Part I: The Kremlin as Fortress

By Jack Kollmann

When Moscow was just a village, back in the 11th/12th centuries, virtually its entire population lived behind wooden walls on a small hill beside the Moscow River. A model of such an early wooden fortress, in the State History Museum in Moscow, is on the left. The settlement is atop a hill; a fortified extension descends the hill at left so that inhabitants could reach the local river to obtain water during a seige. Historical sources first mention Moscow in 1147, a date celebrated as the city's founding date, but archeological findings date the earliest settlement to the 11th century. Remnants of early Moscow fortifications include combinations of earthen ramparts, horizontal logs, and stockades (walls of upright posts). The example of horizontal log construction on the right is at the Wooden Architecture Museum at Kizhi, in Lake Onega, some 400 miles to the north of Moscow. A more sophisticated combination of fortress towers of horizontal logs, with stockade walls between the towers, is shown on the left, at the Museum of Wooden Architecture near Lake Baikal, Siberia.

 

As Moscow grew, the fortified settlement on the small hill became the inner fortress of an expanding city, where the most important persons and institutions of government and church were housed. This citadel, at first called simply "the city" (gorod/grad: a fortified settlement), gradually came to be known as the "kremlin" (kreml': inner fortress of a city, especially a wooden one). As a result and reflection of Moscow's increasing power and wealth, the Kremlin's outer walls were reconstructed in limestone during the reign of Grand Prince Dmitrii Donskoi (1359-1389). Limestone was not only stronger than wood, it was impervious to the many fires that ravaged the city. The two representations shown here of the Kremlin walls before and after their conversion to stone are by the artist Apollinari M. Vasnetsov (1856-1933), who devoted much of his life and work to studying and portraying historical Moscow. The originals of these watercolor paintings, done in 1921 and 1922, are in the Museum of the History and Reconstruction of Moscow.

The building of anything in stone in Moscow was made especially difficult by the circumstance that the nearest decent limestone quarry was at Miachkovo, 50km downstream on the Moscow River. One enterprising Russian archeologist calculated that some 54,000 cubic meters of stone went into the new Kremlin walls, and every cubic meter had to be transported to Moscow along the river -- by sled in winter, barge in summer.

In order to illustrate some of the characteristics of old Russian stone fortresses like the 14th-century Kremlin walls, I include photographs from three sites. Pictured first is the fortress at (Staryi) Izborsk, near Pskov (the latter is approximately 375 miles W/NW of Moscow). The town of Izborsk is one of the oldest in Russia, mentioned in the chronicles as existing in the 9th century, but the surviving fortress dates from the 14th-16th centuries. In the photograph at lower right stonemasons are facing the remains of theold fortress wall with fresh-cut limestone.

 

 

The Pskov Kremlin (the local variant of Kreml' is Krom ), upper left and right, dates from the 14th-16th centuries. Due to the poor quality of local limestone, the stones even of the wall face are roughly dressed. In the bottom right photo, restorers have partially refaced an interior wall section with fresh-cut stones but have left a portion of the old wall visible. The squat round tower in the upper left and right photos is the same tower from different angles and in different seasons. In the upper left photo the wall extending from the tower rises in steps to meet the main citadel in the distance. The upper right photo looks in the opposite direction to another tower and wall across the Pskov River. The lower left photo looks across the Velikaia River to a part of the limestone city wall, with a massive round corner tower.

A third limestone fortress in the vicinity of Pskov is the Monastery at Pechory. Although winter lighting renders the walls pink in the photos at left, the photos at right -- plus the photos above of the Izborsk fortress and the Pskov Krom -- illustrate why, from such limestone walls, Moscow became known, beginning in Dimitrii Donskoi's reign in the 14th century, as the "white-walled (belokamennaia ) city." At both Pskov and Pechory the wooden superstructures of walls and towers have been restored. Towers that are square in plan typically have four-sloped wooden towers with lookout posts, or lanterns, near the top. Round towers typically have octagonal tent-shaped superstructures. Also restored at Pskov and Pechory are the double-sloped wooden roofs atop wall walkways that provided defenders with shelter from the harsh climate, not to mention an enemy's arrows. Of course, if the enemy was smart enough to shoot flaming arrows, the defenders had a problem.

By the reign of Ivan III the Great (1462-1505), Moscow was becoming the political and ecclesiastical capital of the East Slavic world. Moscow, however, did not look impressively "capitalistic" (if that's the right word): it was a rude, sprawling city of log houses, with only a handful of stone buildings, and those were aging badly. The court of Ivan III decided to rebuild the Kremlin on a grand scale, befitting Moscow's stature. But because Muscovite builders were largely unskilled in masonry, rebuilding in anything but wood was practically impossible. How, then, was Ivan III's government to reconstruct the Kremlin in any material but logs?

