The appearance of the medieval city with its fortified walls and towers, slender churches and luxurious palaces, with ancient architecture of houses, workshops and shops, with its narrow, crooked streets, cramped, noisy squares, with a river spanned here and there by picturesque bridges - this appearance is perceived by us from childhood as one of the images a bygone past, like an old fairy tale. But if you look closely, the real history of the city appears in all its concreteness, full of labor and struggle, joyful and tragic events. After all, not a single feature in the external appearance of the city did not arise without a direct or indirect connection with the development of the urban economy, political affairs, class struggle, and cultural life. That is why in every medieval city you can find features that are inherent, if not all, then many cities of the same era and similar historical fate, and at the same time find features that are characteristic of cities of a certain ethnicity, geographical and economic area; finally, find exceptional, atypical phenomena that distinguish this city from all other cities the world. This image of the city does not take shape immediately. It changes throughout the entire period of its existence, depending on the course of the historical process.

The rise of Moscow - its transformation from an ordinary settlement of the Vyatichi Slavs into a capital city, first of a small and then of a Grand Duchy, into the capital of Russia-had deep roots both in the ethnic processes that were going on at that time - the formation of the Russian people, and in the economy-the development of agriculture, crafts and trade, and in the political history of for liberation from the Mongol-Tatar yoke 1 . As Moscow rallied other Russian lands around it to achieve this most important goal, as its importance grew, so did the appearance of the city.

The beginning of the period under review was a difficult time for the Russian land, including Moscow. The Mongol-Tatar invasion of 1237-1240 devastated the country, ravaged its villages and towns, and led to the death of the most capable part of the population. Among the destroyed cities was Moscow. "We took Moscow to Tatars," says the chronicle, "and killed the voivode Philip Nyank, and Prince Vladimir the son of Yuryev by the hands of Yasha, and the people beat from the old man to the present baby, the city and the holy churches of Ognevi predasha, and the manastyrs all and the villages of pozhgosha and, having taken a lot of possessions, we left them" 2 .

In this brief but dramatic chronicler's account, Moscow appears to be a fairly significant city, where its own prince ruled, monasteries and churches towered, and there were "many estates". The city was closely connected to the rural area, and it managed to create a small local market around it. This helps us understand why the devastated Moscow was able to rise so quickly from the ashes of the conflagrations and then grow rapidly. As a result of excavations in the cultural layer of the central districts of modern Moscow - the Kremlin and Zaryadye, a layer of coal was discovered: a trace of the city's destruction

1 For questions related to the economy and material culture of Moscow at that time, see M. G. Rabinovich. Material Culture of North-Eastern Russia (XIII-XV centuries). Voprosy istorii, 1973, No. 9.

2 " The Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles "(PSRL), vol. I. M. 1926, stb. 460-461.

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a fire. But directly on this layer again lay the cultural layer 3 . We must assume that the restoration of Moscow began immediately after its destruction, otherwise there would have been some kind of "sterile" layer above the coal, as archaeologists say, without signs of cultural remnants. And written sources do not contain any indication of any long-term desolation of the city. After 10 years, there is news about him again on the pages of chronicles as in the capital of an appanage principality: Moscow Prince Mikhail Yaroslavich Khorobrit even fights (albeit unsuccessfully; it was not for nothing that he was nicknamed bully - "khorobrit") for the grand duchy of Vladimir.

The work of ordinary people, their persistent desire to restore the city, formed the economic basis on which the political successes of the Moscow princes developed. In the second half of the 13th century, Moscow was still one of the domains of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir, which was given to the younger sons of grand dukes. So it was given to the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky, Daniel, who managed to triple the territory of his inheritance, including the course of the Moskva River from Mozhaisk to Kolomna. The young principality grew stronger and now with good reason entered the list of candidates for the championship in the Central Russian lands.

What was his capital city by that time? Excavations have shown that by the middle of the 19th century there was a strong fortified center in Moscow. The old fortifications on the promontory at the confluence of the Neglinnaya River with the Moskva River were apparently built as early as the end of the XI-beginning of the XII century.They filled in and erected a new powerful rampart of the original design, covering a much larger territory. It stretched from the tip of the cape to the present-day Ivanovskaya Square of the Kremlin, slightly east of the line on which Tsar-Pushka and Tsar-Kolokoya now stand .4 The moat of this fortress ran approximately in the middle of the square. These fortifications were stormed in 1237 by the Mongol-Tatar hordes, equipped with siege engines new to the time. The invaders took and burned the city, but were unable to level its ramparts (and now visitors heading to the Palace of Congresses through the Trinity Gate, go over the old rampart lying in the ground), destroying only the upper structure of the fortress - wooden fences.

