The Kremlin is black and white. When was the Kremlin red and when white? Kremlin during the war

Yesterday, while discussing the topic, one of the commentators drew attention to the fact that on the chart of 1700 the Moscow Kremlin is red.

Yes, everyone knows that Moscow was “white stone”, but in what years the Kremlin was white, and in what years everyone remembers it as red? Many articles have already been written about this, but people still manage to argue. But when did they start whitening it, and when did they stop? On this issue, statements in all articles diverge, as well as thoughts in people's heads. Some write that they began to whitewash in the 18th century, others that as early as the beginning of the 17th century, others are trying to provide evidence that the Kremlin walls were not whitewashed at all. Everywhere the phrase is replicated that the Kremlin was white until 1947, and then suddenly Stalin ordered it to be repainted red. Was it so?

Let's finally dot all the and, since there are enough sources, both picturesque and photographic.

So, the current Kremlin was built by the Italians at the end of the 15th century, and, of course, they did not whitewash it. The fortress retained the natural color of red brick, there are several similar ones in Italy, the closest analogue is the Sforza Castle in Milan. Yes, and whitewashing fortifications in those days was dangerous: when a cannonball hits a wall, the brick is damaged, the whitewash crumbles, and you can clearly see the weak spot where you should aim again to destroy the wall as soon as possible.

So, one of the first images of the Kremlin, where its color is clearly visible, is the icon of Simon Ushakov “Praise to the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. The tree of the Russian state. It was written in 1668, and the Kremlin is red here.

For the first time, in written sources, the whitewashing of the Kremlin was mentioned in 1680.

The historian Bartenev, in the book “The Moscow Kremlin in Antiquity and Now” writes: “In a memorandum filed on July 7, 1680 in the name of the Tsar, it is said that the Kremlin’s fortifications were “not whitewashed”, and the Spassky Gates “were registered in black and white in brick". The note asked: whitewash the walls of the Kremlin, leave them as they are, or paint them “in brick” like the Spassky Gates? The Tsar ordered the Kremlin to be whitewashed with lime…”

So, at least since the 1680s, our main fortress has been whitewashed.

1766. Painting by P. Balabin after the engraving by M. Makhaev. The Kremlin is clearly white here.

1797, Gerard Delabart.

1819, artist Maxim Vorobyov.

In 1826, the French writer and playwright François Anselot came to Moscow, he described the white Kremlin in his memoirs: “On this we will leave the Kremlin, my dear Xavier; but, looking again at this ancient citadel, we will regret that, while repairing the destruction caused by the explosion, the builders removed from the walls the age-old patina that gave them so much grandeur. The white paint that hides the cracks gives the Kremlin an air of youth that does not match its shape and erases its past.”

1830s, artist Rauch.

1842, Lerebour's daguerreotype, the first documentary depiction of the Kremlin.

1850, Joseph Andreas Weiss.

1852, one of the very first photographs of Moscow, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is under construction, and the walls of the Kremlin are whitewashed.

1856, preparations for the coronation of Alexander II. For this event, the whitewashing was updated in places, the structures on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower were a frame for illumination.

The same 1856, view in the opposite direction, the closest to us is the Tainitskaya tower with an archer overlooking the embankment.

Photo from 1860.

Photo from 1866.

1866-67.

1879, artist Pyotr Vereshchagin.

1880, painting by the English school of painting. The Kremlin is still white. From all previous images, we conclude that the Kremlin wall along the river was whitewashed in the 18th century, and remained white until the 1880s.

1880s, Konstantin-Eleninskaya tower of the Kremlin from the inside. The whitewash is gradually crumbling, and exposes the red-brick walls.

1884, wall along the Alexander Garden. The whitewash was crumbling badly, only the teeth were renewed.

1897, artist Nesterov. The walls are already closer to red than to white.

1909, peeling walls with remains of whitewash.

The same 1909, whitewash is still holding up well on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower. Most likely it was whitewashed for the last time later than the rest of the walls. It is clear from several previous photographs that the walls and most of the towers were last whitewashed in the 1880s.

1911 Grotto in the Alexander Garden and the Middle Arsenal Tower.

1911, artist Yuon. In reality, the walls were, of course, of a dirtier shade, the stains from whitewashing were more pronounced than in the picture, but the overall gamut was already red.

1914, Konstantin Korovin.

