Moscow Guide
The Kremlin
The Faceted Palace
Opening time: The Faceted, Terem and Great Kremlin palaces are only accessible two or three times a month on a special guided tour, run by Patriarshy Dom Tours. The excursion is limited to 25 people
Price: Tickets sell out fast despite the cost (R2100), so book as far ahead as possible; visitors must submit their passport and visa details and bring both documents to be verified by security
The white Faceted Palace (Granovitaya palata) jutting out between the cathedrals of the Assumption and the Annunciation is so-called for its diamond-patterned facade. Built for Ivan III in 1487–91 by Marco Ruffo and Pietro Antonio Solario, its outstanding feature is the 500-square-metre chamber that forms its upper storey, whose vaults are supported by a single massive pillar. Every centimetre is gilded and frescoed with biblical and "historical" scenes by Palekh artists. Look out for Prince Vladimir telling his twelve sons to rule Russia in peace (they soon fell out), and Tsar Fyodor with his advisor Boris Godunov (who commissioned the murals, and was believed to have murdered Fyodor's heir to seize the throne for himself). The boyars occupied benches around the walls while the tsar sat enthroned in the corner where the sun stayed longest. It was both an audience chamber and a banqueting hall; Ivan the Terrible treated foreign ambassadors to roast swan and elks' brains, with dwarves and jesters for entertainment.
When the tsar ventured forth in olden days, he passed through a Porch Hall with four gilded doors surmounted by lions and dragons, and descended to Sobornaya ploshchad by the Red Staircase (Krasnaya lesnitsa). During the Streltsy revolt of 1682, the ten-year-old Peter the Great saw several of his relatives thrown from the stairs onto the pikes of the mutineers – but its name has nothing to do with bloodshed; as with Red Square, it originally meant "beautiful". The medieval staircase was demolished in the 1930s; what you see today is a 1990s re-creation, complete with Tsarist eagles above its arches and lions on the balustrade.