Kremlin stars. How it was… What do the stars on the Kremlin towers symbolize?

On November 2, 1937, the famous ruby stars were installed on the towers of the Moscow Kremlin. What was placed on the towers before them and why they were extinguished twice in 81 years of existence - we will tell you about these and other facts further.

In the 50s of the 17th century, the coat of arms of the Russian Empire, the double-headed eagle, was installed on top of the main tower of the Kremlin (Spasskaya). Later, gilded double-headed eagles were also placed on the other highest travel towers of the Kremlin: Nikolskaya, Troitskaya, Borovitskaya. By decision of the new government, on October 18, 1935, the eagles were removed and then melted down, as it was believed that they were of no value.

Fact 2. At first, the stars were not ruby, but copper with gems. In October 1935, instead of double-headed eagles, five-pointed stars made of stainless steel and red copper, with the traditional hammer and sickle symbols, appeared above the Kremlin. The emblems were inlaid with Ural stones - rock crystal, topaz, amethyst, aquamarine, sandrite, alexandrite. Each stone weighed up to 20 grams.

Fact 3. Five ruby stars

The former stars have lost their brilliance, dimmed - soot, dust and dirt have done their job. On November 2, 1937, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution, new ruby towers were lit on the Kremlin towers. Another star appeared - on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, and there were five such towers, like the rays of the star. Previously, she had a flag on the spire. Sketches of new stars were developed by the People's Artist of the USSR Fyodor Fedorovsky, who also designed the first stars. He suggested the ruby color of the glass, determined the shape and pattern of the stars, as well as their sizes, depending on the architecture and height of each tower. The recipe for ruby glass was developed by the Moscow glassmaker N. I. Kurochkin. To obtain the desired color, selenium was added to the glass instead of gold. Firstly, it was cheaper, and secondly, it made it possible to obtain a richer and deeper color.

Fact 4. Stars are illuminated by lamps from the inside

They burn around the clock, and stronger during the day than at night. Without backlighting, the ruby glass looked dark even on bright sunny days. Thanks to the internal glazing of the stars with milky glass, the light of the lamp was well dispersed, and the ruby glass was highlighted most brightly. Since 2014, thanks to the reconstruction of the towers, the stars have a new lighting system with several metal halide lamps with a total power of 1000 watts. for one star.

Fact 5. Stars of different sizes

The span of the rays on the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers is 3.75 meters, on Troitskaya - 3.5, on Borovitskaya - 3.2, and on Vodovzvodnaya - 3 meters. The weight of each star is about a ton.

Fact 6. Stars revolve

Special bearings lie at the base of each chainring. Thanks to this, despite the significant weight, the stars can easily rotate, turning "face" to the wind. The position of the stars tells you where the wind is blowing from.

Fact 7. The stars went out only twice

During the years of the Great Patriotic War, as they served as a good guide for enemy aircraft. They were wrapped in a tarp. And in 1996, at the request of director Nikita Mikhalkov, for the sake of shooting one of the episodes of The Barber of Siberia.

Fact 8. 3 layers of glazing

After the war, when the tarpaulin was removed, it turned out that they had received minor shrapnel damage from an anti-aircraft battery located nearby. The stars were sent for restoration, after which they shone even brighter. A new three-layer glazing of the stars was made (ruby glass, frosted glass and crystal), and their gilded frame was also updated. In 1946, the stars were returned to the towers.

Fact 9. Care of the stars

Once every five years, industrial climbers rise to the stars to wash them. Technical preventive maintenance is carried out monthly, visual inspection twice a day.

This year marks 80 years since proud stars lit up on the towers of the Moscow Kremlin instead of double-headed eagles. But their path to the Kremlin towers turned out to be thorny and winding...

The first eagle settled on the towers of the Moscow Kremlin around 1600, and the last nested on the Spasskaya Tower only in 1912. The birds themselves were wooden, their parts were bolted together. The wings and heads were cast from metal. The whole structure was covered with gilding.

It would seem that the Bolsheviks should have removed the eagles in the first place. But it was not there! They continued to decorate the Kremlin towers until 1935. And their demolition was first discussed in 1930. (Apparently, there were more important things to do.) The new authorities even turned to the then-famous artist Igor Grabar with a request to evaluate the historical value of the double-headed eagles on the Kremlin towers. Fearing for his life, the restorer said what was expected of him: the eagles are not a monument of antiquity and cannot be protected by the state.

Soon a note was sent to the Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR Yenukidze from the former personal secretary of Lenin - Gorbunov. In it, the author claimed that Vladimir Ilyich, during his lifetime, repeatedly demanded that the eagles be removed and replaced with flags.

But even after that, the proud birds still remained in place. What was the matter? It turned out - in the budget! As follows from the minutes of the meeting of the secretariat of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR dated 12/13/1931: a proposal was received to include in the estimate for 1932 the costs of removing eagles from the Kremlin towers in the amount of 95,000 rubles. It was supposed to replace the eagles with the coats of arms of the USSR. But in 1932 no money was found. Or maybe they couldn’t decide what to exchange the eagles for?

Special operation of the NKVD

The final and irrevocable decision to remove the double-headed eagles from the Kremlin towers was made only in the summer of 1935. The TASS message read: “The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided by November 7, 1935 to remove four eagles located on the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya, Trinity towers of the Kremlin wall, and two eagles from the building of the Historical Museum. By this date, it was decided to install five-pointed stars on the indicated four towers of the Kremlin. The responsibility for carrying out the operation of national importance was assigned to the commandant of the Kremlin Tkalun and, of course, the all-powerful NKVD. Preparation took a record two months, including time for sketching, coordination and production of the stars themselves.

