Moscow Saint Basil's Cathedral Tourism Sights

The original building, known as Trinity Church and later Trinity Cathedral, contained eight side churches arranged around the ninth, central church of Intercession; the tenth church was erected in 1588 over the grave of venerated local saint Vasily (Basil). In the 16th and 17th centuries the church, perceived as the earthly symbol of the Heavenly City,as happens to all churches in Byzantine Christianity, was popularly known as the "Jerusalem" and served as an allegory of the Jerusalem Temple in the annual Palm Sunday parade attended by the Patriarch of Moscow and the tsar.

The building is shaped as a flame of a bonfire rising into the sky, a design that has no analogues in Russian architecture. Dmitry Shvidkovsky, in his book Russian Architecture and the West, states that "it is like no other Russian building. Nothing similar can be found in the entire millennium of Byzantine tradition from the fifth to fifteenth century ... a strangeness that astonishes by its unexpectedness, complexity and dazzling interleaving of the manifold details of its design."The cathedral foreshadowed the climax of Russian national architecture in the 17th century.

As part of the program of state atheism, the church was confiscated from the Russian Orthodox community as part of the Soviet Union's anti-theist campaigns and has operated as a division of the State Historical Museum since 1928. It was completely and forcefully secularized in 1929 and remains a federal property of the Russian Federation. The church has been part of the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990. It is often mislabelled as the Kremlin owing to its location on Red Square in immediate proximity of the Kremlin.

Because the church has no analogues, in preceding, contemporary, or later architecture of Muscovy and Byzantine cultural tradition in general,[12] the sources that inspired Barma and Postnik are disputed. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc rejected European roots for the cathedral; according to him, its corbel arches were Byzantine, and ultimately Asian.[30] A modern "Asian" hypothesis considers the cathedral a recreation of Qolsharif Mosque, which was destroyed by Russian troops after the siege of Kazan.

Nineteenth-century Russian writers, starting with Ivan Zabelin emphasized the influence of the vernacular wooden churches of the Russian North; their motifs made their ways into masonry, particularly the votive churches that did not need to house substantial congregations. David Watkin also wrote of a blend of Russian and Byzantine roots, calling the cathedral "the climax" of Russian vernacular wooden architecture.

The church combines the staggered layered design of the earliest (1505–08) part of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the central tent of the Church of Ascension in Kolomenskoye (1530s), and the cylindric shape of the Church of Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo (1547),[29] but the origin of these unique buildings is equally debated. The Church in Kolomenskoye, according to Sergey Podyapolsky, was built by Italian Petrok Maly,although mainstream history has not yet accepted his opinion. Andrey Batalov revised the year of completion of Dyakovo church from 1547 to the 1560s–70s, and noted that Trinity Church could have had no tangible predecessors at all.

Dmitry Shvidkovsky suggested that the "improbable" shapes of the Intercession Church and the Church of Ascension in Kolomenskoye manifested an emerging national renaissance, blending earlier Muscovite elements with the influence of Italian Renaissance. A large group of Italian architects and craftsmen continuously worked in Moscow in 1474–1539, as well as Greek refugees that arrived in the city after the fall of Constantinople.These two groups, according to Shvidkovsky, helped Moscow rulers in forging the doctrine of Third Rome, which in turn promoted assimilation of contemporary Greek and Italian culture. Shvidkovsky noted the resemblance of the cathedral's floorplan to Italian concepts by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Donato Bramante, but most likely Filarete's Trattato di architettura. Other Russian researchers noted a resemblance to sketches by Leonardo da Vinci, although he could not have been known in Ivan's Moscow. Nikolay Brunov recognized the influence of these prototypes but not their significance; he suggested that in the mid-16th century Moscow already had local architects trained in Italian tradition, architectural drawing and perspective, and that this culture was lost during the Time of Troubles.

Andrey Batalov wrote that, judging by the number of novel elements introduced with Trinity Church, it was most likely built by German craftsmen. Batalov and Shvidkovsky noted that during Ivan's reign, Germans and Englishmen replaced Italians, although German influence peaked later, during the reign of Mikhail Romanov. German influence is indirectly supported by the rusticated pilasters of the central church, a feature more common in contemporary Northern Europe than in Italy.

