The Senate Tower (height - 34.3 meters) was built in the 1490s according to the design of Pietro Antonio Solari. But it received its name only almost 300 years later - after the construction of the Senate Palace.

In 1918, a bas-relief “To those who fell in the struggle for peace and brotherhood of peoples,” made by S. Konenkov, was installed on the Senate Tower. But during the restoration of the Senate Tower in 1950, the bas-relief was removed and moved to the Museum of the Revolution.

The board... depicts a fantastic figure with the wings of a fairy swan. IN right hand figures - a dark red banner with the Soviet coat of arms on the pole, falling to mass graves, entwined with mourning ribbon, with broken rifles and sabers. In the other hand is a green palm branch, extended to the heart in a very wide and natural gesture, as if as a sign of victory and eternal brotherhood and peace among peoples.

Mini-guide to the Kremlin walls and towers

They say that...

...in the 1960s, during renovations, an underground passage was discovered leading from the Senate Tower under Kitai Gorod to the Moscow River. It was intended for the evacuation of valuables and people from the Kremlin and allowed the use of carts and special wheeled vehicles. This gave rise to popular rumors about “Ivan IV Metro”.

Senate Tower- part of the Kremlin ensemble, the main attraction of Moscow. It is located on the eastern wall and overlooks Red Square. The Senate Tower of the Kremlin was built at the end of the 15th century, during the time of Ivan III. It was erected according to the design of the Italian master Pietro Solari.

The appearance of the Kremlin

In plan, the architectural ensemble has the shape of a triangle, at the tops of which there are three round towers. Corners were once considered the most important and were intended for all-round defense. The Kremlin has 20 towers in total. Senate is one of the oldest.

The total length of the Kremlin walls is more than two thousand meters with a height of five to twenty. On the outside they are equipped with dovetail-shaped teeth.

The tallest reaches a height of almost 80 meters. It is through its gates that visitors enter the Kremlin across the bridge today. At the entrance stands the lowest tower of the ensemble - Kutafya.

It is worth adding that the height of some Kremlin towers has increased significantly in early XVII century. Then the characteristic tents were built over them.

The most famous of the towers is Spasskaya. Its height is 71 meters. It contains the main entrance to the Kremlin territory - the Spassky Gate, named after the gate icon of the Savior of Smolensk. Even in the old days they were ceremonial - here they welcomed foreign ambassadors.

The chimes of the Spasskaya Tower are known throughout the country. The first mention of them dates back to the 16th century. True, then the clocks were not at all similar to today. The role of the arrow in them was played by the image of the sun with a long ray.

Blind tower

In the eighties of the 15th century, large-scale construction began. The Tsar wished to have a fortress in Moscow that would symbolize the greatness and power of the Russian state, for which he ordered skilled craftsmen from abroad.

It’s not for nothing that the Russian capital is called White Stone. Before there was a red brick fortress in the center of the city, there was a structure made of white stone.

So, the Senate Tower was built at the end of the 15th century. But then it had no name. In some documents it was listed as a "Deaf Tower". But more often they called her Nameless. The Senate Tower received its modern name in the 18th century.

The architect Pietro Solari supervised the construction of the entire eastern wall. A tower without a gate, the Senate Tower, was built into this wall. The Moscow Kremlin was surrounded by a fortification ditch. For additional protection battlements were built along its edges.

On the territory of the Kremlin along the Senate Tower there was the house of the Trubetskoy princes. There were also several churches and palace orders.

The article presents photos of the Senate Tower. It is worth knowing that in the 16th century this building looked completely different. The Senate Tower was less ornate. There was something stern and gloomy in his appearance. Inside there were three tiers of loopholes, with cannons located at the top.

Modernization

In 1680, the 17th Senate Tower was rebuilt. Now its height reached 34 meters. A tetrahedral tent was added to the lower quadrangle, after which the appearance of the structure changed significantly.

In 1787, it was built on the territory of the Kremlin. It was then that the tower received its modern name.

1812

Moscow, as you know, suffered greatly from a fire started by the French. Leaving the Russian capital, soldiers of Napoleonic army mined part of the Kremlin ensemble. Later, many legends arose according to which the French commander failed to wipe the Kremlin off the face of the earth only thanks to a miracle. One way or another, the Senate Tower was not damaged as a result of the fire.

5 years after graduation Patriotic War The Russian emperor signed a plan for the reconstruction of the capital. Red Square has been restored. And in 1818, a monument to Minin and Pozharsky was also erected on it.

