Spasskaya Tower(until 1658 - Frolovskaya) - the most famous of the 20 towers Moscow Kremlin, goes to Red Square near Execution Ground and Intercession Cathedral. The tent of the tower is decorated with a chiming clock, which made the Spasskaya Tower a collective symbol of the Kremlin and Moscow as a whole.
The tower was built in 1491 by a Milanese architect Pietro Antonio Solari, later built on by an English architect Christopher Galoway together with the Russian master Bazhen Ogurtsov. Originally built of red brick, different years depending on aesthetic preferences.
The shape of the base of the tower is a quadrangle, which is crowned with a multi-tiered tent completion with a chiming clock and a rich decorative design. The upper part of the quadrangle is decorated with a lace arched belt with turrets at the corners and figures of fantastic animals; also, in the carved design of the belt, you can find images of flowers and shells, and above the chimes - figures of peacocks. Above the chimes is a belfry, crowned with a tower of tents with a red star on top.
The total height of the Spasskaya Tower with a star is 71 meters. A massive retractable archer with a gate adjoins the tower.
History of the Spasskaya Tower
During the reign Ivan III in Moscow, a radical restructuring of the Kremlin began, during which, in 1485-1495, instead of the old white stone walls and towers, new ones were erected - from burnt bricks. Construction of the Spasskaya Tower according to the project Italian architect Pietro Antonio Solari from Milan became initial stage erection of the eastern line of fortifications of the Moscow Kremlin; before her, the Frolovskaya Strelnitsa was in this place. Since under Kremlin walls a moat was dug, a bridge was thrown over it from the tower.
In memory of the construction of the tower above the gate, 2 white stone tablets with a commemorative inscription in Latin (from the side of Red Square) and Russian (from the side of the Kremlin) were installed:
At the end of the 16th century, the tower was crowned with a wooden tent top with a double-headed eagle, but in 1624-1625 another restructuring was carried out: according to the project of the English architect Christopher Galovey, with the participation of the Moscow master Bazhen Ogurtsov, a multi-tiered top was erected over the tower in gothic style, decorated with nude figures - "boobs". The naked figures on the tower were perceived ambiguously, and by decree of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, special caftans were sewn for them, however, in any case, the "doodles" did not have long to live - in 1628 they burned down in a fire. In the middle of the 17th century, a double-headed eagle was again erected on the top of the tower - the coat of arms Russian state, subsequently installed also on the Nikolskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya towers.
Before the Revolution of 1917, chapels were located to the left and right of the Spassky Gates - first wooden, then rebuilt in stone, but in 1925 they were demolished.
Initially, the tower, like the archer that preceded it, was called Frolovskaya - after the church of Frol and Lavr on Myasnitskaya Street, where the road from the gate led - until 1658, when Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich ordered to call it Spasskaya, since icons of the Savior were placed above the Spassky Gate Smolensky (from Red Square) and the Savior Not Made by Hands (from the Kremlin).
Savior of Smolensk and Savior Not Made by Hands
One of the features of the tower, thanks to which it received its modern name, have become the icons of the Savior of Smolensk and the Savior Not Made by Hands placed above the travel gate.
Image Savior of Smolensk was written in 1514 in gratitude for the capture of Smolensk and placed above the gate from the side of Red Square. In 1521, when Moscow managed to avoid a siege by the troops of Khan Mehmed Giray, instead of the icon, a fresco was painted on the wall, which depicts the Savior with the open Gospel and saints falling at his feet. Reverend Sergius Radonezhsky and Varlaam Khutynsky. In the years Soviet power the image was plastered and for a long time was considered lost, since official documents did not record what happened to it, and experts did not have accurate information about whether it was painted on the wall or was a separate element. When the issue of restoring the icon was raised in the 2000s, they searched for it for a long time in the storerooms. art museums, but in the end the image was found under a layer of plaster in its rightful place: in 2010 it was cleared and restored.
