For forty years now, our New Year’s mood has always included the wonderful film by the recently deceased Eldar Ryazanov, “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!” It turns out that the legendary phrase “Every year on December 31, my friends and I go to the bathhouse” could have been uttered even in the pre-war years by quite numerous inhabitants of the Moscow Kremlin inhabited by the Bolsheviks, of whom there were more than 2,100 people by the end of 1920. For such a not too limited contingent, baths were set up right there in the Grenadier Corps...
This and many other archival details related to the Kremlin will be available in detail in January 2016, when the MediaPress publishing house will publish the unique book “,” prepared by the creative team of the Center for Press and Public Relations of the FSO. Readers of Rodina are offered a magazine version of one of the chapters of the new publication, which tells about the sanitary and living conditions of the Kremlin population.
"Assign the Kremlin women the whole day..."
In the spring of 1919, the Kremlin had its own baths and laundry. Their construction was caused, on the one hand, by the severity of the sanitary and epidemiological situation in Moscow, on the other, by the objective need to create everyday amenities for residents living in the Kremlin. “The correct setting up and organization of canteens, kindergartens, laundries, drying shops on a cooperative basis will free responsible workers and their families from household and petty worries, where a lot of precious time and energy is spent both by the workers themselves and their wives, who spend hours near primus stoves. cooking food. Such an organization is precisely what should create the communist way of life and the ideal to which we strive,” 1 said in a certificate prepared for the commission to examine the activities of the Administration of the Kremlin and the houses of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (1924).
According to the annual report of the Kremlin Sanitary Inspection Department for February 1919 - February 1920, first temporary baths opened in the Kremlin in the Chudov Monastery 2.
In March 1919, an estimate for the amount of 120,190 rubles was approved. 84 kopecks for the reconstruction of the premises of the Grenadier Corps in the Kremlin for a walk-through bathhouse 3. In April, the baths and hairdresser were able to welcome their first visitors. In June 1919, the Kremlin mechanical laundry opened 4.
A bathhouse and laundry were located in the basement of the Grenadier Corps. Documents dating from the beginning of 1920 mention another laundry, built on the ground floor of the Ascension Monastery for cadets of the 1st machine gun course 5 .
Kremlin residents could visit the bathhouse only on strictly defined days, according to a schedule, depending on the house number. In particular, at its second meeting on June 12, 1919, the Kremlin Sanitary Committee specifically considered the issue “About rational use Kremlin walk-through bathhouses." The following decision was made: "Get in touch with the medical and administrative staff of the institutions, find out exactly the days and hours when they will be sent to the bathhouse. Distribute tickets for the right to visit the baths. Establish and widely publicize entry times to the bathhouse. Individual residents of the Kremlin are allotted certain days for visiting the baths, and temporarily reduce the number of heating days in the baths to a minimum." 6
In December 1919, to the manager of the Council of People's Commissars, V.D. Bonch-Bruevich was approached by the female half of the Kremlin population with a complaint that the time allocated for them to visit the bathhouses on Saturday morning was inconvenient for many of them. Most women worked, and “having washed early in the morning in the baths, they have absolutely no time to dry their hair and go to work with wet hair,” as a result of which many catch a cold. Bonch-Bruevich proposed to the head of the Kremlin Sanitary Inspection Department Ya.B. Levinson to assign Kremlin women a whole day so that “those who are on duty could wash in our bathhouses after 4 o’clock, and those who live at home, there are also quite a few of them, could come to the bathhouses in the morning and afternoon "For the rest of the Kremlin residents, who can wash in the morning and evening, a queue can be set up so that there is not a large crowd in the evening" 7 .
For being late to the bathhouse - you will be put on trial!
There were separate instructions for using the Kremlin walk-through baths for course participants: “1. At the appointed time, according to the schedule, the company commander is obliged to send a shift of cadets of no more than 30-35 people to the bathhouse under the command of the platoon commander, who is obliged to ensure that all cadets enter the bathhouse together; 2. Laggards and latecomers should not be allowed into the bathhouse; 3. The platoon commander - the senior team member is obliged to be present in the bathhouse during the entire washing time of his team and ensure that all fellow cadets observe the order and hygiene requirements in the bathhouse set by the bathhouse administration, would hand over underwear for disinfection and not hide it in boots... 5. If the team is late for the bathhouse, even for one minute... those responsible will be subject to the strictest liability (up to and including dismissal from the course and trial); 6. Appointed To go to the bathhouse, fellow cadets are necessarily sent to wash, and no excuses on the part of the cadets, such as failure to receive linen from the laundry, are taken into account." 8
On March 4, 1919, the first meeting of the Kremlin Sanitary Committee took place, at which it was unanimously decided that “the use of baths and chambers should be free until the end of the typhus epidemic.” With regard to the laundry, it was decided that “the use of the laundry must be paid...” 9
The procedure for this fee was approved on June 12, 1919: “On the Mechanical Laundry. Confirm the resolution of the 1st meeting of the Kremlin Sanitary Committee on the paid operation of the mechanical laundry. Accept the fee per piece” 10. Soon an approved price list appeared, for example: a men's shirt - 3 rubles, a pair of socks - 1 ruble, a tunic - 4 rubles, a women's shirt - 4 rubles, a pair of stockings - 1 ruble, a handkerchief - 75 kopecks, a sheet - 4 rubles, pillowcase - 2 rubles. eleven
Washing and laundry in the Grenadier Corps have become truly widespread. During the year from February 1, 1919 to February 1, 1920, the Kremlin baths were visited by 35,138 people, the hairdressing salon received 4,631 people; In a mechanical laundry, about 40,000 items weighing 2,000 pounds were washed 12.
During the conventions, the bathhouses were open at night
The baths were originally designed to bathe 300-500 people per day, but this turned out to be not enough. At a meeting of the Kremlin Sanitary Inspection on June 3, 1920, a decision was made to increase the capacity of walk-through baths and install a second formalin-steam chamber Japanese type at the bathhouse, which could only allow “cadets and course employees to admit 1,500 people a week after that” and significantly increase the opportunity for Kremlin residents to visit the bathhouses 13 .
"...On the occasion of a major overhaul, the Kremlin walk-through baths were closed for 2 1/2 months, however, the number of people who underwent sanitary treatment, that is, who passed through the bath-disinsection departments, rose from 53,848 in 1920 to 69,193 in 1921. Increased capacity was achieved by increasing the number of work and organizing night work during congresses.
A significant number of primary infections, brought mainly by visitors, in the Kremlin and in the Houses of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, almost completely did not give rise to secondary diseases, which characterizes the expediency of preventive measures,” 14 - we read in the report of the Kremlin Sanitary Department for 1921.
Along with the baths, the washing process was also modernized. “Due to the insufficient capacity of the existing laundry, it is necessary to convert it from manual to electric traction. To serve sanitary needs, the existing laundry room would be sufficient, but due to the need to serve other institutions of the commissioners and other residents of the Kremlin, it is necessary to increase the premises by 2 apartments on the 2nd floor Grenadier building for the ironing department and the issuance of clean linen. This solution to the problem, although it may not be ideal from the point of view of the choice of premises, is quite satisfactory and will resolve the pressing laundry issue for the Kremlin for a more or less long period of time," 15, - reported on May 10, 1920 Mr. Levinson to Bonch-Bruevich.
