Moscow Guide
The Kremlin
The Patriarch's Palace
As far as tourists are concerned, the accessible part of the Kremlin begins where the Patriarch's Palace (Patriarshie palaty) and the Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles (sobor Dvenadtsati Apostolov) come into view. The two form one structure, with an arched, covered balcony inset with polychrome tiles, and gilt frills on the three rounded gables and the balcony roof, surmounted by five small domes. Though the palace was begun in 1640, it is chiefly associated with Patriarch Nikon, who split the Russian Orthodox Church by his reforms during the years that he held the post (1652–58). While Nikon desired to restore the Church to the purity of its Byzantine origins, many Russians saw him as a heretic bent on imposing foreign ways. He also tried to assert the primacy of the Church over the state, thus angering Tsar Alexei, who refused to reinstate Nikon as Patriarch after he resigned in a fit of pique.
Today, the palace is a Museum of Seventeenth-century Life and Applied Art, displaying ecclesiastical regalia, period furniture and domestic utensils – an English-language guide tape can be rented inside. The palace's highlight is the vaulted Cross Chamber (Krestovnaya palata), measuring 19m by 13m, which was the first hall of such size to be built in Russia without a central supporting column. Its inauguration occasioned a day-long feast where guests placed their empty goblets on their heads between toasts, while monks chanted the Life of the Saints.