The appearance of the image Savior Not Made by Hands on the inside of the gate (from the side of the Kremlin) is associated with the plague epidemic that swept through Russia in the middle of the 17th century. Moscow suffered greatly from the epidemic, but one of the cities - Khlynov (modern Kirov) - was bypassed by it; there were rumors that the reason for getting rid of Khlynov's illness was miraculous image Savior Not Made by Hands, to whom the inhabitants of the city prayed. In 1648, by order of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the image was delivered to Moscow. Having placed the original icon in the Novospassky Monastery, two lists were made from it: the first was sent to Khlynov, the second was placed on the inside of the gates of the Spasskaya Tower. Unfortunately, in Soviet years the image was destroyed, and the original icon disappeared; to date, the kiot on the inside of the gates of the Spasskaya Tower remains empty.
Chimes of the Spasskaya Tower
- probably the most famous clock Russia, because it is on them that Russians meet New Year- the chime of the Kremlin chimes has become one of the brightest new year traditions peace.
The chimes are installed on the upper quadrant of the tower from all four sides and have impressive dimensions:
Dial diameter - 6.12 meters;
The length of the minute hand is 3.27 meters;
The length of the hour hand is 2.97 meters;
The height of Roman numerals is 0.72 meters.
The watch has musical mechanism: at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00 and 18:00 the hymn is played Russian Federation, at 03:00, 09:00, 15:00 and 21:00 - the melody of the choir "Glory" from Glinka's opera "Life for the Tsar".
For the first time, the clock on the Spasskaya Tower appeared in the 16th century and almost nothing is known about them. In 1625, according to the project of Christopher Galoway, the old clock was replaced with a new one, which had a unique structure: the clock counted day and night time, indicated by Slavic letters and Arabic numerals, while the arrow stylized under the Sun was motionless - the dial itself rotated. In 1705, by decree of Peter I, the clock was remade in the German way: with a dial at 12 o'clock, and in 1770 they installed on the tower english watch. Modern chimes were made by the brothers Nikolai and Ivan Butenop in 1851-1852.
Star of the Spasskaya Tower
The star at the top of the Spasskaya Tower appeared in 1935, when the Soviet authorities wished to hoist Kremlin towers new character instead of the ideologically obsolete double-headed eagle.
First Kremlin stars were made of stainless steel and red copper, in the middle there was a gilded hammer and sickle, lined with Ural gems. The star on the Spasskaya Tower, among other things, was decorated with rays diverging from the middle. Unfortunately, the stars of 1935 quickly dimmed under the influence of the weather, and already in 1937 they were replaced by luminous ruby ones, which can still be seen today.
The span of the rays of the star on the Spasskaya Tower is 3.75 meters.
Spasskaya Tower Today it is one of the symbols of Moscow and a prominent tourist attraction.
You can get to the Spasskaya Tower on foot from the metro stations "Okhotny Ryad" Sokolnicheskaya line, "Theatrical" Zamoskvoretskaya and "Revolution square" Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya.
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Until 1935, in the very center of the country of victorious socialism, the gilded symbols of tsarism, the double-headed eagles, still flaunted. For three centuries they crowned four Kremlin towers - Troitskaya, Spasskaya, Borovitskaya and Nikolskaya.
These eagles did not sit on spiers for centuries - they were periodically changed. Until now, disputes continue as to what material they were made of - metal or gilded wood. There are suggestions that the bodies of the eagles were wooden, and some parts were metal.
Frame from the film "Circus". On the Spasskaya Tower and on the Historical Museum we see two-headed eagles. In 1936, when the film was released, the eagles had already been replaced by stars.
TASS IS AUTHORIZED TO STATE
In the first years of Soviet power, all double-headed eagles in the state were destroyed. All but four - those that took off and above all and settled on the towers of the Moscow Kremlin. But over time, they got to them. In 1930, the authorities turned to the artist and art critic Igor Grabar with a request to evaluate the artistic and historical value of the Kremlin eagles.
He replied that "... none of the eagles that currently exist on the Kremlin towers represent an ancient monument and cannot be defended as such."
Let's leave this conclusion to the conscience of the author. One way or another, but in August 1935, a TASS message was published: “The Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided by November 7, 1935 to remove 4 eagles located on the towers of the Kremlin wall, and 2 eagles from the building Historical Museum. By the same date, it was decided to install five-pointed stars with a hammer and sickle on the Kremlin towers.
