The story is widespread that the Empress did not love the former capital ordered the Kremlin to destroy. The authors of the media on the legacy of the Russian regions "In the forests"Especially for" verified "they figured out whether such a statement is reliable.
Materials under headlines like "How did Catherine the Great destroy the Moscow Kremlin?" or "Why could the Moscow Kremlin be destroyed?»From time to time, both bloggers and media about culture are released. Some media, however, write The fact that the empress ordered to demolish only part of the Kremlin buildings. Questions about the causes and circumstances of such a radical decision, as if adopted by Catherine II, rise to "Answers Mail.Ru"And different forumswhere the destruction of cultural heritage during the reign of the empress Compared With the scale of destruction under Stalin.
By the middle of the XVIII century, the Moscow Kremlin needed to be repaired. In 1765, the Synodal office even canceled The processions along the Kremlin walls, since in many places they were dismantled or dilapidated so that it was dangerous to step on them. This did not slip away from the attention of Catherine II. During one of the visits to Moscow, she noted: "This is ancient hail, that theatrical temple: splendor and gold blindfold the eyes, and behind the scenes dust and dirt."
In 1768 there was Established A special expedition of the building of the Kremlin Palace for control and organizations construction and repair work on the territory of the complex. The architect Vasily Bazhenov proposed a project of the new Kremlin Palace, which provided for the unification of part of the existing buildings into a single ensemble. New buildings were to be located in the southern part of the Kremlin and go out To the river, surrounding the bell tower of Ivan the Great and some buildings of Cathedral Square. When the project of the new complex was completed, the expedition members made a detailed estimate of the work. According to the calculations, their cost has reached 50 million rubles., 5 million of which were supposed to go to the construction of the front staircase leading to the river. Catherine II approved The project and issued the necessary loan for construction.
Since the new palace was supposed to occupy the entire crater territory of the Kremlin, in 1770 the dilapidated housing and money courtyards, the reserve Palace of Boris Godunov, the corps of ancient orders, the courtyards of the cathedral clergy, the embankments, part of the monastery farmsteads and single churches were dismantled. They demolished the same Gallery of the arms chamberEnvised by Dmitry Ukhtomsky recently, in 1764. In 1771, Catherine II ordered a part of the Kremlin wall “along the Moscow River from the Church of the Annunciation to the Church of Peter Metropolitan” to free up the place for the main staircase to the shores of the Moscow River. At the same time, the churches remained untouched. Then a contract was concluded, which stipulated "on the breakdown of the city wall with Tynitsky gates and a alest of a knitted tower on the wall and from the middle of the gate on both sides of fifty fathoms." Thus, by 1773, Tynitskaya and the first nameless towers, as well as the wall between the Petrovskaya and the Annunciation towers, were dismantled.
On June 1, 1773, the solemn laying of the palace began on the site of a disassembled Tynitsky tower. Construction was constantly interrupted: the epidemic of the plague and the plague riot interfered, then the war with Turkey. In May 1775, construction finally stopped. The official reason was the threat of the destruction of the Arkhangelsk Cathedral, which came to which the moat was dug up for the foundation of the palace. For some data, the decision of the empress influenced her dislike of Moscow and excessive financial costs. In the summer of the same year, the restoration of the disassembled walls began. The Decree of the Empress in detail explainedHow the restoration should be carried out: “To do the same precisely and in its former form and figure, as before this was, without making marks to any line.” At the beginning of 1782, the entire disassembled wall with Tynitsky and the first nameless towers were re -rebuilt "in its former form, except for the obellation." At the same time, the disassembled churches and palaces did not restore.
Thus, Catherine II ordered only part of the buildings of the Kremlin: Zhitnaya and Cash Courtyards, the reserve Palace of Boris Godunov, the corps of ancient orders, the courtyards of the cathedral clergy, the embankment gardens, part of the monastery farmsteks and single churches, as well as the gallery of the arms chamber. A separate decree of 1771 included Tynitskaya and the first nameless tower, as well as the fortress wall between the Petrovskaya and the Annunciation towers. All these decrees were executed.
Photo on the cover: M. Vorobyov. Type of the Moscow Kremlin (from the side of the stone bridge). 1819. State Tretyakov Gallery (Wikimedia Commons)
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