The Senate Tower is located in the very center of the eastern wall. Of course, it has not performed fortification functions for many centuries. This tower once served as a kind of decoration during ceremonial events, especially the coronation of monks. When he ascended the throne Alexander III, the state emblem was installed on the building.

20th century

After the revolution, the Kremlin was occupied by the Bolsheviks. New objects have appeared on the territory of the ancient fortress. Thus, urns with ashes were placed on both sides of the Senate Tower statesmen. At the foot of the structure are the graves of Dzerzhinsky, Frunze, Kalinin, Zhdanov.

“To those who fell for peace and brotherhood of peoples” is the name of the bas-relief installed on the Senate Tower in 1917. Before education Soviet state Another restoration of the Kremlin towers was carried out. In 1922, a monument to the proletarian was erected near the Senate Tower. In the forties, a passage to the Mausoleum was built in this building, which was used exclusively by members of the Central Committee.

In the mid-20th century, one of the sculptors proposed shortening the Senate Tower and installing a monument to Lenin on it. Fortunately, this idea was not supported. The last restoration was carried out in 2016.

Senate Square is depicted in the paintings of famous artists. For example, in Surikov’s painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution”.

Each time brought something new to the Kremlin. Thus, under Peter, the construction of the Arsenal began, along the facade of which Napoleon’s captured cannons are displayed. At the end of the 18th century and in the first half of the 19th century, the Kremlin was replenished with two palaces: the Senate, after which one of the towers is named, and the Great Kremlin, built by Nicholas I. In 1840, a new building of the Kremlin museum-treasury appeared - the Armory Chamber, whose name comes from from the name of one of the Kremlin treasuries.

The Senate Tower is one of the first towers built in the Moscow Kremlin. The tower is very similar to other buildings and was built for defensive purposes. The project was developed by the famous Italian architect Solari.

Tower characteristics:

Height – 34 meters

Tower shape - quadrangle

Wall thickness – 4 meters

Erected - 1491

History of the tower

The oldest tower of the Kremlin, built in 1491 by the architect Pietro Antonio Solari. For a long time the tower was blank and was called Nameless.

In 1680 it was built on, a tent was erected above the parapet base, simple, but elegant, consisting of four sides. The top of the tower was crowned with a gilded weather vane and flag.

Senate received its first and final only full name after the construction of the Senate building in 1790. The historian Sergei Bartenev noted that the tower has “a somewhat elongated tent shape, which gives the Senate Tower the appearance of severe inaccessibility.” After reconstruction, the tower was no longer significantly rebuilt.

In 1812, the tower suffered from fires and explosions of other Kremlin towers, retreating French army, in 1818, together with Red Square, the tower was restored to its previous form.

(Modern view of the Senate Tower and the Senate building with the Russian flag)

During the USSR in the mid-20th century, there were plans to change the appearance of the tower, its reconstruction, modernization, along with ambitious plans for the entire Kremlin and Red Square, so there were proposals to make a pedestal for the figure of Vladimir Lenin from the sculptor Sergei Merkulov, and another Soviet architect Arkady Mordvinov even proposed to install a sculpture of Joseph Stalin on the tower.

The tower survived the historical decay of political changes and remained itself in its almost original form over many centuries.

Senate Tower

The tower is located immediately behind the Spasskaya Tower, behind the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin. The tower was built in 1491 by the architect Pietro Antonio Solari. The Senate Tower performed purely defensive functions - it protected the Kremlin from Red Square. For a long time she was nameless. The tower received its name after M. Kazakov built the Senate building on the territory of the Kremlin in 1787, the dome of which is clearly visible from Red Square. Inside the main volume of the tower there are three tiers of vaulted rooms. The blank, square tower in 1860 was built with a stone tent, which was topped with a gilded weather vane. In 1918, on the tower in honor of the first anniversary October revolution IN AND. Lenin unveiled a memorial plaque (sculptor S. Konenkov). During the restoration of the tower in 1950, the plaque was removed and transferred to the Museum of the Revolution. Tower height - 34.3 m.

Spasskaya Tower (Frolovskaya)

To strengthen the north-eastern part of the Kremlin, which was not protected by natural barriers, at the end of the 15th century two more towers with passage gates were erected - Frolovskaya and Nikolskaya. In 1491, on the spot where the main gate of the Kremlin was located in ancient times, the Frolov Tower was built.

