Kremlin Ghosts

Hidden behind the walls of Moscow’s ancient fortress are phantoms and shades from centuries gone by.

Could anything be more ordinary than the Moscow Kremlin?

We Muscovites have lived alongside our Kremlin for so long that it is difficult to remember when we first saw these massive red walls, when we first heard the mysterious names of its towers, when we first tried to imagine what the Tsar-Bell would have looked like in the bell-tower, or what the firing of the Tsar-Cannon would have sounded like. Later in our lives, the cupolas of the Kremlin cathedrals fixed themselves in our memories, along with the chimes of Spassky Tower, whose clanging became associated with the clinking of champagne glasses, and with Red Square, where everyone has strolled at least once ...

Yet, if you look more closely, you can see an entirely different Kremlin, one which is gone forever, but which cannot leave, because its ghosts are too tightly bound to this place.

The ground on which the Kremlin stands guards many secrets. We should not rush to learn them too quickly, but should submerge ourselves slowly. Perhaps it is best, therefore, to begin by circling the Kremlin walls from the outside. Walking beneath these majestic red walls, a whole world begins to unfold before you.

You begin to understand why this particular place was selected a millennia and a half ago (or more) by the first inhabitants, people who had no inkling that, many centuries into the future, they would be known as Muscovites. Their shadows are faded now: they did not leave behind any chronicles, legends or memoirs. But we can certainly grasp what drew them to this high hill on the banks of a river. Being close to a river meant life, and one dared not distance oneself for very long. Yet one also had to settle on a high riverbank to avoid the spring snowmelts. Back then, they were even bigger than today’s and could easily lead to catastrophe – a settlement on a low-lying riverbank could be simply swept away.

We don’t know exactly when the river began to be called the Moskva (“Moscow”), and we don’t even know what this word means. Its root – “va” – means water in the Finnish tongue, so it is most likely that the earliest settlers were Ugro-Finns.

One can also deduce that living on a hill conferred another advantage – there was an excellent view from here, meaning it was easy to see approaching boats from a long way off, the better to prepare for meeting both friends and enemies.

Walking around outside the Kremlin walls, we stop in front of Borovitsky Tower, not far from the Moscow river. We feel the faint breath of the past, and it is easy to imagine how, where there is now a loud and busy street, there once grew a thick forest (“bor” in Russian), from which this tower took its name. The earliest residents of the Kremlin hill lived surrounded by this forest, and only a few wooden remnants of the settlement are still with us today. The discoveries of archaeologists working on Manezh Square and in the Historic Passage have made this place a paradise for diggers of the past. But, alas, this paradise is almost completely lost: much that is ancient – including ancient timbers from the once ubiquitous bor –  is securely entombed under newer construction.

As we gaze at the river, the phantoms of a later era arise. As late as the 19th century, the Neglinka river (now channeled underground) still flowed where today’s Alexander Gardens are laid. And a water-filled moat stretched along the Kremlin wall in front of Red Square, connecting the Neglinka and Moscow rivers. Therefore, if we walk through Alexander Gardens to Kutafya Tower and enter the Kremlin through the gate here, we can imagine how, at one time, the people of this hill lived on an island, accessible only by bridge.

But the Kremlin did not immediately become an island. We know that its wooden fortifications were raised in the 12th century, perhaps even earlier. Yet we also know how easy it was to breach them, mainly because they were redone and reconstructed many times. At first the walls were oaken. Then, in the 14th century, under Prince Dmitry Donskoy, they were of limestone, which became the trump card in Moscow’s battle for supremacy with Vilnius, capital of the great principality of Lithuania.

No matter how strange it seems today, in the 14th century, Lithuania was a state closely connected with the Russian land. It was even called “The Great Principality of Russians and Lithuanians,” and a large portion of its residents spoke Russian. The Vilnius court had close family ties to the rulers of the Russian lands. In the 1360s and 1370s the powerful Lithuanian ruler Olgerd could rightly stake a claim to being the unifier of Rus’ – he was married to a princess from Tver; his troops defeated the Mongol Horde at Siniye Vody; he had vast territory under his control, populated with Orthodox Slavs who spoke in Russian dialects.

The white walls of the Kremlin, erected in 1366-67, were the main obstacle keeping Vilnius from becoming the capital of Rus’. Lithuanian troops marched on Moscow three times, and three times they failed to take it, because they did not have the power to storm the stone fortress. The furious Olgerd ordered the scorching of the posad – the trading settlement surrounding the Kremlin. But the fortress did not surrender.

