Moscow's Kremlin

Moscow's Kremlin 
 

The Kremlin is Russia's mythic refuge, a self contained city with a multitude of palaces, armories, and churches, a medieval fortress that links the modern nation to its legendary past in the ancient state of Kievan Rus'. As the dominance of Kiev faded and its empire fragmented under the weight of foreign invasion and internecine strife in the 11th and 12th centuries, regional princes gained power. In 1147, as Kievan Rus was experiencing its final death throes, a chronicler recorded that a feast was held at the hunting lodge of Prince Yuri Dolgorukiy, ruling prince of Rostov and Suzdal. The lodge was perfectly situated atop a hill overlooking the Moskva and Neglina rivers, prompting its development (in such troubled times) as a fortified town, or Kremlin.  

Within a century, the town had risen to become an independent principality within the Mongol empire. By the middle of the 14th century, its princes had gained such pre-eminence that Moscow was made the seat of the Russian Orthodox Church. With Ivan the Great (1462-1505) at its helm, Muscovite rule extended over all of Russia, and the Kremlin became more magnificent, befitting its role as the seat of Russian power. By 1480 the once modest hunting lodge had become an imposing fortress city. Its stone walls were graced by the magnificent Cathedral of the Assumption, where Ivan defiantly tore up the charter binding Moscow to Mongol rule. Over the next two centuries, until Peter the Great transferred the capital of Russia to St. Petersburg, the Kremlin served as the central stage for the magnificent and occasionally horrific history of the Tsars.  

With the shift of power to St. Petersburg, the city and the Kremlin declined. However, the Bolsheviks' choice of Moscow as their capital in March 1918 returned it to preeminence, and during Soviet rule the Kremlin experienced its second life as a great center of power. Although the Soviet state certainly left its mark on the Kremlin, the centuries-old citadel very much retains the aura of early Tsarist Russia. Especially in Cathedral Square, where the spirits of Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov, and the early Romanovs loom much larger than those of Stalin or even Lenin himself. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Lenin's Mausoleum 

Lenin's Mausoleum has to be one of Moscow's most curious tourist attractions. Locals tend to regard it either as an awkward reminder of the country's communist past or a cherished relic of the good old days, but for visitors to the city it is not only one of Moscow's finest examples of Soviet architecture but it holds an endless fascination. 

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin has been described as not only the greatest revolutionary leader and statesman in history, but also the greatest revolutionary thinker since Karl Marx. Little in Lenin's childhood years seemed to point to his revolutionary destiny. He was born in the Russian town of Simbirsk (later renamed Ulyanovsk in his honor) in 1870 to a large, loving and very well educated family. He excelled in school and studied in both Kazan and at university in St. Petersburg before he became involved in underground revolutionary activity. These activities eventually led him into a 3-year exile in Siberia, but he continued his political agitation undeterred on his return. In 1903 he prompted a split between the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party at their Second Congress and following the February 1917 revolution, he returned to Petrograd (St Petersburg) from Zurich, and urged the immediate seizure of political power by the proletariat under the slogan "All Power to the Soviets'. In October 1917 he led the Bolshevik revolution and became head of the first Soviet government. 

Having suffered numerous debilitating strokes and become more and more isolated from the political life of the country, Lenin finally died on January 21st 1924 in the town of Gorky. The leader's coffin was brought to Moscow two days later and placed in the Kremlin to allow members of the party to pay their final respects. The architect, Alexei Shchusev, after whom one of the city's architectural museums is now named, was commissioned to design and build a temporary mausoleum near the Kremlin walls, where Lenin's body would be placed until his funeral on January 27th. Shchusev's wooden structure was built in the shape of a cube; the symbol of eternity, and Lenin's body was placed in a glass sarcophagus past which thousands of people filed each day in mourning. Despite the objections of Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, the former leader's party colleagues saw a way to manipulate Lenin's death to their own political advantage and decided to attempt the embalming of his body. Shchusev designed a larger mausoleum, still made from wood but this time forming a stepped pyramid from the top of which party officials could gather and make speeches on important Soviet holidays. When it became apparent that the embalming process had been successful, Shchusev began work on a stone replica of the mausoleum, which was constructed between 1929 and 1930. The mausoleum is a step-pyramid of cubes faced with red granite and black labradorite. It bears the simple inscription "Lenin" over its bronze doors, which were originally flanked by a guard of honor, who changed every hour on the hour. 

After Stalin's death in 1953 his body was also embalmed and put on display alongside Lenin's, but he was later removed in 1961 on the orders of Krushchev and buried by the Kremlin wall alongside various other significant party functionaries. Visitors should note that the mausoleum is only open in the mornings, when the rest of Red Square is cordoned off. After 1pm the mausoleum closes and the square is opened again to the public. 
 

The Tsar Bell and Tsar Canon 

The enormous Tsar Bell is an impressive 6.14 meters in height, 6.6 meters in diameter and weighs some 200 tons, making it the largest bell in the world. The bell's bronze surface is decorated with relief depictions of Tsar Alexei and Empress Anna, who decreed the casting of the first Tsar Bell as well as the one on display today. The first version weighed 130 tons and was cast in 1655, but not hoisted into the belfry of the Assumption Cathedral for another 19 years, where it fell to the ground and immediately shattered in the fire of 1701. Almost three decades later, Anna ordered that the broken fragments be used to cast a second larger bell, which was executed between 1734 and 1735 by local foundry man Ivan Motorin, his son Mikhail and nearly 200 craftsmen.  

While the bell was cooling off in its casting pit, a great fire began in the Kremlin in May 1737 and water thrown on the bell in attempt to douse the flames caused a chunk weighing over 11 tons to crack and break off. The bell lay in the great pit on Ivanovskaya Square for almost a hundred years until 1836, when the French architect Auguste Montferrand raised it and place it on a granite pedestal, next to its broken section. 

There is, however, a rather more entertaining Russian legend that claims that the enormous bell was broken by a massive blow from Peter the Great's powerful hand. On his return to Moscow in 1709 after his victorious battle against the Swedes at Poltava, Peter ordered that all the bells in Moscow should ring out to celebrate his magnificent victory. The city was filled with the sound of peeling bells, but the Tsar Bell remained silent, and even with the help of an entire regiment of the Emperor's guards, the bell still failed to chime. In his anger, the Tsar supposedly struck the bell with a stave that he had taken from King Charles XII of Sweden near Poltava, for refusing to ring out his victory to the people of Russia. With that, a fragment of the bell broke off and fell to the ground. In reality, the bell was cast long after Peter the Great's death, but it makes for a rather exciting story! 

The impressive bronze Tsar Cannon is one of the largest canons ever made and was cast in 1586 by the foundry man Andrei Chokhov. The canon is 5.34 meters long, weighs an impressive 40 tons and has an incredible caliber of 890 mm. It was originally created with the purpose of defending the Kremlin's Savior Gate, which leads to Red Square, but the canon was never actually fired and has remained on display in the Kremlin as a fine example of Russian workmanship ever since. Its bronze barrel bears a relief of Ivan the Terrible's son, Fyodor, and its enormous gun carriage, which was cast over 250 years later in 1835, is decorated with a lion and snake fighting on either side and a lion's head behind the barrel. The cannon balls lying in front of the canon were cast at the same time as the gun carriage, but are merely decorative as the canon was always intended to fire stone case-shot.