a wider floor plan.
The tower is best known for the fact that it initially housed storage rooms for storing gunpowder supplies from the fortress. In a major fire across the Kremlin in 1547, the fire also reached the first nameless tower, whereupon the powder detonated and the tower was completely destroyed. It was only rebuilt in the 17th century and, as usual, received today's tent roof construction. The tower was also destroyed in the war against Napoléon in 1812, this time by French troops, and rebuilt a few years later under the supervision of Joseph Bové .
Secret passage tower
The foundation stone for the construction of the 38.4 m high secret passage tower ( Тайницкая башня ) was laid in the summer of 1485, making the tower the oldest of today's 20 Kremlin towers. Its architect was Antonio Gilardi (called Anton Frjasin ). The tower is located roughly in the middle of the southern section of the wall and was therefore intended as the central defense tower of the Kremlin from the Moskva side. It originally had a drinking water well and a secret tunnel (Russian тайник ( tainik )) to the banks of the Moskva, which gave the tower its name. Furthermore, there was once a clock on the tower and a narrow passage gate, the trace of which can still be seen today in the form of a niche.
In 1674, the secret passage tower was expanded to include the addition above the base, which is typical of small Kremlin towers, and the tower clock was removed. In the 1770s, the tower shared its fate with other Kremlin towers on the banks of the Moscow River: It was demolished for the later abandoned construction of the great Tsar's palace. A few years later, all towers that had previously been demolished were rebuilt. The secret passage tower only lost its gateway during a restoration in the 1930s, at the latest by then the remains of the former secret passage and the fountain were filled in.
Tower of the Annunciation
The Annunciation Tower ( Благовещенская башня ) owes its name not to the Kremlin Cathedral of the same name, but to the icon with a motif of the Annunciation , which originally adorned the facade of the tower facing the Kremlin. In 1731 a church, also consecrated to the Annunciation, was built next to the tower, which was demolished 200 years later on the orders of the Soviet government.
The tower is 30.7 meters high and was built by Antonio Gilardi in 1488. Architecturally, it is similar to the two nameless towers. Up until 1813 there was a small gate in the Kremlin wall next to the Annunciation Tower (but not, as is usually the case, in the tower itself), which originally served as access to the Kremlin washerwomen as access to the river, where they did the laundry on a special raft construction rinse out. That is why the gate was also referred to as the trouser wash gate ( Портомойные ворота ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Kremlin with a double bottom ( Memento of the original from August 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , izvestia.ru , September 29, 2006
- ↑ All height, length and width information here and in the following from Romanjuk, 2004 (see under literature)
- ↑ kremlenoved.ru; Reviewed March 8, 2009
literature
- Moscow Kremlin - tourist guide . Art Courier, Moscow 2002, ISBN 5-93842-019-9
- Valentina Goncharenko: walls and towers . Art-Courier, Moscow 2001
- GVMakarevič et al .: Pamjatniki architektury Moskvy. Kremlin, Kitaj-Gorod, Centralʹnye ploščadi . Iskusstvo, Moscow 1982; Pp. 300-314
- SKRomanjuk: Kremlʹ i Krasnaya Ploščadʹ . Moskvovedenie, Moscow 2004, ISBN 5-78530-434-1
