Short History Of... - The Kremlin

Episode Date: September 15, 2024

Over roughly a thousand years, the Kremlin has come to symbolise Russia itself, with all its varying fortunes, allegiances, and leaders. It’s a physical location that has become synonymous with government and nationhood. Through war and peace, Russia’s leaders have always striven to forge their own identities alongside that of this famous old complex.  But what were the origins of this forbidding citadel? How did it become intrinsically linked to the rise of Moscow? And what of its enemies - from the Mongols, to Napoleon, to Hitler, who have attempted to strike against it? This is a Short History Of….The Kremlin. A Noiser Production, written by Dan Smith. With thanks to Professor Catherine Merridale, author of Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin. And John Sweeney, author of Killer in the Kremlin. Get every episode of Short History Of a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material, and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the 1st of May, 1918, and the sun is rising over Moscow. In a small basement workshop beneath the mighty red walls of the Kremlin, Russia's historic center of power, a young woman sits at a sewing machine. Its needle clatters through yet another row of stitching. She is one of a platoon of female workers who have been toiling day in, day out for weeks, creating vast seas of red fabric for a very special project. Finally, she is finished. She scrapes back her stool and joins several other women who have their own rolls of material ready to go carrying the bolts as best

they can they stumble through the basement door and climb to ground level then once outside they rush across the cobbles towards one of the kremlin's famous towers it may be early but nearby red square is alive with activity carpenters hammer away at a hastily constructed stage a foreman barks orders as a team of workers string up a seemingly endless double row of red flags they serve as a corridor into the kremlin the city's mighty complex of buildings, grand palaces, and churches with spectacular spires and gilded cupolas, all contained within colossal walls. Just half a year has passed since Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government and seized power. And only a couple of months ago did Lenin's Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government and seized power.

And only a couple of months ago did Lenin decree that Moscow is to serve as the nation's capital for the first time since 1712. The new regime has set aside today for celebration. There is to be a workers' carnival, a chance to mark the victory of the world's first proletariat revolution. The Kremlin needs to look at best, dressed, of course, in red, the color of the Bolsheviks. Approaching the tower, the woman meets a team of workmen, their cigarettes smoldering in the dawn air like fireflies. a team of workmen, their cigarettes smoldering in the dawn air like fireflies. She and her colleagues hand over their bolts of fabric, and the men promptly set about affixing them to the tower.

Soon, it is completely swaddled in red. The woman wanders back across the square, passing other workers tying evergreen garlands, evocative of new beginnings. A little further along, she calls hello to a team of gardeners tending the graves of those who have died in the recent struggles. The bells of the Kremlin's Saviour Tower ring in the morning, reminding the woman that she should head off. Her husband needs his breakfast before he makes his way to the square, ready to take his place as flag carrier with his fellow workers to march in the shadow of the Kremlin.

It is a day for commemorating the past and looking to the future, to a world that promises equality and plenty. As the seamstress makes her way home through the early morning breeze, she is content that she has played her part. Decking out the Kremlin in Bolshevik red, ready for whatever challenges are to come. Doing her bit towards writing in this venerable old institution's already storied history. Over roughly a thousand years, the Kremlin has come to symbolize Russia itself, with all its varying fortunes, allegiances, and leaders. Like the White House and 10 Downing Street, it is a physical location that has become synonymous with government and nationhood.

Through war and peace, siege and safety, the Kremlin has ultimately stood firm. And Russia's leaders have always striven hard to forge their own identities alongside that of this famous old complex. But what were the origins of this forbidding citadel? How did it become intrinsically linked to the rise of Moscow and Russia itself? And what of its enemies, from the Mongols to Napoleon to Hitler, who have attempted to strike against it? I'm John Hopkins from the Noisa Network.

This is a short history of the Kremlin. Sitting on Borovitsky Hill and nestled between the Moskva River, the Alexander Gardens, and Red Square, the Kremlin remains one of the world's most imposing structures. Its famous red, crenelated walls, punctuated by 20 stunning towers, stretch for nearly a mile and a half around a 27-hectare site, about the size of 40 football pitches. In places, the walls soar over 60 feet high and are up to 20 feet thick. With its domes and tent roofs, it has a distinctly Russian feel, but it also wears

international influences, especially from the Italian Renaissance. Within its walls are four cathedrals, though not the famous onion-domed St. Basil's Cathedral, which sits just outside them. There are palaces and, of course, the offices and official residence of the Russian president, a curious mixture of power hub and national museum. Professor Catherine Merredale, author of Red Fortress, History and Illusion in the Kremlin, has previously worked within the complex. Its enticing combination of aesthetic beauty and rich history attracts over a million visitors a year, but Professor Merredale was granted special access inside, using a Kremlin office for research.