Who set the laundry room on fire?
And at the beginning of 1920, two unpleasant incidents happened in the Kremlin laundry - a fire and the theft of money in the amount of 7,000 rubles. during a fire. The fire caused significant damage to the premises and equipment of the laundry. The investigative department of the People's Commissariat of Justice closed both cases, citing the lack of corpus delicti in the case of the fire, as well as the “failure to identify those responsible for the theft of money.” As a result, the stolen amount was written off at a loss to the treasury 16. And according to the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of March 16, 1920, the Administration of the Council of People's Commissars was given an extra 120,000 rubles. for the renovation of that same laundry 17.
Options for equipping a mechanical laundry in the new premises were considered. Based on the results of the surveys, a special act was drawn up: “On April 29, 1920 ... they inspected the premises in the Chudov and Ascension monasteries and the premises in the Grenadier Corps in order to determine their suitability for setting up a mechanical laundry. The premises in the Chudov and Ascension monasteries are certainly completely unsuitable, which As for the premises in the basement and partly on the 1st floor of the Grenadier building, although these premises are better than others, they are also extremely unsatisfactory, mainly in their layout. The premises are cramped, low, will require a lot of construction work and, in addition, may be given only temporarily, and therefore the commission considers the construction of a laundry there to be irrational" 18.
The decision was made at a meeting of the Kremlin Sanitary Inspection on June 3, 1920: “Recognizing the need for a laundry, the Kremlin should reconstruct and expand the Laundry as a matter of urgency. Oblige Comrade Chernoshchekov to complete the work no later than in two months [...] Premises in Grenadiersky "The buildings planned for the expansion of the laundry should be vacated no later than Saturday, June 5, and from Monday the 7th, begin to adapt them, without stopping the work of the laundry. In the rebuilt and expanded laundry, 15 pounds of course linen should be washed daily (without ironing)" 19 .
The implementation of the project was delayed, and at the end of 1920, Levinson, in a report on the activities of the Kremlin Sanitary Department, noted: “The expansion of the laundry does not tolerate any delay. The laundry, in terms of its capacity, can hardly cope with its direct responsibility to serve the sanitary institutions of the Kremlin and the canteens of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The situation with laundry for other Kremlin institutions and highly responsible Soviet workers living in the Kremlin is critical. There is an urgent need for laundry services for the Machine Gun Courses for Command Staff, the Special Forces Detachment and other small teams. The current throughput does not exceed 20-25% of the total the Kremlin's priority need for a laundry. Laundry, as it seems physical ability, meets requests halfway, but can only satisfy them to a small extent and with a long delay. Constant fair complaints, demands, threats will continue to take place until the main organic drawback of the laundry room, its small capacity, is eliminated. All the necessary new equipment was received by the management and brought to the Kremlin. After many months of effort, we also managed to get an additional room. Now everything depends on the start of the work that should be organized by the Management of the Kremlin and the houses of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee" 20.
The washings ended in 1941
By the fall of 1920, the situation with dangerous infectious diseases in the Kremlin had noticeably improved: “Thanks to the construction of walk-through baths in the Kremlin with complete disinfection of linen, clothing and those washing themselves, we managed to ensure that already last year the incidence of typhus and relapsing fever in the Kremlin was completely ceased, and there were only cases of typhus brought by visitors from different places in Russia, and these cases were immediately localized and limited only to those who became infected while on the move. In no case did the infection spread to the residents of the Kremlin. Support these baths in the very better condition is our direct responsibility..." 21
In 1924, the issue of re-equipping the Kremlin baths began to be discussed again. In April, the Secretariat of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, on the initiative of the Kremlin Sanitary Department and the Kremlin Commandant’s Office, issued a resolution to release funds for the expansion and refurbishment of the Kremlin walk-through baths in the amount of 79,646 rubles. The practical resolution of this issue was entrusted to the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. The People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR, in its conclusion on the allocation of the required amount, noted that “judging by their actual capacity, there is no need to expand the baths. The financial situation of the State Treasury obliges the planned work to be postponed until a more favorable moment. The People's Commissariat of the USSR does not consider it possible to satisfy the request of the Sanitary management of the Kremlin and objects to the release of any funds for these works" 22. Thus, the new modernization of the bathhouse in the Kremlin did not take place.
And soon, from the mid-1920s, a gradual reduction in the number of Kremlin residents began, and along with them the need to expand the bathing and laundry space disappeared. During the Great Patriotic War, the usual rhythm of washing changed. In the fall of 1941, during one of the most difficult periods of the war, in the Moscow Kremlin, as in all areas of Moscow, interruptions in the supply of electricity, domestic gas and water began. Since December, the gas in the Kremlin was practically turned off, and all its inhabitants began to visit the city baths, of which by that time there were only nine operating in the capital. There is evidence that even the leadership of the Soviet state used the services of the Central Baths. Only the hairdressing salon continued to operate in the Kremlin throughout the war, and the country's leaders used the services of personal barbers. For example, in November 1941, A.P. visited the Kremlin 11 times. Matveev - personal hairdresser I.V. Stalin 23.
The Grenadier building, which housed the Kremlin baths, exotic for today's reality, was demolished along with other nearby buildings during the construction of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses in 1960 and 1961.
Notes
1. GARF. F. 1235. Op. 140. D. 156. L. 75.
2. GARF. F. R-1235. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 288.
3. RGASPI.F. 19. Op. 2. D. 218. L. 2 vol.
4. GARF. F. R-1235. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 288.
5. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 301, 302.
6. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 242. L. 5 vol.
7. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 350. L. 90-90 rpm.
8. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 350. L. 110.
9. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 242. L. 25 vol.
10. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 242. L. 5 vol.
11. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 242. L. 8.
12. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 288.
13. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 314 vol.
14. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 6. D. 1076. L. 21 vol.
15. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 306.
16. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 382. L. 23-24.
17. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 382. L. 29, 30.
18. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 308.
19. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 314.
20. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 382 vol.
21. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 341.
22. GARF. F. R-1235. Op. 133. D. 197. L. 2-3.
23. Moscow Kremlin during the Great Patriotic War. M., 2010. pp. 113-114.
With the advent of Soviet power, the capital was moved to Moscow and the Kremlin again became a political center. In March 1918, the Soviet government headed by V.I. Lenin moved to the Kremlin. Palaces and cavalry corps became its residence and place of residence for Soviet leaders. Soon, free access to the Kremlin territory for ordinary Muscovites is prohibited. Temples are closed and the Kremlin bells fall silent for a long time.
Over the years Soviet power The architectural ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin suffered more than in its entire history. On the plans of the Kremlin at the beginning of the 20th century, one can distinguish 54 structures that stood inside Kremlin walls. More than half of them - 28 buildings - no longer exist.
