Moscow Guide
The Kremlin
Sobornaya ploshchad
Address: Beyond the Patriarch's Palace
Sobornaya ploshchad (Cathedral Square) is the historic heart of the Kremlin. It was first laid out in the early fourteenth century, making it the oldest square in Moscow, although the buildings that you see today were erected later. Throughout Tsarist times the square was used for Imperial coronations and weddings, and before the capital was transferred to St Petersburg it was also the setting for court life and political dramas. Every morning the boyars and gentry converged here in carriages or sledges to assemble in order of rank; the ploshchadniki or "people of the square" being inferior to the komnatniki or "people of the apartments", who enjoyed access to the tsar's palace. At other times commoners were free to gather on the square – providing they prostrated themselves whenever the monarch appeared.
Soaring above the square, the magnificent white Ivan the Great Belltower (Kolokolnya Ivana Velikovo) provides a focal point for the entire Kremlin, being the tallest structure within its walls. The main belltower was erected in 1505–08 by the Italian architect Marco Bono (known in Russia as Bon Fryazin), whose octagonal tower was increased to its present height of 81m during the reign of Boris Godunov, as proclaimed by the inscription in gold letters beneath its gilded onion dome. It remained the tallest structure in Russia until 1707, and dominated Moscow's skyline for long after that. Adjacent is the four-storey belfry (Zvonitsa), added in 1532–43 by the architect Petrok Maliy, which also has a gilded dome. The 64-tonne Resurrection Bell, dating from the nineteenth century, is the largest of its 21 bells. On the ground floor of this section is a hall used for temporary exhibitions; tickets (R100) are sold on the spot. The final, tent-roofed part of the building – known as the Filaret Annexe, after the Patriarch who commissioned it in 1624 – was badly damaged in 1812, when the French attempted (but failed) to blow up the entire belltower.