Even in those days, the tower with the main gate of the Kremlin made an indelible impression with its slender proportions and the richness of the white stone decorations of the facades, consisting of turrets, carved pillars, columns, and figures of fantastic animals. At the corners of the quadrangle there were pyramids with gilded weather vanes.

Until the 17th century, the tower was decorated with white stone reliefs by V.D. Ermolina. The tower had double walls made of large bricks (dimensions 31x14x18 cm); between the walls there was a staircase connecting all five tiers. The gate of this tower was protected by a diversion archer with two side bastions. The tower was connected to the archer by a wooden bridge.

The main gate of the Kremlin, i.e. The passage gates of the Frolov Tower were especially revered by the people and were considered “saints”. It was forbidden to ride through them on horseback or to walk through them with your head covered. Through them the regiments marching in and out entered and exited. Kings and ambassadors were met at these gates.

Above the gates of the tower, on the inside and outside, inscriptions in Latin and Russian were carved on white stone boards, telling the history of its construction: “John Vasilyevich, by the grace of God Grand Duke Vladimir, Moscow, Novgorod, Tver... and others and all Russia, the sovereign, in the 30th year of his reign, ordered the construction of these towers, and Peter Anthony Solarrius, a Mediolian, did it in the summer of the Incarnation of the Lord 1491.” These were the first memorial plaques of our capital.

Since 1625, the Kremlin towers began to be built on. First of all, the main tower of the Kremlin, Frolovskaya, was built on. The superstructure of the tower was in harmony with its ancient massif, with the entire appearance of the Kremlin, with St. Basil's Cathedral, which was erected in the middle of the 16th century in honor of the victory of Russian troops over the Kazan Khanate under Ivan the Terrible.

In the 50s of the 17th century, a coat of arms was erected on top of the tent of the main tower of the Kremlin Russian Empire- double-headed eagle. Later, similar coats of arms were installed on the most high towers- Nikolskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya.

In April 1658, a royal decree was issued to rename all Kremlin towers. The Frolovskaya Tower was renamed Spasskaya in honor of the icon of the Savior of Smolensk, placed above the passage gate of the tower from the side of Red Square, and in honor of the icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands, located above the gate from the Kremlin side.

In the 17th century, a Stone Bridge was built across the moat that ran along the Kremlin wall, on which books began to be sold. Along with books of spiritual content, “scriptures” of secular content were sold here; you could also buy tales of miracles, stories from the “Great Mirror” or handwritten “The Tale of Woe and Misfortune”, “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, “Shemyakin’s Court”, etc. Here they also sold “printed sheets” - facial images of saints and royal persons. The book trade on the Kamenny (Spassky) Bridge continued until 1812.

The main clock of the state was placed in the tented top of the tower, built by the Russian master Bazhen Ogurtsov. According to archival documents, the first clock on this tower was installed much earlier, back in 1491, immediately after its construction.

It must be said that the history of the Moscow Kremlin tower clock goes back centuries. The first tower clock was installed in 1404 in the courtyard of Grand Duke Vasily, son of Dmitry Donskoy. In the Trinity Chronicle it is written that “this watchmaker will be called the watchmaker, at every hour he strikes the bell with a hammer, measuring and calculating the hours of the night and day...”. The watch was made by master Lazar Serbin. This clock was the second in Europe in terms of the time of its construction, and only decades later tower clocks appeared in Veliky Novgorod, and then in Pskov.

In 1625, under the leadership of Christopher Golovey, Russian blacksmiths and watchmakers Zhdan, and his son and grandson installed a clock on the Spasskaya Tower, and thirty bells for the clock were cast by foundry maker Kirill Samoilov. The design of Christopher Golovey's clock was significantly different from modern ones. The watch had a huge rotating dial, divided into 17 parts. The clock began striking at sunrise, and at sunset the clock was transferred to night time. IN different time The duration of night and day time is different throughout the year. On the days of the summer solstice, when the days are the longest, the clock struck 17 times, and at night - 7 times.

But such a countdown was very inconvenient. And at the beginning of the 18th century, Peter I issued a decree according to which the entire country switched to a single daily countdown for all of Russia. At the same time, a Dutch clock with music and a 12-hour dial was installed on the Spasskaya Tower. This huge clock, brought on 30 carts, was installed by blacksmith Nikifor Yakovlev “comrades”. But soon this clock stopped, and after the fire of 1737 it became unusable.