In 1918, with the personal participation of Lenin, the monument to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was demolished. In the same year, the monument to Alexander II was destroyed.
In the mid-1920s, the chapels at the gate icons near the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers were demolished.
In 1922, during the campaign to “seize church valuables”, more than 300 pounds of silver, more than 2 pounds of gold, thousands of precious stones, and even the shrine of Patriarch Hermogenes from the Assumption Cathedral were confiscated from the Kremlin cathedrals.
The Grand Kremlin Palace began to be adapted to host congresses of Soviets and congresses of the Third International, a kitchen was placed in the Golden Chamber, and a public dining room was installed in the Granovita. The Small Nikolaevsky Palace was turning into a club for workers of Soviet institutions, it was decided to build a gym in the Catherine Church of the Ascension Monastery, and a Kremlin hospital in Chudovoy.
At the end of the 1920s, a large series of demolition of ancient Kremlin buildings began. Author basic research about the Moscow churches “Forty Sorokov” Pyotr Palamarchuk calculated that on the eve of 1917 there were 31 churches with 51 altars in the Moscow Kremlin. During the years of Soviet power, 17 churches with 25 altars were destroyed.
Church of Saints Constantine and Helena, demolished in 1928
Ascension Monastery. demolished 1929
Church of the Annunciation on Zhitny Dvor, demolished in 1933
On September 17, 1928, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution defining the timing of the demolition of church buildings and ancient structures of the Moscow Kremlin. In 1929-1930, two ancient Kremlin monasteries, Chudov and Voznesensky, were completely demolished, with all the temples, churches, chapels, necropolises, service buildings, as well as the Small Nicholas Palace adjacent to the Chudov Monastery, where the headquarters of the defending cadets was located. Thus, the entire eastern part of the Kremlin from Ivanovskaya Square to the Senate Palace was completely ruins until 1932.
At the end of 1932, on the site of the destroyed monuments, a military school building was built. All-Russian Central Executive Committee in neoclassical style (14th building of the Kremlin). In 1933, the Church of the Annunciation in Zhitny Dvor, which was attached to the Annunciation Tower in the 18th century, was destroyed. In the same year, the oldest temple in Moscow, the Cathedral of the Savior on Bor, located in the courtyard of the Grand Kremlin Palace, was destroyed. In 1934, a 5-story service building was built in its place. Not even the foundations of the temple remain, with the exception of fragments of the foundation of the western vestibule, which was discovered in 1997.
14th building of the Kremlin
The 14th building is an administrative building located between the Spassky Gate and the Senate Palace. The facade of the building faces the Tainitsky Garden. The building is one of the buildings that form Ivanovo Square of the Kremlin. The building was built in 1932-1934 on the site of the Chudov and Ascension monasteries and the Small Nicholas Palace destroyed in 1929. The project of the administrative building belongs to Ivan Rerberg. Currently, the building houses some units of the Presidential Administration Russian Federation. The building is not an architectural monument of the Moscow Kremlin and is not included in the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage List.
Some buildings in the Kremlin have been remodeled. U Chamber of Facets the “Red Porch”, the main staircase along which Russian tsars and emperors passed to their coronation in the Assumption Cathedral (restored in 1994), was broken. Bolshoi facade Kremlin Palace before the revolution, it contained 5 white stone bas-reliefs in the form of the coat of arms of Russia - a double-headed eagle - and several more small bas-reliefs in the form of coats of arms of historical possessions Russian Empire(Moscow, Kazan, Astrakhan)
In 1935, the double-headed eagles that crowned the main passage towers of the Kremlin: Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya, were replaced with stars made of gilded copper, covered with Ural gems. In 1937, gem stars were replaced with ruby glass stars. The ruby star was first installed on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower.
During restoration work in the late 1960s and early 1970s, clay tiles on the Kremlin towers were replaced in many places with metal sheets painted to resemble tiles. In addition, in connection with the construction of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial, part of the surface layer of the wall between the Corner and Middle Arsenal towers was hewn to a depth of 1 m and then laid out again to create a surface monotonous in color and texture, designed to serve as a background for the memorial
State Kremlin Palace, built in the 1960s of the 20th century
The State Kremlin Palace (until 1992 - the Kremlin Palace of Congresses) was built on the site of the demolished old building of the Armory Chamber, built in 1807-1810 by I. V. Egotov in the Empire style. Before that, the buildings of Tsar Borisov’s court stood on this site, that is, former yard Boris Godunov. When the Armory Chamber was demolished, the ancient Russian cannons, which stood in a chain along the building (the Tsar Cannon crowned this chain), were moved to the Arsenal building.
View of the old building of the Armory Chamber
Watercolor
P.A. Gerasimov. Mid-19th century
Since 1955, the Kremlin has been partially open to the public, becoming an open-air museum. From the same year, a ban on living on the territory of the Kremlin was introduced (the last residents left in 1961)
In 1990, the Kremlin was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve
MOSCOW KREMLIN
After the revolution, they thought about running a tram right through its territory, but there wasn’t enough money. And a little later, only those who did not ride trams remained in the Kremlin apartments.
When was the last tenant sent away from the Kremlin? Who can still boast of Kremlin registration? And for whom do they always keep a large bed made up in a Kremlin hotel hidden from prying eyes?
Their Majesties' Water Closet
Over the course of its history, the Moscow Kremlin has been built up, developed and extensively rebuilt several times. Naturally, the main “responsible tenants” here for centuries were the Moscow princes and Russian tsars. By the way, in the second half of the 18th century. the architect Vasily Bazhenov - whom Catherine the Great instructed to bring another shine to the Kremlin - managed to demolish not only part of the historical buildings inside the red stone walls, but even one of the walls. He needed the passage to build a wide grand staircase to the Moscow River. But the empress did not like the project, and the wall was restored. In 1776, another architect, Matvey Kazakov, was assigned to complete the repairs. His work - the palace of the governing Senate - still stands and serves as the working residence of the president.
By the way, the first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, insisting on the return of the historical name (in Soviet times it was the building of the Workers' and Peasants' Government, the first building), categorically objected to the word “palace”. We agreed on the wording “Kremlin Senate”. Although the current inhabitants of the corridors of power say in the old fashioned way: the first building. Today, for example, state awards ceremonies are held in its luxurious Catherine Hall. But few of the guests know what kind of dome is above them: for the first time in Russia, 20 meters in diameter without supports is laid out half a brick thick. However, during the “state acceptance”, in late XVIII century, Kazakov personally climbed onto the dome and even jumped to demonstrate the reliability of the structure.
At one time, high-ranking officials worked in the Senate, the Moscow district prosecutor lived, and there was also a service apartment for the minister of the imperial court. The imperial court itself - in the form of the current Grand Kremlin Palace - appeared on the territory of the Kremlin 160 years ago at the behest of Nicholas I and through the efforts of the architect Konstantin Ton. At the same time, he created the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.
According to the plan of Nicholas I, the luxurious palace, instead of the previous one, was supposed to include “everything that in people’s memory is closely connected with the idea of the abode of the Sovereign.” Apparently, to refresh this memory, in the absence royal family In Moscow, social events of the Moscow nobility were held in the palace.
