54 Fun Facts About Kremlin

In Russian, what does the word kreml' mean?

A fortress within a city: towns grew up around their kremlins, so the roads to the gates often became radial streets, as in Moscow.

What does the Kremlin keep a team of trained falcons, hawks and eagle-owls for?

Scaring off crows: soldiers had tried shooting the birds, and a trained falconry unit took over instead.

Which Kremlin palace was the tsars' main residence in the 17th century?

The Terem Palace: fires destroyed its painted interiors, and they were recreated in their old style in the 1830s.

The Kremlin stands on which rise of ground, at the point where the Neglinnaya flowed into the main river?

Borovitsky Hill: rivers guarded two of its sides, so the tallest stretch of wall rose along the eastern side, the one with no natural water barrier.

Which prince greatly extended the original fort in 1156, the traditional founding era of Moscow?

Yuri Dolgorukiy: he is honoured as Moscow's founder because the first chronicle mention of Moscow, in 1147, records him hosting a fellow prince there.

Dmitri Donskoi replaced the oak palisade in 1366-68 with a citadel of which material, giving Moscow a lasting nickname?

White limestone: the new walls held off Lithuanian sieges in 1368 and 1370, though Khan Tokhtamysh tricked his way in and sacked Moscow in 1382.

The present Kremlin walls and towers were built in 1485-95 by masters from which country?

Italy: Ivan III brought in Renaissance masters, so the walls' swallowtail battlements echo the castles of northern Italy.

Why did Napoleon have to leave the Kremlin a day after moving in, in September 1812?

A fire swept toward it: the blaze destroyed most of Moscow, and he moved back into the Kremlin once it died down.

What did Ivan III decree for the land around the Kremlin?

A cleared zone: houses near the walls were torn down, and a moat fed by the Neglinnaya was later dug in front of the eastern wall.

Where do the Kremlin wall's three round towers stand?

At corners: one of them, the Vodovzvodnaya, was blown up by Napoleon's retreating troops in 1812 and rebuilt under Osip Bove.

Which Kremlin wall tower, the tallest at about 80 metres, holds the gate most visitors use today?

Troitskaya: in 1707, fearing a Swedish invasion, the Russians widened its gun slots to take heavy cannon.

Once Lenin had the shell-damaged Spasskaya Tower clock repaired in 1918, what did its chimes play at noon?

The Internationale: 'You Fell a Victim' played at midnight, but from 1938 the clock stopped playing tunes and only struck the hours.

What were men passing through the Kremlin's Spassky (Saviour) Gate traditionally expected to do?

Take off their hats: riders had to dismount as well, and the custom lasted until Soviet times.

What now stands on the Kremlin towers where the Soviets took down the tsarist double-headed eagles?

Ruby-glass red stars: the first stars of 1935 were set with Ural gems, but the stones dulled, so ruby glass replaced them in 1937.

What happened to the bells of the Kremlin's cathedrals under Soviet rule?

They fell silent: the Bolsheviks closed the Kremlin's churches in 1918, and its bells stayed silent for decades.

The Tsar Bell, the largest bell in the world, weighs roughly how much?

200 tonnes: attempts to lift it failed in 1792 and 1819, so it stayed in its casting pit until 1836.

Why has the Tsar Bell never been rung?

It cracked in a fire before it was ever hung: in 1737 flames reached its wooden scaffolding, and an 11.5-tonne slab broke away.

Which empress ordered the Tsar Bell to be cast in 1733?

Anna Ivanovna: she had the broken remains of an older giant bell melted down and recast into a far bigger one.

Which French architect of St Isaac's Cathedral raised the Tsar Bell from its pit onto a pedestal in 1836?

Auguste de Montferrand: he wished to be buried in St Isaac's, but as he was not Orthodox this was refused, and his body went back to France.

Which tsar, reigning when it was cast in 1586, rides on horseback on the Tsar Cannon's barrel?

Fyodor Ivanovich: the cannon was built to fire stone grapeshot at attackers, earning it the nickname 'Russian Shotgun'.

The Cathedral of the Dormition, where Russian monarchs were crowned from 1547 to 1896, was designed by which Bologna-born architect?

Aristotele Fioravanti: Ivan III hired him after the Russian builders' first attempt collapsed in 1474, and he studied Vladimir's cathedral as a model.

Almost all Muscovite rulers from Ivan Kalita to Ivan V are buried in which Kremlin cathedral?

The Archangel Michael: once royal burials moved to a new cathedral, only Peter II, who died in Moscow in 1730, was later interred here.

Which icon painter worked on the Kremlin's Cathedral of the Annunciation alongside Theophanes the Greek and Prokhor?

Andrei Rublev: in 1551 a Church council held up his painting as the model that icon painters should follow.

No Moscow building, it is said, could rise taller than which Kremlin structure?

The Ivan the Great Bell Tower: Menshikov Tower rivalled its height in 1707, but lightning destroyed its wooden top in 1723.

Which is the oldest surviving secular building in the Kremlin, built for Ivan III's state receptions?

The Palace of Facets: in the 1930s its Red Staircase was torn down to make way for a canteen, and it was rebuilt only in 1994.

Which American journalist, author of Ten Days That Shook the World, is buried beside the Kremlin Wall?

John Reed: in 1917 he watched the first mass graves being dug by the wall, and after dying of typhus in Moscow in 1920 he was buried there himself.

During the Time of Troubles, forces of which country held the Kremlin from 1610 to 1612?

Poland: a volunteer army raised by the merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Pozharsky drove the garrison out, and Mikhail Romanov was elected tsar soon after.