The motley and shabby Kremlin in a photograph of the 1920s.

And on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, the whitewash was still holding on, mid-1930s.

Late 1940s, the Kremlin after restoration for the 800th anniversary of Moscow. Here the tower is already clearly red, with white details.

And two more color photographs from the 1950s. Somewhere they touched up, somewhere they left peeling walls. There was no total repainting in red.

1950s These two photos are taken from here: http://humus.livejournal.com/4115131.html

Spasskaya Tower

But on the other hand, everything was not so simple. Some towers are out of the general chronology of whitewashing.

1778, Red Square by Friedrich Hilferding. The Spasskaya Tower is red with white details, but the walls of the Kremlin are whitewashed.

1801, watercolor by Fyodor Alekseev. Even with all the diversity of the picturesque range, it is clear that the Spasskaya Tower was still whitewashed at the end of the 18th century.

And after the fire of 1812, the red color was returned again. This is a painting by English masters, 1823. The walls are always white.

1855, artist Shukhvostov. If you look closely, you can see that the colors of the wall and the tower are different, the tower is darker and redder.

View of the Kremlin from Zamoskvorechye, painting by an unknown artist, mid-19th century. Here the Spasskaya Tower is again whitewashed, most likely for the celebrations on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander II in 1856.

Photo from the early 1860s. The tower is white.

Another photo of the early - mid-1860s. The whitewashing of the tower is crumbling here and there.

Late 1860s. And then suddenly the tower was painted red again.

1870s The tower is red.

1880s. The red paint is peeling off, in some places you can see the newly painted places, patches. After 1856, the Spasskaya Tower was never whitewashed again.

Nikolskaya tower

1780s, Friedrich Hilferding. The Nikolskaya tower is still without a Gothic top, it is decorated with early classical decor, red, with white details. In 1806-07, the tower was built on, in 1812 it was blown up by the French, almost half destroyed, and restored already at the end of the 1810s.

1823, brand new Nikolskaya tower after restoration, red.

1883, white tower. Perhaps they whitened it together with Spasskaya, for the coronation of Alexander II. And they updated the whitewash for the coronation of Alexander III in 1883.

1912 The White Tower remained until the revolution.

1925 The tower is already red with white details. It became red as a result of the restoration in 1918, after revolutionary damage.

Trinity Tower

1860s. The tower is white.

On the watercolor of the English school of painting in 1880, the tower is gray, this color is given by the spoiled whitewash.

And in 1883 the tower was already red. Painted or cleaned of whitewash, most likely for the coronation of Alexander III.

Let's summarize. According to documentary sources, the Kremlin was first whitewashed in 1680, in the 18th and 19th centuries it was white, with the exception of the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Trinity towers in certain periods. The walls were last whitewashed in the early 1880s, at the beginning of the 20th century the whitewashing was renewed only on the Nikolskaya tower, possibly also on Vodovzvodnaya. Since then, the whitewash has gradually crumbled and washed off, and by 1947 the Kremlin naturally adopted the ideologically correct red color, in some places it was tinted during restoration.

Kremlin walls today

photo: Ilya Varlamov

Today, in some places, the Kremlin retains the natural color of red brick, perhaps with a slight tint. These are bricks of the 19th century, the result of another restoration.

Wall from the river. Here you can clearly see that the bricks are painted red. Photo from Ilya Varlamov's blog

On November 25, 1339, Ivan Kalita erected the oak walls of the Moscow fortress. It was during this period that the Kremlin became the political center of the feudal state, the residence of the grand dukes and metropolitans.

Today the Moscow Kremlin is one of the brightest cultural assets of the Russian capital. "RG" has collected five little-known and curious facts about him.

1. The Moscow Kremlin is the largest fortress in the entire territory of Russia, as well as the largest active fortress in Europe today.

In world history, there were buildings and more, but only it has been preserved quite well and still performs its functions.

The total length of the Kremlin walls is 2235 meters, they form an irregular triangle. There are 20 towers along them, of which the highest is Troitskaya, together with the star, it has a height of 80 m.

2. The secret of the absolutely accurate time of the Kremlin chimes now lies underground: the chimes are connected by cable to the control clock of the Sternberg Moscow Astronomical Institute.

In the middle of the 19th century, chimes were installed on the Spasskaya Tower, performing the "March of the Preobrazhensky Regiment" by Dmitry Bortnyansky. This melody sounded until 1917. In 1920, the music of the Internationale was picked up on the chimes.

