Who built the red-brick Kremlin. Why were the Kremlin walls painted white?
In the second half of the 15th century, when Moscow became the political and cultural center of the Russian lands, the Kremlin was rebuilt with the participation of Italian architects. Its center was Cathedral Square with the Assumption Cathedral (1475-79) built by the architect Aristotle Fioravanti - the burial place of Russian metropolitans and patriarchs, the place of weddings and coronations of grand dukes, then kings and emperors. Pskov craftsmen erected the Church of the Deposition of the Robe (1484-88) and the Cathedral of the Annunciation (1484-89) - the house church of the Moscow sovereigns. In 1505-08, the Archangel Cathedral was built - the tomb of Russian princes and tsars (before Ivan V Alekseevich). The Stone Sovereign's Palace (on the site of the modern Grand Kremlin Palace) with the Palace of Facets (1487-91) completed the design of the western side of Cathedral Square. The Ivan the Great Bell Tower became the center of the Kremlin ensemble. In 1485-95, taking into account the traditions of Russian defensive architecture and the achievements of Western European fortification, the existing walls and towers were built around the Kremlin from red brick with internal backfilling of cobblestone and white stone on lime mortar. The Kremlin became one of the most powerful fortresses in Europe.
SIGN ABOVE THE GATES OF THE SPASSKAYA TOWER
“In the summer of 6999 (1491) July, by the grace of God, this archer was made by the command of John Vasilyevich, the sovereign and autocrat of all Russia and the Grand Duke of Volodimir and Moscow and Novgorod and Pskov and Tver and Yugra and Vyatka and Perm and Bulgarian and others in the 30th summer of the state him, and Peter Antony Solario from the city of Mediolan (Milan - ed.) did.
ARCHITECTS OF THE NEW ENSEMBLE OF THE MOSCOW KREMLIN
To bring to life the plan of Ivan III - to turn the Kremlin into a symbol of the Russian state, a demonstration of its greatness and power - architecture was one of the most important means. And the prince turns the Kremlin into a monumental ensemble. Almost all the buildings of the Kremlin - towers, walls, buildings on the central Kremlin square - not only stand in the same places and bear the same names where they began to build and as Ivan Kalita called them in the 30s of the XIV century, but they even look the way they did during the reign of Ivan III...
On the advice of the "Greek Sophia", the prince invited architects from Italy. The first to arrive from Bologna in 1474 was Aristotle Fioravanti with his son Andrew.
The Italian architect was 58 years old at that time, and he had already entered the history of Italy as the author of palaces, fortresses and fortifications for many Italian dukes and even for the Hungarian king, as a man who moved a huge bell tower from place to place. In Bologna, Fioravanti was about to start building the Palazzo del Podesta, the model of which so delighted his compatriots. But he went far to the east to enter the history of another people - the Russians.
Aristotle was settled in the Kremlin, endowed with enormous powers, and the work began to boil. Ivan III himself understood that the white stone walls were an unreliable defender, they would not withstand cannon fire. The Kremlin should be made of brick. And the Italian first built a brick factory on the Yauza River. The bricks obtained at this factory according to the recipe of Fioravanti himself were unusually strong. They were narrower and more authentic than usual, and therefore they became called "Aristotelian".
Having created the general scheme of the Kremlin fortress and its center - Cathedral Square, the Italian led the construction of the Assumption Cathedral - the main cathedral of Moscow Rus'. The temple was supposed to carry a huge "preaching" meaning, it was to announce to the world the birth of a new state, and therefore it was necessary to embody the truly national character of culture in it. Aristotle began to get acquainted with examples of Russian architecture in Vladimir, in the north of Rus', and when, after four years of work, the five-domed cathedral was ready, he struck the imagination of his contemporaries. He looked “like a single stone”, and with this feeling of a monolith he inspired the idea of the solidity of the whole people. It cannot be considered accidental that a year after the completion of the cathedral, Ivan III refused to pay tribute to the Golden Horde.
In those same years, Pskov craftsmen, unknown to us so far, rebuilt the Annunciation Cathedral - the house church of the royal court. In the basement of this cathedral, a new Treasury yard was made - the Treasury, the deep white stone cellars of which existed for three centuries. The Treasury was built by another Italian - Marco Ruffo, whose name we associate with another remarkable building of the Kremlin - the Faceted Chamber - the ceremonial throne room of the future Russian tsars. For the 15th century, the Faceted Chamber is a unique creation: a hall of 500 square meters, the vaults of which rest on only one central pillar.
