Red Square

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THE CLOUD thickened overhead as Pavel and I headed along a wide cobblestone alley passing between the State Historical Museum and the wall of the Kremlin. The wall was relatively modern, replacing the original wall built in 1156 AD to provide military defence to the Kremlin.

First view of Red Square

At the end of the alley, we reached the Nikolskaya Tower, one of the twenty towers of the Kremlin. Here the paving suddenly expanded to a large square covering the top of a low hill. The tower was built in 1491, named after a Greek monastery which is no longer in existence. After falling derelict, the tower was rebuilt in 1806. It needed major repairs just ten years later after its top was destroyed by the retreating French army of the 1816 Napoleonic invasion. As a final touch, the red star on top of the tower was installed in 1935 by the Soviets. Although the Soviet times have long passed, the star remains on top of this tower, and on top of most of the other towers of the Kremlin.

Red Square

I looked out into the large paved courtyard. We had reached Red Square. Pavel told me the name was in reference to the Red Army, and a small part of it originally being called Krasnaya which is the Russian word for red and also beautiful. Eventually the name extended to the entire square having originally been called Pozhar, meaning burnt out place as numerous buildings were burnt to the ground during the Tatar invasion of 1571. This was when the Mongolian empire expanded to cover most of Asia and much of Europe, including all of what is now modern-day Russia.

Kremlin wall

Pavel explained there was a misconception that it was named after the rust red Kremlin wall, but it hadn’t always been red. In past centuries the wall was white washed.

Above old moat

The wall of the Kremlin occupied the left-hand side of the square. The sandstone coloured buildings of the GUM lined the opposite side. The buildings at the far end had several cranes hovering overhead. In the distance at the far end of the square stood the distinctive domes of St Basil’s Cathedral, Russia’s most recognisable icon. The square itself wasn’t level, but rose as a low hill towards the middle, maintaining the contour of the original hill despite being occupied for nearly a thousand years. Nobody thought to level it off before adding the grey cobblestones. Yellow lines were painted on the cobblestones, mainly to guide the large groups soldiers marching in the square during parades.

The museums

The State Historical Museum and War Museum towered over this end of the square with numerous white triangular towers rising above the dark red walls into the sky. Just past the museums at the corner of the square was the Kazan Cathedral. This was originally built in 1612 as a wooden church to the Virgin of Kazan. The small church was destroyed in a fire twenty years later in 1632. It was rebuilt as a brick church in 1636. It remained standing strong for three hundred years until Joseph Stalin ordered the removal of churches from the square as part of its preparation for holding military parades. The area once occupied by the church was later replaced with offices for Soviet bureaucrats. Following the fall of communism in 1990, construction of the current replica of the church began almost immediately. It was completed in 1993.

St Basil's

We followed the red wall of the Kremlin to a low dark red and black building nearly half way along the square under the Senate Tower. This tower was built in 1491 to defend the Kremlin from any attacks from Red Square. It was only given its name, Senatskaya, in 1787 following the construction of the nearby senate on the other side of the wall. It has a through passage for VIPs to walk directly between the Kremlin and Red Square. It was covered in grey cobblestone paving laid in 1804.

The triangular shaped Kremlin was built on the peninsula where the Neglinnaya River we had passed earlier (now flowing mostly underground beneath the fountains we had passed in Alexandrovsky Garden), and the Moskva River over the far end of the square. The wall on this side of the Kremlin was the highest as Red Square does not have any river or natural barriers protecting it. To assist the protection of this side of the wall, the area now occupying the square had all its buildings within 234 metres of the wall removed in a decree in 1495.

Senate Tower

To further protect this side of the Kremlin, a moat was constructed along this side of the wall, extending the entire 541 metre distance between the rivers. It was 36 metres wide and up to 13 metres deep to account for the slight hill of the square. The cleared square was originally a shooting range to keep back any invaders. Markets were eventually set up on the area and the square became named Veliky Torg (Great Market), then renamed to Troitskaya after the small Trinity Church that once stood on the other side of the square. It was burnt down during the great fire of 1571 during the Tatar invasion. The square was renamed Pozhar, meaning burnt, in remembrance of the fire. Eventually in 1661 it was first called by its modern name Krasnaya (Red Square).

A line of people stood outside the entrance of the low building in front of the tower going through a roped area. This was Lenin’s Mausoleum, the resting place of Vladimir Lenin, where his body has been resting since 1924. The building was originally constructed from timber, but the permanent structure of marble and granite was constructed the following year. The inspiration of its stepped pyramid design was from ancient mausoleums such as the Step Pyramid and the Tomb of Cyrus the Great. The mausoleum stood over what had once been the channel of the moat, which had long been filled in and paved like the rest of the square.

Lenin's mausoleum

We joined the back of the queue shuffling along towards the entrance, soon reaching a security checkpoint where armed police searched us before letting us through. A set of stairs led down into a dark room in the windowless building. Inside was illuminated with a faint red light, making the stairs had to see. At the bottom of the stairs, we silently shuffled past an open coffin with Lenin’s body in it. The body lay there alone, but had been joined by Joseph Stalin’s body following his death in 1953. Stalin’s body was removed in 1961 for permanent burial, but Lenin’s body remains here to this day.

Lenin was born in 1870, and was known as a Russian communist revolutionary. As leader of the Russian government of the time, he was instrumental in establishing communism and the Soviet Union. He died aged 53 following illness probably due to oxidation from bullets lodged in his body from an assassination attempt on him in 1918. Upon his death, the reign of the Soviet Union was handed to Stalin who brought the Soviet Union through World War II.

We continued shuffling along until reaching the stairs on the other side of the building. We climbed back out into the relatively bright light of the square.

Busts behind mausoleum

Pavel led me around the back of the mausoleum where the life-sized busts of famous politicians stood in a row behind the mausoleum. Each bust was realistically carved down to the chest, then the rest of the body was just rectangular stone block. Each bust had a bunch of red flowers in front and a blue juniper tree growing behind.

The trees stood over what had been the middle of the moat. It had been filled in during 1813, the year following the invasion of Napoleon and the subsequent fire. Behind the statues, the wall of the kremlin had quite a lot of black plaques of some less prominent people.

Prominant leader

We continued walking along the side of the wall separated from the rest of Red Square by a garden with a couple of stone monuments and more juniper trees. We reached the end of the garden close to St Basil’s Cathedral, eight churches in one, with a towering dome above each church. Each dome was in the same fairy tale style I had seen at Izmailovo Kremlin.

We were near the end of the wall, where a tall square tower stood with a triangular top and a huge clock face – called the Kremlin Clock. This was the Spasskaya Tower (Saviour Tower). This is considered the main tower of the Kremlin east wall. The 71 metre high tower was built in 1491. It had the gate entrance used only by heads of state and other high ranking officials. The Soviets added a red star on top of the tower.

Spasskaya Tower

This marked as far as we were going along the base of the wall. We turned and headed across the large paved courtyard of Red Square towards the GUM.