Under Yeltsin, the chimes played Glinka, and now they play Alexandrov - the anthem of the Russian Federation.

3. During the Great Patriotic War, or rather, in 1941, the Kremlin began to be disguised: all the old buildings were stylized as ordinary houses, green roofs were painted over, dark paint was applied to gilded domes, crosses were removed, stars were sheathed on the towers. Windows and doors were painted on the Kremlin walls, and the battlements were covered with plywood, imitating the roofs of houses.

Interestingly, during the Great Patriotic War, the Kremlin was practically not damaged, despite the massive bombardments that hit Moscow in 1941 and 1942. The authorities evacuated the treasures of the Armory, and in the event of the surrender of the capital to the German troops, a plan was provided for mining the main buildings of the complex.

4. In 1935, the Kremlin lost its double-headed eagles, and it was decided to install Soviet symbols in their place. In 1937, luminous ruby ​​stars were installed on the Spasskaya, Borovitskaya, Nikolskaya, Troitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya towers.

Kremlin stars withstand the maximum pressure of a hurricane wind, each up to about 1200 kg. The weight of each star reaches one ton. During windy days, the stars rotate, changing their position so that they face the wind with their sides.

5. Almost until the end of the 19th century, Moscow was "white-stone". Following the established tradition, the Kremlin's red-brick walls were whitewashed for almost four centuries. At the same time, they were worried not only about the memory of the white-stone Kremlin of Dmitry Donskoy, but also about the safety of the brick. This can be confirmed by numerous descriptions and images.

Today, the walls of the Kremlin are regularly tinted so that the red-brick color is always saturated.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Everyone has already heard that the Kremlin was white. Many articles have already been written about this, but people still manage to argue. But when did they start whitening it, and when did they stop? On this issue, statements in all articles diverge, as well as thoughts in people's heads. Some write that they began to whitewash in the 18th century, others that as early as the beginning of the 17th century, others are trying to provide evidence that the Kremlin walls were not whitewashed at all. Everywhere the phrase is replicated that the Kremlin was white until 1947, and then suddenly Stalin ordered it to be repainted red. Was it so? Let's finally dot all the and, since there are enough sources, both picturesque and photographic.

Dealing with the color of the Kremlin: red, white, when and why —>

So, the current Kremlin was built by the Italians at the end of the 15th century, and, of course, they did not whitewash it. The fortress retained the natural color of red brick, there are several similar ones in Italy, the closest analogue is the Sforza Castle in Milan. Yes, and whitewashing fortifications in those days was dangerous: when a cannonball hits a wall, the brick is damaged, the whitewash crumbles, and you can clearly see the weak spot where you should aim again to destroy the wall as soon as possible.

So, one of the first images of the Kremlin, where its color is clearly visible, is the icon of Simon Ushakov “Praise to the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. The tree of the Russian state. It was written in 1668, and the Kremlin is red here.

For the first time, in written sources, the whitewashing of the Kremlin was mentioned in 1680.
The historian Bartenev, in the book “The Moscow Kremlin in Antiquity and Now” writes: “In a memorandum filed on July 7, 1680 in the name of the Tsar, it is said that the Kremlin’s fortifications were “not whitewashed”, and the Spassky Gates “were registered in black and white in brick". The note asked: whitewash the walls of the Kremlin, leave them as they are, or paint them “in brick” like the Spassky Gates? The Tsar ordered the Kremlin to be whitewashed with lime…”
So, at least since the 1680s, our main fortress has been whitewashed.

1766. Painting by P. Balabin after the engraving by M. Makhaev. The Kremlin is clearly white here.

1797, Gerard Delabart.

1819, artist Maxim Vorobyov.

In 1826, the French writer and playwright François Anselot came to Moscow, he described the white Kremlin in his memoirs: “On this we will leave the Kremlin, my dear Xavier; but, looking again at this ancient citadel, we will regret that, while repairing the destruction caused by the explosion, the builders removed from the walls the age-old patina that gave them so much grandeur. The white paint that hides the cracks gives the Kremlin an air of youth that does not match its shape and erases its past.”

1830s, artist Rauch.

1842, Lerebour's daguerreotype, the first documentary depiction of the Kremlin.

1850, Joseph Andreas Weiss.