By that time, the Kremlin had already had running water for a long time. The Vodovzvodnaya Tower supplied water from the river for the winter garden and swimming pool, which was built here back in the 15th century, and for the soap houses - the royal baths. But in mid-19th century, a “master company for servicing water closet machines” appeared at the royal court. That is, a company of plumbers who were engaged in installing and repairing toilets in the imperial palaces. Before this, royalty used chamber pots. And very simple people use “hole in the ground” toilets.
At the beginning of the 20th century, according to some sources, up to 4 thousand people lived permanently in the Kremlin. Including about a thousand monks in the Chudov and Ascension monasteries, officials and palace servants. All these people were decisively pushed out of the Kremlin in the spring of 1918 by the new Soviet government. The monasteries were demolished a little later.
By the end of 1920, 2,100 people were registered in 325 “apartments and premises” in the Kremlin: party leaders, red bureaucrats and their revolutionary servants. There were two garages in the Kremlin, kindergarten and the consumer cooperative "Communist".
At first, Lenin lived in the Cavalry Buildings (they were later demolished during the construction of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses). But soon Ilyich moved to an apartment specially prepared for him on the 3rd floor in the very palace of the governing Senate. Under the Bolsheviks, the Council of People's Commissars, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and several “apartments” were located here.
A warm toilet remained a curiosity and a privilege - in the leader’s apartment there was a fenced off combined bathroom with a bathtub equipped with a shower hose and an Ideal Standard water closet. By the way, Lenin’s toilet survived Soviet rule and is kept today in the storerooms of the museum in Gorki. Ilyich turned out to be a lover of technical innovations and conveniences - he ordered the installation of the first automatic telephone exchange in the Kremlin. It was later that Stalin, having become the sole owner of the country, ordered his number to be deleted from all reference books. Party comrades were connected to the leader only through a telephone operator.
Under Lenin, in December 1918, the first elevator appeared in the Kremlin. After the August assassination attempt, it was difficult for the leader of the world proletariat to climb the stairs home. Another elevator made it possible to get directly from Ilyich’s apartment to the roof, where a gazebo was equipped. If electricity was installed in the Kremlin under the Tsar, then central heating instead of stove heating, for example, appeared in the Senate Palace in 1927. Gas was installed in the first Kremlin apartments in 1929.
To arrange Lenin's apartment, the original layout of the building was changed, blocking off several rooms with new walls. The apartment turned out to be quite spacious. Ilyich's own bedroom - about 18 square meters. His wife Nadezhda Krupskaya lived in the same room. The largest room - 55 meters - was occupied by the leader's elder sister Anna. My younger sister Manyasha lived 20 meters away. In addition to the bathroom, it had its own kitchen (about 20 meters) and a dining room.
However, Lenin’s apartment was furnished modestly by today’s standards. In the ruined revolution and civil war The country felt tension with both food and the simplest utensils. Therefore, at first, dispatches like the one unearthed by the authors of the recently published, but already rare book “The Moscow Kremlin. Citadel of Russia": "Dear comrade! I ask you to provide for V.I. Lenin... an electric portable lamp for the table, two bowls, a rolling pin, a kettle for the stove, a spatula and a broom for collecting litter... (12 points in total. - Ed.) With rev. priv. M.I. Ulyanova.”
At first, only Clara Zetkin, who was placed in one of the chambers of the Grand Kremlin Palace, received free rations among high-ranking revolutionary Kremlin officials. For some reason, Leon Trotsky also ate “for free”. But Joseph Stalin was entitled to rations without restrictions, but for a fee, albeit 50% of the cost. In addition, for example, in 1923, judging by the documents, 7,956 rubles were collected from all Kremlin residents. 97 kopecks rents. Moreover, the capital’s commissar, the revolutionary “mayor” of Moscow, Lev Kamenev, was unexpectedly listed among the malicious defaulters.
Visiting the dictator
Nadezhda Krupskaya lived in Lenin’s Kremlin apartment until her death in 1939. No one dared to evict “the fighting friend of the leader of the world proletariat” from the first building. Krupskaya, apparently, was not an eyesore to Stalin, who lived in the other wing.
The future generalissimo and father of nations, before moving into the first building, lived in the Kremlin in four places - in the Cavalry Corps, and in the former “boyar corridor” of the Grand Kremlin Palace, and in two apartments of the Amusement Palace. This building received this name at one time because it was built for the royal children. It was there, unable to bear the “fun” and humiliation of her husband, that Stalin’s second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, committed suicide. Today the Fun Palace is used technical services. Nothing from the Stalinist situation has been preserved there. Just as the cult of the leader was previously instilled, in the same way it was mercilessly debunked, erasing the signs of the era during renovations.
Stalin's main apartment is five rooms on the first floor of the Senate Palace. There the leader lived with his son Vasily and daughter Svetlana. In the basement of the building, so that the growing son of the dictator would not get bored, a metalwork and carpentry workshop was equipped. The withdrawn and suspicious Stalin had few guests. But in 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill became one of them. He flew in to talk face to face and report: there will be no second front in Europe this year, but the allies will try to pull back at least part of Hitler’s troops from the Soviet front by operating in Africa. Stalin was very unhappy with the news, but decided to maintain relations with Churchill personally, inviting him for a drink at his home. As Churchill wrote in his memoirs, the apartment seemed very modest to him.
However, the masterly habits of the Soviet ruler manifested themselves in other ways. During the war, they even brought Stalin right under the windows of his apartment for inspection. new technology- tanks and self-propelled guns. While the country was receiving bread on ration cards, life was in full swing in the Kremlin buffet. For example, on December 4, 1941, the hastily and incorrectly printed menu for a dinner in honor of the head of the Polish government in exile, General Sikorski, included black caviar, game, and sterlet in champagne. This could not fail to impress the guest.
The last entry about Stalin in the Kremlin house register is “discharged due to death.”
The dictator's personal belongings are today kept in museum storerooms. Nothing remains of the very last Stalinist apartment, just like the Leninist one. During the renovation, even under President Yeltsin, even the layout of the premises changed. Almost everywhere in the building of the Kremlin Senate, the section of walls laid by the architect Kazakov was restored. On the site of Lenin's office today there is a marble fireplace room. And where Stalin’s apartment was, there are technical premises.
In 1955, Nikita Khrushchev, having become the master of the country, decided to evict all tenants from the Kremlin. However, the latter moved out only a few years later: Kliment Voroshilov occupied an apartment in a building adjacent to the Armory Tower, next to the Armory Chamber, and lost his Kremlin registration in 1962.
But to say that since then no one has lived in the Kremlin means to seriously sin against the truth.
Firstly, in the historical building of the Kremlin arsenal, converted into a barracks, today an entire presidential regiment is quartered. Secondly, as they say, Boris Yeltsin had to spend the night in the rest room next to the current presidential office several times. Thirdly, there is a real hotel in the Kremlin, which, however, consists of only... one room. AiF journalists were the first to look into it.
To be continued.