I would go first thing in the morning on an autumn day. Those limestone buildings, the Italian buildings, are so lovely. And the light is very beautiful. And it's very hard to believe you are where you are, because there is Moscow all around you, with all the noise, all the horns, all the sort of diesel fumes, all the stress. And inside you're in another world. And it must be very difficult for somebody who works in the Kremlin to relate to what's going on outside. And you are actually physically higher up because it's on a hill. Another to have visited is journalist John Sweeney, author of

Killer in the Kremlin. You know, I've been inside the Kremlin, I've been inside those great big red walls to actually have a one-to-one with Putin's PR man about the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. And when you walk through the doors, the great gates of the Kremlin, you get inside, you feel like you're in the center of Russian power. And the Kremlin is

massive in terms of it's an enormous space, you know, literally it takes you quite a while to drive around. And you can't forget the fact that when you walk into those, through those gates, you can't be certain that you can leave them. You can't be certain that you'll be let out again alive. That is the Kremlin now. But what are the origins of this multifaceted institution? There are, in fact, several Kremlins in Russia, a Kremlin being a citadel or fortress within a city But the Moscow Kremlin is THE Kremlin It was never a typical sort of European fortress, with one large castle in the middle

Instead, it is an enclosed, protected space containing buildings with all sorts of purposes, military, civil, and religious. A place of refuge in times of trouble. Yet originally, neither the Kremlin nor Moscow itself were the formidable places we recognize today. It's probably in the 10th century that the first basic fortified wooden structure, It is probably in the 10th century that the first basic fortified wooden structure, known as a grad, is built on what becomes Borovitsky Hill. The location is naturally defended, rising as it does above a confluence of rivers and

surrounded by woods. The name of Moscow may mean something like the Marshy Place. But the site's first significant walls are in place no later than 1156. At this time, what marks Moscow out is its relative isolation at the edges of not Russia, but Kievan Rus'. And their capital was at Kiev, which is the capital of Ukraine now, which is the heart of ancient Rus' lands. And it was a city that looked southwards to Constantinople and westwards to Europe. And Moscow, with its little fortress, was in the woods somewhere far off to the east,

and nobody was interested, and nobody wanted to have anything to do with it. So it was a backwater, but a protected backwater. And it was first fortified probably sometime in the 10th century. And the original story of the Kremlin dates back to the 11th century. One of the grand princes of the Rus, the clans that ran what is now Russia, the sort of that huge geopolitical space, the head of one of the clans invited one of his relatives to meet him and said, come to see me in Moscow.

However, it is not until the 13th century that Moscow starts to grow in significance, thanks in no small part to persistent invasions by the Mongols. In 1240 they sack Kiev, prompting the leaders of Kievan Rus' to search for a base somewhere safer, in the wooded lands beyond. It's a pivotal moment in Moscow's and the Kremlin's history. and the Kremlin's history. When Kiev was sacked in 1240, a lot of the Grand Princes moved to the northeast and with them went the head of the Orthodox Church

in the Rus lands. He was actually called the Metropolitan and he was the Metropolitan in charge of the entire religious life of these people. Now, religion and politics have always been very closely linked among the Rus princes and continued to be closely linked to power in Russia ever since. And it's one of the trends in Russian history that the Kremlin embodies. New, sturdy wooden fortifications are built, but they cannot hold out against their enemies

Over the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mongols execute successive waves of attacks to reinforce their supremacy Forcing frequent rebuilding of the defenses And the materials used are far from ideal The wooden walls are prone to catching a blaze are far from ideal. The wooden walls are prone to catching a blaze. But the Kremlin is about to get its next major facelift. In 1325, Moscow falls under the rule of Crown Prince Ivan I. He arrives at an accommodation with the Mongol Golden Horde, by now the region's imperial rulers, collecting taxes on their behalf in return for some degree of protection.

The deal provides him with status among the other crown princes and the opportunity to upgrade the Kremlin. Just a year into his reign, Ivan and the Metropolitan lay the foundation stone for a cathedral on the Kremlin Hill. Moscow's first permanent stone building, the Cathedral of the Dormition as it is known, is said to become the most important church in Moscow. And when the Metropolitan expresses his desire to be buried inside, at a stroke, the Kremlin becomes the center of Russian Orthodox Christianity. It sparks a period of development that culminates in 1367 when Prince Dmitry Donskoy replaces the old wooden walls with shimmering white limestone ones.

