Kremlin

A fortified settlement stood on Borovitsky Hill, where the Neglinnaya River meets the Moskva, and was known simply as the grad of Moscow into the 14th century; the word Kremlin itself was first recorded in 1331. Prince Yuri Dolgorukiy extended the fortress in 1156. Mongol forces destroyed it in 1237, and Ivan I Kalita rebuilt it in oak in 1339.

Dmitri Donskoi replaced the oak palisade with a citadel of white limestone in 1366–1368, on the foundations the present walls still follow. Accounts differ on what followed in 1382: one record has these new stone walls withstanding a siege by Khan Tokhtamysh, while Russian chronicles instead describe Tokhtamysh talking his way through the gates by deception and sacking the Kremlin, which was quickly rebuilt. Dmitri's son Vasily I resumed building work, and the Cathedral of the Annunciation was painted by Theophanes the Greek, Andrei Rublev and Prokhor in 1406.

Grand Prince Ivan III brought architects from Renaissance Italy to rebuild the Kremlin in brick and stone. Pietro Antonio Solari designed the new walls and towers, while Marco Ruffo designed a new palace; the surviving Palace of Facets and three of the Kremlin's cathedrals were built in this reign. The walls as they now stand went up between 1485 and 1495, and the Kremlin was separated from the merchant town of Kitay-gorod by a new moat. The Ivan the Great Bell Tower, begun in 1505–1508, was raised to its present height in 1600 and remained the city's tallest building under a construction ban that held until the 1917 Revolution.

Saint Basil's Cathedral was built across that moat during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, who also added a new palace and cathedral for his sons and endowed a Trinity monastery compound inside the Kremlin walls, its tower church of St Sergius later described by foreign visitors as one of the finest in the country.

During the Time of Troubles, Polish forces held the Kremlin for two years, from 21 September 1610 to 26 October 1612; its liberation by the volunteer army of Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin opened the way to the election of Mikhail Romanov as tsar. Under Mikhail, his son Alexis and grandson Feodor, builders added the Upper Saviour Cathedral, the Terem Palace and the Amusement Palace.

After the Moscow Uprising of 1682 and the death of Tsar Feodor, the young Peter fled the Kremlin with difficulty and came to dislike it; in 1703 he abandoned it for good in favour of his new capital, St Petersburg. The throne room known as the Golden Hall, painted probably after 1547, was later pulled down to make way for a Kremlin Palace commissioned by Empress Elizabeth and designed by Rastrelli in 1752.

French forces occupied the Kremlin from 2 September to 11 October 1812 during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. On retreating, Napoleon ordered the entire complex blown up; explosions over three days, from 21 to 23 October, destroyed the Arsenal, several stretches of wall and a number of towers and damaged the Faceted Chamber and other buildings by fire, but rain dampened the fuses and the destruction fell short of what was planned. Restoration ran from 1816 to 1819 under Osip Bove; several older structures were instead judged 'disused' and torn down.

Tsar Nicholas I later had the 1750s Rastrelli palace and the nearby 1508 church of St John the Precursor demolished, and commissioned Konstantin Thon to build the Grand Kremlin Palace on the site, completed in 1839–1849 to rival the Winter Palace in St Petersburg.

The Soviet government moved from Petrograd to Moscow on 12 March 1918, and Vladimir Lenin took the Kremlin Senate as his residence; Joseph Stalin had the golden eagles on its towers replaced with shining stars. The Chudov Monastery and Ascension Convent were demolished to build a military school, along with the Little Nicholas Palace and the old Saviour Cathedral. In all, 28 of the Kremlin's 54 historic buildings — 17 of its 31 churches and cathedrals — were destroyed under Soviet rule.

During the Second World War the towers were repainted and covered in wooden tents, roofs painted rust-brown and courtyards spread with sand, to disguise the complex from German pilots. Closed to tourists until 1955, the Kremlin reopened to foreign visitors during the Khrushchev Thaw; its museums were established in 1961, and the complex was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1990. It remains a federally protected cultural heritage site and the official residence of the President of the Russian Federation.