They helped us
The editors would like to thank Sergei Devyatov and Valentin Zhilyaev for their assistance in preparing the material.
The 1917 revolution is mainly associated with St. Petersburg. Many people do not know that in those days when the Aurora fired a blank shot at Zimny, there were long and stubborn battles in Moscow. The Bolsheviks fired at the Kremlin and many central buildings; armed clashes continued on the streets, as a result of which hundreds of people died. I made a selection of photographs from which one can judge what was happening in Moscow in the fall of 1917.
The Moscow Bolsheviks immediately convened a meeting of the Soviets of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies. There they created the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), which led all military operations in Moscow. By the beginning of the fighting, the Military Revolutionary Committee managed to attract troops of 15 thousand people to its side.
At the same time, the head of Moscow convened a meeting of the City Duma. The deputies also organized a headquarters to manage military operations - it was called the Committee of Public Safety (KOB). He had at his disposal troops numbering 12 thousand people.
The VKR is located in the Mossovet building. Its members sent out an appeal throughout the city to the soldiers calling on them to go over to the side of the Bolsheviks and support the uprising. On the evening of October 25, concerned people began to gather on the square opposite the building. 
And at the Alexander Military School on Znamenka, the city authorities armed the cadet companies. Volunteers from among the students of Moscow University also received rifles. Some of them were sent to guard weapons warehouses, and the rest were instructed to go to defend the Duma. This is a trench dug by students in front of the Duma building. 
From the early morning of October 26, the Bolsheviks began distributing newspapers with their appeal throughout the city. 
At about 9 am, representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee arrived in the Kremlin. They ordered the soldiers to take all the weapons from the Arsenal building and take them out so that they could then distribute them to the workers. But the cadets arrived at the scene on time. They did not allow the removal of weapons. Some of the troops loyal to the Bolsheviks were blocked in the Kremlin. KOB forces began to fire at the Kremlin with rifles and machine guns. They also had artillery pieces, but the command did not allow them to fire, so as not to damage “monuments of Russian history.”
Before noon, the cadets took up combat positions on Nikitsky Gate Square, Ostozhenka, Prechistenka, Strastnoy Monastery Square (now Pushkinskaya Square). There were occasional skirmishes here and there. This had virtually no effect on the lives of ordinary Muscovites. They walked the streets about their business, asking at the cadet posts what was happening.
Barricade at the Central Telephone Exchange in Milyutinsky Lane. 
A barricade of carts and firewood near the Filippovskaya bakery on Tverskaya Street. On October 26, the Filippovskaya bakery and its cafe were looted. The bakers themselves resisted the Red Guards, but the forces were unequal. 
Barricade of the Society for Aiding Clerks of Okhotny Ryad. Corner of Leontievsky and Tverskaya. 
Arbat Square 
They were preparing for battles not only in the center of Moscow. In the Alekseevsky cadet school in Lefortovo there was a weapons depot, and the cadets were preparing to defend it. Together with the teachers, they spent the whole day building fortifications. 
In the first half of the day on October 27, the situation did not change much. Both sides gathered volunteers under their banners and waited for reinforcements. The student detachments that took the side of the KOB began to call themselves the “White Guard” as opposed to the Red Guards. In the center of the city, the forces of the KOB and the Military Revolutionary Committee fired at each other’s positions, the skirmishes occurred without any significant losses. But in Lefortovo the Bolsheviks still managed to capture the artillery workshops.
Photograph by the famous Russian and Soviet photographer Pyotr Adolfovich Otsup. View from Lubyansky passage across the square. 
Around 18:00, KOB forces received confirmation that reinforcements had been sent to their rescue from the front. After this, they declared martial law in Moscow and began an active offensive against the Bolsheviks in the area Crimean bridge, Smolensky market and Kudrinskaya square. As a result of the offensive, the Reds were driven back beyond the Garden Ring, and about a hundred Red Guards were captured. KOB invited the Military Revolutionary Committee to lay down their arms and surrender, but the Bolsheviks did not agree. Then the White Guards began an attack on the Kremlin. They fired machine guns at the battlements of the walls. About 50 people were killed that day.
In the courtyard of the barracks on Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya Street 
On the morning of October 28, the Whites continued their attack on the Kremlin. The Red regiment besieged there decided to surrender, but at the moment when the cadets entered the Kremlin gates, its soldiers again grabbed their weapons. The cadets returned fire and shot the red soldiers. According to various estimates, from 50 to 300 people were killed then.
Guard post of cadets at the Nikolsky Gate of the Kremlin 
In the Mossovet building, the Bolsheviks, upset by military failures, were already awaiting arrest. But the KOB leadership decided to show mercy and invited them to resume negotiations in order to avoid new bloodshed. The Bolsheviks agreed and began to play for time. And at this time, reinforcements began to arrive at them from the outskirts of the city. Fresh forces quickly pushed the Whites back to the Boulevard Ring on Ostozhenka, Prechistenka and Tverskaya Street. The Whites found themselves blocked in the center of Moscow.
Trenches and barricades at Ostozhenka 
On October 29, in addition to the Kremlin, the Whites still held the Metropol Hotel, the theater at the Nikitsky Gate and positions on Ostozhenka, Prechistenka and Tverskoy Boulevard. All day long there were fierce firefights in these places.
The Metropol Hotel, damaged by shelling in October 1917 
Mikhail Frunze recalled that his soldiers took particular pleasure in shooting at the windows and facades of the Metropol, watching as fragments and bricks fell down with a roar. 
The Bolsheviks also began active shelling of the Kremlin. And they, unlike the whites, were not shy in their choice of weapons. The 7th Ukrainian Heavy Artillery Division fired at the Kremlin from the Sparrow Hills. Two 48-line guns from Kotelnicheskaya Embankment fired at the Small Nikolaevsky Palace and the Spassky Gate of the Kremlin. The batteries between the Krymsky and Kamenny bridges fired at the Kremlin wall facing the Manege. They were going to make a breach at the Trinity Gate.
Howitzer near the Crimean Bridge during the shelling of the Kremlin 
Held in those days in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, the Local Council of Russian Orthodox Church called for the Kremlin not to be subjected to artillery fire “in the name of saving sacred places dear to all of Russia, the destruction and desecration of which the Russian people will never forgive anyone.”
Junkers on the Kremlin wall 
The guns are booming, they are firing at the Kremlin from somewhere from Vorobyovy Gory. A man who looks like a military man in disguise says dismissively:
- They shoot shrapnel, idiots! This is fortunate, otherwise they would have destroyed the entire Kremlin.
He talks for a long time to attentive listeners about in what cases it is necessary to destroy people with shrapnel, and when it is necessary to “act with high explosives.”
“And they, idiots, are throwing shrapnel at a high gap!” It's pointless and stupid...
Someone is unsure:
- Maybe they shoot like that on purpose to scare, but not kill?
- Why is this?
- Out of humanity?
“Well, what kind of humanity do we have,” the expert in murder techniques calmly objects...
... Round, nasty shrapnel bullets drum like hail on the iron roofs, fall on the pavement stones - spectators rush to collect them “as a souvenir” and crawl in the mud.