Marco Ruffo just laid this chamber. He completed the work together with the architect Pietro Antonio Solari, one of the legendary builders of the Milan Cathedral, who arrived from Italy. It is Solari who owns the main engineering solution of the Faceted Chamber, later named so for the tetrahedral stones with which it is lined. Both architects simultaneously built the stone sovereign's palace.
It remains only to regret that Solari lived in Moscow so little - in 1493, three years after his arrival, he suddenly died. But even in three years, he did too much and, most importantly, brought to life the plan of Ivan III: to turn the Moscow Kremlin into the most impregnable fortress in Europe. New fortress walls 2235 meters long had a height of 5 to 19 meters. Inside the walls, the thickness of which reached from 3.5 to 6.5 meters, closed galleries were arranged for the secret movement of soldiers. To prevent enemy undermining, there were many secret passages and "rumors" from the Kremlin.
The Kremlin's towers became the centers of defense of the Kremlin. The first was erected in the very middle of the wall facing the Moscow River. It was built under the guidance of the Italian master Anton Fryazin in 1485. Since there was a secret spring under the tower, they called it Taynitskaya.
After that, a new tower is being built almost every year: Beklemishevskaya (Marco Ruffo), Vodovzvodnaya (Anton Fryazin), Borovitskaya, Konstantin-Eleninskaya (Pietro Antonio Solari). And finally, in 1491, two towers were erected on Red Square - Nikolskaya and Frolovskaya - the latter would later become known to the whole world as Spasskaya (as it was named in 1658 by royal decree in the image of the Savior of Smolensk, written above the gate of the tower in memory of the liberation by Russian troops the city of Smolensk). The Spasskaya Tower became the main front entrance to the Kremlin...
In 1494 Aleviz Fryazin (Milanese) came to Moscow. For ten years he built stone chambers that became part of the Terem Palace of the Kremlin. He erected both the Kremlin walls and towers along the Neglinnaya River. He also owns the main hydraulic structures of Moscow in those years: the dams on the Neglinnaya and the ditches along the walls of the Kremlin.
In 1504, shortly before his death, Ivan III invited another “Fryazin” to Moscow, who received the name Aleviz Fryazin the New (Venetian). He came from Bakhchisaray, where he built a palace for the khan. The creations of the new architect were already seen by Vasily III. It was under him that the Venetian built eleven churches (which have not survived to this day) and the cathedral, which even now serves as an adornment of the Moscow Kremlin, the Archangel Cathedral, designed in the best traditions of ancient Russian architecture. It is felt that its creator was under the great influence of original Russian culture.
Then, in 1505-1508, the famous bell tower "Ivan the Great" was built. Its architect Bon-Fryazin, having erected this pillar, which later reached 81 meters, accurately calculated that this architectural vertical would dominate the entire ensemble, giving it a unique color.
The construction of the Moscow Kremlin was an outstanding event for its time. Even if we consider the beginning of the construction of the ensemble in 1475 - the year of laying the last, fourth version of the Assumption Cathedral, and the end of construction - the construction of the last Kremlin fortifications in 1516, we have to admit that all this splendor and power were created in thirty (!) years.
On November 25, 1339, Ivan Kalita erected the oak walls of the Moscow fortress. It was during this period that the Kremlin became the political center of the feudal state, the residence of the grand dukes and metropolitans.
Today the Moscow Kremlin is one of the brightest cultural assets of the Russian capital. "RG" has collected five little-known and curious facts about him.
1. The Moscow Kremlin is the largest fortress in the entire territory of Russia, as well as the largest active fortress in Europe today.
In world history, there were buildings and more, but only it has been preserved quite well and still performs its functions.
The total length of the Kremlin walls is 2235 meters, they form an irregular triangle. There are 20 towers along them, of which the highest is Troitskaya, together with the star, it has a height of 80 m.
2. The secret of the absolutely exact time of the Kremlin chimes now lies underground: the chimes are connected by cable to the control clock of the Sternberg Moscow Astronomical Institute.
In the middle of the 19th century, chimes were installed on the Spasskaya Tower, performing the "March of the Preobrazhensky Regiment" by Dmitry Bortnyansky. This melody sounded until 1917. In 1920, the music of the Internationale was picked up on the chimes.