The development quickly proves its defensive credentials by repelling a series of incursions by Lithuanian troops. Within 15 years, though, these too are breached, not by force, but by the cunning of the old Mongol enemy intent on reimposing their authority. And in 1382, one of the Mongol khans, a man called Tokhtamysh, arrived outside the stone walls, which he could not breach. And he said to the mayor of Moscow or the leader of the Moscow citizenry inside the Kremlin, those are beautiful stone walls. I just love to see how you did it. Can I bring my men inside and have a look? And they said, please do. Yes, we're very proud of them too. And that was when they all got murdered, burnt to death and the Kremlin was sacked.

Now operating under the Mongol yoke, over the next few decades, Moscow's ruling princes attempt to rebuild the Kremlin and its environs. But it's an uphill struggle. Not only is there the war damage to contend with, but the elements also take their toll. The Muscovy region the princes control, by now stretching several hundred thousand square miles, suffers earthquakes, and those new limestone walls turn out to be just as susceptible to fire as the wooden ones. The complex is in a sorry state of repair. But in 1462, a new prince comes

to power, Ivan III, who will come to be known as Ivan the Great. He understands that, as far as most of Europe is concerned, Moscow is a remote, distant royal court with a reputation for uncouthness. Its religion is looked down upon by many European Catholics, and the reports sent back by their rare visitors are frequently uncomplimentary. But Ivan is determined that his Kremlin will reflect the growing power of his Grand Duchy, which has been busy assimilating and unifying Russian territory. In the 1470s, he wages war against the nearby Novgorod Republic, ruthlessly plundering

its wealth and even taking its cathedral bell back to Moscow. By also claiming many of its skilled stonemasons, he can start building on an unprecedented scale, and sets about laying the foundations of the Kremlin as we know it today. Already married once and widowed, in 1472 Ivan is approached by envoys from Rome with a proposal for a new marriage. Sophia is a Byzantine princess whose family fled to Italy during an Ottoman attack. In Rome, she has been taken under the wing of the Pope, whose emissaries likely hope the suggested union will ultimately subsume the Russian Orthodox

Church into their own. Ivan's position as head of a remote and misunderstood principality has made it difficult for him to marry into any of Europe's great royal families. Now he jumps at the chance of winning a princess, although he has no intention of ceding the Orthodox Church to the Vatican. The slightly odd couple wed. She is cruelly described as the ugliest woman in Europe, while Ivan is said to possess such a terrifying aspect that he can make women faint with a single glance. Nor can either speak the other's language. Yet their partnership is shaping up to be a happy and productive one. She is determined to make her mark on Moscow, and crucially, she has maintained her links to Italy's Renaissance architects and

craftsmen. She brought in her train a lot of Italian scholars, thinkers, and she decided she would turn this ruffled place into a European court and she persuaded Ivan now loaded with money and determined to make himself look like an emperor she persuaded him to employ an Italian architect to build a new cathedral and thus arrived in Moscow Aristoteles Fioravanti who built a new cathedral on the site of the one that Ivan I had built. And that is the cathedral that's still there now. For Fioravanti, the gig is not quite what he expects. He has intended to travel to Moscow, oversee the project, and return with a handsome haul of gold.

But Ivan has other plans. Architects like him do not come around often, so he refuses to let the Italian leave. Fioravanti never sees his homeland again. A pool of architects is charged with constructing much of the Kremlin's new red brick walls and several of its towers. Inside the perimeter, major new buildings spring up, like the Palace of Facets, with its distinctive facade comprising rows of sharp-edged stone. In Ivan's mind, he is turning Moscow into the Third Rome, after Rome itself and then Constantinople. There is still a long way to go, but the Kremlin is beginning

to take the form that it will largely maintain for the next five and a half centuries. A mighty stone and brick fortress amid a sea of low-rise wooden shops and homes beyond its walls. But it's a fraught process. Even as he continues to impose his military might, there are other, unexpected threats. It's 1493, a couple of miles from the Kremlin, at central Moscow's Church of Nicholas on the Sand. The evening is drawing in, and the priest is finishing up for the day. He is herding out the last of the worshippers, their voices trailing off into the distance as he closes the heavy church door behind them with a thud.

