GEORGE STRONGARM'S TOWN HOUSE
The name Kremlin meant citadels fortress or acropolis to its founder, the Prince of Rostov, whose own name was plain enough: Yuri Dolgoruki, or George Strongarm. He founded the Kremlin and the City of Moscow in 1156 by the simple expedient of erecting wooden walls around his villa and estate on a group of hills some 130-feet above the banks of the Moskva River.
The first heydays of the Kremlin came during the 15th and 16th Centuries when the Czars (or Caesars) held the satisfying view that the Greek Church was the only orthodox church and that by extension Moscow was the “third Rome”; ergo, they were the legitimate descendants of Byzantine emperors and, as such, the only “faithful and really Christian princes” in the World.
These true princes insulated themselves and their complacent idée-fixé behind a 50-foot wall of stone, crenellated like those of Medieval Italian cities and with 19 towers. Besides its strategic purpose, the wall served to protect the imperial residence against fires which annually destroyed the wooden houses of the town around the Kremlin - a form of royal cynicism which makes Marie Antoinette's notorious pronouncement on her subjects’ bread-and-cake consumption seem hardly more than the petulance of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
To keep a paternalistic eye on his “subjects” outside of Holy Russia, Peter the Great moved his court in the 17th Century to St. Petersburg, his “window to Western Europe” which he, in his turn, ordered built from scratch. The Kremlin, as a result of dynastic whim, was forgotten and fell into disrepair.
In 1918 the Kremlin became the seat of the Soviet Capital. It has been refurnished extensively and once again visitors are welcomed to this remarkable museum-town with its varied range of Russian architecture: churches, palaces, monastaries, government buildings and barracks - all concentrated in one site as reminders of the once total secular and spiritual power of the Czars.
Indeed, since the Revolution, care has been taken to remove anything which, resulting from restoration or decoration by various Czars and monks, detracted from the buildings’ original purity of style.
From the port of Helsinki members of this summer's Caronia North Cape Cruise will have the opportunity to fly on excursions to Moscow and Leningrad to visit not only ancient residences of the Czars but to view performances of the honoured 20th Century Soviet aristocracy - artists of the Bolshoi Theatre and Ballet.
[Produced for the North Cape Cruise departing New York 01 July 1966]