Under Yeltsin, the chimes played Glinka, and now they play Alexandrov - the anthem of the Russian Federation.
3. During the Great Patriotic War, or rather, in 1941, the Kremlin began to be disguised: all the old buildings were stylized as ordinary houses, green roofs were painted over, dark paint was applied to gilded domes, crosses were removed, stars were sheathed on the towers. Windows and doors were painted on the Kremlin walls, and the battlements were covered with plywood, imitating the roofs of houses.
Interestingly, during the Great Patriotic War, the Kremlin was practically not damaged, despite the massive bombardments that hit Moscow in 1941 and 1942. The authorities evacuated the treasures of the Armory, and in the event of the surrender of the capital to the German troops, a plan was provided for mining the main buildings of the complex.
4. In 1935, the Kremlin lost its double-headed eagles, and it was decided to install Soviet symbols in their place. In 1937, luminous ruby stars were installed on the Spasskaya, Borovitskaya, Nikolskaya, Troitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya towers.
Kremlin stars withstand the maximum pressure of a hurricane wind, each up to about 1200 kg. The weight of each star reaches one ton. During windy days, the stars rotate, changing their position so that they face the wind with their sides.
5. Almost until the end of the 19th century, Moscow was "white-stone". Following the established tradition, the Kremlin's red-brick walls were whitewashed for almost four centuries. At the same time, they were worried not only about the memory of the white-stone Kremlin of Dmitry Donskoy, but also about the safety of the brick. This can be confirmed by numerous descriptions and images.
Today, the walls of the Kremlin are regularly tinted so that the red-brick color is always saturated.
65 years ago, Stalin ordered the Moscow Kremlin to be repainted red. Rather, the Kremlin was originally red-brick - the Italians, who built in 1485-1495 a new fortress for the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III Vasilyevich on the site of the old white-stone fortifications, erected walls and towers of ordinary brick - like, for example, the castle of Milan Castello Sforzesco. The Kremlin became white only in the 18th century, when the fortress walls were whitewashed according to the then fashion (like the walls of all other Russian Kremlins - in Kazan, Zaraysk, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov the Great, etc.).
J. Delabart. View of Moscow from the balcony of the Kremlin Palace towards the Moskvoretsky Bridge. 1797.
The White Kremlin appeared before Napoleon's army in 1812, and a few years later, already washed from the soot of warm Moscow, it again blinded travelers with snow-white walls and tents. The famous French playwright Jacques-Francois Anselot, who visited Moscow in 1826, described the Kremlin in his memoirs Six mois en Russie: “This is where we leave the Kremlin, my dear Xavier; but, looking again at this ancient citadel, we will regret that, while repairing the destruction caused by the explosion, the builders removed from the walls the age-old patina that gave them so much grandeur. The white paint that hides the cracks gives the Kremlin an air of youth that does not match its shape and erases its past.”
S. M. Shukhvostov. View of the Red Square. 1855 (?) year
P. Vereshchagin. View of the Moscow Kremlin. 1879
Kremlin. Chromolithograph from the collection of the US Library of Congress, 1890.
White Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin, 1883
White Nikolskaya tower, 1883
Moscow and the Moscow River. Photo by Murray Howe (USA), 1909
In the photo of Murray Howe: shabby walls and towers covered with a “noble urban patina”. 1909
The Kremlin greeted the beginning of the 20th century like a real old fortress, covered, in the words of the writer Pavel Ettinger, with a “noble urban patina”: it was sometimes whitewashed for important events, and the rest of the time it stood as expected - with smudges and shabby. The Bolsheviks, who made the Kremlin a symbol and citadel of all state power, were not at all embarrassed by the white color of the fortress walls and towers.
Red Square, Parade of athletes, 1932. Pay attention to the walls of the Kremlin freshly whitewashed for the holiday
Moscow, 1934-35 (?)
But then the war began, and in June 1941, the commandant of the Kremlin, Major General Nikolai Spiridonov, offered to repaint all the walls and towers of the Kremlin - for camouflage. A fantastic project for that time was developed by a group of academician Boris Iofan: walls of houses, black holes of windows were painted on white walls, artificial streets were built on Red Square, and the empty Mausoleum (Lenin's body had already been evacuated from Moscow on July 3, 1941) was covered with a plywood cap representing a house. And the Kremlin naturally disappeared - the disguise confused all the cards for the fascist pilots.
