The Kremlin: The Fortress Behind Russian Power

this video is brought to you by surf shark safety and security online are critically important and you can protect yourself online with surfshark at 83 percent off and three months for free through the link in the description below [Music] during the frigid depths of the cold war there was one place that held the world's attention perhaps more than any other if you were part of nato that was nowhere more intriguing more perplexing than the very heart of the soviet union today the kremlin is both the seat of power in russia and a fortress that would almost certainly even leave the ocean's eleven teams stumped but it's also a sumptuous piece of architecture that tells the story of the ups and downs of the russian empire and the rise and fall of the soviet union if these walls could write what a tale they would tell [Music] before we get started on the vast behemoth in moscow the word kremlin actually means fortification in russian and there are at least 30 other kremlins around the country the earliest known examples would have been made of wood and directed along the borders but the process of replacing them with stone structures began in the 15th century perhaps two of the most famous of the kremlins in zariska built in 1531 and in tula built in 1520 both of which remain in excellent condition albeit with careful restoration work over the years but you didn't click on this video to hear about the zarisk and tula kremlins by far the most famous kremlin so much so that most people assume that it's a singular name is of course the huge fortress in central moscow the vast area covers 275 000 square meters that's nearly 3 million square feet about twice the size of the pentagon it's housed within fortress walls that stretch to a total of 2.2 kilometers or 1.3 miles and they're between 5 to 19 meters high and up to 6.4 meters thick in some places the now iconic red is in fact quite a contemporary change as up until the 19th century all the walls of the kremlin were painted white inside this wall which includes 20 defensive towers lie 18 individual buildings five palaces four cathedrals and arsenal it also acts as a museum with treasures estimated to be worth more than a billion dollars a bell tower and plenty of manicured garden areas just outside the walls lies the iconic red square with lenin's mausoleums and basil's basilica and a huge department store that's usually abbreviated simply to gum meaning main department store in russian [Music] the first fortress-like structure probably sprung up during the 11th century when the east slav people moved into the area but for a few centuries it was known as the grad of moscow this early wooden kremlin was gradually expanded throughout the 12th century before being destroyed by the marauding mongols in 1237 and entirely rebuilt in sturdy oak afterwards the oak was eventually traded for white limestone in the 14th century as the foundations of what we see today began to take shape much of the work done around this time focused on religious buildings with the cathedral of the annunciation the hadav monastery and the ascension convent all appearing in close succession but only the cathedral remains today with europe undergoing a profound cultural and architectural change grand prince ivan iii felt that the kremlin needed to be rebuilt in more of an elegant manner that still retained its fortress purpose he hired italian architects petrus antonius solarius to design the new walls and the towers and marco ruffo to design a new palace the walls as we see them today were constructed between 1485 and 1495. while around this period the three cathedrals still standing in the kremlin today along with the deposition church the palace facets and the ivan the great bell tower were also constructed once most major construction work was completed inside a 30-meter 98-foot wide boat was added to separate the kremlin from the rest of the city while any construction in the immediate vicinity was prohibited by royal decree now if you want to prohibit people from tracking your internet activity then you need to get with today's video sponsor surfsharkvpn do you use the internet well of course you do do you have personal information that you'd rather remain personal well of course you do well let me tell you something the internet is all kinds of weird there are people out there that want to ruin your day they want to take your details still your identity that's a real thing and it's a real pain in the ass surfshock has hacklock that searches databases for your passwords which sounds like a bad thing but no surf shark are the good guys if they find it they let you know you change your password boom back to the warm comfort of safety and while you're in that warm comfort of safety maybe you're like let us watch some netflix so you pop on some friday night lights clear eyes full hearts can't lose but what's this it's only available in the united states and you're in russia right outside the kremlin probably well not to worry surf shark will fix that right up boom sneaky now you're in the united states i personally choose miami because it's the first one on the list and the magic of the vpn technology means that you can watch whatever the u.s has on its netflix which is a much