They say that Stalin personally took an active part in the development of sketches. Although officially the design and manufacture of the first Kremlin stars were spoiled by two Moscow factories and the workshops of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute, the well-known decorative artist Academician Fedor Fedorovich Fedorovsky was involved in the development of sketches.

However, it turned out to be not difficult to come up with an image of stars - unlike their manufacture. The star cases were welded from high-alloy stainless steel, and then lined with gilded copper sheets.

A memorandum has been preserved in which Kaganovich agrees to allocate 68 kg of gold for gilding the stars! Its thickness was 20 microns. On both sides of the star was decorated with an emblem - a hammer and sickle weighing 240 kilograms, decorated with precious stones: rock crystal, amethysts, alexandrites, topazes and aquamarines. Each of the stones was brilliant-cut (73 facets) and placed in a special silver caste with a screw and nut fastening. The total number of stones exceeded 7,000 pieces from 20 to 200 carats each, and two hundred and fifty of the best jewelers of the country were involved in their processing. Everything would be fine, only the stars turned out to be too bulky and heavy. The authorities even had to strengthen the dilapidated towers of the Kremlin. Steel structures were built into each, on which the first stars were planted.

The stars turned out to be different not only in decoration, but also in size. The edges of the star on the Spasskaya Tower were decorated with rays emanating from the center. The star of the Trinity Tower had the same rays, but designed in the form of ears of corn. Two contours were depicted on the star of the Borovitskaya Tower - one inscribed in the other, but for some reason the rays of the star of the Nikolskaya Tower did not have a pattern.

Maina, Vira, herbs a little ...

The installation of stars turned out to be a serious problem. There were no appropriate mechanisms for lifting weights on the towers. The specialists of Stalprommekhanizatsiya solved the most difficult task by designing and creating their own unique crane for each of the towers. It was fixed on the upper tier of each of the towers. At the base of the tent, a console was installed through the tower window, on which a crane was then assembled.

Before climbing the towers, the stars were put up for public viewing in Gorky Park. They installed it on special pedestals, upholstered in red calico, after which spotlights fell on their faces. According to eyewitnesses, at that moment the Ural gems sparkled with myriads of multi-colored lights. And already on October 24, 1935, the first star was raised on the Spasskaya Tower. The next day, another star shone on the top of the Trinity Tower. On October 26 and 27, five-pointed stars adorned the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers of the Kremlin.

The first pancake is lumpy

But, no matter how hard the Bolsheviks tried, the first attempt was unsuccessful. By 1937, the stars suddenly went out. The reason for this was the soot and smog of a large city, as well as adverse meteorological conditions. The stones just darkened. And the stars themselves turned out to be so massive that they began to suppress the architectural ensemble of the Kremlin.

After complaining about the wasted money and time, having calculated the optimal proportions, the authorities ordered new luminous ruby stars. The semi-precious stones were replaced with internal illumination, and the fifth one, Vodovoznaya, was added to the four towers with a star.

An indispensable condition was the creation of a special design of the stars, thanks to which they would not corrode, and it would be possible to wash off dirt and soot from the outer surfaces. They even created a special control panel for the mechanisms of stars. But the second time was not without curiosities.

The fact is that the legendary ruby glass was brewed with special additives of selenium and gold. When the trial batch was taken out into the street, it turned out that in daylight the ruby glass looks almost black! Mourning stars over the Kremlin? A huge scandal was brewing. I had to lay a second inner layer of milky glass. Now the stars shone with the even color of natural rubies.

Powerful (up to 5000 watts!) lamps also caused a lot of trouble. When heated, they created a terrible heat, from which the ruby glass could burst or crack. For cooling, powerful fans were used, passing about 600 cubic meters of air per hour.

It fades, it fades

Despite the fact that the creators of ruby stars tried to take into account all the factors for their smooth operation, the stars went out several times.

The first time this happened during the Great Patriotic War. Realizing that the light of the stars is an excellent guide for enemy aircraft, the stars were extinguished and tightly wrapped with tarpaulin, and windows were painted on the walls of the Kremlin. However, when the stars were stripped of their disguise, they were found to be riddled with shrapnel holes. The stars underwent a large-scale restoration and were returned to the towers only in March 1946. The reconstruction was beneficial: to two layers, ruby and milky, a third was added - made of crystal. Now the stars shone even brighter than before.

In 1996, the stars of the Kremlin were extinguished by Nikita Mikhalkov during the filming of Moscow at night in The Barber of Siberia. For the third time, they disappeared from the eyes of Muscovites for restoration behind massive casings-cases in 2014.

Why a star?

Since the times of the USSR, the inhabitants of Russia have become so accustomed to the abundance of red stars that they have not wondered for a long time why exactly the stars shone over the Kremlin?

On the one hand, the five-pointed star is a symbol of the god of war, Mars. It adorns the banners of Russia, China, the USA... On the other hand, a five-pointed star turned with one ray upwards has been considered a symbol of protection and security since ancient times. Which of these options the Bolsheviks had in mind is now difficult to say ...

By the way

Kremlin stars can also be used as a kind of weather vane. And because of their design, they can even withstand direct hurricane winds!

Here we somehow studied, and now let's move on to a more specific topic, especially since the date corresponds. 80 years ago, in the period from October 24 to October 27, 1935, the first five-pointed stars were installed on the four towers of the Moscow Kremlin.