In some houses near the Kremlin, the walls of the houses were pierced by shells, and dozens of innocent people were probably killed in these houses. The shells flew as meaninglessly as this whole six-day process was meaningless carnage and the defeat of Moscow.
Small Nikolaevsky Palace after shelling
Miracles Monastery 
On October 30, the fighting continued. Neither side achieved any particular success that day. The firefight in the Nikitsky Gate area was especially intense. The Whites held the then Union Theater (the current theater at the Nikitsky Gate) and fired from there at the Red column, which was trying to break through to the city center. 
The damaged Korobkova house on Tverskoy Boulevard near the Nikitsky Gate. 
Fighting continued in Lefortovo. Closer to night, the cadets and cadets decided to leave the Alekseevsky School. Under the cover of their commanders, they fled to their homes, and the officers began to make their way to the Kremlin.
The fence of the Alekseevsky cadet school damaged by shelling from Kaluga Square 
On October 31, the Bolsheviks demanded that the whites stop resisting and surrender their weapons. KOB did not agree, and then the Reds continued shelling the Kremlin. In addition, due to their refusal to surrender, they began to fire at the Moscow City Duma building, which housed one of the White headquarters. Junkers and deputies had to move to the Kremlin.
Results of the shelling of the Moscow City Duma 
The next day, the Reds ousted the Whites from Ostozhenka, and also completely captured the Duma building and the Metropol Hotel.
On Wednesday, November 1st, I tried to get into the office, where I was responsible for a lot of money and documents, but I only got as far as Lubyansky Proezd through back streets and alleys; it was impossible to go further: shells, shrapnel and bullets were flying across Lubyanka Square. They say that the cadets are desperately defending the telephone building and the Kremlin, the Post Office and the telegraph are in the hands of the Bolsheviks. I returned home to the music of gunfire. Overhead and somewhere close, invisibly, bullets whistled, hitting the walls of houses, breaking glass, rattling on roofs, wounding, killing and frightening civilians, as well as crows and pigeons. During this journey, I was subjected to two searches to see if I had any weapons on me...
Corner of Tverskaya Street and Okhotny Ryad
And on November 2, the Bolsheviks continued to shell the Kremlin. The damage was so great that the KOB decided to capitulate.
On that day, having learned about the bombing of the Kremlin, Lunacharsky, People's Commissar of Education, resigned, declaring that he could not come to terms with the destruction of the most important artistic values, “thousands of victims,” the ferocity of the struggle “to the point of bestial malice,” and the powerlessness “to stop this horror.” But Lenin said to Lunacharsky: “How can you attach such importance to this or that building, no matter how good it is, when it comes to opening the doors to such social order, who is capable of creating beauty immeasurably beyond anything anyone could have dreamed of in the past?" After this, Lunacharsky withdrew his resignation letter.
During the assault on the Kremlin, the Bolsheviks shot down the top roof of the Beklemishevskaya tower with a shell. Later it was restored by the architect Rylsky. 
The Spasskaya Tower shows signs of damage from shells, the clock is also damaged by a shell hitting number II. 
Nikolskaya Tower after Bolshevik shelling 
...the Nikolskaya Tower was half broken, and the image of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, revered since 1812 for its intactness from the explosion of this tower by the French, was destroyed by shots without a trace...
The ancient, strong gates are distorted, broken and burned to a pitiful appearance, and in the Kremlin itself, they say, the destruction is even worse. How did the Tatars, Poles and French spare him? Is there really nothing sacred for us? It must be so. At least I heard some soldier, walking along Myasnitskaya, orate, “That’s their Kremlin, our life is more expensive than tea...
Just think what a Russian man can do with his mind! Although, destroying people's shrines, he still destroys them only in order to destroy someone there, to deprive him of life, and not at all in order to destroy something sacred, which for centuries was protected by his ancestors from the invasion of foreigners and now destroyed by his sacrilegious hand.N.P. Okunev, "Moskvich's Diary, 1917-1920"
After the shelling. Small Nikolaevsky Palace 
In the Kremlin, shells hit the Assumption Cathedral, the Chudov Monastery, the Church of the 12 Apostles, the Small Palace and in general, our Holy and gray Kremlin must have suffered more than from foreign invasions. They write about many destructions, fires, executions, but God bless them! It’s better to say right away that, in general, it would be worse - but it’s impossible. Maybe these terrible pictures will awaken the conscience of those who rebelled brother against brother and will not lead the political struggle to a repetition of such horrors...N.P. Okunev, "Moskvich's Diary, 1917-1920"
Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles 
Gate of the Synodal Office 
Miracles Monastery 
Some of the capitulated cadets, students and officers were killed by the Red Guards on the spot. Those who survived scattered throughout the city. Many of them later joined the White Army. Over the next week after the surrender, both sides buried their dead.
The White Guards were buried in the Church of the Great Ascension at the Nikitsky Gate. From the Nikitsky Gate the procession went to the military cemetery on Petrogradskoye Shosse, where the dead were buried. Several thousand people came to say goodbye to them. 
Under the impression of these funerals, Alexander Vertinsky wrote the famous romance “What I Must Say.”
The killed Red Guards were buried with much greater honor. A mass grave was organized for them near the walls of the Kremlin. 
The Council of the Russian Orthodox Church condemned such a burial. On November 17, 1917, he adopted a resolution in which he announced that “in the deliberate burial, without church prayer, under the walls of the Kremlin of people who desecrated its shrines, destroyed its churches and, by raising the banner of fratricidal war, outraged the people’s conscience, the Council sees an obvious and conscious insult to the church and disrespect for the sacred."
At first there were quite a lot of them, and they lived, as a rule, quite modestly. And then they began to slowly “clean” the Kremlin. To begin with, they evicted everyone who had nothing to do with the Soviet regime and settled in “our own people.”
LENIN SET STALIN IN HIS MISTAKE'S APARTMENT
The eviction, which took place in the summer of 1920, took place in a revolutionary manner. Within a week, more than half of the 1,100 Kremlin residents were resettled - those who had no relation to Soviet institutions. “In the Kremlin, as throughout Moscow,” wrote Leon Trotsky, “there was a continuous struggle over apartments, which were not enough. Moscow was then filled with a “peripheral mass” that poured into the capital from numerous places and towns.”
As soon as the living space became available, the first thousand of “our own people” moved in, and six months later there were already 2,100 co-workers registered in the Kremlin. Who exactly lived behind the Kremlin wall, for a long time was a state secret. Personal and other data about Kremlin residents began to be classified as secret already in mid-1918, and even now they are in hard-to-reach archives.
Ilyich initially lived in the National Hotel, but already in March 1918 he moved to the Kremlin, and from January 19, 1919 he registered in apartment No. 1 of the former Senate building.
Naturally, he wanted all his comrades to be, as they say, “at hand.” Moreover, under Lenin, not only residential buildings were inhabited, but also Kremlin towers, guardhouses, cathedrals and even the bell tower of Ivan the Great. Naturally, Stalin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Dzerzhinsky, Kalinin, Voroshilov, Kamenev, Sverdlov, Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, Molotov, Tsuryupa, Mikoyan, Lunacharsky, Klara settled next to the founder of Leninism (as they say now - “within walking distance”) Zetkin and others.