He breathes in deeply. Perfect peace at last. He makes a last survey of the church, the largest building in the neighborhood, his footsteps echoing in its great emptiness. One by one, he snuffs out the candles lit by the congregation. Then he leaves by a side door, closing it behind him and locking it. A passerby calls out a greeting as he heads home for his dinner and his bed. But inside the church, one of those candles is still alight, its gentle flame flickering in the dusky light. Then, unseen, it topples from its place on the altar, rolling along the floor and coming to a halt at the base of a wall hanging. The fabric catches alight at its bottom corner, and soon the flames are rising upwards, gathering speed, until they're climbing the walls to the beams above.

This is a populous part of the city, and it's not long before the smoke, and then the fire, is noticed by the neighbors. Rushing to see what's happening, they shout to raise the alarm and begin to evacuate those who have stayed inside their homes. Someone rushes off after the priest. Others do their best to dampen the flames, but it is an unwinnable fight. It is an unwinnable fight. Panic reaches a crescendo. By the time the priest is found, the conflagration has spread through the mostly wooden-built district. When he arrives, he watches helplessly as the whole neighborhood goes up. The piteous sound of crying and screaming fills his ears,

along with the deathly crack of timbers splintering in the heat he prays to god but there is no divine intervention the fire spreads from the neighborhood further and further out ravaging large parts of the city center and making it as far as the kremlin although its mighty walls offer some resistance even they cannot hold out against the flames many of its remaining wooden buildings succumb and several of its stone edifices suffer major damage too all from a candle worth a single copec the smallest unit of currency worth a single kopek, the smallest unit of currency. When rebuilding begins, Ivan decrees that there should be clear ground between the Kremlin and the rest of the city. An already fire-damaged area bordering the walls is razed to the ground to serve as a firebreak and make defense of the citadel easier.

Over time, it is developed into what becomes known as Red Square. Ivan dies in 1505, but his successor continues his building works, overseeing completion of the Kremlin walls and the construction of the new Archangel Cathedral. Moscow is by now awash with skilled artisans from both Italy and Constantinople, ready to witness the rise of the man who becomes known as Ivan the Terrible. The first ruler to be crowned Tsar of all Russia, rather than merely Grand Prince of Muscovy, Ivan IV's early reign is marked by another inferno. But because this one destroys large chunks of the Kremlin, it offers a chance for Ivan to stamp his mark on the city. Work begins on the magnificent St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square,

with its colorful ice- cream swirl domes. Commissioned to celebrate his military victories, it's a building without stylistic precedent in Moscow or anywhere else. Despite being outside of the Kremlin walls, it becomes one of the defining symbols of the Russian state and culture. one of the defining symbols of the Russian state and culture. As for the Kremlin itself, Ivan recognizes it as the stage from which he can project his power. The virtually constant cycle of works provides much employment, although not always of a very desirable sort. But it's not the kind of employment that a builder in this country now would expect.

You're not being hired and paid and you're free to go. You're virtually slave labor and you're corralled into one of these districts in Moscow where you must work. And people are being brought from all over Russia. Because the problem with the Russian lands is not a lack of resources. There's plenty of wood, there's plenty of limestone, plenty of bricks. It's a lack of skilled people. And so skilled people are constantly being brought in and forced to work for the Tsar. Faced with a mostly illiterate court, Ivan takes the opportunity to promote his own regal credentials within the fabric of the Kremlin

in a format they can understand. Interiors are painted with stories designed to show the Tsar as heir to the Roman Emperor Augustus, chosen by God and Russia's anointed protector. But as the years pass, his rule becomes increasingly autocratic and savage. A combination of challenges takes its toll, including drought, famine, the death of his first wife from suspected poisoning, as well as foreign policy and military troubles. He becomes unpredictable, prone to legendary fits of anger. Most famously, during an apparent row about the clothing choices of his daughter-in-law, Ivan strikes his son with his staff. The resulting head wound is so severe that the young man, Ivan's heir, dies. Ivan's nickname is well-earned and is reflected in his

court. It's almost, you could call him Ivan the Unusually Terrible, because when the enemy was killed, he put them on spikes and lined the approaches to his cities with this awful spectre. The Kremlin is still, of course, the centre of a court which is full of people who are doing things like poisoning each other or murdering each other, breaking each other on wheels, setting fire to each other. It's not a nice place in the middle of the 16th century. As the focal point of power, the stakes are always high within the Kremlin. Inevitably,

