Who lived in the Kremlin during Soviet times. Where does Putin live: how many houses does the Russian President have?

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 was a state secret for a long time. 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 on the right hand, if you enter 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 to 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 security of the leaders of the 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. Information about 31 people was transferred to the new registration book.

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 a special-purpose regiment and a separate command battalion, as well as some other commanders, were allowed to stay on the Kremlin territory. 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...

HOW THE KREMLIN NEARLY WAS COMPLETELY REBUILDED

In the 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 a meeting of the State Duma. The communist majority gives him the floor. “The Leader of the Peoples” 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. In order to “relief design the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin against the general background of the Kremlin,” he proposed “painting the Kremlin wall in light gray color from the outside 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, if implemented, would completely change the appearance of the 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 hall of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR with three thousand seats; 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 monument to Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 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 there would have been at the highest 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 until the last moment. 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.

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

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.

During the years of 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 the 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 demolitions of ancient Kremlin structures began. The author of a fundamental study 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 Administration of the President of the 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. At the Faceted Chamber, the “Red Porch”, the main staircase along which Russian tsars and emperors walked to their coronation in the Assumption Cathedral (restored in 1994), was broken. Before the revolution, the facade of the Grand Kremlin Palace 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 the historical possessions of the 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, that is, the former court of Boris Godunov, stood on this site. 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

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 life and ideal to which we strive,” 1 said in a certificate prepared for the commission to examine the activities of the Kremlin and 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 kop. 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 dated early 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 “On the rational use of the Kremlin walk-through baths.” 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 bathhouses. Establish and widely publish the hours of admission to the bathhouse. Allow certain Kremlin residents days for visiting the baths, 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 no 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 are not allowed into the bathhouse; 3. The platoon commander - the senior team member is obliged to be present in the bathhouse during the entire wash cycle of his team and ensure that all fellow cadets observe the order and hygiene requirements in the bathhouse set by the bathhouse administration; they would hand over their underwear for disinfection and not hide it in their boots... 5. If the team is late for the bathhouse, even for one minute... those responsible will be subject to the strictest responsibility (up to and including dismissal from the course and trial); 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 Supervision on June 3, 1920, it was decided to increase the capacity of walk-through baths and install a second Japanese-type steam-formalin chamber at the bathhouse, which could only allow “cadets and course employees to admit 1,500 people per week after that” and significantly increase opportunity for Kremlin residents to visit 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 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, can. 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 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 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 Purpose Detachment and other small teams. The current capacity does not exceed 20-25% of the total. the Kremlin's primary need for a laundry. The laundry, as far as physical possibility is presented, meets the requests, but can only satisfy them to an insignificant extent and with a long delay. Constant fair complaints, demands, threats will continue to occur until the main organic shortcoming of the laundry is eliminated. , its small capacity. 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 road, but in no case did the infection spread to the residents of the Kremlin. 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.

ANDREYCHEVA Marianna

1. Kremlengrad - residential center of the city

We are accustomed to perceiving the Kremlin as a container and at the same time the personification of Russian power. Most of the modern Kremlin buildings are subordinated to its needs. However, this was not always the case. It is no coincidence that foreigners in the Middle Ages called the Kremlin Kremlengrad. In those days, the main fortress of the country was a kind of city within a city. Only a small share of it was allocated to the royal court. Most of the Kremlin in the XIV-XVI centuries. crossed busy streets with monasteries and temples, government buildings, estates of eminent boyars and courtyards of clergy and artisans.

2. The Sovereign’s Court is a territory without swearing or weapons

The heart of the Kremlin was the Sovereign's Courtyard - a sacred place for the Tsar's subjects. There were special rules of conduct that required protecting the “honor” of the sovereign’s home. Entry to the courtyard was prohibited to everyone except boyars, service people and clergy close to the tsar. The boyars dismounted their horses or got out of their sleighs before reaching the courtyard and somewhat at a distance from the royal porch. Service people dismounted even earlier - in the square behind the Ivanovo Bell Tower. Within the sovereign's court it was forbidden to swear. Even without malicious intent, it was forbidden to appear in the palace with weapons. This was immediately followed by arrest and torture in order to find out the conspiracy.

3. Shouting Square - this is where they “shouted at the top of Ivanovskaya”

The carefully protected peace of the sovereign contrasted with the turbulent life of Ivanovo Square, located literally a few hundred meters from the royal court. In the XVI-XVII centuries. on the square behind the bell tower of Ivan the Great there was a complex of orders - the main bodies of government. There was a crowd of noisy petitioners here from early morning. And in front of the orders building, various punishments were carried out almost daily. The main punishment was beating with batogs. The screams and moans of the tortured filled the square until the priest brought out the Holy Gifts and rang the bells in the church. In the old days, royal decrees were also shouted out on Ivanovskaya Square. This is apparently where the expression came from: “Shouting at the top of Ivanovo.”

4. Lion Gate - the royal zoo under the walls of the Kremlin

For some time, the Kremlin wall was separated from the vast shopping arcades of Red Square by a moat with water, dug at the beginning of the 16th century. From the time of Ivan the Terrible until the reign of Boris Godunov, lions and other exotic animals brought as gifts by foreign ambassadors were kept in a dry moat next to the Arsenal Tower of the Kremlin. Hence the neighboring gates of Kitay-Gorod received the name Lions. Nowadays we know these gates as the Iveron Gate by the name of the chapel attached to it in the second half of the 17th century, where the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God, brought from Athos, was placed. Or like the Resurrection - in 1689 the icon of the Resurrection of Christ was attached to the tower.

5. Divine sacrums - crossroads in the power of the poor

The intersections of Moscow streets, called sacrums in the old days, were often centers of public life. The famous Nikolsky Sacrum, at the intersection of Nikolskaya Street and Bogoyavlensky Lane, and Spassky, at the Spassky Gate of the Kremlin, have gained particular fame. Here, from early morning, a motley gathering of the lower classes crowded together: small traders with various goods (from handwritten books to pancakes and kvass); homeless clergy hired to serve in house and parish churches; beggars, cripples and holy fools. The chaotic picture was completed by the inhabitants of the almshouses - the gods, sadly begging for alms: some for the foundling baby screaming nearby in a basket, and some for the burial of the unknown unfortunate, whose stinking corpse rested right there next to the open coffin.

Drawings by Ekaterina Gavrilova