1852, one of the very first photographs of Moscow, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is under construction, and the walls of the Kremlin are whitewashed.

1856, preparations for the coronation of Alexander II. For this event, the whitewashing was updated in places, the structures on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower were a frame for illumination.

The same 1856, view in the opposite direction, closest to us is the Taynitskaya tower with an archer overlooking the embankment.

Photo from 1860.

Photo from 1866.

1866-67.

1879, artist Pyotr Vereshchagin.

1880, painting by the English school of painting. The Kremlin is still white. From all previous images, we conclude that the Kremlin wall along the river was whitewashed in the 18th century, and remained white until the 1880s.

1880s, Konstantin-Eleninskaya tower of the Kremlin from the inside. The whitewash is gradually crumbling, and exposes the red-brick walls.

1884, wall along the Alexander Garden. The whitewash was crumbling badly, only the teeth were renewed.

1897, artist Nesterov. The walls are already closer to red than to white.

1909, peeling walls with remains of whitewash.

The same 1909, whitewash is still holding up well on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower. Most likely it was whitewashed for the last time later than the rest of the walls. It is clear from several previous photographs that the walls and most of the towers were last whitewashed in the 1880s.

1911 Grotto in the Alexander Garden and the Middle Arsenal Tower.

1911, artist Yuon. In reality, the walls were, of course, of a dirtier shade, the stains from whitewashing were more pronounced than in the picture, but the overall gamut was already red.

1914, Konstantin Korovin.

The motley and shabby Kremlin in a photograph of the 1920s.

And on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, the whitewash was still holding on, mid-1930s.

Late 1940s, the Kremlin after restoration for the 800th anniversary of Moscow. Here the tower is already clearly red, with white details.

And two more color photographs from the 1950s. Somewhere they touched up, somewhere they left peeling walls. There was no total repainting in red.

1950s These two photos are taken from here: http://humus.livejournal.com/4115131.html

Spasskaya Tower

But on the other hand, everything was not so simple. Some towers are out of the general chronology of whitewashing.

1778, Red Square by Friedrich Hilferding. The Spasskaya Tower is red with white details, but the walls of the Kremlin are whitewashed.

1801, watercolor by Fyodor Alekseev. Even with all the diversity of the picturesque range, it is clear that the Spasskaya Tower was still whitewashed at the end of the 18th century.

And after the fire of 1812, the red color was returned again. This is a painting by English masters, 1823. The walls are always white.

1855, artist Shukhvostov. If you look closely, you can see that the colors of the wall and the tower are different, the tower is darker and redder.

View of the Kremlin from Zamoskvorechye, painting by an unknown artist, mid-19th century. Here the Spasskaya Tower is again whitewashed, most likely for the celebrations on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander II in 1856.

Photo from the early 1860s. The tower is white.

Another photo from the early to mid-1860s. The whitewashing of the tower is crumbling here and there.

Late 1860s. And then suddenly the tower was painted red again.

1870s The tower is red.

1880s. The red paint is peeling off, in some places you can see the newly painted places, patches. After 1856, the Spasskaya Tower was never whitewashed again.

Nikolskaya tower

1780s, Friedrich Hilferding. The Nikolskaya tower is still without a Gothic top, it is decorated with early classical decor, red, with white details. In 1806-07, the tower was built on, in 1812 it was blown up by the French, almost half destroyed, and restored already at the end of the 1810s.

1823, brand new Nikolskaya tower after restoration, red.

1883, white tower. Perhaps they whitened it together with Spasskaya, for the coronation of Alexander II. And they updated the whitewash for the coronation of Alexander III in 1883.

1912 The White Tower remained until the revolution.

1925 The tower is already red with white details. It became red as a result of the restoration in 1918, after revolutionary damage.

Trinity Tower

1860s. The tower is white.

On the watercolor of the English school of painting in 1880, the tower is gray, this color is given by the spoiled whitewash.

And in 1883 the tower was already red. Painted or cleaned of whitewash, most likely for the coronation of Alexander III.

Let's summarize. According to documentary sources, the Kremlin was first whitewashed in 1680, in the 18th and 19th centuries it was white, with the exception of the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Trinity towers in certain periods. The walls were last whitewashed in the early 1880s, at the beginning of the 20th century the whitewashing was renewed only on the Nikolskaya tower, possibly also on Vodovzvodnaya. Since then, the whitewash has gradually crumbled and washed off, and by 1947 the Kremlin naturally adopted the ideologically correct red color, in some places it was tinted during restoration.