“Disguised” Red Square: instead of the Mausoleum, a cozy house appeared. 1941-1942.
The “disguised” Kremlin: houses and windows are painted on the walls. 1942
During the restoration of the Kremlin walls and towers in 1947 - for the celebration of the 800th anniversary of Moscow. Then the idea arose in Stalin's head to repaint the Kremlin in red: the Red flag on the red Kremlin on Red Square - so that everything would sound in unison and ideologically correct.
This instruction of Comrade Stalin is carried out by the Kremlin workers to this day.
WITH Today the Kremlin houses the residence of the President of Russia. In addition, the ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin is included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List and the State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve “Moscow Kremlin” is located on its territory. The total number of towers is 20.
"Red" Kremlin came to replace " White » Dmitry Donskoy's Kremlin. Its construction (during the reign of Grand Duke Ivan III) was due to the events that took place in Muscovy and on the world stage. In particular: 1420-1440 - the disintegration of the Golden Horde into smaller formations (uluses and khanates); 1425-1453 - Internecine war in Rus' for a great reign; 1453 - fall of Constantinople (capture by the Turks) and the cessation of the existence of the Byzantine Empire; 1478 - the subjugation of Novgorod by Moscow and the final reunification of the Russian lands around Moscow; 1480 - standing on the Ugra River and the end of the Horde yoke. All these events influenced the social processes of Muscovy.
In 1472, Ivan III married a former Byzantine princess Sofia Paleolog, which, to one degree or another, contributed to the emergence of foreign masters in the Moscow State (mainly Greek and Italian). Many of them arrived in Rus' in her retinue. In the future, the arriving masters (Pietro Antonio Solari, Anton Fryazin, Marco Fryazin, Aleviz Fryazin) will supervise the construction of the new Kremlin, while using both Italian and Russian urban planning techniques.
It must be said that the mentioned Fryazins were not relatives. The real name of Anton Fryazin is Antonio Gilardi, Marco Fryazin was actually called Marco Ruffo, and Aleviz Fryazin was Aloysio da Milano. "Fryazin" is a well-established nickname in Rus' for immigrants from southern Europe, mainly Italians. After all, the very word "fryazin" is a distorted word "friag" - Italian.
The construction of the new Kremlin lasted more than one year. It happened step by step and did not imply a momentary demolition of white brick walls. This gradual replacement of the walls was begun in 1485. New walls began to be erected, without dismantling the old ones and without changing their direction, but only slightly retreating from them to the outside. Only in the north-eastern part, starting from the Spasskaya Tower, the wall was straightened, and thus the territory of the fortress increased.
The first was built Taynitskaya tower . According to the Novgorod Chronicle, “On May 29, a strelnitsa was laid on the Moskva River at the Shishkov Gates, and a hiding place was brought out under it; it was built by Anton Fryazin ... ". Two years later, the master Marco Fryazin laid the corner tower of the Beklemishevskaya tower, and in 1488 Anton Fryazin began to build another corner tower from the side of the Moscow River - Sviblov (in 1633 it was renamed into Vodovzvodnaya).
By 1490, the Annunciation, Petrovskaya, the first and second Unnamed towers and the walls between them were erected. New fortifications protected primarily the southern side of the Kremlin. Everyone who entered Moscow saw their impregnability, and they involuntarily conceived the idea of the strength and power of the Muscovite state. At the beginning of 1490, the architect Pietro Antonio Solari arrived in Moscow from Milan, and he was immediately instructed to build a tower with a passage gate on the site of the old Borovitskaya and a wall from this tower to the corner Sviblova.
... on the Moscow River, an archer was laid at the Shishkov Gates, and a hiding place was brought out under it
Along the western wall of the Kremlin, the Neglinka river flowed, with swampy swampy banks at its mouth. From the Borovitskaya tower, it turned sharply to the southwest, leaving quite far from the walls. In 1510, it was decided to straighten its channel, bringing it closer to the wall. A canal was dug, starting near the Borovitskaya tower with its exit to the Moscow River near Sviblova. This section of the fortress militarily proved to be even more difficult to access. A drawbridge was thrown over the Neglinka to the Borovitskaya Tower. The lifting mechanism of the bridge was located in the second floor of the tower. The steep high bank of the Neglinka was a natural and reliable line of defense, therefore, after the construction of the Borovitskaya tower, the construction of the fortress was transferred to its northeastern side.