The task was accomplished, as on so many occasions in Russian history, by buying Western technology, in this case by hiring several teams of architects and builders from the north Italian city states of Bologna, Milan, and Venice. Muscovy had trading connections with Italy, and Ivan III's ambassadors reported that Italy possessed superior levels of technology in architecture and such fields as metallurgy, the latter important for casting cannon, minting coins, etc. Ivan III even took a bride from Italy: Zoe Paleolog, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, who had been raised in Rome as a ward of the pope (Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, fell to the Turks in 1453). Renamed Sofiia (Sophia) when she accepted Russian Orthodoxy, Ivan's wife brought with her in 1472 a large retinue of Greeks and Italians. Between the 1470s and 1520s, some half dozen major embassies of Italian technicians of various skills came to Moscow.

Between 1485 and 1516, the Kremlin walls were rebuilt under the supervision of north Italian architects, who were experienced in brick construction. The artist Apollinari M. Vasnetsov portrays what the new walls looked like in the watercolor at the left (Museum of the History and Reconstruction of Moscow, 1921). Note the pontoon bridge in the foreground across the Moscow River, the wooden superstructures atop the brick wall towers, and the masonry churches built or being built on the Kremlin hill. The photo on the right, from the same perspective as the painting, shows the Moscow River (Moskvoretskii) Bridge (1936-38) in the foreground; the Kremlin wall on the southern, river, facade to the left is largely obscured by trees; the present Kremlin wall tower superstructures were added in the 17th century. Note that the Kremlin hill is only a slight elevation above the river, therefore the walls must provide the principal protection. Away from the river, as on the SE side at the right, the wall is higher and rises with the contour of the land.

The growth of territory enclosed by the Kremlin walls is indicated in the following three maps. In the first map (left), the Moscow River (#6), flows left to right; the small Neglinnaia River (#4) enters the Moscow River at bottom left. Archeological evidence places the earliest settlement, 11th-12th centuries, at #1. The settled area of Moscow increased in the 12th-13th centuries, indicated by #2 in two locations, and by the 14th century the city included the area shown by #3. Some traces of sewage pipes and a moat along the eastern side (right) of the fortification walls have been found, but the first significant moat was probably the one constructed by the Italians working in the early 16th century. This map, implying that the moat was there as of the 14th century, is premature.

The small map at left indicates the territory of the Kremlin encompassed by the 14th-century white limestone walls (and note that, properly, there is no moat along the eastern side at right). The map at right shows the roughly triangular Kremlin of the Italian-built red brick walls of the late 15th/early 16th centuries. Major fortification towers at the triangle's corners, all of them round in plan, are: #1, the Water-Pumping (Vodovzvodnaia) (or Sviblov) Tower; #2, the Beklemishev Tower; and #4, the Arsenal (or Sobakin) Tower. #6 is the Borovitskaia (entrance) Tower, square in plan, and named for the nearby silver pine forest (bor) that once covered the SW corner of the Kremlin hill. The names Sviblov, Beklemishev, and Sobakin are the names of boyar families that once lived inside the Kremlin near those towers. The other 14 towers in the wall are square in plan and include two entrance towers: #3, the Savior (or Frol) Tower, and #5, the Trinity Tower. Various towers have served as entrance towers over the centuries; at present they number five: Borovitskaia, Savior, St. Nicholas, Trinity, and Kutaf'ia (the latter, standing outside the Kremlin walls, connects by a ramp to the Trinity Tower, so those two towers together guard a single entrance). A small decorative Tsar's Tower near the Savior Tower brings the total of Kremlin wall towers to 20: 7 on the southern perimeter, 8 on the eastern side, and 8 on the western (the total by this reckoning is 23, counting the three corner towers twice).

The Italian-built walls (map above right) slightly expanded the enclosed territory to its present 70 acres. Not only is the Kremlin triangle extended at the top, compared to the 14th-century limestone walls (above left), but also the red brick walls were constructed outside the white limestone walls. The length of the wall around the Kremlin is approximately 1.4 miles. (Maps are from N. Ia. Tikhomirov and V. N.. Ivanov, Moskovskii kreml': Istoriia arkhitektury , Moscow, 1967).

The Italians were assigned to begin with the Moscow River side, which faced the threat of Tatar raids from the south. The wall in modern times is difficult to see because of the trees. The photo at left looks downstream, the corner Water-Pumping Tower at left, followed by 6 other towers trailing into the distance. An ice-breaker boat has cleared a path down the middle of the river, principally in order to prevent pedestrians from crossing on the ice. The photo at right looks along the river facade from the opposite direction, towards the west.