Kremlin walls today

photo: Ilya Varlamov

Today, in some places, the Kremlin retains the natural color of red brick, perhaps with a slight tint. These are bricks of the 19th century, the result of another restoration.

Wall from the river. Here you can clearly see that the bricks are painted red. Photo from Ilya Varlamov's blog

All old photos, unless otherwise noted, are taken from https://pastvu.com/

Alexander Ivanov worked on the publication.

The Moscow Kremlin 1800 is a project to recreate the construction of the Moscow fortress of the early 19th century. The implementation used images of artists who captured the architecture of the Kremlin of that time. From a historical point of view, the fixed image of the Kremlin is closest to 1805. It was then that the painter Fyodor Alekseev, on behalf of Paul I, completed many sketches of old Moscow.

The White Kremlin is a gorgeous visualization of the old Kremlin and Red Square. Let's take a look in more detail...

1. The Kremlin, "alive" and constantly changing, by the beginning of the 19th century was losing many buildings of the previous era.

2. The project does not take into account dilapidated structures and those that were being dismantled at that time. Signatures are on the photographs themselves.

P. Vereshchagin. View of the Moscow Kremlin. 1879

67 years ago, Stalin ordered the Moscow Kremlin to be repainted red. We have collected pictures and photographs depicting the Moscow Kremlin from different eras.

Rather, the Kremlin was originally red-brick - the Italians, who built in 1485-1495 a new fortress for the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III Vasilyevich on the site of the old white-stone fortifications, erected walls and towers of ordinary brick - such as the castle of Milan Castello Sforzesco.

The Kremlin became white only in the 18th century, when the fortress walls were whitened according to the then fashion (like the walls of all other Russian Kremlins - in Kazan, Zaraysk, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov Veliky, etc.).

J. Delabart. View of Moscow from the balcony of the Kremlin Palace towards the Moskvoretsky Bridge. 1797.

The White Kremlin appeared before Napoleon's army in 1812, and a few years later, already washed from the soot of warm Moscow, it again blinded travelers with snow-white walls and tents. The famous French playwright Jacques-Francois Anselot, who visited Moscow in 1826, described the Kremlin in his memoirs Six mois en Russie: “This is where we leave the Kremlin, my dear Xavier; but, looking again at this ancient citadel, we will regret that, while repairing the destruction caused by the explosion, the builders removed from the walls the age-old patina that gave them so much grandeur. The white paint that hides the cracks gives the Kremlin an air of youth that does not match its shape and erases its past.”

12. If anyone has special anaglyph glasses, below are stereo anaglyph images of the White Kremlin:

S. M. Shukhvostov. View of the Red Square. 1855 (?) year

Kremlin. Chromolithograph from the collection of the US Library of Congress, 1890.

White Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin, 1883

White Nikolskaya tower, 1883

Moscow and the Moscow River. Photo by Murray Howe (USA), 1909

Pictured by Murray Howe: shabby walls and towers, covered with a "noble urban patina." 1909

The Kremlin greeted the beginning of the 20th century like a real old fortress, covered, in the words of the writer Pavel Ettinger, with a “noble urban patina”: it was sometimes whitewashed for important events, and the rest of the time it stood as expected - with smudges and shabby. The Bolsheviks, who made the Kremlin a symbol and citadel of all state power, were not at all embarrassed by the white color of the fortress walls and towers.

Red Square, Parade of athletes, 1932. Pay attention to the walls of the Kremlin freshly whitewashed for the holiday

Moscow, 1934-35 (?)

But then the war began, and in June 1941, the commandant of the Kremlin, Major General Nikolai Spiridonov, offered to repaint all the walls and towers of the Kremlin - for camouflage. A fantastic project for that time was developed by a group of academician Boris Iofan: walls of houses, black holes of windows were painted on white walls, artificial streets were built on Red Square, and the empty Mausoleum (Lenin's body had already been evacuated from Moscow on July 3, 1941) was covered with a plywood cap representing a house. And the Kremlin naturally disappeared - the disguise confused all the cards for the fascist pilots.

"Disguised" Red Square: instead of the Mausoleum, a cozy house appeared. 1941-1942.