larger selection surf shark is also totally unlimited so if you want to download every season of dawson's creek in raw 8k i don't think they make that in raw ak but whatever you want you can download it there are no limits great support as well 30 day money back guarantee if you don't like it get 83 percent off and three months for free through the link in the description below or use my code mega and now let's get back to mother russia despite its splendor the kremlin was rarely used up until 1773 except for coronations the moscow uprising of 1682 essentially a power feud that erupted after the death of tsar theodore iii of russia saw some dark acts take place within the kremlin walls after the ten-year-old peter the great assuming he was just peter back then was installed as the new tsar a rival faction began stirring up trouble with the masses and within the army who were already unhappy with the superior officers on may 11 1682 rioters broke through and the kremlin was quickly overwhelmed a series of lynchings took place as vengeance was handed out to military leaders and the leading boyars who were the highest rank of feudal nobility six days later the kremlin was breached once again with two of sarpeda's uncles being executed in his presence days of looting in and around moscow followed with the result being a shared starship between peter and his older half-brother ivan who came from the other side of the warring faction the events understandably left a scar on the young peter who developed a firm hatred of the kremlin as a result which was no doubt more than just a small factor in his decision to move the capital to some petersburg a few decades later the kremlin came back into fashion in the 18th century when catherine the great hired vassaly bazanov to build her a new residence within the thick sturdy walls this structure was never actually started due to a lack of funds even after several buildings and even parts of its walls had been demolished in preparation in june 1812 french forces began streaming across russia in napoleon's ill-fated invasion of the largest country on the planet the story of the french staggering back into europa but a horrific russian winter is commonly known but what isn't often discussed is that the french army took the kremlin on the 2nd of september 1812 and they stayed there for just over a month as the air turned colder and supplies quickly dwindled once the decision had been taken to march back the way they'd come napoleon ordered that the kremlin be completely destroyed between the 21st and 23rd of october 1812 the french forces made a series of attempts but because of either poor weather that affected the fuses or just plain incompetence the damage was significantly less than the french leader had anticipated as the world crept into the 20th century there was another attack within the kremlin walls as anger grew over living conditions and russia's disastrous performance during the war with japan that ended in 1905. grand duke sergey alexandrovich of russia brother of emperor alexander iii of russia a member of the state council a lieutenant general and commander of moscow military district formally resigned his positions partly in protest at new measures being enacted by the tsar but no doubt also to shoulder some of the blame publicly on the 17th of february his carriage was passing through the nickelskaia tower of the kremlin when ivan caglia the member of the socialist revolutionary party's combat detachment standing near the gate through a nitroglycerin bomb that had been concealed in a newspaper directly into the lap of the unsuspecting duke the results were messy with the body completely blown apart and left strewn across the snow that lay on the ground what had been brewing for some time exploded into a full-scale revolution in march 1917 with the royal family meeting its untimely end when they were all gathered together and shot on the night of the 16th of july 1918. under soviet rule some significant changes were made to the kremlin not least that it became the seat of the government once again in 1918. vladimir lenin used the kremlin senate as his residence while his successor joseph stalin followed suit one new building that appeared was lenin's mausoleum which was completed in its present form in august 1924 after a temporary structure had been built immediately after his death and this is where his embalmed body has remained ever since except during a stint in world war ii when it was evacuated to siberia over fears that moscow would soon fall to the germans when joseph stalin died in 1953 initially he too was embalmed and installed next to lenin but during the destalinization period of the 1960s his body was moved to the kremlin wall necropolis which flanks both sides of the mausoleum the soviet era was also when the golden eagles on the towers were replaced by electric powered stars known as the kremlin stars that are made of ruby glass and weigh just over a ton each it was from these walls that soviet planning and strategy took place during the cold war and it was here that on the 26th of december 1991 the red soviet flag was slowly lowered for the final time to be replaced by that of the russian federation [Music] okay so that's the history of the kremlin let's take a look at