Текст 1

On the western side of Cathedral Square stands the nine-domed Cathedral of the Annunciation The church was founded by Grand Prince Vasily (son of Dmitry Don-skoy) in 1397, but by 1480s this budding had been dilapidated.

Ivan 1П, having completed the Cathedral of the Assumption, commissioned a group of stonemasons from Pskov - some of the finest craftsmen in Russia - to re- construct the church.

The evolution of the Annunciation Cathedral was more complex than that of other Kremlin churches. The fire of 1547 seriously damaged the building and during the reconstruction of 1562 - 64 Ivan IV (who preferred elaborate churches) ordered four single-domed chapels to be added, one to each corner. Two further false domes were added to the western part of the original root to bring the grand total to nine, and the gallery was enclosed. Most remarkably, the domes, root and the top of the apses were covered with gold sheet, thus earning the Cathedral the name "gold topped." The gold apparently came from Novgorod, which was fully subjugated during Ivan's reign.

Ivan IV married for the fourth time in 1572. Under Orthodox law he was denied access to the Cathedral by the main entrance, and so he had an additional staircase. porch and chapel built on the south-eastern side.

The Tsar entered the building by the porch known as "Grosnensky" (lit. Temble's) and remained behind a grille during the service.

The frescoes of the narrow but lofty Cathedral of the Annunciation were painted in 1508 by a "brotherhood" of icon painters from a monastery led by the monk Feodosius (1470) - son of the noted Dionisius (painter of the Cathedral of the Assumption). The floor of the Cathedral is a warm-toned reddish-brown jasper said to have been a gift from the Shah EOT Persia and originally used in Rostov Cathedral. Together with the glowing murals and superb silver-gilt trained iconostasis it creates an impression of extraordinary luxury and richness in this most Russian of Cathedrals.

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The rectangular Granovitaya Palace is just between the Cathedral of the Annunciation and the Cathedral of the Assumption. It was designed along Ual-

ian lines. The name which might be translated as Faceted Palace, comes from the rusticated stone facing of the eastern side. The Italian influence would be more striking had the original Venetian windows not been replaced Osip Start-sev added the present beautiful window details in 1682. The roof also had been changed.

The so-called Red Staircase runs along the southern wall of the Palace From the ceremonial rooms on the first floor of the Palace the Tsars and Emperors would proceed down the great stairs to weddings and coronations in the Cathedral of the Assumption. Artamon Matveyev and several members of the Naryshkin family were thrown from the top of the stairs onto the pikes of the streltsy during the revolt of 1682. A century and a half later Napoleon watched the burning of Moscow from here. The historic stairs, restored today, were replaced in the 1930s by a two-storey dining-room annexed to the Great Kremlin Palace.

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