The Moscow Kremlin cannot but attract increased attention. It is the largest surviving and functioning fortress in Europe. And like any fortress, the Kremlin keeps its secrets.
Why in this place?
People lived on Borovitsky Hill (where the Kremlin was later built) long before the foundation of Moscow. Archaeologists have found on the territory of the Kremlin parking lots of people who lived here in the Bronze Age, that is, the II millennium BC. Near the Archangel Cathedral, sites from the Iron Age were also found, which may indicate that this place did not cease to be the center of life for a very long time.
The Vyatichi who settled here in the 10th century, obviously, did not come to an empty place. Here, in a conveniently located place at the intersection of two rivers (Moscow and Neglinnaya), there were sites and ritual structures.
It is characteristic that in the pagan period Borovitsky Hill was called Witch Mountain, a temple was located here. It was on the site of the temple that the first Kremlin was founded.
Borovitsky Hill was an ideal site for the construction of border fortifications, since both water and land routes converged here: overland roads led towards Novgorod and Kiev.
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Caches and passages
Besides the Kremlin, which is visible to everyone, there is another Kremlin - underground. Many researchers were involved in the system of hiding places and secret passages in the Kremlin area. According to the research of the famous Russian archaeologist and explorer of "underground Moscow" Ignatius Stelletsky, underground structures under the buildings of the 16th - 17th centuries, located within the Garden Ring, are connected with each other and with the Kremlin by a network of underground labyrinths.
Moreover, the original plan of the underground capital was created by the Italian architects of the Moscow Kremlin - Aristotle Fiorovanti, Pietro Antonio Solari and Aleviz Novy. Stelletsky, in particular, wrote: "All three architects, as foreigners, could not leave Moscow and had to lay their bones in it …" The archaeologist discovered a well-coordinated system of 350 underground points, thanks to which, for example, it was possible to get from the Kremlin even to Vorobyovy Gory.
To Jerusalem
According to most people, the main tower of the Moscow Kremlin is Spasskaya, but is it really so? It is logical to assume that priority should belong to the tower that was built first.
The first of the modern Kremlin towers was Taynitskaya, founded in 1485. For the first time in Russia brick was used for fortress building. This tower got its name from a secret passage leading from the tower to the Moscow River.
For a long time, the Taynitskaya Tower was of great importance for Muscovites - on the feast of the Epiphany, the Jordan was cut through in the Moscow River opposite it. The royal exit to the Jordan was one of the most solemn ceremonies.
Until 1674, there was a striking clock on the Taynitskaya tower, it was from here that bells were rung in case of fire, until 1917, a cannon was fired from the Taynitskaya tower every day at noon. Why was the Taynitskaya tower the first? This is due to the fact that the tower became central to the southern wall of the Kremlin, that is, it faced towards Jerusalem (because of this, the Jordan was cut across from it).
Leonardo?
It is common knowledge that the Kremlin was built by Italians. Their names are well known. One of the main architects was Pietro Antonio Solari. He came from a family of architects who worked in Milan with Leonardo da Vinci, worked with the great da Vinci and Antonio himself. Some historians, comparing historical evidence, do not even exclude the fact that Leonardo personally participated in the construction of the Kremlin.
The first to put forward this hypothesis back in the late 1980s was the historian Oleg Ulyanov, who spent his entire life studying the history of the Kremlin. There is no direct evidence for this theory, but more and more indirect ones are found, starting with almost exact matches in the drawings of the Florentine with rare elements of the Kremlin walls, to the "blank spots" in da Vinci's biography from 1499 to 1502. Dmitry Likhachev showed great interest in the version of "Leonardo's hand" in his time.
Hanging gardens
Few people know, but for a long time real hanging gardens were located on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin. Already in the 17th century, there were two large and several small (indoor) riding gardens on the roofs and terraces of palaces. According to Tatyana Rodinova, an employee of the Moscow Kremlin Museum, hanging gardens were located on the roof of the now defunct Embankment Chambers on an area of 2.2 thousand square meters.
Here not only fruits and nuts were grown, but also a reservoir with a mirror area of 200 square meters was arranged. In this place, the young Peter the Great received his first navigation skills. Since that time, even the names of those who were in charge of the "garden structure" have survived: Stepan Mushakov, Ivan Telyatevsky and Nazar Ivanov.
The water for the hanging gardens came from the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, where a mechanism was installed to raise water from the Moskva River. From the well installed in the tower, water was supplied through lead pipes to the Kremlin itself.
Red or White?
The Kremlin was originally red, but in the 18th century it was whitewashed in the fashion of that time. Napoleon also saw him white. The French playwright Jacques-François Ancelo was in Moscow in 1826. In his memoirs, he described the Kremlin as follows: "The white paint hiding the cracks gives the Kremlin an appearance of youth that does not correspond to its shape and erases its past." They whitewashed the Kremlin for the holidays, the rest of the time it was, as they liked to say, covered with a "noble patina."
An interesting metamorphosis happened to the Kremlin during the Great Patriotic War. In the summer of 1941, the commandant of the Kremlin, Major General Nikolai Spiridonov, proposed repainting all the walls and towers of the Kremlin - for camouflage. No sooner said than done. Academician Boris Iofan took over the project: artificial streets were built on Red Square, walls of houses and black "window holes" were painted on the Kremlin walls. The mausoleum turned into a natural house with a gable roof.
The Kremlin turned red again after the war, in 1947. The decision was made personally by Stalin. In principle, it was logical: red flag, red walls, Red Square …
Sergey Fedun