Until this historical moment, the spiers of the Kremlin towers were decorated with heraldic double-headed eagles. The first double-headed eagle was hoisted on top of the tent of the Spasskaya Tower in the 50s of the 17th century. Later, Russian coats of arms were installed on the highest travel towers of the Kremlin - Nikolskaya, Troitskaya, Borovitskaya. In October 1935, instead of the two-headed royal eagles, five-pointed stars appeared over the Kremlin.

It was proposed to replace the emblematic eagles with flags, as on other towers, and emblems with a sickle and a hammer, and the coats of arms of the USSR, but it was the stars that were chosen.

Change symbol Russian Empire the symbol of the new Soviet power was tried several times. Back in the years of the civil war, this proposal was made by the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V.I. Lenin. However, in conditions of total economic collapse, the wish of the leader of the revolution was not fulfilled.

Why exactly the five-pointed star became the symbol of Soviet power is not known for certain, but it is known that this symbol was lobbied by Leon Trotsky. Seriously fond of esotericism, he knew that the star is a pentagram, has a very powerful energy potential and is one of the most powerful symbols.

The swastika, the cult of which was very strong in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, could well become a symbol of the new state. The swastika was depicted on the "kerenki", swastikas were painted on the wall of the Ipatiev House by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna before being shot. But by an almost unanimous decision at the suggestion of Trotsky, the Bolsheviks settled on a five-pointed star. The history of the 20th century will still show that the "star" is stronger than the "swastika" ... The stars shone over the Kremlin, replacing the double-headed eagles.

1935 parade. Eagles watch Maxim Gorky fly by and spoil the holiday;)))

And only on August 23, 1935, a resolution was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to replace the old symbols with new ones. Immediately after this, a TASS message was released informing the Soviet people: “... by November 7, 1935, remove 4 eagles located on the towers of the Kremlin wall, and 2 eagles from the building of the Historical Museum. By the same date, it was decided to install five-pointed stars with a hammer and sickle on the Kremlin towers. .

The design and manufacture of new Kremlin symbols was entrusted to the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute. Professor N.E. Zhukovsky with the participation of two Moscow defense plants. The sketches were approved by I.V. Stalin.

The preparation of sketches was entrusted to E.E. Lansere. On the first sketch, Stalin wrote: Okay, but it would be necessary without a circle in the center , with "without" underlined twice. Lansere quickly corrected everything and gave a new sketch for approval. Stalin again made a remark: Good, but it would be necessary without a fastening stick , and the word "without" was again underlined twice. After that, the development of a sketch of the stars was transferred to F.F. Fedorovsky.

When the sketches were created, life-size models of stars were made. The hammer and sickle emblems were temporarily encrusted with imitations of precious stones. Each mock-up star was illuminated by twelve spotlights. This is how the real stars on the Kremlin towers were supposed to be illuminated at night and on cloudy days. When the searchlights were turned on, the stars sparkled and sparkled with a myriad of colored lights.

The leaders of the party and the Soviet government came to inspect the finished models. They agreed to the production of stars with an indispensable condition - to make them rotating so that Muscovites and guests of the capital could admire them from everywhere.

Hundreds of people of various specialties participated in the creation of the Kremlin stars. For the Spasskaya and Troitskaya towers, the stars were made in the workshops of TsAGI under the guidance of the chief engineer of the institute, A. A. Arkhangelsky, and for the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers, at Moscow factories under the supervision of the chief designer.

The first Kremlin stars were made of red copper and stainless steel. Special electroplating shops were built for their gilding. In the center of each star, Ural gems (amethysts, topazes, alexandrites, rock crystal, aquamarines) laid out the symbol of the USSR - a hammer and sickle, covered with gold. In total, it took about 7 thousand stones ranging in size from 20 to 200 carats (one carat is equal to 0.2 grams).

From the report of Pauper, an employee of the operational department of the NKVD:

“Each stone is cut with a brilliant cut (73 facets) and, in order to avoid falling out, is embedded in a separate silver caste with a silver screw and nut. The total weight of all the stars is 5600kg.”

The drawing was unique for each star. So the Star of the Spasskaya Tower was decorated with rays from the center to the tops, the star of the Trinity Tower - ears of corn. On the Borovitskaya tower, the pattern of the star followed its contour. The star of the Nikolskaya tower was without a picture.

The stars of the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers were the same in size. The distance between the ends of their beams was 4.5 meters. The stars of the Trinity and Borovitskaya towers were smaller. The distance between the ends of their beams was 4 and 3.5 meters, respectively. The weight of the steel supporting frame, sheathed with metal sheets and decorated with Ural stones, reached a ton.

The design of the stars was designed for the load of a hurricane wind. Special bearings made at the First Bearing Plant were installed at the base of each star. Thanks to this, the stars, despite their considerable weight, could easily rotate and become their frontal side against the wind.

Star for the Nikolskaya Tower. 1935 ph. B. Vdovenko

Before installing the stars on the Kremlin towers, the engineers had doubts: would the towers withstand their weight and storm wind loads? After all, each star weighed an average of a thousand kilograms and had a sailing surface of 6.3 square meters. A careful study revealed that the upper floors of the vaults of the towers and their tents came to a dilapidated state. It was necessary to strengthen the brickwork of the upper floors of all the towers on which the stars were to be installed. In addition, metal ties were additionally introduced into the tents of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya towers. And the tent of the Nikolskaya Tower turned out to be so dilapidated that it had to be rebuilt.