some of the buildings that actually make up this hugely impressive area the newest edition was built in 1961 at the behest of nikita khrushchev who felt that communist party meetings deserve to be held in a more modern environment conscious not to dominate the skyline and obscure the famed towers it was designed so that 16 meters of the building is underground the result is well exactly the sort of thing you'd expect to come out of the soviet union in 1960. it was block-shaped severe but it still got some charm the main hall inside can hold 6000 people but the building itself comes with 800 rooms and is also the home of the kremlin ballet theater and the second stage of the bolshoi theater [Music] the star of the show in this glittering lineup has to be the grand kremlin palace which was built from 1837 to 1849. it is 124 meters 406 feet long 47 meters 154 feet high and has a total space of 25 000 square meters or roughly 269 000 square feet which spread over two floors although it appears from the outside to have three floors today it comes with five reception halls today used for official state functions and to sign international treaties and it is the official residence of the president of russia though it's rarely used in this way probably because vladimir putin apparently owns a palace complex located on the black sea thought to have cost around 1.3 billion dollars allegedly the grand kremlin palace also includes the terum palace which was the main residence of the russian tsars in the 17th century and was extensively renovated during the 1990s an effort that is estimated to have cost around a billion dollars nearly 2 billion today cathedral square lies near the center of the kremlin includes three cathedrals the cathedral of the assumption built between 1475 and 1479 was constructed using white stone in the italianate byzantine style and is topped by five golden domes the cathedral of the annunciation was completed in 1489 and built between 1562 and 64 after it was destroyed by fire and it includes nine domes the cathedral of the archangel michael lies on the southeast side of the square and was constructed in 1508 one of the most iconic buildings within the kremlin is the ivan the great bell tower built in 1508 and it's 81 meters that's 266 feet tall making it the highest structure in the area it has 22 bells 18 fairly small ones and four large ones one of which is named the uspensky bell and weighs 65.5 tons [Music] [Applause] there are numerous tantalizing mysteries about the kremlin and it's not hard to see why it's garnered so much attention one of the earliest rumors was that of the existence of an abandoned library underground that was constructed by ivan the terrible though only a series of caved in tunnels has so far been discovered staying underground there has long been a rumor that the kremlin is connected to a secret underground metro system that works in parallel to the public moscow metro metro 2 if you believe the stories includes four lines that connected the kremlin with the federal security service fsb headquarters the government airport at vunicovo ii and a huge underground bunker at ramenki and which lies 15 to 200 metres 165 feet to 660 feet below ground another line of thinking is that it's made up of a single line connecting various destinations and may have been an escape route and nuclear fallout shelter in the event of a war with the united states then there are other wonderfully intriguing tales of rooms being bugged with false walls and secret safes used to hide incriminating documents on political enemies and many a secret passageway is still thought to remain it's difficult to comprehend the political back and forth that must have gone on between these walls during the paranoid days of the soviet union where the fate of millions was decided many of which ended in death [Music] if you were from the west during the cold war there was nowhere on the planet quite as fascinating and no doubt as deeply unsettling as the kremlin there was a looming presence about the place that was often paired with the rousing ode to communism that was the state anthem of the soviet union images of enormous missiles inching past the kremlin during the many military parades only added to the sense of secrecy and aura that hung in the air during the days of the ussr it may be now nearly 30 years since the soviet flag fluttered in the wind above the kremlin but these buildings still retain their haunting paranoid beguiling charm that made the soviet union such a convenient enemy to the united states but the rise and fall of the soviet union is but a fraction of the story when we talk about the kremlin this fortress charts nearly a thousand years worth of history that has seen modern russia emerge at the end of it it has survived attacks both internally and externally and has also weathered some of the most dramatic social changes in modern history [Music] so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe also check out today's fantastic sponsor surf shark there's a link to them below and thank you for watching [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 284,626

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Id: ug6qVBceOMg

Length: 15min 54sec (954 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2021