The clock that we see now on the Spasskaya Tower was installed by the Butenop brothers in 1851-1852. They occupy three floors of the tower - 7th, 8th, 9th - and consist of three units: the running mechanism, the quarter striking mechanism and the clock striking mechanism. The watch is powered by three weights weighing from 160 to 224 kilograms. Their precision is ensured by a pendulum weighing 32 kilograms. The striking mechanism consists of 10 quarter bells and a bell that strikes one hour. The bells were cast in the 17th-18th centuries by Russian and foreign craftsmen. The signature on one of the bells reads: “This bell for striking the quarters of the Spasskaya Tower was cast in 1769, Mayan 27th day. Weight 21 pounds. Lil master Semyon Mozhzhukhin." All bells are placed on the 10th tier of the tower in open bells under the tent.

The clock, which is usually called a chime, has four dials, the diameter of each is 6.12 meters, the height of the numbers is 72 centimeters, the length of the hour hand is 2.97 meters, the length of the minute hand is 3.28 meters. The total weight of the watch mechanism is about 25 tons.

During the October 1917 battles for Soviet power, the Spasskaya Tower was damaged by artillery shelling. The shell disabled the watch. After sightseeing in the Moscow Kremlin, V.I. Lenin gave instructions for restoration historical monuments. Then they began to repair the Spasskaya Tower and clock. The amount of work was considerable - it was necessary to make a new pendulum disk, restore the dial, make a minute hand, restore broken gears, straighten bent shafts.

The clock on the Spasskaya Tower was fixed by Kremlin mechanic N.V. Behrens, his two sons, Vladimir and Vasily, helped him. And the artist and musician M.M. Cheremnykh played revolutionary melodies on the chiming shaft.

In August 1918, the clock on the Spasskaya Tower played new melodies for the first time - the party anthem “Internationale” and the march “You have fallen as a sacrifice.”

During its existence, the chimes have been restored several times. The last, most serious restoration was carried out in 1974. Experts disassembled and checked the entire mechanism. designed and manufactured more than a thousand new parts, created new automatic software installations. Complex works to update the main clock of Moscow were carried out in a short period of time. The warranty period for repairs is 30 years. This means that chimes will have to show time in the 21st century.

The Spasskaya Tower has 10 floors. Its height to the shining ruby ​​star is 67.3 meters, with the star - 71 meters.

34.3 m high, 3.3 m thick walls, the Senate Tower, previously had no name. Built in 1491. A talented architect from Italy, Pietro Antonio Solari, also known as Peter Fryazin, was responsible for the design. The tower is located directly behind the Lenin Mausoleum.

Name of the Senate

Like other towers of the Kremlin, the Senate was built with a stone tent. In 1787, when the Kremlin was decorated with the Senate building, the tower acquired a name. Now it was called the Senate Tower. In 1918 it was replenished with a memorial plaque. The text on it read as follows: “To those who fell in the struggle for peace and brotherhood of peoples.” The plaque was dismantled in 1950 and placed in the Museum of the Revolution.

It is difficult to confuse the Senate Tower with others, because next to it in 1930 the Mausoleum to the leader of the Bolshevik revolution was built. After his death in January 1924, a wooden sarcophagus was placed on Red Square to bid farewell to the deceased. Subsequently, the idea arose to embalm the body and preserve it for eternity. For this purpose, in the summer of 1924, the building was rebuilt from oak planks.

Modern view of the Mausoleum

Five years later, the Mausoleum acquired its modern appearance. A step pyramid with a flat top, lined with slabs of red granite, black marble, labradorite and porphyry, became the central structure of the Revolutionary Necropolis on Red Square.

The funeral hall is shaped like a cube - a symbol of eternity; in the center is a crystal sarcophagus with Lenin's body. In 1953, the embalmed body of Joseph Stalin was also placed in the Mausoleum. However, already in 1961 he was buried in the Revolutionary Necropolis.

Burial

The tradition of burying prominent figures, scientists, generals, heroes and many others near the walls of the Kremlin famous personalities arose after the burial in November 1917 near the Kremlin wall of 240 Red Army soldiers who died during the storming of the Kremlin. Since 1925, urns with ashes began to be installed in niches. Currently, more than 300 people are buried near the Kremlin wall. On the plaques are the names of the leaders of the communist and labor movements of other countries.

IN last years There is a debate about whether the Kremlin’s “red graveyard” should be preserved. There are proposals to leave the Mausoleum on Red Square, but to bury Lenin’s body “according to Christian custom.”