Now the specialists of the All-Union office Stalprommekhanizatsiya L. N. Shchipakov, I. V. Kunegin, N. B. Gitman and I. I. Reshetov faced a responsible task - to raise and install stars on the Kremlin towers. But how to do that? After all, the lowest of them, Borovitskaya, has a height of 52 meters, and the highest, Troitskaya, is 77 meters. At that time there were no large cranes, but the specialists of Stalprommekhanizatsiya found an original solution. They designed and built a special crane for each tower, which could be installed on its upper tier. At the base of the tent, a metal base - a console - was built in through the tower window. On it, they assembled a crane.

The day came when everything was ready for the rise of the five-pointed stars. But first we decided to show them to Muscovites. On October 23, 1935, the stars were delivered to the Central Park of Culture and Leisure. M. Gorky and installed on pedestals upholstered with red calico. In the light of searchlights, gilded rays sparkled, Ural gems sparkled. The secretaries of the city and district committees of the CPSU (b), the chairman of the Moscow Council, arrived to inspect the stars. Hundreds of Muscovites and guests of the capital came to the park. Everyone wanted to admire the beauty and grandeur of the stars that were soon to flare up in the sky of Moscow.

Putting a thousand-kilogram stars on the towers of the Kremlin was not an easy task. The catch was that there was simply no suitable equipment in 1935. The height of the lowest tower, Borovitskaya, is 52 meters, the highest, Troitskaya, is 72. There were no tower cranes of such a height in the country, but for Russian engineers there is no word “no”, there is a word “must”.

Specialists of Stalprommekhanizatsiya designed and built a special crane for each tower, which could be installed on its upper tier. At the base of the tent, through the tower window, a metal base was mounted - a console. A crane was assembled on it. So, in several stages, the double-headed eagles were first dismantled, and then the stars were hoisted.

Star for the Trinity Tower in the Central Park of Culture and Leisure. M. Gorky

The installation of the Kremlin stars has become a real holiday for Moscow. The stars did not begin to be taken under the cover of night to Red Square. The day before the hoisting on the Kremlin towers, the stars were put on display in the Park. Gorky. Together with mere mortals, the secretaries of the city and district CPSU (b) came to see the stars, Ural gems sparkled in the spotlights and the rays of the stars sparkled. The eagles, taken from the towers, were installed here, clearly demonstrating the dilapidation of the "old" and the beauty of the "new" world.

On October 24, 1935, the first star was installed on the Spasskaya Tower. Before lifting, it was carefully polished with soft rags. At this time, the mechanics checked the winch and the crane motor.

At 12 hours 40 minutes, the command “Vira little by little!” The star broke away from the earth and began to slowly rise upwards. When she was at a height of 70 meters, the winch stopped. The climbers standing at the very top of the tower carefully picked up the star and pointed it at the spire. At 13:30, the star descended exactly on the support pin. Eyewitnesses of the event recall that on that day several hundred people gathered on Red Square to follow the operation. At that moment, when the star was on the spire, this whole crowd began to applaud the climbers.

The next day, a five-pointed star was installed on the spire of the Trinity Tower. On October 26 and 27, the stars shone over the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers. The installers worked out the lifting technique so well that it took them no more than an hour and a half to install each star. The exception was the star of the Trinity Tower, the rise of which, due to a strong wind, lasted about two hours. A little more than two months have passed since the newspapers published the decree on the installation of stars. To be exact - only 65 days. Newspapers wrote about the labor feat of Soviet workers, who created real works of art in such a short time.

However, the new symbols were destined for a short century. Already the first two winters have shown that due to the aggressive impact of Moscow rains and snow, both the Ural gems and the gold leaf that covered metal parts have faded. In addition, the stars turned out to be disproportionately large, which was not revealed at the design stage. After their installation, it immediately became clear: visually, the symbols are absolutely not in harmony with the slender tents of the Kremlin towers. The stars literally overwhelmed the architectural ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin. And already in 1936, the Kremlin decided to design new stars. The sketches were prepared by the famous theater artist and decorator, People's Artist of the USSR, Academician F.F. Fedorovsky. It was he who came up with the idea to use special ruby glass instead of metal to decorate star rays. He also redefined the shape, size and pattern of the stars.

In May 1937, the Kremlin decided to replace metal stars with ruby stars with powerful internal illumination. Moreover, Stalin decided to install such a star on the fifth Kremlin tower - Vodovzvodnaya: a stunning view of this slender and very architecturally harmonious tower opened from the new Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge. And it became another very advantageous element of the "monumental propaganda" of the era.

Ruby glass was brewed at a glass factory in Konstantinovka, according to the recipe of the Moscow glass maker N. I. Kurochkin. It was necessary to weld 500 square meters of ruby glass, for which it was invented new technology- selenium ruby. Prior to this, gold was added to the glass to achieve the desired color; selenium is both cheaper and the color is deeper. At the base of each star, special bearings were installed so that, despite their heaviness, they could rotate like a weather vane. They are not afraid of rust and hurricane, because the "rim" of the stars is made of special stainless steel. The fundamental difference is that weathercocks indicate where the wind is blowing, and the Kremlin stars indicate where. Have you understood the essence and significance of the fact? Due to the diamond-shaped cross-section of the star, it always stubbornly stands head-on against the wind. And any - up to a hurricane. Even if everything around is blown clean, the stars and tents will remain intact. That's how it's designed and built.

But suddenly the following was discovered: in the sunlight, ruby stars appear ... black. The answer was found - the five-pointed beauties had to be made two-layer, and the lower, inner layer of glass should be milky white, which scatters light well. By the way, this provided both a more even glow and hiding the filaments of lamps from human eyes. By the way, a dilemma also arose here - how to make the glow even? After all, if the lamp is installed in the center of the star, the rays will obviously be less bright. A combination of different thicknesses and color saturation of the glass helped. In addition, the lamps are enclosed in refractors consisting of prismatic glass tiles.