word spreads of the dark deeds that sometimes occur within its secretive walls. And so it becomes a byword for intrigue and danger among the population at large. mess with the Kremlin. When Ivan dies in 1584, his son Ferdor, the next available heir, is ill-suited to the role of Tsar. Power is wielded in practice by Boris Godunov, effectively the Tsar's regent. After Ferdor dies, Boris takes the throne for himself, keeping together a country that has suffered much under his recent predecessors. But though wealthy, Boris doesn't hail from one of Moscow's old ruling clans, and knows that he must assert his authority

to those who consider him unworthy. And what better way to state his personal power than with grand architectural statements. He extends, for instance, the Ivan the Great bell tower, so that it becomes by far the highest building in the city, topped by a golden cupola. But there are some problems that no individual can fix. But there are some problems that no individual can fix. At the beginning of the 17th century, the climate was beginning to get colder across the whole of the Northern Hemisphere, and the harvests were failing in Russia,

and a famine started in the early 17th century that he could not assuage. He couldn't do anything to stop it. He couldn't feed everybody. He tried. He did all sorts of good things, like giving out food in Moscow, only to find that it was being taken by corrupt officials and sold on the black market instead of going to the people. I mean, he did everything he could.

But ultimately, his rule failed. He dies in 1605. But his 16-year-old heir holds the crown for just a month before he and his mother are murdered by political rivals. The ensuing power vacuum in the Kremlin, the so-called Time of Troubles, sees the crown passed from one short-lived Tsar to another. Amid the uncertainty, social institutions fail and lawlessness takes hold. In 1611, the Kremlin falls to Polish invaders, who ransack it and

embark on murderous raids on the streets of Moscow. And it shows how, without a legitimate ruler in the Kremlin, it's very hard to hold this place together. Because there is no tradition of consolidated society. It's always been an oppressed patchwork of semi-independent areas that don't like being told what to do, but can be held together by the ruler in the Kremlin. Then, in 1612, the Poles are kicked out and Michael Romanov emerges. A native Muscovite cousin of the earlier Tsar Feodor and a lightning rod for patriotic fervor,

his rule begins a dynasty that will reign for over 300 years. Among his priorities is yet another overhaul of the Kremlin. Employing some of Europe's most skilled builders and engineers, he oversees the addition of tented roofs to many of the buildings, most famously the Red Brick Saviour or Spasskaya Tower next to Red Square, a construction destined to become one of the defining symbols of Russia itself. And you can actually read the accounts of what they had to do, because there are surveyor's reports which would make your hair stand on end.

The state of the walls, the state of the foundations, the dead bodies found in barrels, The state of the walls, the state of the foundations, the dead bodies found in barrels, the skulls, the burnt places, the absolute ruination and the amount of money it was going to cost. A devastated, wrecked country, which could, of course, have spent the money on the equivalent of schools and hospitals, but it spent it on rebuilding this emblem of statehood, prosperity, and godly rule. The creation of new palaces, cathedrals, and gates carries on under the next few Romanov Tsars. But in 1682, the accession of 10-year-old Peter incites domestic squabbling that develops into a full-scale uprising, events that profoundly impact the boy. In his childhood, he witnessed one of the many popular uprisings

that came to the Kremlin demanding change and saw one of his mother's closest friends being speared to death underneath the windows of the building where he was standing. So, I mean, for him, the Kremlin was bloodstained. Peter hangs on to the crown, but his relationship with Moscow is persistently strained. He grows to loathe the hours of religious ceremony inherent in Kremlin life, often endured in heavy, jewel-encrusted robes and fur hats, whatever the weather. Having lived it up on his travels to far-flung corners of Europe, Moscow seems dreary in

comparison. The way he sees it, the time is ripe for a shake-up of the status quo. In 1712, he takes the momentous decision to move the capital to St. Petersburg, a metropolis he has had built over the last few years, largely by conscripted peasants. He said, I want a capital that looks towards Europe, breaks with the old traditions, allows Russia to modernize. So we're going to get rid of all these beards. We're going to have New Year's start on the same day as Europe's New Year does, not September the 1st, as it did in Russia up to that point. We're going to start being a European state. I want to be a European emperor, not some tin pot czar out in the woods. For many ordinary Russians, though,

the change is difficult to accept. They don't want a European-style court. They want their old Russian one, even in the knowledge that it will be filled with aristocrats sitting with their feet up, abusing the regular folk struggling through the mud and hardships. The Kremlin may not be centre of the court anymore, but its popular symbolic power remains. be center of the court anymore, but its popular symbolic power remains. It is here, for instance, that the Tsars continue to be crowned, conferring legitimacy on their rule. Despite its demotion, the Kremlin is not altogether neglected. Peter's daughter commissions new building works in the 1750s, as does Catherine the Great a few decades later. The famous red walls are whitewashed,

recalling their much earlier form. But there is no escaping the fact that the complex, now on the periphery of national life, is looking jaded. Not enough, though, to put off one famous interloper. to put off one famous interloper. It's June 1812 when the French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, leads an international army of some 450,000 men against Russia. He is furious she won't recognize the French blockade of Britain, but has framed the invasion as a battle of emancipation from czarism.