The “disguised” Kremlin: houses and windows are painted on the walls. 1942

During the restoration of the Kremlin walls and towers in 1947 - for the celebration of the 800th anniversary of Moscow. Then the idea arose in Stalin's head to make the Kremlin red: The red flag on the red Kremlin on Red Square

sources

In 1366-1367. By order of Dmitry, the capital was fortified with the first white-stone Kremlin in Russia. If for the khan's ambassadors its gates were hospitably opened (Dmitry preferred to buy them off with rich gifts), then for other neighbors and rival princes the Kremlin became a powerful defensive fortress. When in November 1367, on the Trosna River, the Lithuanian prince Olgerd, who was the son-in-law of the Tver prince Mikhail Alexandrovich, defeated the Moscow regiments. Dmitry Ivanovich said: “I won’t let you go to the great reign!” Indeed, the presence of the Kremlin became a reliable defense for the Moscow capital: in 1368, an attempt by Mikhail of Tverskoy to besiege the Kremlin and take it failed.

WHITE STONE FORTIFICATIONS OF THE MOSCOW KREMLIN 1367

In 1343, 1354, 1365, about once every 10 years, Moscow fell victim to terrible fires, during which, undoubtedly, the fortifications of the oak Kremlin of Kalita also burned out. Apparently, these fires were not "accidents", but sabotage organized by the enemies of Moscow. Therefore, the next year after the fire of 1365, at the beginning of the winter of 1366, “the great prince Dimitrey Ivanovich, having told fortunes with his brother, with the prince with Volodimer Andreevich and with all the oldest boyars and having thought up the city of stone Moscow, . Toe the same winter brought the stone to Gordou. By the next spring, 1367, the stone reserves were sufficient to begin the construction of a white-stone fortress. Her bookmark caused fear and anger of the enemies of Moscow.

Construction was carried out with exceptional speed; the chronicle notes that after the laying of the kremlin "began to do without ceasing." Already by 1368 he was ready. The Lithuanian army could not take him: “Olgerd stood near the city for three days and three nights, the rest of the suburbs burned down, burned many churches and many monasteries and retreated from the hail, but did not take the castle of the Kremlin and go away.”

The area of ​​the Kremlin has now expanded significantly in the north-east and east, capturing the territory of the market, which was located under the walls of the Kalita fortress, within the boundaries of the new walls. In general, the perimeter of the walls now almost coincided in plan with the walls of the Kremlin of Ivan III ... Data from written sources allow us to restore with relative accuracy both the contour of the walls and the location of the towers of the Kremlin in 1367. Let's consider these data, starting from the southeast corner and the eastern walls.

At the southeastern corner of the fortress there should have been a corner round tower that protected the southern section of the eastern wall and the approaches to the coastal low in front of the southern wall. This tower stood on the site of the Beklemishevskaya tower. "The Legend of the Battle of Mamaev" names three travel towers of the eastern wall, through which the troops went to Kulikovo field: Konstantin-Eleninskaya, Frolovskaya (Spasskaya) and Nikolskaya.

The information about the Frolovsky Gates is just as accurate. During the siege of Moscow by Tokhtamysh, the famous cloth-maker Adam was located “above the gates above Frolovsky”. A century later, in a fire in 1488 at the Frolovsky Gates, "three bridges" burned down, that is, the wooden decks of the 3 tiers of the battle of the tower, which makes it possible to judge the structure and the high height of the tower that covered the gate. The story of the chronicle about the construction in 1491 of the archers at the Frolovsky and Nikolsky gates notes that the last architect “laid not on the old basis”, which, consequently, the Frolovskaya tower became on the old basis of the tower of 1367.

Thus, the southern section of the eastern wall of the Kremlin in 1367 exactly coincides with the modern Kremlin wall, as well as 3 towers stand in their old places.

The new location of the Nikolsky Gates shows that the northern part of the "approach" wall of 1367 does not coincide with the existing one. Their place is easily and accurately determined by the indication of the chronicle that the Church of the Introduction, built in 1458 in the courtyard of the Simonov Monastery, was located “at the Nikolsky Gate” ...