Only at the end of the 15th century did the walls we see today appear. They were built by Italian masters, so that today, when Russian tourists visit Bologna, they are often shocked to see buildings which remind them of their familiar Kremlin. Yet before the end of the 15th century, these walls were much more severe looking. Only in the 17th century were the walls decorated with elegant caps, turning the walls from fearsome military fortifications into something more typical of a fairy-tale castle.

The walls conceal their fair share of history and secrets. If one believes the legends, there are countless empty spaces and secret passages in them, which archaeologists say are quite difficult to find. There are even those who still hope to find here the priceless lost library of Ivan the Terrible.

If we bid farewell to this phantom forest and fortifications, then other shadows rise before us. Cathedral (Sobornaya) Square is the heart of the Kremlin, but what we see here is only the tip of a huge iceberg.

Prince Ivan Kalita, who, in the 14th century made Moscow wealthy and strong, began construction on the first Assumption (Uspensky) Cathedral, in the same place where the current masterpiece of Aristotle Fioravanti stands. The original cathedral, which collapsed in an earthquake at the end of the 15th century, held huge ideological significance. It was very important for Kalita to show that Moscow was the most important city in Rus’. So he built a cathedral with the same name as the main cathedral in Vladimir, the town with which Moscow was vying for supremacy.

But the construction of this cathedral was not important only to Kalita. Metropolitan Peter – then the head of the Orthodox Church – shared his interest. Peter’s formal residence was Vladimir, but he really had no desire to live in this decaying city, which had been overrun by the Mongols. Several cities vied to become the Metropolitan’s new home, and Moscow was victorious in large part because of its construction of Assumption Cathedral. But just as the cathedral was nearing completion, the Metropolitan died. He was entombed in the cathedral and his grave became a site of pilgrimage for believers from all over Rus’, in the process raising Moscow’s position and esteem. The first cathedral no longer stands, but, just to the right of the altar in the current Assumption Cathedral, once can still see the modest tomb of Metropolitan Peter.

Fioravanti, the architect of Assumption Cathedral, was Italian, and he wanted to build a Renaissance cathedral in Moscow. But Ivan III had no interest in innovations from abroad. For him, like for Kalita a century and a half before, it was more important to underscore the primacy of Moscow over all other Russian cities. Fioravanti was therefore sent to Vladimir, that he might be inspired by that city’s Assumption Cathedral. The Moscow cathedral we see today therefore recalls its 12th century Vladimir predecessor in many respects. This knock-off is an example of ideological propaganda, fixed in stone.

The Kremlin’s Assumption Cathedral has always been considered the religious center of Russia. If you look and listen carefully here, you will see and hear the rustling of ghosts from many centuries gone by. For over half a millennium, all of Russia’s rulers were crowned in this cathedral, even during the period when they had to come here from St. Petersburg. We can imagine the young Tsar Peter (the future Peter I) in the square before the cathedral with his half-sister Sofia, who had the courage (or perhaps the arrogance) to publicly address the people here and entreat them to save her from her malicious relatives. It was an unusual thing in Russia at the end of the 17th century; an unmarried woman was not allowed to leave her terem (chamber).

The former German princess Sofia-August Friedrich Anhalt-Herbst came here after her succession to the throne as Catherine II. For the empress, having overthrown and murdered her husband, Peter III, it was very important to show that she had been transformed from a German princess into a true Russian tsarina. Coronation in the heart of Russia, in Moscow’s Assumption Cathedral, held a special significance. And it is no accident that, after her coronation, Catherine undertook a lengthy pilgrimage to various monasteries in the Moscow region, even walking to Trinity-Sergiev Lavra, the largest Orthodox monastery. What Catherine (who, not long after this, received the appellation of “the Great”) dreamed up, she usually accomplished. Indeed, this German woman, who was miraculously extracted from an impoverished German principality, was accepted by all, even the simple folk, and her rule became one of the greatest not only of the 18th century, but of all Russian history.

It was here, in Assumption Cathedral, in 1894, that Nicholas II, the last Russian tsar, was crowned. He arrived here for a festive ceremony that was followed by what should have been a huge, celebratory public fête on Khodynskoye Field, but which turned into a horrific bloodbath costing hundreds of lives. Thus, the day of the last coronation became a bloody and dismal event, an omen of the Romanov dynasty’s forthcoming tragic conclusion.