It is a brutal campaign. At the Battle of Borodino, nearly 75,000 men lose their lives in the bloodiest single-day battle in European history. But for Napoleon, the path is now clear through to Moscow. The Russian forces calculate they must sacrifice the city to have any chance of saving the rest of the country. There is a mass exodus of troops ahead of the French arrival a week later. I think it's very easy to forget is they regarded themselves as liberators. They were there to free Russia from the yoke of czarist autocracy and give these people French rational revolutionary government, which was going to be so much better for them. And the French army moved through the suburbs of

Moscow, marvelling at the Kremlin as they saw it on the horizon, at its kind of barbaric beauty and these spectacular onion domes and all the gold and how wonderful this was going to be. Planning to make straight for the Kremlin, Napoleon finds the streets of Moscow eerily quiet as his army passes through. But inside the red walls, a surprise awaits. A rump of 500 Russian troops who stayed behind have been joined by a crowd of largely drunken civilians intent on disrupting the invasion

An advanced party of Napoleon's men are caught up in skirmishes, but in truth, the defenders are no match for them A little delayed, Napoleon enters his newest seat of power He doesn't have long to enjoy it, though. Sentry guards on the high Kremlin walls spot several small fires illuminating the night sky. He watches from a window as their number and ferocity increase. It's a concerted campaign of arson by the retreating Russians, and soon great swathes of the city are ablaze. The firestorm continues for days.

Napoleon and many of his most senior men escape the Kremlin through a secret passage. But for those stuck in Moscow, be they French or Russian, conditions are terrible. Thousands die in the fires, and many more are left homeless, starving and desperate. All the while, the French conquerors exact terrible revenge on the locals for their act of willful defiance, chopping down suspected perpetrators, looting at will, and desecrating churches. The Kremlin, though, remains largely intact, and, once the fires subside, Napoleon returns. He sulkily lounges on a Damask chaise as his troops plunder the city and try to figure

out how to feed themselves and their horses. Napoleon carries on much as normal, inspecting and drilling his soldiers daily, even hiring musicians to play to him as the nights draw in. But when the snows arrive in October, he is forced to accept that there is no way they can survive a dismal Russian winter out here. He puts his man to the task of assets stripping the kremlin and sets in motion his exit strategy it's half past midnight on the 21st of october 1812. a young sapper in the French army shivers in the chilly drizzle of the Moscow night. He has just one task to do before he can march out of the Kremlin for the last time.

Huffing and puffing, he rolls a heavy barrel across the cobblestones. He can hardly wait to get away from this desolate place. Napoleon left a couple of days earlier, after plotting his final revenge on the city. excellent place. Napoleon left a couple of days earlier, after plotting his final revenge on the city. How things have changed. Only a few short weeks ago, senior officers had expected such a high time in the Kremlin that they'd packed their evening dress. But that was before Moscow was transformed into a hostile wasteland.

The sapper hauls his barrel to the base of Ivan the Great's bell tower. Napoleon had hoped to carry off its crowning golden cross, only to discover that it was merely painted wood. But there has been plenty of other treasure, including over 600 pounds of real gold, that the French have helped themselves to. Having claimed his booty, Napoleon's orders are for the destruction of all that remains behind. The sapper's barrel is laden with explosives, just one of countless similar barrels placed all around the Kremlin. Now the young Frenchman sets a long fuse and, along with a few remaining troops, races to get clear.

Hurrying through Moscow's deserted streets, he passes the bodies of humans and horses discarded like rubbish these last few days. He is near the front of the retreating army and is made good distance when his ears fill with the noise of a huge explosion, the first in a succession. Loud enough that even Napoleon, 25 miles away by now, can surely hear it. Despite his distance from the epicenter, the sapper feels the vibrations rise from the earth through his body. Windows shatter all around him. He throws himself to the ground to avoid flying shards of glass. In the distance, he can make out chunks of the Kremlin's outer walls crashing down along with several of the towers.