Replacing eagles with stars
On October 18, 1935, all the eagles were removed from the Kremlin towers. The eagle from the Trinity Tower, due to its old design, had to be dismantled right on the spot. Work on the removal of birds and the installation of stars was carried out by experienced climbers under the vigilant control of the NKVD. The design and manufacture of the first Kremlin stars was entrusted to two Moscow factories and TsAGI workshops.
The sketches were presented by the famous decorator Academician Fedorovsky. According to his project, the stars intended for different towers differed from each other in size and decor. On the star of the Trinity Tower, the rays were made in the form of ears of corn, the star of the Borovitskaya Tower was two contours inscribed one into the other.
And the rays of the star of the Nikolskaya Tower had no pattern. The stars of the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers were the same size. The distance between the ends of their beams was 4.5 m. The stars of the Trinity and Borovitskaya towers were slightly less.
The supporting structure was made in the form of a light but strong stainless steel frame, on which sheets of red copper covered with gold leaf were superimposed. Hammer and sickle emblems adorned with precious Ural stones - rock crystal, amethysts, alexandrites, topazes and aquamarines - were strengthened on both sides of each star. It took about 7,000 stones to make eight emblems.
As a result, each star weighed about 1,000 kg and also had a sail area of up to 6 m2. A careful study revealed that the upper floors of the towers and their tents are in a deplorable state. It was necessary to strengthen the brickwork of the upper floors and equip the structure with additional metal ties.
FIRST STAR
Life-size models of stars were made according to the sketches accepted by the government. The sickle and hammer were inlaid with imitations of precious stones. Each layout was illuminated by several spotlights, in the rays of which the stars sparkled with a myriad of multi-colored lights. Members of the government came to look at them and the eagles taken down from the towers, and then many thousands of Muscovites gathered. Everyone wanted to admire the beauty and grandeur of the stars that were soon to flare up in the sky of Moscow.
On October 24, 1935, the first star was installed on the Spasskaya Tower, having previously polished it. At 12:40 a command was heard: “Vira little by little!”, And a huge structure, breaking off from the ground, slowly crawled up. When she was at a height of 70 m, 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 13:00, the star descended exactly on the support pin. Hundreds of people gathered on Red Square that day. The moment the star was on the spire, the crowd burst into applause.
The next day, the star was installed on the spire of the Trinity Tower, and on October 26 and 27, the stars shone over the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers. The installers had already 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 strong wind lasted about two hours.
The life of the new characters was short-lived. A year later, under the influence of precipitation, gemstones faded. In addition, the stars did not really fit into the architectural ensemble because of their too large sizes. Therefore, in May 1937, it was decided to replace them with new ones - luminous, ruby, installing the same on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower.
Special ruby glass for new stars was welded at the Konstantinovsky glass factory. In total, it was required to produce 500 m2 of glass. Powerful bearings were installed at the base of each star so that they could rotate like a weather vane. But, unlike the weather vane, which indicates which way the wind is blowing, the stars, thanks to the diamond-shaped cross-section, always face it. At the same time, they are able to withstand the pressure of even a hurricane wind.
IF THE STARS LIGHT...
It would seem that everything is fine. But it suddenly became clear that sunshine ruby stars look black! The solution was found: the glass should be made two-layer, and the inner layer should be milky white, well scattering light. At the same time, this provided a more even glow and hid the filaments of the lamps.
In order for the glow of the entire surface of the star to be even, glass of various thicknesses and color saturation was used, and the lamps were enclosed in prismatic refractors. To protect the glass from the thermal effects of powerful (up to 5,000 W) lamps, ventilation of the internal cavity was organized. About 600 m3 of air per hour is passed through the stars, which completely protects them from overheating.
The Kremlin luminaries are not threatened by a power outage, since their energy supply is autonomous. Each star lamp has two filaments connected in parallel. If one of them 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 up to half an hour.
In the entire history of the stars went out only twice. The first time was during the war, when they were extinguished so as not to become a beacon for German bombers. Covered with burlap, they patiently waited out the bombardment, but when it was over, it turned out that some of the glass was damaged and needed to be replaced. Moreover, our anti-aircraft gunners turned out to be the unwitting culprits.