During the restoration of the city, the construction of old fortifications was used. Mikhail Khorobrit and Daniil Alexandrovich lived behind the same rampart, only putting new fences on it. At that time, waterways played a greater role than land routes, which were not yet sufficiently developed, and for Moscow, the river pier, located on the low bank of the Moskva River (in the area of the modern building of the hotel "Russia", approximately near the Zaryadye cinema), was of great importance. Until relatively recently, the Church of St. Nicholas the Wet, the patron saint of swimming and traveling, stood there (as was customary in ancient Russian cities - near the pier). There is reason to believe that by the beginning of the 14th century Moscow again had in general terms the same appearance as before the Mongol-Tatar invasion. It was a typical town for North-Eastern Russia at that time: on the steep promontory of the Neglinnaya River, powerful ramparts with a wooden wall on them towered. From the passage tower to the pier there was a street called Bolshaya, or Velikaya, which was then the main artery of the city. To the north and east of the fortress, on the "mountain" - the high part of the cape, there was a craft settlement; on the low bank near the pier, where the swampy shore allowed, there were also city estates. Outside the walls were the prince's palace, the courtyards of the prince's entourage, and at least two wooden churches. On the cape (not far from the modern building of the Armory Chamber) was the first Moscow church. - Ivan the Baptist (the very name of the main city church is characteristic of Vladimir-Suzdal Russia), near which the seal of the Kievan Metropolia of the late XI century was found. Researchers believe that this church was built on the site of an older pagan sanctuary .5 The second church stood on an elevated spot where Cathedral Square is now. Both churches had cemeteries, but archaeologists were only able to explore the cemetery near the second one.

3 "Antiquities of the Moscow Kremlin", Moscow, 1971, p. 99.

4 M. G. Rabinovich. About ancient Moscow, Moscow, 1964, pp. 30-31; " History of Moscow. A brief sketch", Moscow, 1974, p. 13.

5 I. E. Zabelin. History of the city of Moscow. Part 1. M 1902, p. 62.

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churches 6 . Under the cover of fortifications on vzgorye, closer to the modern Red Square, there was a shopping square, on which the church of Friday 7 was later built .

The beginning of the rise of Moscow under Daniel was marked primarily by the construction of churches and monasteries. Recent architectural and archaeological studies in the Assumption Cathedral have shown that the first stone church in Moscow was built not in 1326, as previously assumed, but in the 80s-90s of the XIII century. It was a small church of Dmitry, built on the site of the second of the wooden churches mentioned above. It was built in the manner typical of the Vladimir-Suzdal churches of the XIII century: from hewn white limestone stone with cobblestone filling inside the wall . Under Daniel Alexandrovich, the oldest surviving Moscow monastery was founded - the Danilov Monastery, across the Moskva River, to the south of the city. As is clear from the above account of the destruction of Moscow in 1237, there were monasteries in the city at that time, but we do not know where they stood. The construction of the monastery outside the city limits to the south of it, on the side from which the Mongol-Tatars usually attacked, undoubtedly had an important military and defensive significance. This was the first of the monastery-forts that later surrounded Moscow from the south in a semicircle. In the Middle Ages, every major Russian city tried to ensure its safety on the far approaches in this way, and the construction of large suburban monasteries testified to the flourishing of the city. Thus, at the time of its power, Veliky Novgorod was surrounded by a ring of monasteries occupying strategically important hills; fortress monasteries defended the approaches to Pskov, Serpukhov, Zvenigorod and other cities.

The construction of the stone church of Dmitry in the north-eastern tip of the city and the Danilov Monastery to the south of it also testified to the beginning of a radical change in the layout of the princely capital. If until then the main organizing role was played by the water artery flowing from west to east - the Moscow River-and the whole city was oriented towards it, then by the end of the 19th century the important role of land roads was outlined: to the northwest, to Tver, and to the south, to the Horde. It seems that it is precisely in these phenomena that one can see the beginnings of the later radial-circular layout of the city.

The 14th century was a time of significant changes for Moscow. The struggle of the Moscow princes for the Grand ducal throne, which successfully ended by 1327, was closely connected with the growth of Moscow itself and the change in its external appearance. The city's territory expanded. In the interfluve of the Moskva River and Neglinnaya, its main posad grew up, which occupied the later Kitay-Gorod. Moscow's posadas also crossed Neglinnaya Street, reaching approximately the area where the current building of the Moscow City Council is located. Here are found wooden pavements of the XIV century 9 . The very name of the ancient central posad Bolshoy, or Veliky, suggested the presence of other, smaller townships, and the later names of large parts of the city-Zaneglimenye, Zayauz, Zarechye (or Zamoskvorechye) clearly indicate the direction of growth of the city: they were given by people who lived in the center - in the Kremlin and on Bolshoy Posad.

