Moscow without
Kremlin would be like
Stalin without mustache. The Kremlin was the place where the Russian state was formed, where the issue of succession to the throne was decided, in medieval times, where the
BoyarDuma held its sessions, where the Church held its councils and where were crowned the
tsars, even when the capital had been shifted to
St. Petersburg. From 1918, the Kremlin become once more the center of state and political life, its name being used as a metonym to refer to the government of the
Soviet Union, and after 1991 to the government of the
Russian Federation.
Moscow appeared at the end of the 11th century, and the settlement was fortified from the very beginning, first with a wooden fence, then with a wall of oak logs, and finally, in the 14th century, with a white stone walls. Evolution of the buildings inside the walls, be they palaces or churches, followed the same course. The Russian and Italian architects who built the Kremlin ensemble in the 15th century made it the visible the incarnation of the rise of the Russian state. It underwent a reconstruction throughout the 17th century, as the
Romanov dynasty sought to confirm its power. It was severely damaged when the
Napoleon's troops conquered and then left the city, in 1812. Immediately thereafter, Tsar
Alexander I began its reconstruction, completed by
Nicholas I. The last upheaval for the Kremlin’s architecture took place in the late 1950s - early 1960s.
The tower in the postcards was built in 1491 under the supervision of the architect
Pietro Antonio Solari (Pyotr Fryazin), and was initial named Frolovskaya, later being renamed the
Spasskaya (Savior’s), in honor of the Icon of the Savoir Not Made By Hands, which crowned the gateway. Originally it had half of its present height (71m with the star mounted in 1935).), in 1624-1625 being built a multi-tiered top with a stone tent roof. The first clock was mounted in 1491, and the present Kremlin chimes were installed in 1851-1852 by the Butenop brothers.
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