The second time the stars briefly went out at the request of Nikita Mikhalkov in 1997, when he was filming his "The Barber of Siberia". Since then, the Kremlin stars have been burning unceasingly, becoming the main symbol of the Russian capital.
It would seem that nothing threatens them. After the collapse Soviet Union the Kremlin stars were not dismantled, unlike other Soviet symbols (hammers and sickles, coats of arms on palaces, etc.). And yet their fate today is not so cloudless. For a quarter of a century, discussions about the appropriateness of Soviet symbols over the Kremlin have not ceased in society. Whether they will continue to shine, time will tell.
In August 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.
Before 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.
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.
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.
Putting a thousand-kilogram stars on the towers of the Kremlin was not an easy task. The catch was that suitable technique in 1935 it simply did not exist. 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.
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 the Soviet workers, who, for such short term created true works of art.
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.
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 ruby glass, for which it was invented new technology- selenium ruby. Prior to this, in order to achieve desired color gold was added to glass; 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 is blown clean around, 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.
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
Since the 1990s, there have been public discussions about the appropriateness of Soviet symbols in the Kremlin. In particular, the Russian Orthodox Church and a number of patriotic organizations take a categorical position, stating "that it would be fair to return the double-headed eagles that have adorned them for centuries to the Kremlin towers."
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 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. We finally learn 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 replied: "... none of the eagles that currently 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.
And here the eagles are filmed. 
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.
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.
All four stars were different from each other 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 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 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 report of Pauper, an employee of the operational department of the NKVD: in a separate silver cast with a silver screw and nut. The total weight of all the 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 one was separately attached to this frame. gem framed in 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 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.
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 the important task of raising and installing 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 through the tower window, a metal base was built in - the console. 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.
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 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. Or rather, only 65 days. Newspapers wrote about the labor feat of Soviet workers, who created real works of art in such a short time.
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 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-layered, 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.
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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 glass should not be allowed to burst and crack in the event of rain or a change in weather and the glass falls down. 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.
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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 first extinguished - 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. 
Since the 1990s, there have been public discussions about the appropriateness of Soviet symbols in the Kremlin. In particular, the Russian Orthodox Church and a number of patriotic organizations take a categorical position, stating "that it would be fair to return the double-headed eagles that have adorned them for centuries to the Kremlin towers."
The spiers of the Kremlin towers were decorated with heraldic double-headed eagles. The Moscow Kremlin has 20 towers and only four of them were crowned with the coat of arms of the state. 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.
The question of replacing the royal eagles on the Kremlin towers with figures symbolizing new period in the life of the country, repeatedly appeared soon after the revolution of 1917. In 1930, specialists from restoration workshops led by Igor Grabar concluded that the figures of double-headed eagles historical value did not represent and, therefore, could be replaced. Instead of "symbols of tsarism" they decided to install stars.
On August 23, 1935, the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was published to replace the double-headed eagles on the Kremlin towers with five-pointed stars with a hammer and sickle by November 7, 1935.
On October 24, 1935, with a large crowd of people on Red Square, a five-pointed star was hoisted on the Spasskaya Tower. On October 25, the star was installed on the spire of the Trinity Tower, on October 26 and 27 - on the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers.
The body of the stars was made of stainless steel lined with gilded copper sheets. In the center of them on both sides were a sickle and a hammer, decorated with Ural gems - topazes, amethysts, aquamarines. Each of the seven thousand stones used for decoration was cut and set in a setting.
The pattern was not repeated on any of the stars. The distance between their beams on the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers was 4.5 meters, on Troitskaya and Borovitskaya - four and 3.5 meters, respectively. 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.
The stars weighed about a ton each. The tents of the Kremlin towers were not designed for such a load, therefore, before the installation of the stars, they were strengthened, and on Nikolskaya they were rebuilt. The rise of the stars at that time was great technical problem, as there were no high-rise tower cranes. Special cranes had to be made for each tower, they were installed on consoles, fixed on the upper brick tiers.
Illuminated from below by searchlights, the first stars adorned the Kremlin for almost two years, but under the influence of atmospheric precipitation, the gems faded and lost their festive appearance. 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 heavy over the towers.
In May 1937, it was decided to install by the twentieth anniversary October revolution new stars, and on five Kremlin towers, including Vodovzvodnaya.