Professor Alexander Landa (Fishelevich) was appointed chief engineer for the development and installation of stars. His project is still kept in Samara - five massive albums of drawings in red bindings. They say they are no less impressive than the stars themselves.

But that's another story.

As for the first stars, one of them, which was located on the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin in 1935-1937, was later installed on the spire of the Northern River Station.

The Kremlin stars not only spin, but also glow. To avoid overheating and damage, about 600 cubic meters of air per hour is passed through the stars. The stars are not in danger of a power outage, since their power supply is autonomous. Lamps for the Kremlin stars were developed at the Moscow Electric Lamp Plant. The power of three - on the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Troitskaya towers - is 5000 watts, and 3700 watts - on Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya. In each, two filaments are mounted, connected in parallel. If one burns out, the lamp continues to burn, and a malfunction signal is sent to the control panel. To change the lamps, you do not need to climb to the star, the lamp goes down on a special rod right through the bearing. The whole procedure takes 30-35 minutes.

In the entire history, the stars went out only 2 times. The first time, during the Second World War. It was then that the stars were extinguished for the first time - after all, they were not only a symbol, but also an excellent beacon-landmark. Covered with burlap, they patiently waited out the bombardment, and when it was all over, it turned out that the glass was damaged in many places and needed to be replaced. Moreover, the accidental pests turned out to be their own - artillerymen who defended the capital from Nazi air raids. The second time Nikita Mikhalkov filmed his "The Barber of Siberia" in 1997.
The central control panel for star ventilation is located in the Trinity Tower of the Kremlin. The most modern equipment is installed there. Every day, twice a day, the operation of the lamps is visually checked, and the fans for blowing them are switched.

Once every five years, the glass of the stars is washed by industrial climbers.

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Tops of the spiers of the Moscow Kremlin towers in the form of five-pointed stars, made of ruby glass and installed instead of the Heraldic Eagles of the Russian Empire in the 1930s on the five towers of the Kremlin - Borovitskaya, Troitskaya, Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Vodovzvodnaya

Made according to the sketches of the People's Artist of the USSR, the chief artist of the Bolshoi Theater - Academician F. F. Fedorovsky in 1935-37.

The first five-pointed star was installed in 1935, it replaced the "Tsar's Eagle" on the Spasskaya Tower. Next, the stars were hoisted on the Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya and Troitskaya towers. Then, when the stars were replaced in 1937, the fifth star appeared on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, where before that state symbols had not been placed.

Xepec, Public Domain

Installing stars on the Kremlin towers

Dismantling the eagles

Double-headed eagles, being the state symbols of Russia, have been on the tops of the tents of the Kremlin towers since the 17th century. About once a century, the gilded copper eagles were changed, just as the image of the state emblem changed. At the time of the removal of the eagles, they were all of different years of manufacture: the oldest eagle of the Trinity Tower - 1870, the newest - the Spasskaya Tower - 1912.

After the Bolsheviks came to power, V. I. Lenin repeatedly spoke about the need to dismantle the double-headed eagles from the Kremlin towers. However, at that time, for various reasons, this was not done. On newsreel footage from the early 1930s, the towers of the Moscow Kremlin are still crowned with double-headed eagles.

unknown , Public Domain

In 1930, the operational department of the NKVD instructed specialists from the Central Art and Restoration Workshops, under the guidance of the famous Russian artist and restorer I. E. Grabar, to conduct an examination of the Kremlin's double-headed eagles. Academician Grabar, in his report to the manager of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR Gorbunov, wrote that "... none of the eagles that currently exist on the Kremlin towers is a monument of antiquity and cannot be protected as such."

A week later, on June 20, 1930, Gorbunov wrote to the secretary of the presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR A. S. Yenukidze:

"AT. I. Lenin several times demanded the removal of these eagles and was angry that this work was not done - I personally confirm this. I think it would be nice to remove these eagles and replace them with flags. Why should we keep these symbols of tsarism?
With communist greetings,
Gorbunov.

In an extract from the minutes of the meeting of the secretariat of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR dated December 13, 1931, there is a mention of a proposal to include 95 thousand rubles in the estimate for 1932 for the costs of removing eagles from the Kremlin towers and replacing them with the coats of arms of the USSR.

However, only in August 1935 did the Politburo issue a resolution:

“The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided by November 7, 1935 to remove 4 eagles located on the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya, Trinity towers of the Kremlin wall and 2 eagles from the building of the Historical Museum. By the same date, it was decided to install a five-pointed star with a sickle and a hammer on the indicated 4 towers of the Kremlin.

There were several proposals to replace the coat of arms with simple flags, as on other towers, the coats of arms of the USSR, gilded emblems with a sickle and a hammer. But in the end we decided to set the stars. The sketches were entrusted to the artist E. E. Lansere. On the first sketch with a five-pointed star, Stalin makes the remark: “Good, but it would be necessary without a circle in the center.” The word "without" is underlined twice. Lansere quickly corrected everything and again gave the sketch for approval. Stalin makes a very strange remark: "Good, but it would be necessary without a fastening stick." "Without" is again underlined twice. As a result, Lansere was removed from the project and the development of the stars was given to the artist F. F. Fedorovsky.

unknown , Public Domain

While the stars were being made, the builders-installers solved the main problem - how to actually remove the double-headed eagles from the towers and fix the stars. At that time, there were no large high-rise cranes that could help carry out this operation. Specialists of the All-Union office "Stalprommekhanizatsiya" developed special cranes that were installed directly on the upper tiers of the towers. Strong console platforms were built through the tower windows at the base of the tents, on which the cranes were assembled. The installation of cranes and dismantling of the eagles took two weeks.

