The Kremlin Walls and Towers

It is impossible to imagine the famous Kremlin ensemble without its red-brick walls and towers. Encircling many cathedrals and palaces over which the huge Ivan the Great Bell-Tower rises, the Kremlin walls are a constant and essential element of the city's panorama.

-23-

The present walls and towers of the Kremlin were built bet­ween 1485 and 1495 by the Italian architects Marco Pryazin (Marco Ruffo), Anton Fryazin (Antonio Gilardi), Pyotr Pryazin (Pietro Antonio Solario), and Alevis Pryazin the Elder (Aloisio da Carcano). Do not be surprised that so many architects have the surname Pryazin. In Old Russia Italians were called fryag or fryazin. Military engineering and science were highly developed in Italy during the Renaissance, which explains why Ivan III invited masters from that country. Unlike the cathedrals, in the building of which architects were bound by strict canons, fortifications were regarded by the commissioner mainly as utilitarian buildings and consequently the architects were given greater freedom. The fryazins working in Moscow not only sought to use and respect the national traditions and forms of Russian architecture, but also paid considerable attention to the aesthetic appearance of their fortifications.

Specialists believe that the main builder of the Moscow Kremlin was the eminent architect, engineer and mechanic Aristotele Fiora-vanti. He came to Moscow in Г475 at the invitation of Ivan III. By then the sixty-year-old architect had considerable experience of fortifications works: he had repaired and built a section, of the fortified wall in his native Bologna, erected a castle for the Duke of Milan, and at the invitation of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary designed some fortresses and built a bridge across the Danube.

It was probably Aristotele Pioravanti who planned the overall architectural treatment of the Kremlin walls and towers. The rationalism of Italian architecture of that period can be felt in the straightening of the north-east wall and the erection of round towers at the base and top of the Kremlin triangle, which gave the whole ensemble a balanced spatial composition. At the same time the new brick walls included fragments of the earlier white-stone Kremlin of 1367-8, which shows clearly the influence of Russian architecture. The triangle of the new Kremlin walls repeated the triangle of the earlier fortifications.

The rebuilding of the fortress began with the towers. The Kremlin has twenty of them. Three of these, placed on the corners of the Kremlin triangle, are round (the Corner Arsenal, Water and Векlemishev towers). They were particularly strong and made it possible to fire from all angles. At the points where important strategic roads converged on the Kremlin strong carriage-way towers were

-24-

erected. There are six of them in all: the Saviour, St.Nicholas, Trinity, Pine-Grove, Secret and SS Constantine and Helen towers.

The towers erected between these corner and carriage-way towers were usually smaller and without windows; Each of them was a kind of little fortress enabling the defenders to go on fighting even if the enemy captured part of the wall or the next tower. Ori­ginally the towers were crenellated and topped by wooden tent roofs, not very high, with turrets.

The towers were multi-tiered and connected by passages, en­abling the defenders to keep in contact with one another. Some of these passages have survived. Some towers had bells at the sound of which the fortress prepared to defend itself.

For firing on the enemy at different levels, there were the loopholes of the so-called lower and upper firing tiers. If the enemy managed to reach the foot of the tower, the defenders made use of special loopholes or machicolations through which they tossed firebrands or boiling pitch.

Adjoining the carriage-way towers were barbicans containing openings and apertures to hear what was going on outside the walls. From the gates of these barbicans drawbridges were lowered on chains over the moat. The gateway was fitted with a portcullis and strong doors bound with iron. If the enemy managed to break through the gate the portcullis was lowered and they found themselves in a trap fired on from above.

The Kremlin was protected by water on all sides: on the south by the River Moskva, on the north-west (where the Alexandrovsky Gardens now are) by the River Neglinnaya, and on the east by the so-called Alevis artificial moat which was very deep. It was dug at the beginning of the sixteenth century and ran from the Corner Arsenal Tower along Red Square to the Beklemishev Tower, linking the Neglinnaya with the^; River Moskva.

The Kremlin walls, following the relief of the terrain, were built in a slightly crooked, enabling the defenders of the fortress to fire on the enemy at close range. They were made of large well-baked bricks called "twohanders", because they were so heavy (about eight kilos each) the masons had to pick them up with both hands. The walls are 2,235 metres long, between 3.5 and 6.5 metres thick and from 5 to 19 metres high, depending on the relief. The firing platform which runs along the top, is from 2 to 2.5 metres wide.

-25-

The walls are topped by merlons in the shape of swallow tails, cha­racteristic of Italian fortresses. The merlons are from 2 to 2,5 metres high and not more than 70 centimetres thick. They have slit embrasures. During a siege the defenders covered the spaces between the merlons with boards.

Running along the inside of the walls is the arcade which one finds in many Russian fortresses; the outer walls are decorated with a white-stone ornamental balister band.

By the time the Kremlin building was completed there were many houses of traders and artisans clustered round its walls, which made the fortress easy to besiege and hampered its defence. Рог this rea­son in 1496 Ivan III ordered all the churches and houses to be removed from the Kremlin walls and forbade any construction within 220 metres of them. The buildings were removed from the River Neg-linnaya side and from the east wall, where as a result of this a square appeared, later to be called Red (krasnaya or beautiful) Square. This act of Ivan Ill's was of artistic as well as defensive importance. Muscovites were now able to admire the main panorama of the Kremlin from Zamoskvorechiye (area over the Moskva River).

As already mentioned, the Moscow Kremlin has twenty towers. The first to be built was the Secret Tower (1485) and the last the Tsar Tower (1680). We shall.begin our description of the towers with the main one, the Saviour Tower, formerly called the Plorus Tower after the Church of S3 Plorus and Laurus which once stood nearby.