Least of all is known about the western wall of the fortress in 1367. The existing wall, facing the Neglinnaya, started construction in 1495, was erected "not on the old basis, - the city was added." Therefore, the annalistic records of the construction of this wall do not report anything about the wall of 1367 left aside and its towers. There are no casual mentions of the chronicler about her. The western front of the fortress was well covered by a wide marshy bed of the river. Neglinnaya, and the approach to the wall was difficult. It is possible that this large section of the wall up to the Borovitsky Gate did not have a tower. However, there is reason to believe that here, approximately at the site of the Trinity Gates, the wall of the fortress of 1367 was interrupted by a travel tower, which bore the name of the Rizpolozhensky or Bogoroditsky Gates, with a stone bridge across the Neglinnaya leading to the Novgorod Volotskaya road ...

Borovitskaya gate tower, the presence of which we assumed already in the fortress of the XII century. and the Kremlin of Kalita, in the fortress of 1367 was undoubtedly. In the record of the construction in 1461 of the Church of John the Baptist "on the forest" it is indicated that this tower stood "at the Borovit gates." The southwestern corner tower was built in 1488 “up along Moscow, where Sviblova’s archer stood”, which was the corner tower of the fortress in 1367. Thus, the southern wall of 1367, fixed by corner towers, coincides with the wall of the present Kremlin. The Tainitskaya tower of this wall, built in 1485 “at the Cheshkovy gates”, that is, on the site or near the Cheshkovy travel tower of 1367, which led to the water, to the Moskvoretsky “hem”, also coincides. We believe that the Moskvoretsk "ship shelter" under the walls of the fortress was covered by side walls that blocked access to this area in case of military danger.

This is how the plan of the fortress of 1367 is reconstructed. In this form, its perimeter was about 2000 m. The fortress undoubtedly had 8 towers, and maybe 9 towers (assuming the presence of one tower in the middle of the western wall). Of these, five were concentrated on the eastern "advance" wall. Such a concentration of towers on the most threatened front is a characteristic technique of military engineering in the 14th century. (cf., for example, Izborsk). However, it is highly interesting that three of the 5 towers are travel; all of them acted as gates even in conditions of extreme danger. During the heroic defense of Moscow from Tokhtamysh, the townspeople "stasha on all the gates of the city and on top with a stone shibahu." With all the combat power of the gate towers (three-tiered battles) and the presence of “iron (i.e., iron-bound) gates” in the towers, it is obvious that such a technique, which weakened the “assault” wall, was used deliberately, based on the active defense of the fortress, on tactics massive strikes against the enemy by simultaneously throwing significant military forces at three points. On the other hand, in peaceful conditions, these numerous “gates” of the capital of the Moscow principality, through which paths and roads led to the Kremlin, symbolized, as it were, the centralizing power and importance of Moscow, which gathered scattered Russian lands under its mighty hand.

One might think that, like other Russian fortresses built before the advent of firearms, the Moscow fortress of 1367 had relatively thin walls. Because of this, during frequent fires that destroyed the wooden ties of stone walls, the walls partially collapsed and were replaced by wooden ones. So, in the fire of 1445, which caused great destruction to the Kremlin, “the walls of the city fell in many places”, and during the raid of the Tatars by Tsarevich Mazovsha, the besiegers concentrated their efforts on those areas “where there is no stone fortress”. It is clear that after many wood embeddings, the Moscow fortress seemed to Ambrose Contarini to be “wooden”.

Apparently, the walls of 1367 were also relatively low. The description of the siege of the Kremlin by Tokhtamysh’s troops in the Yermolinsky Chronicle notes that the Tatars managed to knock down its defenders from the walls “I’m still a city even then.” This evidence should be understood not as an indication of the unfinished construction of 1367 as early as 1382, but as an explanation made by the scribe of the chronicle list, who compared at the end of the 15th century. old fortress walls with walls “renovated” by Yermolin in 1462, and the walls of the new Kremlin, the construction of which began in 1485 from the archery at the Cheshkov Gate, reaching a height of 12-13 m.

The nature of the completion of the walls is not entirely clear. Sources speak of wooden parts at the top of the walls (during the fire of 1445, “not a single wood remained on the hail”) and wall “fences”, that is, like wooden parapets that walked along the top of the walls. One might think that the latter term should be attributed to the poetic language of the author of Zadonshchina, and not to the real wall of the Moscow Kremlin. Most likely, its walls had a serrated top, which is known, for example, from the Porokhovskaya fortress. Undoubtedly, the combat move was covered by the “roof of the city”. The towers also had a crenellated top and wooden hipped roofs.