Finally, on October 18, 1935, all 4 double-headed eagles were removed from the Kremlin towers. Due to the old design of the eagle from the Trinity Tower, it had to be dismantled right at the top of the tower. The work on removing the eagles and raising the stars was carried out by experienced climbers under the guidance and control of the operational department of the NKVD and the commandant of the Kremlin Tkalun. In the memorandum of the head of the Operations Department of the OGPU Pauker to I. V. Stalin and V. M. Molotov dated November 4, 1935, it is reported: “... I was instructed to remove the eagles from the Kremlin towers and from the Historical Museum by November 7, replacing them with stars. I report that this task of the Politburo has been completed ... "

Convinced that the eagles are of no value, the first deputy people's commissar of the NKVD wrote a letter to L. M. Kaganovich:

“I ask for your order: to issue 67.9 kilograms of gold to the NKVD of the USSR for gilding the Kremlin stars. The gold covering of the eagles will be removed and handed over to the State Bank.”

On October 23, 1935, the stars were delivered to the Central Park of Culture and Leisure named after Gorky and installed on pedestals upholstered in red calico. Muscovites and guests of the capital saw new symbols of state power shimmering with gold and Ural gems. Next to the golden stars sparkling from the light of the searchlights, they placed the removed eagles with stripped gold, sent the next day to be melted down.

gem stars

New gemstone stars weighed about a ton. The tents of the Kremlin towers were not designed for such a load.

The tents of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya towers had to be reinforced from the inside with metal supports and pins, on which it was planned to plant stars. A metal pyramid with a support pin for a star was installed inside the tent of the Borovitskaya Tower. A strong metal glass was installed on top of the Trinity Tower. The tent of the Nikolskaya Tower turned out to be so dilapidated that it had to be completely dismantled and rebuilt.

On October 24, a large number of Muscovites gathered on Red Square to watch the hoisting of a five-pointed star on the Spasskaya Tower. On October 25, a five-pointed star was installed on the spire of the Trinity Tower, on October 26 and 27 on the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers.

The first stars were made of high-alloy stainless steel and red copper. For gilding 130 m² of copper sheets, galvanizing shops were specially built. In the center of the star, the symbol of Soviet Russia, the hammer and sickle, was laid out with Ural gems. The sickle and hammer were covered with gold 20 microns thick, the pattern was not repeated on any of the stars.

The star on the Spasskaya Tower was decorated with rays that radiated from the center to the tops. The rays of the star mounted on the Trinity Tower were made in the form of ears of corn. On the Borovitskaya tower, the pattern repeated the contour of the five-pointed star itself. The star of the Nikolskaya Tower was smooth, without a pattern.

However, very soon the stars lost their original beauty. The soot, dust and dirt of the Moscow air, mixing with precipitation, made the gems fade, and the gold lost its luster, despite the spotlights illuminating them. In addition, they did not fully fit into the architectural ensemble of the Kremlin because of their size. The stars turned out to be too big and visually hung heavily over the towers.

Star, which in 1935-37. was located on the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin, later it was installed on the spire of the Northern River Station.

ruby stars

In May 1937, a decision was made to replace the semi-precious stars that had lost their luster with new stars - luminous, made of ruby glass. The reflected light of the Ural gems and gold was replaced by the light of powerful electric lamps. Ruby stars are made according to the sketches of the People's Artist of the USSR, the chief artist of the Bolshoi Theater - Academician F. F. Fedorovsky. Professor A. F. Landa was appointed chief engineer for the development and installation of new luminous stars.

kp.ru, CC BY-SA 3.0

On November 2, 1937, new ruby stars lit up over the Kremlin. To the four towers with stars, another one was added, which had not previously ended in the form of an eagle - Vodovzvodnaya.

ITAR-TASS, CC BY-SA 3.0

Unlike semi-precious stars, ruby ones have only 3 different patterns (Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya are the same in pattern), and the frame of each star is a multifaceted pyramid. Each beam of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya, Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya towers has 8, and each of the Nikolskaya towers has 12 faces.

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Design features

Special bearings are installed at the base of each star so that, despite their weight (more than 1 ton), they can rotate like a weather vane. The "frame" of the stars is made of special stainless steel produced by the Elektrostal plant near Moscow.

Each of the five stars has double glazing: the inner one is made of milky glass, which diffuses light well, and the outer one is made of ruby glass, 6-7 mm thick. This was done with the following goal: in bright sunlight, the red color of the stars would appear black. Therefore, a layer of milky-white glass was placed inside the star, which allowed the star to look bright and, in addition, made the filaments of the lamps invisible. Stars have different sizes. On Vodovzvodnaya, the beam span is 3 m, on Borovitskaya - 3.2 m, on Troitskaya - 3.5 m, on Spasskaya and Nikolskaya - 3.75 m.

Ruby glass was brewed at the Spetstekhsteklo plant in Konstantinovka according to the recipe of the Moscow glass maker N. I. Kurochkin. It was necessary to weld 500 m² of ruby glass, for which a new technology was invented - "selenium ruby". Prior to this, gold was added to the glass to achieve the desired color; selenium is both cheaper and the color is deeper.

Lamps for the Kremlin stars were developed by special order at the Moscow Electric Lamp Plant, they were developed by specialists from the lighting laboratory of the All-Union Electrotechnical Institute. Each lamp has two filaments connected in parallel, so even if one of them burns out, the lamp will not stop shining. The lamps were made at the Peterhof Factory of Precision Technical Stones. The power of electric lamps in the stars on the Spasskaya, Troitskaya, Nikolskaya towers is 5 kW, on Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya - 3.7 kW.