Alongside Assumption Cathedral is another architectural masterpiece – Archangel Cathedral, built by Alevisio Novi, another Italian architect. He was allowed a bit more creative freedom, and he succeeded in raising a building that brought together aspects of the Orthodox Church and a Renaissance palazzo. It may be that Novi was allowed to depart from general canons since this church carried less ideological significance – it was the “family tomb” of the Russian princes and tsars. Still, the legends and dramas of the past are palpable throughout this building.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the many tombs crammed inside Archangel Cathedral. And there is much that could be told about each one of them. But we can give our attention to just a few.

To the right of the entrance, in the far corner, a person is entombed who you will not find on the list of Moscow’s rulers. It is Prince Vladimir Andreyevich of Serpukhov. He was Dmitry Donskoy’s cousin and fought alongside him on Kulikovo Field. As a young prince, Vladimir Andreyevich was put in charge of the Zasadny regiment [troops held in reserve for a sudden assault], and, for almost the entire battle, had to impatiently wait for his moment to engage the enemy. Beside him was the experienced commander Bobrok-Volynets, who held the prince back until finally, just before nightfall, it was decided that the moment had arrived. The Zasadny regiment, with its fresh troops, struck the Mongols with a mighty blow, insuring the Russians’ victory. Later, however, Dmitry Donskoy’s relations with his brave and energetic relative deteriorated. The Moscow prince suspected that his cousin had his eye on ruling Moscow. This, however, did not keep Vladimir Andreyevich from being buried alongside his royal relatives.

Archangel Cathedral is the burial place of princes and tsars. But one emperor also lies here: the young Emperor Peter II, the spoiled youth who fate determined would last just three years on the throne. In 1730, at the age of 14, and on the day he was to be married in Moscow, he died of smallpox. Instead of his wedding, the Kremlin witnessed his burial.

In the very center of Archangel Cathedral are the relics of Prince Dmitry, which the Church has declared a martyred saint. For us, he is interesting as one of the most mysterious figures in Russian history. Prince Dmitry was the son of Ivan the Terrible and his last (seventh) wife, Maria Nagaya. After Ivan’s death, his son Fyodor, from his first marriage, ascended to the throne; Dmitry and his mother were exiled to Uglich. Tsar Fyodor did not have any heirs, and his half-brother Dmitry was officially considered the next heir to the throne.

Tsar Fyodor was a weak, indecisive, devout, God-fearing man. Some accused him of having a weak mind, others thought that he was simply not interested in earthly, material things. He was completely absorbed by religious thoughts, conceding all of his powers to the brother of his wife, the energetic and intelligent Boris Godunov. The young Dmitry, however, apparently shared his severe father’s disposition. He dreamed of getting out of Uglich, and, in the winter, made snowmen in the shape of the boyars whom he blamed for his confinement, then proceeded to chop their heads off.

In 1591, the 10-year-old prince died under mysterious circumstances. An investigative commission found that he had an epileptic fit and cut himself in the neck with a knife that he had been playing with. But soon rumors flew that the youth was stabbed by the all-powerful Godunov, who himself dreamed of taking over the throne. If we recall the history of this unlucky and lonely young boy, which fate chose to be the last of the Ryurik dynasty, then here, standing by his remains, we can feel the powerful breath of history. The death of Prince Dmitry set in motion one of the most fascinating, but also one of the most horrible, periods in Russian history: the Time of Troubles.

Fourteen years after the youth’s death, his body was brought from Uglich and ceremoniously interred in Archangel Cathedral. Thus did Boris Godunov try to bring an end to the rumors of the miraculous survival of the prince. But Godunov died shortly thereafter.

Recalling Prince Dmitry, we immediately sense the shadow of another Kremlin ghost, Chudov Monastery, which for hundreds of years stood inside the Kremlin walls (opposite the Senate building). Indeed, Ivan the Terrible was angered by its elders, who, according to the tsar, instead of praying were actively involved in politics. It turns out that the tsar’s suspicions were not misplaced. Just a few decades after his death, a fugitive monk from the monastery, Grigory Otrepyev, returned to the Kremlin in the guise of Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich, supposedly saved from murderers sent by Boris Godunov. Just over 300 years after the False Dmitry’s death, the monastery itself died. Under orders from the new Bolshevik government, it was torn down brick by brick.