These three photos feature the Water-Pumping (Sviblov) Tower, at the SW corner of the Kremlin (the modern name comes from a 17th-century water-pumping mechanism that supplied Kremlin buildings and gardens). Aside from the fact that the facade is faced with brick which the Italians made, the tower displays two Italianate features. The first is the embattled parapet on the tower, about halfway up the present tower, marking the tower's original masonry top. Note that the parapet projects beyond the tower face. The slots below this projection (called machicolations) lead from holes in the parapet floor which could be used for shooting down at an enemy, or pouring boiling oil, etc. The second distinctly Italianate feature is the merlons atop the embattlement, those swallowtail-shaped projections which also crown the walls and serve to protect defenders on the wall. This type of crenellation is characteristic of fortress walls in the Milan area, where the wall's principal builders were from. Large cannon stood on separate casemates built behind the wall; smaller cannon simply rested between the merlons.

A fortuitous benefit resulted from an otherwise disastrous wind storm in June 1998. Until then, trees concealed the Kremlin wall along the southern, river side. The photo at upper left was taken in 1976, showing the southern side at approximately midpoint, with cathedrals and bell tower. The two photos at upper right, taken in September 1999, reveal an open view of the wall along the river embankment. The tall tower in the far upper right photo is the Water-Pumping (Sviblov) Tower, at the SW corner (at left in the photo) of the Kremlin triangle. The swallowtail merlons atop the walls -- 1,045 in all -- range from 6.6' to 8.2' tall. They are pictured closeup in these two photos on the river facade, the right photo taken from within the Kremlin looking down on the top of the wall from the Kremlin hill. The pathway atop the wall is exactly as wide as the height of the merlons (6.6' to 8.2'). The pathway, now cluttered with electrical conduits, facilitated movement of defenders, equipment, and supplies. The Kremlin wall ranges in thickness from 11.5' to 21.3'. In fact it is a double wall of brick, filled in the middle with gravel, sand, and limestone from the 14th-century wall. In height the Kremlin wall measures from 16.4' to 62.3' to the tops of the merlons. The tallest wall sections are along the vulnerable land side, the eastern facade, where Red Square flanks the Kremlin.

The four photos at left take us, left to right, around the SE corner of the Kremlin triangle, from the southern, river side (far left) of the tall corner Beklemishev Tower. Because there is no natural protective body of water along the eastern side of the Kremlin triangle (to the right of the Beklemishev Tower), the wall rises sharply in height immediately past the tower. There is a slight rise from the river up to the level of Red Square, which begins just beyond St. Basil's Cathedral (far right). The far left photo was taken in 1977 from across the Moscow River; the other three photos were made in 1997 from the top floor of the Baltschug Kempinski Hotel, which occupies a renovated 19th-century building on the right (south) bank of the river.

The three photos at right likewise take us around the corner Beklemishev Tower. The near right photo was taken from the Moscow River Bridge (January 1977). The far right photo, taken from the bridge closer to St. Basil's, shows three towers leading up the rise to the level of Red Square. The tallest tower, with red star on top, is the Savior (Frol) Tower. Decorations on Red Square in the right background are for celebration of the anniversary of the Revolution the following morning (7 November 1976); the shiny vehicle tops visible at the bottom are of parked military trucks that have conveyed hundreds of soldiers to Red Square to stand honor guard (and for crowd control) in front of Lenin's Mausoleum, located out of sight beyond the Savior Tower. The lower right photo is taken from the Red Square level near St. Basil's looking back down the slight rise from the Moscow River (after the German, Mathias Rust, landed a small plane here in 1987, some Muscovite wags nicknamed this area "Sheremetevo #3," an addition to the two real Sheremetevo airports north of the city, where most foreign planes land). The edge of the base of the Savior Tower is at far right; the decorative Tsar's Tower (17th century) is next, then the Alarm Tower, then the Sts. Constantine and Helen Tower (which at one time was an entrance tower), then in the distance the tall spire of the corner Beklemishev Tower by the river.

In the left photo, moving from left to right, is the Great Ivan Bell Tower inside the Kremlin, then four towers in the wall -- Constantine-Helen, Alarm, Tsar's, Savior -- then St. Basil's Cathedral, on the other side of which is Red Square. In photo at right, on Red Square, from left to right, is the Savior Tower (superstructure 17th century), the green dome of the yellow Senate Building inside the Kremlin (18th century), the Senate Tower in the Kremlin wall (superstructure 17th century) and at the right the whitewashed edge of the stone Lobnoe Mesto ("Place of the Forehead," or "Golgotha," the latter from Hebrew, meaning "skull"), a platform from which decrees were read to the public (not, as a rule, for executions, as popular guidebooks have it).