The 1983 academic edition of Monuments of Architecture in Moscow takes the middle ground: the church is, most likely, a product of the complex interaction of distinct Russian traditions of wooden and stone architecture, with some elements borrowed from the works of Italians in Moscow.Specifically, the style of brickwork in the vaults is Italian.

One of Russia’s most iconic images is undoubtedly St Basil’s Cathedral, with its riotously colourful tent roofs and twisting onion shaped domes, each with their own distinctive pattern and colour scheme. Located on Red Square in Moscow, opposite the Kremlin, St Basil’s Cathedral was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1552 to mark the 1552 capture of Kazan from Mongol forces. It was designed by architect Postnik Yakovlev and completed in 1561. According to legend, Ivan was so ‘blown away’ at the beauty and intricacy of Postnik’s work; he had him blinded so that he would never be able to design anything as fantastical again! A chapel was added in 1588 above the grave of Basil Fool for Christ- a Russian Orthodox saint, after whom the cathedral was popularly named. Its official name is ‘The Catheral of the Intercession of the Virgin by the Moat’. 

The whimsical cathedral consists of nine small individual chapels built on a single foundation, the interior design of cathedral is suprisingly understated, each chapel is filled with icons and the walls are decorated with beautiful floral designs in muted colours. Connecting the chapels are narrow corridors, a gallery and winding staircases. In front of the Cathedral is a large bronze statue of Pozharsky and Minin, two prominent figures in Russia’s army when the Time of Troubles hit. 

No visit to Moscow is complete without a trip to Red Square. Interestingly the word ‘red’ doesn’t refer to the colour of the bricks or to Communism. In Russian, Moscow’s famous Red Square is called Krasnaya Ploschad. The word Krasnaya simultaneously means ‘red’ and ‘beautiful’, the latter of which was originally used to refer to stunning St Basil’s Cathedral at the southern end of the square. 

Red Square is not only famous for St Basil’s Cathedral, here you’ll also find the GUM Department store - Moscow’s original department store - a kind of hangover from the Soviet era, which runs along one side of the square. Located at the northern end of Red Square is the History Museum housed in the 19th century church of St John the Divine Under the Elm which boasts an enormous collection covering the whole Russian empire from the Stone Age onwards. Red Square is also home to the eerie, almost macabre mausoleum of Lenin – the creator and sustainer of Communism. Following Lenin’s passing way back in 1924, and against his wishes, it was decided to preserve the former Soviet leader’s body for national pride and posterity. A secret embalming process was perfected and his wax-like cadaver lies peacefully in a dimly lit, almost macabre setting. in a large Art Deco style, red granite monolithic structure. Humourless guards ensure that visitors remain at all times respectful. Without stopping, you are able to walk round three sides of a glass case in which Lenin lies. Behind the mausoleum on Red Square is the walls of the Kremlin, Russia’s political power house. 

Preservationist societies monitored the state of the church and called for a proper restoration throughout the 1880s and 1890s, but it was regularly delayed for lack of funds. The church did not have a congregation of its own and could only rely on donations raised through public campaigning; national authorities in Saint Petersburg and local in Moscow denied financing from state and municipal budgets. In 1899 Nicholas II reluctantly admitted that this expense was necessary, but again all involved state and municipal offices, including the Holy Synod, denied financing Restoration, headed by Andrey Pavlinov (died in 1898) and Sergey Solovyov, dragged on from 1896 to 1909; in total, preservationists managed to raise around 100,000 roubles.

Restoration began with replacing the roofing of the domes. Solovyov removed tin roofing of the main tent installed in the 1810s and found many original tiles missing and others discoloured;after a protracted debate the whole set of tiles on the tented roof was replaced with new ones.Another dubious decision allowed use of standard bricks that were smaller than the original 16th-century ones. Restorators agreed that the paintwork of the 19th century must be replaced with a "truthful recreation" of historic patterns, but these had to be reconstructed and deduced based on medieval miniatures. In the end Solovyov and his advisers set upon a combination of deep red with deep green that is retained to date.

In 1908 the church received its first warm air heating system, which did not work well due to heat losses in long air ducts, and heated only the eastern and northern sanctuaries. In 1913 it was complemented with a pumped water heating system serving the rest of the church.