When solving the problem of uniform illumination of the stars, they immediately abandoned the idea of installing many light bulbs inside the star, therefore, to ensure a uniform distribution of the light flux, the lamp is enclosed in many glass prisms. For the same purpose, the glass at the ends of the rays of stars has a lower density than in the center. During the day, the stars are illuminated more strongly than at night.

During the Great Patriotic War, the stars were extinguished and covered with a tarpaulin, as they were a very good guide for enemy aircraft.

When the protective camouflage was removed, shrapnel damage from a medium and small caliber anti-aircraft defense battery of Moscow, located in the area of the Bolshoy Square of the Kremlin, became visible. The stars were removed and lowered to the ground for repairs. A complete restoration was completed by the New Year of 1946. In March, the stars were again raised to the towers. The stars were glazed in a completely new way this time. According to a special recipe developed by N.S. Shpigov, three-layer ruby glass was made. First, a flask was blown out of molten ruby glass, which was covered with molten crystal, and then with milk glass. The “puff” cylinder welded in this way was cut and straightened into sheets. Three-layer glass was made at the Krasny May glass factory in Vyshny Volochek. The steel frame was re-gilded. When the stars were lit again, they became even brighter and more elegant.

With these updated stars in September 1947, a grandiose celebration of the 800th anniversary of Moscow took place.

The central control panel for the control and ventilation of the stars is located in the Trinity Tower of the Kremlin. Every day, twice a day, the operation of the lamps is visually checked, and the blower fans are switched. To protect the stars from overheating, a ventilation system was developed, consisting of an air filter and two fans, one of which is a backup. Power outages are not terrible for ruby stars, as they are self-powered.

Stars are usually washed every 5 years. Scheduled preventive maintenance is carried out on a monthly basis to maintain the reliable operation of auxiliary equipment; more serious work is carried out every 8 years.

For the second time in its history, the stars were redeemed in 1996 during the filming of the Moscow night scene for the film The Barber of Siberia at the personal request of director Nikita Mikhalkov.

Red stars abroad of the USSR

Many socialist countries erected red stars over their public institutions as a symbol of state policy and ideology. From 1954 to 1990, a red star towered over the Central House of the BKP in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia - an exact copy of the Soviet ones that were erected over the Moscow Kremlin. Today this star can be seen in the Museum of Socialist Art. The red star was installed on the parliament building in Budapest, built in 1885 - 1904, and dismantled in 1990.

Since the 1990s, there has been public discussion about the appropriateness of Soviet symbols in the Kremlin. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin stars were not dismantled, unlike other (hammer and sickle, emblems on palaces, etc.) Soviet symbols in the Kremlin. Attitude to ruby stars in society is ambiguous.

Supporters of the return of double-headed eagles

A number of patriotic movements ("Return", "People's Cathedral", "For Faith and Fatherland", etc.), as well as Russian Orthodox Church take a certain position, declaring "that it would be fair to return to the Kremlin towers the double-headed eagles that have adorned them for centuries." In 2010, in connection with the opening of the gate icons of the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers, disputes about the appropriateness of ruby stars flared up with renewed vigor.

On September 10, 2010, a month before the 75th anniversary of the installation of stars over the Kremlin, members of the Return Foundation addressed the president with a proposal to return the double-headed eagle to the Spasskaya Tower, which caused a great wave of discussion in society, but no response was received from the president.

Star conservationists

The museum community is skeptical about the idea of replacing stars with eagles:

Consistently throughout the entire time of the discussion, the communists also oppose the replacement of stars.

The stars on the Kremlin towers appeared not so long ago. Until 1935, in the very center of the country of victorious socialism, there were still gilded symbols of tsarism, double-headed eagles. Under the cut is the difficult history of the Kremlin stars and eagles.

Since the 1600s, four Kremlin towers (Troitskaya, Spasskaya, Borovitskaya and Nikolskaya) have been decorated with symbols of Russian statehood - huge gilded double-headed eagles. These eagles did not sit on spiers for centuries - they changed quite often (after all, some researchers still argue what material they were made of - metal or gilded wood; there is evidence that the body of some eagles - if not all - was wooden, and other details - metal; but it is logical to assume that those first two-headed birds were made entirely of wood). This fact - the fact of the constant rotation of spire decorations - should be remembered, because it will later play one of the main roles during the replacement of eagles with stars.

In the first years of Soviet power, all double-headed eagles in the state were destroyed, all but four. Four gilded eagles perched on the towers of the Moscow Kremlin. The question of replacing the royal eagles with red stars on the Kremlin towers repeatedly arose shortly after the revolution. However, such a replacement was associated with large financial costs and therefore could not be carried out in the first years of Soviet power.

The real opportunity to allocate funds for the installation of stars on the Kremlin towers appeared much later. In 1930, they turned to the artist and art historian Igor Grabar with a request to establish the artistic and historical value of the Kremlin eagles. He answered: "... none of the eagles that now exist on the Kremlin towers represent an ancient monument and cannot be defended as such."

1935 parade. Eagles watch as Maxim Gorky flies and spoil the holiday of Soviet power.

In August 1935, the following TASS message was published in the central press: "The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided by November 7, 1935 to remove 4 eagles located on the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya, Troitskaya towers of the Kremlin wall, and 2 eagle from the building of the Historical Museum. By the same date, it was decided to install a five-pointed star with a sickle and a hammer on the indicated 4 towers of the Kremlin.

