GRAND KREMLIN PALACE

Description

Essentials about the Grand Kremlin Palace in brief

If you see a report from Moscow on a news program, you will usually see one building on the screen: The Grand Kremlin Palace. It is probably the most important part of the entire Moscow Kremlin. The Grand Kremlin Palace is composed of several buildings of different styles, built from the 15th to the 19th century. The central part of the palace complex was built in the middle of the 19th century and originally served as the main Moscow residence of the tsar and his family. Today, the Grand Kremlin Palace is part of the Russian President’s Office Building Complex.

The building of the Grand Kremlin Palace

Since the central building of the Kremlin Palace, dating from the 19th century, was attached to the existing buildings of the Terem Palace, the Palace of Facets and the Golden Tsarina Chamber when it was built, these are also counted as part of the Grand Kremlin Palace complex. In addition, not directly attached to the palace, but connected to it by closed passages, are the adjacent building of the Armory and the Cathedral of the Annunciation.

With a facade length of the central building of 125 meters and a height to the dome of 44 meters, the Grand Kremlin Palace occupies a leading position in the ensemble of buildings of the Moscow Kremlin. The building is located in the southern part of the Kremlin complex, near the slope towards the Moskva River bank, and is therefore particularly visible from the Moskva River or its opposite bank. Within the Kremlin ensemble, the Grand Kremlin Palace is located between the Kremlin Wall to the south, the Armory building to the west, the State Kremlin Palace to the north, and Cathedral Square (with the Archangel, Dormition, and Annunciation Cathedrals) to the east.

The central palace building appears to be three stories high from the outside, but has only two levels inside, as the five parade halls on the second floor each have two rows of windows, one above the other, with a ceiling height of up to 18 meters. The number of rooms inside the Kremlin Palace is about 700 with a total area of 24,000 square meters. If the adjacent buildings of the Terem Palace, the Palace of Facets and the Golden Tsarina Chamber are also counted, the total area of the premises is almost 35,000 square meters.

The functions of the Grand Kremlin Palace

While the palace served as the tsar’s residence in the 19th century and, among other things, for ceremonial receptions for the tsar’s family during their stays in Moscow, today it is part of the Kremlin’s museum ensemble, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but also part of the official working residence of the president of Russia. For this reason, the buildings (including the Terem Palace and the Palace of Facets) are generally not open to the public; however, they can be visited from the inside as part of a (very expensive) special guided tour for registered groups.

The history of the Grand Kremlin Palace

Predecessor buildings of the Grand Kremlin Palace

Descriptions of the first predecessor buildings of today’s Grand Kremlin Palace have not been handed down. It is known, however, that a first grand ducal palace stood here already in the early 14th century. The fact that the residences of the rulers of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, or later the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, stood precisely on this spot of the Kremlin can probably be explained above all by the extremely representative location of the site. The steep bank of the Moskva River extending to the south of it gave the buildings, which at that time were visible from afar from the river, a special position among all the structures of the fortress.

The first Grand Kremlin Palace

Since almost all non-sacral buildings in Moscow at that time were made of wood, numerous major fires in the course of the 15th century led to the destruction of the princely chambers on the Kremlin grounds. It was not until 1487 that one of the first stone buildings of the Kremlin was built, the Palace of Facets, which has survived to this day. After a particularly devastating fire devastated a large part of the Kremlin, including the old wooden chambers, in 1493, the construction of the first stone palace began, which was to supplement the Palace of Facets as the main residence of the Grand Princes.

Master builders from Italy were commissioned to carry out the work – similar to the construction of the new walls, towers and many other buildings of the Kremlin that have been preserved to this day. Especially the construction of the Prince’s Palace was entrusted by the then Grand Prince Ivan III “the Great” to the Milanese master builder Aloisio da Milano. The construction began in 1499 and was completed in 1508, thus only after the death of Ivan III. Unlike the earlier wooden buildings, the new palace was to stand from then on for over 200 years. During the 16th and 17th centuries it was rebuilt and expanded several times, the most famous expansion being the Terem Palace, completed in 1636 and preserved to this day.

The predecessor buildings of the Grand Kremlin Palace continued to serve as the residence of the Russian tsars in whole or in part until the end of the 17th century. This changed around 1703 during the reign of Peter I “the Great”, who had the residence moved to the new imperial capital of Saint Petersburg. The old Moscow chambers were hardly used for their original purpose and decayed over time. Some wooden annexes fell victim to another fire and were not rebuilt, the rest of the palace complex was used, among other things, as administrative buildings.

The Rastrelli Palace

In 1749, Empress Elisabeth had part of the old tsar’s chambers demolished in order to have a representative palace built in its place, which was to become the new Moscow main residence of the Russian emperors. The renowned Italian architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli was commissioned with its execution. The building was completed in 1753 and was named the Winter Palace (incidentally, Rastrelli also built the far more famous Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in the same Baroque style a few years later, which served as the St. Petersburg imperial residence from then on). During the war against Napoleon, the Moscow Winter Palace was destroyed in 1812 and restored by 1817.

Today’s Grand Kremlin Palace

It was not until the 1830s that Tsar Nicholas I had Rastrelli’s palace demolished in order to have a new Moscow tsar’s residence built in its place in a style that approximated classicism, which was considered contemporary in Russia at the time. The design of the new palace was by Konstantin Thon, known for a number of famous 19th century Moscow buildings (including the Cathedral of Christ the Savior).

Construction work on the central palace building lasted from 1838 to 1849, resulting in the Grand Kremlin Palace complex, which essentially still exists today. The Terem Palace and the Golden Tsarina Chamber were almost completely enclosed by the dominant central part, so that since then they are hardly visible from the outside. From its completion until the fall of the tsar, the Grand Kremlin Palace represented the residence of the Russian monarchs in Moscow. Here the tsar together with his family and entourage lived during his stays in Moscow, moreover, important state ceremonies were held here.

The Grand Kremlin Palace in Soviet times

After the fall of the monarchy in Russia and the October Revolution in 1917, the buildings of the Grand Kremlin Palace lost their function as the tsar’s residence. At the same time, the new state power moved from Saint Petersburg back to Moscow, and the Kremlin thus once again became the location of the main state authorities. Like many other Kremlin buildings, the former palace of the tsars was therefore now used for administrative purposes.

From the 1930s, meetings of the Supreme Council of the USSR and the Russian SFSR, congresses of the Comintern and party congresses of the CPSU were held there. In addition, the five ballrooms of the central palace were used for ceremonial events such as honoring the Heroes of the Soviet Union. Some changes were also made in the architecture of the palace during the Soviet period. Two ballrooms were converted into a large meeting hall in 1934, where the larger meetings were held from then on, and the facades were now adorned with the Soviet state symbols instead of the double eagle of the Tsarist Empire.

The Grand Kremlin Palace in present times

After the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, the palace complex passed into the administration of the President of Russia and to this day is officially part of the official premises of the Russian President. The alterations made during the Soviet era were reversed in the course of an extensive renovation of the building complex in 1994-99, so that today’s interior of the palace corresponds to a large extent to the magnificent original condition of the 19th century. The large reception halls on the second floor of the central palace building are still used for ceremonial acts of state, such as the inauguration of the president. Since the interior of the Grand Kremlin Palace is not open to the public, a description will not be given here.