The Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin has a long and complicated history. This is a magnificent monument of history and architecture of several eras that have their own face. The famous cathedral was the personal temple of Russian tsars and grand dukes.
Its oldest part was built at the very end of the fourteenth century, and the latest - in the nineteenth century. In the descriptions of the history of the temple of the nineteenth century, there are undocumented legends about the construction of a small wooden church, called the Annunciation. It was built by Prince Andrei Alexandrovich, son of Alexander Nevsky, in 1291. During this period of time, a princely family ruled in Moscow, and there must have been a temple at his court. However, the Annunciation Cathedral was officially mentioned in chronicles only in 1397. That is why historians and researchers believe that the stone Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin was erected at the end of the fourteenth century.
In the fifteenth century, Ivan the Third began a major construction of a luxurious grand ducal residence. By this time is the beginningthe construction of new Kremlin walls and the construction of the Assumption Cathedral, a large temple of the Moscow Kremlin, which turned out to be unsuccessful - suddenly the walls collapsed. As the surviving chronicles say, the Cathedral of the Annunciation was built by Pskov craftsmen. At first, it had three domes - the central one (the largest) and two at the eastern corners of the temple. In the sixteenth century, four aisles with their own domes were built, and two more appeared on the main volume. So the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin became nine-domed. In 1508 its central dome was gilded. In the middle of the sixteenth century, all the domes and the roof were worked with gilded copper. Since then, the cathedral has been called "Golden-Domed".
The building is richly decorated. Its walls are decorated with an arched belt, the origins of which are laid down in Vladimir traditions. Thanks to him, it harmonizes with the neighboring Assumption Cathedral.
The Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin was significantly damaged in 1917 during shelling. An artillery shell destroyed its porch, and in March 1918 the cathedral, like the Kremlin itself, was closed. Today the famous temple acts as a museum. Previously, there was another church in the Kremlin, called Blagoveshchenskaya. She was destroyed by the Bolsheviks, and now almost no one remembers her.
The Kremlin's Archangel Cathedral was the tomb of Russian tsars and grand dukes. The building is built of snow-white stone. Its height is twenty-one meters. In the endof the sixteenth century, the walls of the cathedral were painted, but the frescoes remained only in the diakonnik, where the tomb of Ivan the Terrible is located. The best painters painted the Archangel Cathedral - S. Ushakov, F. Zubov, I. Vladimirov, F. Kozlov. Especially valuable is the "portrait" part of the murals of the lower tier. It consists of 60 images of the Grand Dukes buried in the cathedral. The most honorable place is the portrait of Vasily the Third.