The design and manufacture of the first Kremlin stars was entrusted to two Moscow factories and workshops of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI). An outstanding decorator, academician Fedor Fedorovich Fedorovsky took up the development of sketches of future stars. He determined their shape, size, pattern. The Kremlin stars decided to make them from high-alloy stainless steel and red copper. In the middle of each star, on both sides, the hammer and sickle emblems laid out in precious stones were to sparkle.

All four stars differed from each other in decoration. So, on the edges of the Spasskaya Tower star there were rays emanating from the center. On the star of the Trinity Tower, the rays were made in the form of ears of corn. The star of the Borovitskaya Tower consisted of two contours inscribed one into the other. And the rays of the star of the Nikolskaya Tower had no pattern.

The supporting structure of the stars was made in the form of a lightweight but durable stainless steel frame. Framing decorations made of sheets of red copper were superimposed on this frame. They were covered with gold with a thickness of 18 to 20 microns. On each star, on both sides, the emblems of a sickle and a hammer, measuring 2 meters and weighing 240 kilograms, were strengthened. The emblems were decorated with precious Ural stones - rock crystal, amethysts, alexandrites, topazes and aquamarines. For the manufacture of eight emblems, it took about 7 thousand stones ranging in size from 20 to 200 carats (one carat is equal to 0.2 grams.) From the memorandum of Pauper, an employee of the NKVD operational department: in a separate silver caste with a silver screw and nut. The total weight of all stars is 5600 kg."

Star for the Nikolskaya Tower. 1935 ph. B. Vdovenko.

The frame of the emblem was made of bronze and stainless steel. Each precious stone was attached to this frame separately in a setting of gilded silver. Two hundred and fifty of the best jewelers in Moscow and Leningrad worked for a month and a half to create emblems. The principles of the location of the stones were developed by Leningrad artists.

The removed eagles were put on display there.

On October 24, 1935, the first star was installed on the Spasskaya Tower. Before lifting, it was carefully polished with soft rags. At this time, the mechanics checked the winch and the crane motor. At 12 hours 40 minutes, the command “Vira little by little!” The star broke away from the earth and began to slowly rise upwards. When she was at a height of 70 meters, the winch stopped. The climbers standing at the very top of the tower carefully picked up the star and pointed it at the spire. At 13:30, the star descended exactly on the support pin. Eyewitnesses of the event recall that on that day several hundred people gathered on Red Square to follow the operation. At that moment, when the star was on the spire, this whole crowd began to applaud the climbers.

The star from the Spasskaya Tower now crowns the spire of the River Station.

The first stars adorned the towers of the Moscow Kremlin for a short time. A year later, under the influence of atmospheric precipitation, the Ural gems faded. In addition, they did not fully fit into the architectural ensemble of the Kremlin because of their large size. Therefore, in May 1937, it was decided to install new stars - luminous, ruby. At the same time, one more tower was added to the four towers with stars - Vodovzvodnaya. Professor Alexander Landa (Fishelevich) was appointed chief engineer for the development and installation of stars. His project is still kept in Samara - five massive albums of drawings in red bindings. They say they are no less impressive than the stars themselves.

Ruby glass was brewed at a glass factory in Konstantinovka, according to the recipe of the Moscow glass maker N. I. Kurochkin. It was necessary to weld 500 square meters of ruby glass, for which a new technology was invented - "selenium ruby". Prior to this, gold was added to the glass to achieve the desired color; selenium is both cheaper and the color is deeper. At the base of each star, special bearings were installed so that, despite their heaviness, they could rotate like a weather vane. They are not afraid of rust and a hurricane, because the "rim" of the stars is made of special stainless steel. The fundamental difference is that weathercocks indicate where the wind is blowing, and the Kremlin stars indicate where. Have you understood the essence and significance of the fact? Due to the diamond-shaped cross-section of the star, it always stubbornly stands head-on against the wind. And any - up to a hurricane. Even if everything around is blown clean, the stars and tents will remain intact. That's how it's designed and built.

But suddenly the following was discovered: in sunlight, ruby stars appear ... black. The answer was found - the five-pointed beauties had to be made two-layer, and the lower, inner layer of glass should be milky white, which scatters light well. By the way, this provided both a more even glow and hiding the filaments of lamps from human eyes. By the way, a dilemma also arose here - how to make the glow even? After all, if the lamp is installed in the center of the star, the rays will obviously be less bright. A combination of different thicknesses and color saturation of the glass helped. In addition, the lamps are enclosed in refractors consisting of prismatic glass tiles.

A photo chistoprudov

From powerful lamps (up to 5000 watts), the temperature was heated up inside the stars, as in a locomotive firebox. The heat threatened to destroy both the bulbs of the lamps and the precious five-pointed rubies. The professor wrote: “It is quite clear that it is impossible to prevent the glass from bursting and cracking in case of rain or a change in the weather and the glass falling down. The fans work flawlessly. About 600 cubic meters of air per hour are passed through the stars, which completely guarantees against overheating.” The five-pointed Kremlin luminaries are not threatened with a power outage, since their power supply is autonomous.

Lamps for the Kremlin stars were developed at the Moscow Electric Lamp Plant. The power of three - on the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Troitskaya towers - is 5000 watts, and 3700 watts - on Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya. In each, two filaments are mounted, connected in parallel. If one burns out, the lamp continues to burn, and a malfunction signal is sent to the control panel. The mechanism for changing lamps is interesting: you don’t even have to climb to the star, the lamp goes down on a special rod right through the bearing. The whole procedure takes 30-35 minutes.

Fact 3. Five ruby ​​stars