Alongside the two grandiose cathedrals are Annunciation (Blagoveshchensky) Cathedral –the private chapel of the Russian tsars, and the Faceted Palace – the place for luxurious diplomatic receptions and celebrations. And here another ghost rises before us, that of Ivan the Terrible himself. It turns out the tsar was not allowed to enter the family cathedral – not because of the blood he spilled across Russia, but because of his many marriages. And so a special addition was attached to Annunciation, so that the tsar could “attend” the services there.

There are also the ghosts of the foreign ambassadors, scurrying to a reception with the tsar in the Faceted Palace and looking out with wonder on the cupolas of the cathedrals. Some ambassadors were convinced that the cupolas were made of solid gold, even though they were simply covered in a thin gold leaf.

And nearby are more and more shadows, of tsars and tsarinas, of rebels and imposters, builders and monks ...

The Kremlin itself barely escaped becoming a ghost. At the end of the 18th century, the architect Vasily Bazhenov was so carried away by his plans for the new Senate building that he decided to destroy the Kremlin cathedrals. It is not clear what we should thank for their salvation – the wisdom and caution of Empress Catherine II or simply her dislike of Bazhenov, whom she suspected of dangerous masonic ties. Just over two centuries later, a similarly unlikely miracle saved St. Basil’s Cathedral, which stands on the other side of the Kremlin walls. Stalin wanted to destroy it to make it easier for tanks to pass through Red Square; only the courage of preservationist Peter Baranovsky saved it.

Near St. Basil’s, another phantom rises before us, one from a less distant age, from the time when Lenin and other top communists lived in the Kremlin, when the two-headed eagles were torn from the Kremlin towers, replaced by five-pointed ruby stars. It was a time when, on Red Square, under the Kremlin walls, a crazy, asiatic monument was raised to the successful revolution, and its leader was not allowed to rest in peace, but was put on permanent display in a public mausoleum.

This leads us into another, even more horrific era, when the Kremlin became a fortress, separating the Leader from his people. In the Stalin era, entrance to the Kremlin was closed, for not only were governmental offices located here, but it was also the residence of the Leader himself. The inner circle of the party, which also lived in the Kremlin, severely warned their children to hide if ever, heaven help them, they should see Stalin; and they were never under any circumstances to meet his gaze. No one knew what the Great Leader of All Times and Peoples would do, whether he would simply chat with a mischievous child of one of his close associates, or whether he would order the child arrested – all sorts of things happened.

We don’t know how many horrible memoirs of the last century were overheard by Kremlin walls. That time is shrouded in strange legends – some sound reasonable, others, simply fantastic. And it could well be that the more fantastic ones are actually the more reasonable ones. Who can know?

Kids who were children of Narkom and Politburo members lived in the Kremlin and played at making pretend governments (what else would you expect?). Soon, a few of them turned up missing. Their worried mothers feared the worst: accident or suicide. Then, one of their husbands – a leading Party boss – calmed his wife with these sickening words: “Do not worry, our son is in prison.” The kids were lucky – in a few years, they were allowed to return home.

The infamous NKVD boss Lavrenty Beria took his last free steps across the Kremlin cobblestones. Legend has it that, on that summer day a few months after the death of Stalin, when Khrushchev decided to arrest the all-powerful head of the secret police, Khrushchev had a secret understanding with the commandant of the Kremlin. As soon as Beria’s car had driven through the Kremlin gates, the grates were suddenly lowered, so that the car following Beria, which carried his bodyguards, was blocked from entry. It was the end of one historical era and the beginning of another.

Nearby is a monument to the Brezhnev era: the huge, awkward Palace of Soviets, in complete dissonance with the ancient buildings that surround it. And yet, this crazy box of glass and concrete has become a part of history as well, occupying a slice of people’s memories and casting a shadow onto us from the past. For it was here that held Party Congresses were held to decide the fate of the country. Soviet leaders walked up and down these staircases; Gorbachev and Yeltsin gave speeches here; it was here, as strange as it may seem, that perestroika began.

Today there are still places in the Kremlin that are almost always closed off from the prying eyes of mere mortals. State cars race by at high speed, flying to someplace in the heart of the Kremlin. Only later, on the television news, do we find out that, in St. George’s Hall, one of the most famous sections of the luxurious Kremlin Palace, there was a regular meeting of officials.

The life of the capital continues outside the Kremlin. But the ghosts of centuries past have not disappeared. They are still here; one only has to listen attentively to understand what they are trying to tell us.   RL