The detail at right is of the icon, "Vladimir Mother of God With Tree of the Muscovite State," painted and signed by the famous icon painter, Simon Ushakov, in 1668 (photo 1976, State Tret'iakov Gallery). In realistic detail, Ushakov depicts the Savior, the Senate (a modern name) Tower, and St. Nicholas towers. The "tree of the Muscovite state" appears to spring from an enlarged Cathedral of the Dormition inside the Kremlin (we will return to the Dormition Cathedral in Part II of this photographic essay). Of special interest to us is the moat, now filled in, paralleling the Kremlin wall. Constructed in the early 16th century by Italians, it conveyed water from the little Neglinnaia River at the northern corner of the Kremlin triangle (off-picture to the right), up a series of small locks, and along the Red Square (eastern) side of the Kremlin, emptying into the Moscow River (off-picture to the left). The moat was flanked on both sides by low walls topped by decorative swallowtail merlons. The moat passed between the Kremlin wall and St. Basil's Cathedral, the latter also known as the Cathedral of the Intercession (it's official dedication) "on the moat" (Pokrovskii sobor chto na rvu ). We shall return to St. Basil's in Part VII of this photographic essay.

At left is Lenin's Mausoleum, standing on Red Square in the shadow of the Kremlin wall in front of the Senate Tower, behind which is the green dome of the Senate building, topped by a red Soviet flag (photo 1971). The icon detail at right shows the same tower (left center) before 1680, when its wooden tent-shaped roof was replaced by the tall masonry superstructure. The icon also shows the crenellated near wall of the moat in front of the Kremlin wall (detail of "Metropolitan Aleksii Against the Background of the Moscow Kremlin," Hermitage Museum, photo 1977). The lower left photo shows the length of Red Square, with (left to right) St. Basil's Cathedral at the far end of the square, Savior Tower, and Senate Tower and dome.

 

 

The wide-angle photo at right shows the mighty corner Arsenal (Sobakin) Tower at the northern tip of the Kremlin triangle. Taken at the level of the now-covered-over Neglinnaia River, this photo shows the slight rise of land to the left of the tower leading up to Red Square, up which rise the Italians constructed the moat and locks to raise water to the level of the square. The left photo shows the Arsenal Tower from the Alexander Gardens (in honor of Tsar Alexander I for the victory over Napoleon), which were constructed in the 1820s when the Neglinnaia River was covered over and encased in a tunnel. In the foreground are polished granite blocks commemorating major battles in World War II, or, as Stalin dubbed it, the Second Great Fatherland (or Patriotic) War (the first being the war with Napoleon). The original top of the Arsenal Tower is the embattled parapet with machicolations about halfway up the tower.

The left photo shows the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Behind the swallowtail merlons on the wall is the yellow-with-white Arsenal building (19th century) inside the Kremlin. The right photo, taken near the Unknown Soldier memorial (which is to the left, over the heads of the bystanders), looks down the western, Alexander Gardens, side of the Kremlin. In the distance are the Middle Arsenal and Trinity Towers in the Kremlin wall.

Continuing down the western, Alexander Gardens side of the Kremlin triangle, the left photo shows the bridge leading from the small Kutaf'ia Tower (off-picture to the left) to the Trinity Tower, one of the entrance towers in the Kremlin wall. The bridge originally spanned the Neglinnaia River, which channeled underground. The lower left photo is in the Alexander Gardens, with the Armory Tower at right (the tip of the yellow-with-white State Armory building, 19th century, is barely visible above the wall). The final tower in our tour around the Kremlin perimeter is the Borovitskaia (entrance) Tower (right photo), square in plan, near the SW corner of the Kremlin triangle . Like the other major wall towers, it was built by Italians in the late 15th century, and was crowned by a slender tent-shaped superstructure in the late 17th century.

 

To recapitulate briefly our tour around the Kremlin's 1.4-mile perimeter, we started with the southern, Moscow River side of the Kremlin, with the Water-Pumping (Sviblov) Tower (#1) at the SW corner of the Kremlin triangle. We proceeded downstream, rounded the SE corner of the Kremlin, guarded by the Beklemishev Tower (#2), ascended the slight hill to the Savior Tower (#3) at the level of Red Square on the eastern side of the Kremlin, and descended slightly to the level of the Neglinnaia River and the Arsenal (Sobakin) Tower (#4) at the northern tip of the Kremlin plan. We passed along the western side of the Kremlin through the Alexander Gardens, which cover the little Neglinnaia River, noting the entrance Trinity (#5) and Borovitskaia (#6) Towers. Next, we examine the magnificent structures of Cathedral Square in the Kremlin, indicated on the map by the cluster of black building footprints.

 

All material herein copyrighted by Jack Kollmann, 16 August 2000. This page last updated 16 August 2000.

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