But the rain has worked against them tonight, dampening many of the fuses. Napoleon's last savage blow against the city has only partially met his goals. He promised the destruction of the Kremlin. But, wounded, it still survives. With the French gone, the locals gradually return to the citadel to inspect the damage. They discover a scene of devastation. Buildings collapsed, cathedrals used as stables and deep with horse dung, walls desecrated with graffiti, and even records of the gold melted down and stolen. But Tsar Alexander, emboldened by the sense that Russia has seen off Napoleon and helped save Europe from the yoke of his tyranny, has big plans for the Kremlin.

and helped save Europe from the yoke of his tyranny, has big plans for the Kremlin. Those buildings that can't be saved are torn down and new ones erected, influenced by the fashionable neo-Gothic style. A new cathedral is built to commemorate what is being framed as the victory over the French, while beyond the walls, Red Square takes its now familiar shape, and the Alexander Gardens are landscaped for the first time. Even as Moscow continues to play second fiddle to St. Petersburg for the rest of the century, Alexander's successors add their own embellishments, most significantly under Tsar Nicholas I. under Tsar Nicholas I. He orders a new armory and, most spectacularly, the Grand Kremlin Palace, his official residence in Moscow, designed to rival the epic Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The second half of the 19th century proves an unfamiliar period of relative calm in the Kremlin.

But it isn't long into the 20th that it becomes the focal point of events that will turn the world on its head. Tsar Nicholas II proves an especially out-of-touch and unpopular ruler. His reign happens to coincide with a groundswell of support for socialist and communist ideology epitomized by Karl Marx. A perfect storm of circumstances that in 1917 culminates in revolution, the overthrow of the Tsar, and the creation of the world's first communist state under Lenin's Bolsheviks. What this all means for Moscow is initially unclear. For starters, Lenin is very much a man of St. Petersburg, or Petrograd, as it has been

since 1914. He doesn't much like the Second City, in which the Kremlin is suffering amid the civil war that follows his ascent. It is badly damaged by shelling, and there are those calling for it to be pulled down altogether as an unhelpful reminder of Tsarist autocracy. On the other hand, Petrograd, on the relative western edge of Russia, is becoming too dangerous for the new regime. And the whole thought was we've got to go somewhere safe where we can defend the revolution. And Moscow has the advantage of being in the middle.

So actually, if you want to defend a large state, the best place to do it is from the middle because from the periphery, you're always going to be sort of reaching out too far. The decision is made to return the capital to Moscow in March 1918. Salvation for the Kremlin itself. The minute the Kremlin commandant who was appointed to look after the place realized its strategic importance on how you could protect your government, you know, once again this is a place which is a fort, so let's move in. But with the communists keen to make good on their promise of a brave new world,

a rebrand is in order. The Kremlin's religious institutions are closed and many knocked down. Despite pressure from some Bolsheviks, neighboring St. Basil's survives, thanks to its long status as a Russian cultural treasure. Nonetheless, back inside the Kremlin, artworks glorifying the regimes of times gone by are removed, and in their place, exhibitions pop up celebrating the Bolshevik takeover. The 1930s sees the adoption of the distinctive ruby-red communist stars on several of the towers where once the gilded eagles of imperial Russia had sat. By now, Lenin has been succeeded by Joseph Stalin. The Kremlin is once more the nation's stronghold, keeping safe its decision-makers inside those legendary walls. Until 1934,

the complex is also full of amenities for the ruling elite it houses. There are hairdressers, cafes, doctors, dentists, garages to repair your car. A place massing with people coming and going. But Stalin is increasingly paranoid and obsessed with security. The shops and surgeries all close, and the crowds fall away until the Kremlin is almost empty, save for the senior party hierarchy and their support staff. So the whole place became sort of an echo chamber, in which Stalin had his office and certain meetings were held, but it was very high security. The other thing that went on in the Kremlin is it became a place of surveillance.

So there are cameras, there are pieces of recording equipment, there are spy holes, there are secret tunnels. Probably there always were, but we know more about it because after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a brief window during which historians and people who were interested in the Kremlin generally talked quite freely about what they discovered. In the 1930s, Stalin's great purges and his culture of repression are fearsomely executed by his secret police, the NKVD. Although based up the road in Moscow's notorious Lubyanka building, the massive neo-Baroque institution into which prisoners routinely disappeared, operatives are merely following the orders of Stalin, who pulls the strings from inside the Kremlin.