In the same 1490, the Konstantin-Eleninskaya travel tower was built with a diversion archer and a stone bridge across the moat. In the 15th century, a street that crossed Kitai-Gorod and was called Velikaya led to it. On the territory of the Kremlin, a street was also laid from this tower, crossing the Kremlin hem and leading to the Borovitsky Gates.
Until 1493, Solari built travel towers: the Frolovskaya (later Spasskaya), Nikolskaya and the corner Sobakin (Arsenal) towers. In 1495 the last large gate tower of Troitskaya and deaf ones were built: Arsenalnaya, Komendantskaya and Armory. The commandant's tower was originally called Kolymazhnaya - after the nearby kolymazhnaya yard. All work was supervised by Aleviz Fryazin.
The height of the Kremlin walls, not counting the battlements, ranges from 5 to 19 m, and the thickness is from 3.5 to 6.5 m. At the bottom of the walls on the inside, wide embrasures covered with arches were made for shelling the enemy from heavy artillery pieces. From the ground, you can climb the walls only through Spasskaya, Nabatnaya, Konstantin-Eleninskaya,
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Everyone has already heard that the Kremlin was white. Many articles have already been written about this, but people still manage to argue. But when did they start whitening it, and when did they stop? On this issue, statements in all articles diverge, as well as thoughts in people's heads. Some write that they began to whitewash in the 18th century, others that as early as the beginning of the 17th century, others are trying to provide evidence that the Kremlin walls were not whitewashed at all. Everywhere the phrase is replicated that the Kremlin was white until 1947, and then suddenly Stalin ordered it to be repainted red. Was it so? Let's finally dot all the and, since there are enough sources, both picturesque and photographic.
Dealing with the color of the Kremlin: red, white, when and why —>
So, the current Kremlin was built by the Italians at the end of the 15th century, and, of course, they did not whitewash it. The fortress retained the natural color of red brick, there are several similar ones in Italy, the closest analogue is the Sforza Castle in Milan. Yes, and whitewashing fortifications in those days was dangerous: when a cannonball hits a wall, the brick is damaged, the whitewash crumbles, and you can clearly see the weak spot where you should aim again to destroy the wall as soon as possible.
So, one of the first images of the Kremlin, where its color is clearly visible, is the icon of Simon Ushakov “Praise to the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. The tree of the Russian state. It was written in 1668, and the Kremlin is red here.
For the first time, in written sources, the whitewashing of the Kremlin was mentioned in 1680.
The historian Bartenev, in the book “The Moscow Kremlin in Antiquity and Now” writes: “In a memorandum filed on July 7, 1680 in the name of the tsar, it is said that the Kremlin’s fortifications were “not whitewashed”, and the Spassky Gates “were registered in black and white in brick". The note asked: whitewash the walls of the Kremlin, leave them as they are, or paint them “in brick” like the Spassky Gates? The Tsar ordered the Kremlin to be whitewashed with lime…”
So, at least since the 1680s, our main fortress has been whitewashed.
1766. Painting by P. Balabin after the engraving by M. Makhaev. The Kremlin is clearly white here.
1797, Gerard Delabart.
1819, artist Maxim Vorobyov.
In 1826, the French writer and playwright François Anselot came to Moscow, he described the white Kremlin in his memoirs: “On this we will leave the Kremlin, my dear Xavier; but, looking again at this ancient citadel, we will regret that, while repairing the destruction caused by the explosion, the builders removed from the walls the age-old patina that gave them so much grandeur. The white paint that hides the cracks gives the Kremlin an air of youth that does not match its shape and erases its past.”
1830s, artist Rauch.
1842, Lerebour's daguerreotype, the first documentary depiction of the Kremlin.
1850, Joseph Andreas Weiss.
1852, one of the very first photographs of Moscow, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is under construction, and the walls of the Kremlin are whitewashed.
1856, preparations for the coronation of Alexander II. For this event, the whitewashing was updated in places, the structures on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower were a frame for illumination.
The same 1856, view in the opposite direction, closest to us is the Taynitskaya tower with an archer overlooking the embankment.
Photo from 1860.
Photo from 1866.
1866-67.
1879, artist Pyotr Vereshchagin.
1880, painting by the English school of painting. The Kremlin is still white. From all previous images, we conclude that the Kremlin wall along the river was whitewashed in the 18th century, and remained white until the 1880s.