Which city replaced Moscow as Russia's capital in the early 18th century, ending the Kremlin's role as the tsars' home?

Saint Petersburg: yet emperors still returned to the Kremlin to be crowned in the Dormition Cathedral, right up to Nicholas II in 1896.

What did Soviet authorities build in the Kremlin where the Chudov and Ascension monasteries had stood?

A military school: the Chudov Monastery had stood there since the 14th century, and in 2014 Putin proposed rebuilding both cloisters.

Which architect built the Grand Kremlin Palace in 1839-49 for Nicholas I, to rival the Winter Palace?

Konstantin Thon: his other great Moscow landmark, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, was later destroyed by the Soviet authorities.

The Grand Kremlin Palace's five reception halls are named after what?

Orders of the Russian Empire: in 1933–34 the halls of St Andrew and St Alexander were knocked into one Soviet assembly hall, then restored in the 1990s.

What did Boris Yeltsin withdraw from Lenin's Mausoleum by the Kremlin Wall after the 1993 constitutional crisis?

Its honour guard: the sentries of Post No. 1 had stood there since 1924, and in 1997 the post moved to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Which Neoclassical building by Matvey Kazakov, finished in 1787, is now the principal workplace of Russia's president?

The Kremlin Senate: it first housed Moscow departments of the imperial Senate, and in 1918 Lenin moved his office and apartment into it.

How was the Kremlin disguised from German bombers during the Second World War?

Repainted with fake roofs and streets: Boris Iofan's team painted house fronts and windows across the walls, and the Mausoleum hid under a plywood house.

In 1806, what did Alexander I decree the Kremlin Armoury should become?

A museum: yet its collections did not open to visitors until after Napoleon's invasion.

Which landmark joined the Kremlin on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1990?

Red Square: in November 1941, with German armies closing in on Moscow, troops paraded across it and then went on to the front.

The glass-and-marble State Kremlin Palace, opened in the early 1960s for party congresses, was commissioned by which leader?

Khrushchev: to clear the site, the old Armoury building and two Cavalier wings were torn down, and the palace opened in October 1961.

Which company used the State Kremlin Palace as its second stage for opera and ballet?

The Bolshoi Theatre: its branch company moved into the new palace in 1961, and the Moscow Operetta took over its old branch stage.

The practice of burying dignitaries at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis ended with whose funeral in March 1985?

Konstantin Chernenko: Andrei Gromyko was considered for a grave there in 1989 but was buried at Novodevichy, as his family asked.

What happened to Stalin's body after the 1961 Party Congress?

Left the Mausoleum: it was reburied by the Kremlin Wall, and a 1953 plan to move Lenin and Stalin into a Pantheon was never carried out.

Which cosmonaut's ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall after a 1968 jet crash?

Yuri Gagarin: that same year the town of Gzhatsk, near his birthplace, was renamed Gagarin after him.

Why does the Kremlin Armoury hold only ten imperial Fabergé eggs?

Stalin sold many: they were sold abroad to raise money, and many of them were bought by the American tycoon Armand Hammer.

Which Russian monarch loved gemstones so much as to name a stallion 'Diamond'?

Catherine the Great: the crown jewels she added to were kept in the Winter Palace until World War I, when they were moved to Moscow.

The largest raw diamond in the Diamond Fund, at 342.57 carats, is named after what?

"Alexander Pushkin" (320.65 carats) is second and "The Creator" (298.48) third.

The Kremlin Regiment, which guards the complex, is housed in which building founded by Peter the Great?

The Arsenal: cannon captured from Napoleon's army were put on show around it.

When the Soviet leaders first arrived in the Kremlin, their protection was entrusted to which unit?

Red Latvian Riflemen: they had guarded the train that carried the government to Moscow in March 1918, and that September they left for the Civil War front.

Why was the clapper removed from the Kremlin's Nabatnaya alarm bell in 1771?

Rebels rang it to start a riot: it called Muscovites out during the 1771 Plague Riot, then hung without a clapper for 30 years before moving to the Armoury.

Legend says the Cap of Monomakh, the tsars' ancient crown in the Kremlin Armoury, was a gift from whom?

A Byzantine emperor: but Constantine Monomachus died long before his grandson Vladimir could have received it, and the cap may really be 14th-century Central Asian work.

Which patriarch, whose reforms split the Russian Church, built himself a grand new palace in the Kremlin?

Nikon: he later fell out with Tsar Alexis, and a Church council stripped him of office and made him a simple monk.

During Napoleon's occupation of Moscow in 1812, what did French troops turn the Kremlin's Dormition Cathedral into?

A horse stable: the troops looted the cathedral as well.

Which Moscow cathedral did Ivan the Terrible build over the moat that once separated the Kremlin from the town?

Saint Basil's Cathedral: Ivan built it as a thank-offering for conquering Kazan and Astrakhan, yet it took its popular name from a holy fool buried there.

In 1987, which teenage pilot slipped through Soviet air defences and landed a small plane beside the Kremlin?

Mathias Rust: he flew his Cessna in from Helsinki, and the embarrassment was doubled because it was the Soviet holiday honouring border guards.

On Christmas Day 1991, which flag was raised over the Kremlin after the Soviet flag came down?

The Russian tricolour: it went up minutes after Gorbachev resigned on live television, and control of the Soviet nuclear forces passed to Boris Yeltsin.

Which architect designed a vast Neoclassical palace meant to replace much of the Kremlin, abandoned soon after work began?

Vasili Bazhenov: a stretch of the Kremlin wall was torn down to make room, yet the palace was never built.