For a frightened public, shut out from its interior, the Kremlin is the home of their intimidating puppet master. But the onset of the Second World War brings a temporary step change. The Kremlin itself is camouflaged to disguise it from German bombers. Its towers are covered over, roofs are painted a dull, rusty brown to blend in with the rest of the city, and its distinctive cobbles are strewn with sand. For the Russian population, it becomes a symbol of their resistance. In 1941, Stalin boldly reviews his troops in neighboring Red Square, in the face of

the encroaching German invasion. After his reign of terror in the 1930s, the Kremlin becomes a rallying point again, a fortress from which Stalin orchestrates what his regime frames as a patriotic war. Under his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, in the 1950s, the complex remains the key venue for government business and Politburo meetings. Nonetheless, heavily marshalled tour groups are now allowed inside. Parts of the Kremlin take on new life as museums, and it becomes a destination for a good day out, although it never quite shakes its reputation as a place to be feared. Among the tour guides, after all, are a good number of secret police keeping an eye on

things. Khrushchev leaves a significant architectural legacy, too. He orders the destruction of several older buildings to make way for a new state Kremlin palace, also known as the Palace of Congresses, which opens in 1961. An icon of Soviet modernism in glass and concrete, it becomes a focal point for major state and party events, one of the great temples of international communism. But though no one has an inkling at this point,

the Soviet regime is entering its final decades. On Christmas Day of 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, broadcasts live from the Kremlin to announce his resignation and the dissolution of the USSR. The grand communist experiment, begun by Lenin, comes to an end amid financial crisis, military setbacks, nuclear disaster, and social unrest. What follows is a decade of chaotic turmoil for Russia under the former mayor of Moscow, Boris Yeltsin. But in 2000, a new face arrives in the Kremlin. A former KGB intelligence officer promising reform, someone many in the West believe they can do business with. A man by the name of Vladimir Putin.

He soon asserts a vice-like grip on the machinery of government, reasserting the Kremlin's fearsome image. A secretive fortress from where decisions are made that affect the nation's citizens and the wider world. If I was looking for one word to describe how Russians think about the Kremlin, feel about the Kremlin, that word would be tread. feel about the Kremlin. That word would be tread. Ordinary Russians know that if someone from the Kremlin comes knocking on their door, then they may die. They may lose everything they have, everything they love in life, everything they've worked hard to earn, maybe gone like that.

So the one thing you don't want is to mess with them and putin knows this is part of the preconditioning of the russian soul for centuries that will know that there are grandmothers and great-grandmothers who lived through the time of stalin who would have told their kids and grandkids and great-grandkids, do not dare say what you think. And don't even think it. The complex is listed as an official residence of the president, and it is here that he exerts his political will. Just like many of its occupants before him, all the way back to those 14th century princes, he leaves a physical impression on the place.

In 2013, he adds a helipad to ease his passage in and out of the citadel. An essential development for a Kremlin fit for a 21st century leader. But as history shows us, the Kremlin has always been a place of adaptation and evolution. What seems set in stone today may change tomorrow. All that we can safely say is that its future will comprise many more unpredictable chapters. There is a tendency to regard the Kremlin,

because it's been there so long, as representing something that never changes. I have found the Kremlin to change radically between 1156 and now. There have been so many iterations of it. Russia itself has gone through many iterations. There have been many moments in which the Kremlin was neither safe nor indeed particularly upstanding. Parts of it were wrecked. There have been stages during which it was occupied by the government or not, when it was a liability or not. And we tend to map that story onto the story of Russia. You know, Russia is always like this.

Russia will always be like this. And I would hope that we could do better than that and say, look, there are many potentials in this. And if Putin is an autocrat who is treating the world as something that he can manipulate and who is treating his people in an autocratic way, that is not fate. That is Putin's choice. And it was not dictated by Russia's history. It's been dictated by a series of choices made in the last 25 years. And those choices can be reversed. The Kremlin can change. Next time on Short History Hub, we'll bring you a short history of Mary, Queen of Scots. Next time on Short History Up, we'll bring you a short history of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Mary is born into this sort of melting pot, really, of different religious ideas, artistic ideas. It's the Renaissance, but it's also the Reformation, and that causes deep divisions across Europe. There's a reason that we're obsessed with the Tudor period, because, you know, an awful lot happens that changes the course of history. So it's a fascinating time, but it's also a dangerous time, particularly if you're at the forefront of affairs, if you are at court, or if you are the ruler, and Mary will be all of those things. That's next time. If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noisa Plus. Head to www.noisa.com forward slash subscriptions for more information.