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Travel: A day in the Kremlin

Moscow’s ancient walled city-within-a-city is steeped in Russian history
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Kremlin wall and State History Museum, Red Square

Nothing I had read prepared me for the experience of walking through the Resurrection Gate and actually standing in the centre of Red Square. Everything around me — the surreal domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral, the massive ramparts of the Kremlin wall, the red and black granite monolith of Lenin’s Tomb, and the ornate towers of the State History Museum — everything, even the expansive façade of the GUM department store, is bigger, grander and more ornate than I ever imagined. We are just beginning our tour and it takes a few days to adjust to the scale of things in Russia where everything from art and architecture to history and geography is larger than life.

Red Square, which stretches for almost half a kilometre along the Kremlin’s northeastern wall, is the perfect place to start a tour of Moscow. Its cobblestones have borne witness to almost every twist and turn in the city’s convoluted history and today, spreading between the ancient walled city of the Kremlin and the GUM department store, it forms a link between modern Russia and its legendary past. During the Cold War trucks hauling ICBM’s rumbled across the square in the annual May Day display of military might, during WWII tanks rolled directly out of Red Square to the eastern front and, before the Russian winter sent them scurrying back to France, Napoleon’s hapless soldiers used the square as a staging ground. But Red Square and the Kremlin were already part of Russian history long before the French invasion of 1812.

Strategically located on a hill overlooking the Moskva and Neglina rivers the site was chosen by Prince Yuri Dolgorukie as the perfect spot for his hunting lodge. A wooden wall was built for protection and a town grew within the wall. That was back in the 1100s. In the 1360s the wooden walls were replaced by stone and by 1480 the once modest hunting lodge was an imposing fortress city, a kremlin, destined to become the economic and political centre of the world’s largest country.

My attention was drawn to St. Basil’s Cathedral at the southern end of the Square. With its cluster of brightly coloured cupolas, domes, towers and spires it resembles something out of a child’s fairy tale. Each of its onion-shaped domes has a different pattern and set of colours yet somehow the whole crazy thing hangs together and, more than any other building in Moscow, it has come to symbolize Russian medieval architecture. I asked Victoria, our knowledgeable guide, when it was built. “Ivan the Terrible had it built in 1550 to celebrate his victory over the last of the Tatar strongholds at Kazan.”

“And who,” I asked, “were the Tatars?”

As we made our way from St. Basil’s Cathedral, through the Trinity Gate and into the Kremlin, Victoria gave me a quick lesson in early Russian history. “Here in Russia we call them Tatars,” she explains, “They were the Mongol invaders lead by Genghis Khaan and later by his grandson Batu Khaan who conquered Asia and most of Europe including all of what is now Russia. Back then Moscow was just one of many separate principalities that were absorbed by the Mongol ‘Golden Horde’. For more than 200 years, from 1223 until 1480 the Russian princes and their subjects were mere vassals of the Mongol empire.”

We passed through the massive walls of the Kremlin, walked around the Grand Kremlin Palace and into Cathedral Square. Victoria paused in front of the Assumption Cathedral. “This,’ she went on, ”is where Russia had its beginning as a free and unified nation. In 1480 Ivan III (the Great) stood on the steps of this cathedral and tore up the charter binding Moscow’s princes to the Golden Horde. And it was here that his successor, Ivan IV (the Terrible) crowned himself Czar of all the Russias in 1547.”

Although it is much smaller, Cathedral Square, surrounded by an ensemble of gold-domed churches and cathedrals, is even more impressive than Red Square. It was first set aside as a public space during the early 14 th century ascension of Muscovite power and went on to become the symbolic heart of czarist Russia. Until Peter the Great moved his capital to St. Petersburg in 1710, Cathedral Square was the centre of czarist political power — the place where the ruling nobility gathered for the rituals of state.

The Assumption Cathedral, on the north side of Cathedral Square, is the Kremlin’s oldest and most important church. Ever since Moscow became the seat of Russian Orthodoxy in 1326 it has been the symbolic head of the Church. When the original structure began to deteriorate Ivan the Great commissioned the celebrated Italian architect Alberti Fioravanti to replace it with the present five-domed building. It was completed in 1479 and Ivan was so pleased with the result that he tossed Alberti into prison to assure he would never create a grander cathedral. Alberti died in prison a few years later but his last creation survives as one of the most beautiful and imposing buildings in the Kremlin.

We followed Victoria into the Cathedral and stood in awe of its vast interior. Decorated from floor to lofty dome with glowing frescos depicting the life of Christ, and lit by 12 massive bronze and silver candelabras, the interior of the Assumption Church is even more impressive than its gilded exterior. The five-tiered iconostasis that separates the main part of the church from the chancel stands 16 metres high and is covered with icons spanning six centuries of Orthodox religious art. It’s hard to imagine that in 1812 this revered space was used as a stable by Napoleon’s cavalry and that his soldiers looted the place when they left. But the Cossacks didn’t let them get very far. Much of the stolen loot was recovered and 5,330 kilos of the recovered silver was used to build the ornate, 46-branch Harvest Chandelier that now hangs in the main dome of the cathedral.

Outside the cathedral we paused to examine a couple of curious creations parked at the edge of the square. The 40-tonne Czar Cannon and 130-tonne Czar Bell are among the largest of their kind ever made. But the bell never tolled and the cannon never fired. While the bell was cooling in its casting pit a fire broke out nearby and water used to douse the flames caused an 11-tonne chunk to crack and fall off. As for the cannon, its 5.3 metre barrel and gaping 890mm bore were designed to defend the Kremlin’s Savior Gate, though I’m not clear how its designers proposed to aim the monster. Perhaps the feeble-minded Czar Feodor Ivanovich who commissioned its casting in 1586 just didn’t think about that.

It was late afternoon and our day in the Kremlin was rapidly coming to an end by the time we reached the Armory. What began as a 16 th century warehouse for the Kremlin’s weaponry is now a large exhibition hall and museum where the treasures of the Imperial Court are displayed. The size and richness of the collection is overwhelming. From tiny gold and platinum Faberge eggs to giant gilded coaches and sleighs that required 20 horses to pull, the displays in the Armory recall an indulgent lifestyle that was doomed to fail from its own excesses.

Leaving the Armory and returning to the reality of modern Moscow was like returning from a time warp into the opulent world of the Czars.