For years, the complex grew larger every time it was reconstructed until it reached its current size in the 15th century, during the reign of Ivan III the Great he ended the dominance of the Golden Horde over the Rus'. Just imagin: the area of the first known fortress on this site was only 3 hectares, while currently the Kremlin area takes up over 27 hectares, its defensive wall being 2, metres long!
Just to compare: the area of the Tower of London with its Liberties is only 7 hectares. Kremlins used to serve as public buildings and homes for nobility. Most of the population lived in adjacent posads trading and manufacturing quarters , and hid behind the thick kremlin walls in the presence of danger. Such fortresses were typically located on high ground, surrounded with defense walls, moats, and loophole towers with secret passages and hidden drinking water wells.
It has weathered a good deal over the six centuries of its history, yet it still delights us with its elegant and ornate look. Archaeologists date the first settlements on the site to as early as the Bronze Age.
Then, the Finno-Ugric peoples settled there to be later replaced by peoples of the Dyakovo culture an Iron Age culture which occupied a significant part of the Upper Volga, Valday and Oka River area. The land was occupied by the Slavic peoples of Vyatichi a tribe of West Slavs or East Slavs who inhabited a part of the Oka basin in the 10th century, when two fortified structures were excavated on the site of the Kremlin.
In addition to the fortifications and palisades, the Vyatichi used local gullies to make a moat. The site of present-day central Moscow once belonged to the Kuchkos, a family of Suzdal one of the oldest Russian towns boyars members of the highest rank of the feudal society in Russia. This is where he founded a town which was soon renamed as Moscow, after the river. The first written reference to Moscow is dated the 4th April , when a feast was held probably on the site of the present Kremlin to celebrate the alliance between Yuri Dolgorukiy and Sviatoslav, the Prince of Chernigov today a city on the Desna River to the north-north-east of Kiev.
The very first, wooden kremlin was built in The Kremlin was given strong oak walls and towers in Further development and expansion of the Kremlin was ordered by Prince Dmitry Donskoy he was the first prince of Moscow to openly challenge Mongol authority in Russia. The wooden Kremlin was turned into a stone citadel in the s. Incidentally, the strengthening of the Kremlin occurred in good time because the city successfully withstood sieges by Algirdas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, as soon as in and The Kremlin acquired new look, and the one we associate with it today, a century later, in — He invited Italian architects —Aristotele Fioravanti, Pietro Antonio Solari, and others—to ensure ultramodern fortifications.
The involvment of these architects is why the Kremlin architecture style bears so much resemblance to the castles of Northern Italy. In addition, the top parts of the merlons of its crenellated walls, the so-called swallow tails. They became very popular in Russia and later were widely used in fortress building. Moreover, brick had never been used in construction before. Archaeologists have also found some stones remaining from the white-stone fortress of Prince Dmitry Donskoy in the Kremlin foundation.
You can see them today if you walk along the Kremlin wall from the side of the Alexander Garden. One example is the tented roofs with which the towers were crowned in the 17th century. The Senate was built in — according to the plans of the same architect as the home of the highest agency of State power of the Russian Empire - the Ruling Senate.
Today it is the residence of the President of Russia. From to a Russian architect K. In the Armory Chamber built by K. Thon within the complex of the Great Kremlin Palace, there is a 16th century museum officially established by the order of Alexander I in Red Square, closely associated with the Kremlin, lies beneath its east wall. At its south end is the famous Pokrovski Cathedral Cathedral of St Basil the Blessed , one of the most beautiful monuments of Old Russian church architecture, erected in — to commemorate the victory of Ivan the Terrible over the Kazan Khanate.
In the 17th century the cathedral gained its up-to-date appearance thanks to the decorative finishing of the domes and painting both inside and outside the cathedral. Shchusev and an outstanding example of the Soviet monumental architecture, was finished. Criterion i : The Kremlin contains within its walls a unique series of masterpieces of architecture and the plastic arts. There are religious monuments of exceptional beauty such as the Church of the Annunciation, the Cathedral of the Dormition, the Church of the Archangel and the bell tower of Ivan Veliki; there are palaces such as the Great Palace of the Kremlin, which comprises within its walls the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin and the Teremnoi Palace.
Criterion ii : Throughout its history, Russian architecture has clearly been affected many times by influences emanating from the Kremlin. A particular example was the Italian Renaissance.
The influence of the style was clearly felt when Rudolfo Aristotele Fioravanti built the Cathedral of the Dormition and grew stronger with the construction of the Granovitaya Palace Hall of the Facets, by Marco Fryazin and Pietro Antonio Solario. Italian Renaissance also influenced the towers of the fortified enceinte, built during the same period by Solario, using principles established by Milanese engineers the Nikolskaya and the Spasskaya Towers both date from The Renaissance expression was even more present in the classic capitals and shells of the Church of the Archangel, reconstructed from to by Alevisio Novi.
Criterion iv : With its triangular enceinte pierced by four gates and reinforced with 20 towers, the Moscow Kremlin preserves the memory of the wooden fortifications erected by Yuri Dolgoruki around on the hill at the confluence of the Moskova and Neglinnaya rivers the Alexander Garden now covers the latter.
By its layout and its history of transformations in the 14th century Dimitri Donskoi had an enceinte of logs built, then the first stone wall , the Moscow Kremlin is the prototype of a Kremlin - the citadel at the centre of Old Russian towns such as Pskov, Tula, Kazan or Smolensk.
Criterion vi : From the 13th century to the founding of St Petersburg, the Moscow Kremlin was directly and tangibly associated with every major event in Russian history.
A year period of obscurity ended in when it became the seat of government again. The site thus combines in an exceptional manner the preserved vestiges of bygone days with present-day signs of one of the greatest events in modern history. From the date of including the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square on the World Heritage List all the components representing the Outstanding Universal Value of the property are within its boundaries. Animals Wild Cities Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London.
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