An interesting fact: in the building of the Amusement Palace (it is located at right hand, if you go to the Kremlin through the gates of the Trinity Tower), very decent apartments (apartment No. 1) were provided to Inessa Armand, a well-known figure in the women's movement at that time. The story of the allocation of the apartment becomes clearer if you read Lenin’s note to the Kremlin commandant Pavel Malkov: “T. Malkov! The giver of this, comrade. Inessa Armand, member of the Central Election Commission. She needs an apartment for 4 people. As we talked to you today, you will show her what is available, that is, show her the apartments that you had in mind. Lenin."
One can argue a lot about what kind of relationship the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars had with the mentioned lady, but to clarify, I will quote the words of another Kremlin resident of those times and also the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (since 1930) - Vyacheslav Molotov. In the mid-seventies, talking with the writer Felix Chuev, he said: “Interesting. Armand. Inessa Armand. Lenin writes: “Dear, dear friend! Hello dear friend!" I remember Inessa Armand well. Non-Russian type. A pretty woman. In my opinion, nothing special... Lenin treated her very tenderly. Bukharin told me directly that this was Lenin’s passion. He was very close to Lenin, and he probably knew Inessa well.”
And when the writer asked Molotov a question about how he assessed Krupskaya’s attempt to transfer Inessa Armand from Moscow somewhere far away, Ilyich’s comrade-in-arms answered directly: “Of course, this is an unusual situation. Lenin, simply put, has a mistress. And Krupskaya is a sick person.”
The development of the situation is well known: in August 1920, Lenin sent Inessa to rest in Kislovodsk, “to Sergo” (Sergo Ordzhonikidze was entrusted with her care). In those days, as indeed today, the North Caucasus was turbulent. When another shooting began, Ilyich decided to return Armand to the capital. But she only made it as far as Beslan, where she quickly contracted cholera and died suddenly. According to other sources, Inessa died in Nalchik on September 24, 1920, but this does not change the essence of the matter.
After Inessa Armand's body was brought to Moscow in a lead coffin, on Lenin's orders she was buried in a necropolis near the Kremlin wall. And faithful Nadezhda Konstantinovna remained nearby...
The apartment of Ilyich’s beloved was empty for only a few months. In January 1921, “thanks to the intervention of V.I. Lenin,” Stalin and his wife moved from their cramped apartment in the Maid of Honor corridor of the Grand Kremlin Palace to the spacious apartment No. 1 of the Amusement Palace. The same one, designed for four people, in which Inessa Armand lived.
The apartment, according to some reports, turned out to be bad. It was there that on the night of November 9, 1932, Nadezhda Alliluyeva committed suicide. In the summer of 1975, Vyacheslav Molotov recalled the reasons for her suicide: “Jealousy, of course. In my opinion, completely unfounded. There was a hairdresser to whom he (Stalin. - Author) went to shave. The wife was unhappy with this. A very jealous person... What do you remember? Stalin picked up the pistol with which she shot herself and said: “And it was a toy pistol, it shot once a year”... ... “I was a bad husband, I had no time to take her to the movies,” said Stalin.”
Immediately after his wife’s suicide, Stalin changed his apartment, moving to another apartment in the Amusement Palace, and then moved to the 1st building of the Kremlin. True, he rarely visited his Kremlin apartment, since already in December 1933 he finally moved to the Near Dacha in Volynskoye.
By the way, there were shootings in the Kremlin more than once in pre-war times. In the thirties, the son of the “all-Union headman” Mikhail Kalinin and the Kremlin commandant, career security officer Fyodor Rogov, shot themselves to death...
“CLEANING” THE KREMLIN: FROM STALIN TO KHRUSHCHEV
Of course, the Kremlin could not accommodate everyone. In the twenties, more than 5,000 people worked in various institutions located inside the Kremlin wall. And they lived not only there, but also in the city - apartments were specially allocated for them at different addresses, but, as a rule, not far from their place of work. And in 1928, construction began on the famous House on the Embankment. Then it was not yet Serafimovich Street, but All Saints Street. This was apparently the first large house specially built for the party and state elite. Officially called the “house of the Central Executive Committee and Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR,” it was more of a residential complex that occupied an entire block.
The entire infrastructure was autonomous: a store, a hairdresser, a laundry, a first-aid post, a post office, a savings bank, a nursery and a kindergarten, a club, a library, a gym, a dining room. Naturally, it had the maximum possible and few amenities available to anyone at that time: central heating, hot water supply, gas, elevators (passenger and freight), telephone, radio. The commandant's office was responsible for ensuring security and order. Already in 1931, the first residents moved in, who were “members of the government, members of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Central Committee of the Party, figures of the Comintern, old Bolsheviks, People's Commissars and their deputies, heads of main departments, senior military leadership, diplomats, prominent scientists, writers, outstanding artists." In parentheses, we note that the “turnover” in this building was quite serious. Hundreds of residents of this seemingly elite house, after living in it for a year or two, moved to Kolyma to fell wood, or were even shot...
The Kremlin, of course, also did not escape a serious “cleansing”. After the murder of Kirov in 1934, the so-called “Kremlin case” began to unfold. As a result, already in May 1935, Stalin approved the draft sentence for 108 convicted “Kremlin members.”
Those who were under suspicion, but not yet convicted, moved outside the Kremlin. The authorities' reasoning was ironclad - the need to ensure the safety of leaders Soviet state. As a result of the mass eviction, by June 1935, only 374 residents (102 families) remained in the Moscow Kremlin. And in total in the period 1936 - 1939. 463 people were discharged from the Kremlin. IN new book registration information about 31 people was transferred.
Not only employees, but also many high-ranking residents left the Kremlin apartments. Some moved to the House on the Embankment and other elite buildings, while others no longer needed registration at all. In 1936-1939, Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and other figures of the so-called “opposition” were shot. Some were taken to prison directly from the Kremlin. In 1938 - 1939 The Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided to relocate the command and control personnel of the Kremlin commandant's office and all civilian workers and employees from the Kremlin. Only “commanders, military commissars and chiefs of staff of the regiment were allowed to remain on the territory of the Kremlin special purpose and a separate command battalion, as well as some other commanders. For those being evicted, houses of the Moscow Council on 1st Meshchanskaya Street were allocated (a total of more than 300 apartments).
During the Great Patriotic War, the housing issue in the Kremlin was frozen. In 1941, nine leaders of the USSR were registered and had apartments in the Kremlin. Stalin, as we already mentioned, officially lived in apartment No. 1 of building No. 1. Voroshilov - in apartment No. 19 of building No. 9 (BKD apartments), Kaganovich in apartment No. 1 of building No. 20 (Children's half of BKD). And the most “densely populated” was building No. 5 (Kavalersky). The “cavaliers” were Molotov (apartment No. 36), Mikoyan (No. 33), Voznesensky (No. 28), Zhdanov (No. 34), Andreev (No. 22), Kalinin (No. 30). Another 68 apartments were occupied mainly by personal pensioners, relatives of Lenin, Dzerzhinsky, Ordzhonikidze and others, as well as families of the leadership of the commandant’s office, the NKGB - NKVD...