1880s, Konstantin-Eleninskaya tower of the Kremlin from the inside. The whitewash is gradually crumbling, and exposes the red-brick walls.
1884, wall along the Alexander Garden. The whitewash was crumbling badly, only the teeth were renewed.
1897, artist Nesterov. The walls are already closer to red than to white.
1909, peeling walls with remains of whitewash.
The same 1909, whitewash is still holding up well on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower. Most likely it was whitewashed for the last time later than the rest of the walls. It is clear from several previous photographs that the walls and most of the towers were last whitewashed in the 1880s.
1911 Grotto in the Alexander Garden and the Middle Arsenal Tower.
1911, artist Yuon. In reality, the walls were, of course, of a dirtier shade, the stains from whitewashing were more pronounced than in the picture, but the overall gamut was already red.
1914, Konstantin Korovin.
The motley and shabby Kremlin in a photograph of the 1920s.
And on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, the whitewash was still holding on, mid-1930s.
Late 1940s, the Kremlin after restoration for the 800th anniversary of Moscow. Here the tower is already clearly red, with white details.
And two more color photographs from the 1950s. Somewhere they touched up, somewhere they left peeling walls. There was no total repainting in red.
1950s These two photos are taken from here: http://humus.livejournal.com/4115131.html
Spasskaya Tower
But on the other hand, everything was not so simple. Some towers are out of the general chronology of whitewashing.
1778, Red Square by Friedrich Hilferding. The Spasskaya Tower is red with white details, but the walls of the Kremlin are whitewashed.
1801, watercolor by Fyodor Alekseev. Even with all the diversity of the picturesque range, it is clear that the Spasskaya Tower was still whitewashed at the end of the 18th century.
And after the fire of 1812, the red color was returned again. This is a painting by English masters, 1823. The walls are always white.
1855, artist Shukhvostov. If you look closely, you can see that the colors of the wall and the tower are different, the tower is darker and redder.
View of the Kremlin from Zamoskvorechye, painting by an unknown artist, mid-19th century. Here the Spasskaya Tower is again whitewashed, most likely for the celebrations on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander II in 1856.
Photo from the early 1860s. The tower is white.
Another photo from the early to mid-1860s. The whitewashing of the tower is crumbling here and there.
Late 1860s. And then suddenly the tower was painted red again.
1870s The tower is red.
1880s. The red paint is peeling off, in some places you can see the newly painted places, patches. After 1856, the Spasskaya Tower was never whitewashed again.
Nikolskaya tower
1780s, Friedrich Hilferding. The Nikolskaya tower is still without a Gothic top, it is decorated with early classical decor, red, with white details. In 1806-07, the tower was built on, in 1812 it was blown up by the French, almost half destroyed, and restored already at the end of the 1810s.
1823, brand new Nikolskaya tower after restoration, red.
1883, white tower. Perhaps they whitened it together with Spasskaya, for the coronation of Alexander II. And they updated the whitewash for the coronation of Alexander III in 1883.
1912 The White Tower remained until the revolution.
1925 The tower is already red with white details. It became red as a result of the restoration in 1918, after revolutionary damage.
Trinity Tower
1860s. The tower is white.
On the watercolor of the English school of painting in 1880, the tower is gray, this color is given by the spoiled whitewash.
And in 1883 the tower was already red. Painted or cleaned of whitewash, most likely for the coronation of Alexander III.
Let's summarize. According to documentary sources, the Kremlin was first whitewashed in 1680, in the 18th and 19th centuries it was white, with the exception of the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Trinity towers in certain periods. The walls were last whitewashed in the early 1880s, at the beginning of the 20th century the whitewashing was renewed only on the Nikolskaya tower, possibly also on Vodovzvodnaya. Since then, the whitewash has gradually crumbled and washed off, and by 1947 the Kremlin naturally adopted the ideologically correct red color, in some places it was tinted during restoration.
Kremlin walls today
photo: Ilya Varlamov
Today, in some places, the Kremlin retains the natural color of red brick, perhaps with a slight tint. These are bricks of the 19th century, the result of another restoration.
Wall from the river. Here you can clearly see that the bricks are painted red. Photo from Ilya Varlamov's blog
All old photos, unless otherwise noted, are taken from https://pastvu.com/
Alexander Ivanov worked on the publication.