On November 2, 1937, new stars lit up over the Kremlin. More than 20 enterprises of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, machine-building, electrical and glass industries, research and design institutes participated in their creation.
Sketches of new stars developed folk artist USSR Fedor Fedorovsky. 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 proportions and sizes were chosen so well that the new stars, despite the fact that they were installed on the towers various heights appear to be the same from the ground. This was achieved thanks to the different sizes of the stars themselves. The smallest star burns on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, located in a lowland: the distance between the ends of its rays is three meters. On Borovitskaya and Troitskaya, the stars are larger - 3.2 and 3.5 meters, respectively. Most big stars installed on the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers, located on a hill: the span of their beams is 3.75 meters.
The main load-bearing structure of the star is a voluminous five-pointed frame, which rests at the base on a pipe, in which bearings are placed for its rotation. Each ray is a multifaceted pyramid: the star of the Nikolskaya Tower has a twelve-sided pyramid, while the other stars have an octagonal one. The bases of these pyramids are welded together in the center of the star.
For uniform and bright illumination of the entire surface of the star, at the Moscow Electric Lamp Plant, special incandescent lamps with a power of 5000 watts for the stars of the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Troitskaya towers and 3700 watts for the stars of the Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya towers were developed and manufactured, and to protect the stars from overheating, specialists developed a special ventilation system.
For more reliable operation of the lamps, two filaments (spirals) of incandescence connected in parallel are mounted in each of them. If one of them burns out, the lamp continues to glow with reduced brightness, and the automatic device signals a malfunction to the control panel. The lamps have an extremely high luminous efficiency, the temperature of the filament reaches 2800°C. In order for the light flux to be evenly distributed over the entire inner surface of the star, and especially at the ends of the rays, each lamp was enclosed in a refractor (a three-dimensional hollow fifteen-sided figure).
The difficult task was to create a special ruby glass, which had to have different densities, transmit red rays of a certain wavelength, be resistant to sudden temperature changes, mechanically strong, not discolor and not be destroyed by exposure solar radiation. It was made under the guidance of the famous glazier Nikanor Kurochkin.
In order for the light to be evenly scattered, each Kremlin star had double glazing: internal, made of milky glass, two millimeters thick, and external, made of ruby glass, six to seven millimeters thick. An air gap of 1-2 millimeters was provided between them. The double glazing of the stars was due to the characteristics of the ruby glass, which has a pleasing color only when illuminated from the opposite side, but the contours of the light source are clearly visible. Without backlighting, ruby glass looks dark even in bright light. sunny days. Thanks to the internal glazing of the stars with milky glass, the light of the lamp was well dispersed, the filaments became invisible, and the ruby glass was highlighted most brightly.
The stars are illuminated from within, day and night. At the same time, to preserve the juicy ruby color, they are highlighted more strongly during the day than at night.
Despite their significant mass (about one ton), the stars on the Kremlin towers rotate relatively easily when the wind direction changes. Due to their shape, they are always installed with the front facing into the wind.
Unlike the first nonluminous stars, ruby stars have only three different patterns(Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya are identical in design).
The mechanisms for serving the Kremlin stars are located inside the towers. The control of equipment and mechanisms is concentrated at the central point, where information about the operating mode of the lamps is automatically submitted.
During the years of the Great Patriotic War the stars, like the entire Kremlin, were disguised. In 1945, having removed their camouflage, experts discovered that cracks and holes appeared on ruby glasses from fragments of anti-aircraft artillery shells, which worsened them. appearance and make it difficult to operate. The reconstruction of the Kremlin stars was carried out from September 7, 1945 to February 7, 1946. During it, the glazing of the stars was replaced with a three-layer one, consisting of ruby glass, crystal and milk glass. Ruby glasses on the stars of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya towers were given a convex shape. During the reconstruction, it was also possible to improve the illumination of the stars. Inspection hatches were made in all five rays of each star.
Electric winches were installed to replace lamps in the stars and mount equipment, but the main mechanisms remained the same - the 1937 model.
Stars are usually washed every five years. Every month, to maintain the reliable operation of auxiliary equipment, scheduled preventive maintenance is carried out; more serious work is carried out every eight years.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