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HOW THE KREMLIN NEARLY WAS COMPLETELY REBUILDED
IN post-war years The Soviet leadership suddenly became preoccupied with “perestroika.” They decided to rebuild the Kremlin and Red Square. Although this attempt was actually not the first under Soviet rule...
Let me digress slightly from the topic by recalling an anecdote that appeared in the mid-nineties. “The resurrected Stalin appears at the meeting State Duma. The communist majority gives him the floor. “The Leader of the Nations” says: “I have two proposals: first, the traitor-democrats should be shot without exception. The second is to paint the Kremlin wall green. Any questions?" After a long pause, one of the deputies stands up: “Comrade Stalin, why green?” Smiling slyly into his mustache, the Generalissimo replies: “I knew that we would have no disagreements on the first issue!” You, dear readers, will be surprised, but part of this anecdote has real historical basis. In December 1932, the curator of the Kremlin commandant's office, Avel Enukidze, came up with a very innovative and, moreover, radical project. For the purpose of “relief decoration of the Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin on general background Kremlin" he proposed to "paint the Kremlin wall on the outside in light gray along the line from the Arsenalnaya to the Beklemishevskaya towers." According to Enukidze's calculations, 80,000 rubles were required to repaint the walls. Stalin, Mikoyan, Molotov, Kaganovich supported this idea, as did the rest of the Politburo a few days later. This “non-proletarian” event, at least in color, was scheduled for the spring of 1933. But it was not carried out, and the Kremlin remained red.
And the most ambitious project for the reconstruction of the Kremlin and Red Square was considered by the Council of Ministers of the USSR on June 13, 1947. As a result of the discussion, a government decision was made, which, had it been implemented, would have completely changed appearance Kremlin and Red Square. Judge for yourself. The decision provided for the following work to be carried out in 1948 - 1953.
In the Moscow Kremlin:
- reconstruction of the Arsenal building to house the apparatus of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, as well as the government archive;
- reconstruction of the 3rd building (barracks) into living quarters;
- demolition of buildings No. 6, No. 7 (Amusement Palace), No. 8 on Kommunisticheskaya Street. On the vacant site, it was planned to erect a new four-five-story building for government members (12 - 15 apartments);
- covering the courtyard of the BKD to create a meeting room Supreme Council USSR for three thousand places; the existing meeting hall of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was turned into the Order Hall of Soviet Awards;
- leaving only the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin. All other domestic and captured guns were transferred from the Moscow Kremlin;
- replacement of sidewalk asphalt and paving stones with granite;
- liquidation of all outbuildings and sports grounds in the Tainitsky Garden and creation of a park;
- construction of a monument to V.I. Lenin.
The following reconstruction work was planned on Red Square:
- design of the Victory Monument in the Great Patriotic War 1941 - 1945;
- relocation of the State Historical Museum to the site of the corner of Red Square and 25 October Street (currently Nikolskaya Street - Author). Accommodation of institutions in the GUM building;
- installation of granite guest stands at the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin;
- opening of the Victory Monument on the site of the Historical Museum.
Of everything planned by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, only one event was carried out in the period before 1953. In order to improve Red Square and create a general ensemble in combination with the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin, work was carried out to cover the guest stands at the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin with granite slabs. Overall the project was grandiose. What was the cost of just one “relocation” of the Historical Museum! And what about the opening of a Victory monument in its place?
But the most interesting thing is the construction of a super-elite residential building in the Kremlin. It is difficult to imagine the true scale of the planned “four to five-story” structure, for which it was necessary to demolish three Kremlin buildings. One can only guess about the size of the 12 to 15 apartments mentioned in the document for government members. And, despite the fact that the construction of this house was planned in the first post-war years, it is difficult to doubt that the infrastructure, decoration, and security would have been truly high level. And it’s also extremely interesting who would get these fifteen apartments...
But, as we already know, the Amusement Palace and buildings remained intact and were even restored. The Historical Museum and the Arsenal were not touched, and the Victory Monument was not built... Some points of the mentioned decision of the Council of Ministers, however, were partially implemented, but only after 1953. For example, a monument to Lenin was erected in the Kremlin, outbuildings and sports grounds in the Tainitsky Garden were removed...
THE LAST RESIDENTS
After Stalin's death, the question of liquidating residential premises in the Kremlin was a foregone conclusion. This was largely due to the fact that Khrushchev, who became the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee in September 1953, never lived in the Kremlin himself. And if the first person does not live “behind the wall,” then other high-ranking citizens had to slowly move out. And not always voluntarily. In May 1955, Vyacheslav Molotov moved to Granovsky Street (now Romanov Lane. - Author). Anastas Mikoyan left the Kremlin with him. Then in 1957 it was Lazar Kaganovich’s turn. In 1958 - 1960, the families of deceased leaders of the Soviet state, Dzerzhinsky, Ordzhonikidze, and other personal pensioners left the Kremlin. “First Marshal” Klim Voroshilov fought for his Kremlin apartment to the last. And, by the way, he really became the last one to leave his apartment. This event happened in November 1962, and Voroshilov lived within the Kremlin walls for more than thirty-seven years.
Now, of course, there are no apartments in the sense as we understand this word in the Kremlin. But people live there. Firstly, there is a residence for distinguished guests, and secondly, the Presidential Regiment is stationed there, and the President and some other high-ranking officials have a place to sleep if something happens - there are rest rooms next to their offices. Although managers still prefer to live in the fresh air. Even if they work in the Kremlin...
When working on the material, the book “The Moscow Kremlin - the Citadel of Russia” and the texts of conversations between Felix Chuev and Vyacheslav Molotov from the book “Molotov: Semi-Powerful Overlord” were used.
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List of numbering of Kremlin buildings (1926)
1. Government building (1st building)
2. Arsenal
3. Barracks (demolished)
4. Large Officer Corps (demolished)
5. Cavalry Corps (demolished)
6. Amusing building (corner)
7. Amusing building (palace)
8. Amusing building (former pharmacy)
9. Apartments Upper, Lower, Stables building
10. Small Officer Corps (demolished)
11. Kitchen building (demolished)
12. Grenadier Corps (demolished)
13. Patriarchal Palace and Synodal Building
14. Miracle Monastery (demolished)
15. Small Nikolaevsky Palace (demolished)
16. Servant (Service) building (demolished)
17. Ascension Monastery (demolished)
18. Building at the Spassky Gate (residential) (demolished)
19. Building at the Spassky Gate (guardhouse) (demolished)
20. Grand Kremlin Palace
21. Armory Chamber
22. Building at the Borovitsky Gate (guardhouse) (demolished)
23. House near the Church of the Annunciation (demolished)
In addition, demolished or blown up:
1. Monument to Alexander II
2. Church of the Annunciation
3. Church of Constantine and Helena
4. Wood-burning housing