Apparently, since the XIV century, the inclusion of suburban villages within Moscow began (if we accept the assumption of I. E. Zabelin that the ancient village of Kuchkovo was located to the south of Lubyanka Square, modern Dzerzhinskiy Square). Finds of ancient ceramics in the area of Ipatievsky Lane seem to confirm this idea. The names of the tracts - Kuchkovo Pole (between the present Sretensky Gate and Chistye Prudy), Vorontsovo Pole (near Obukha Street), Ostozhye (near Metrostroevskaya Street) - remind us of the lands of the nearest suburban villages of Kuchkov, Vorontsov, and Semchinsky. In the area of Vosstaniya Square there was the village of Kudrineh; excavations revealed the presence of some rural settlement at the mouth of the Yauza River (possibly marked

6 N. S. Shelyapina. Archaeological research in the Assumption Cathedral. "State Museums of the Moscow Kremlin. Materials and research". Part I. M. 1973, pp. 54-63.

7 M. N. Tikhomirov. Drevnerusskiye goroda [Ancient Russian Cities], Moscow, 1956, p. 249.

8 N. S. Shelyapina. To the history of studying the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. "Soviet Archeology", 1972. N 1.

9 A. G. Veksler. Moscow in Moscow. Istoriya v nedra stolitsy [History in the Depths of the Capital], Moscow, 1968, pp. 47-48.

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M. N. Tikhomirov of the village of Mikhailovsky)10 . All these villages in the XIV-XVI centuries. merged into the urban territory. But Moscow's growth has not been uniform. As the city's trade links developed, land roads stretched to it, and it was along them that the first development took place. There were still free spaces between the "rays" formed in this way for a long time. Wetlands that were uninhabitable were not built up either. Only by the end of the 14th century was the south-eastern area of the low-lying Moskvoretsky Podol settled, and the adjacent Vasilyevsky Meadow remained empty until the 18th century, when an Educational home was built on it.

The feudal center of the city grew most intensively and was rebuilt. This was due both to the increase in the wealth and power of the Moscow princes, and to the influx of new vassals who needed to be settled, as well as the need for reliable defense. In the 14th century, the Kremlin's fortifications were reconstructed twice. The question of Ivan Kalita's Kremlin is connected with this perestroika. Even at the end of the last century, chronicle reports of the construction of new oak walls around Moscow by order of this prince in 1339 were associated with the remains of thick oak logs discovered during earthworks on the Neglinnaya riverbank .11 However, the discovery of the above-mentioned shaft of the XII century, which was based on a structure made of oak logs, casts doubt on the possibility of correlating previous finds with the Kremlin of 1339. Parts of the oak fortifications on display in the State Historical Museum (like the remains of the Kalita Kremlin) turned out to be passport-free, and their design (the 8-coal tower and the fastening of logs "in a paw with a tooth") speaks more about the time not earlier than the XVI century. If we take into account that the fortifications of the 12th century occupied an area that was previously considered the territory of the Kremlin in 1339 (including Sobornaya Square, where there was already a stone church before Ivan Kalita), the question becomes even more complicated. Perhaps the chronicle news of 1339 refers not to the construction of a new fortress, but only to the renewal of fences on the old rampart. N. S. Shelyapina's assumption that a new fortress of much larger area was built under Kalita than previously thought seems reasonable, and that its eastern border extended far beyond Ivanovskaya Square, almost to the line of later stone walls. That is why we do not find the remains of Ivan Kalita's "oak city": it was razed to the ground by the construction of Dmitry Donskoy 12 .

Even earlier than the new fortifications, several stone churches were erected inside the old fortress, forming the current Cathedral Square. The first and most important was the Assumption Cathedral, which was built in 1326-1327 on the site of the dismantled Church of Dmitry. Its construction testified to the continuity of the power of the Moscow princes from the princes of Vladimir (in Vladimir, the Assumption Cathedral was also the main one). Then they built a princely tomb - the Archangel Cathedral, the Annunciation Cathedral, as well as the church of Ivan the Ladder "izhe under the bells" (that is, with a bell tower, which was rare for those times). If we take into account that the whole city was then made of wood, then it becomes clear why such a cluster of white-stone churches created an architectural ensemble that stood out extremely favorably at the highest point of the city. Closer to the cape, to the west of the palace, another white - stone church was erected-the Savior on Bor. The remains of most of these churches were discovered by archaeologists in the cultural layer of the Kremlin 13 .

Less than 30 years after the construction of the oak fortress, huge construction works began again in Moscow. This was caused by the requirements of the military-strategic and political situation of the time when the city had to

10 M. N. Tikhomirov. Medieval Moscow, Moscow, 1957, p. 62.

11 A. Voltman. Description of the new Imperial Palace in the Moscow Kremlin, Moscow, 1851, pp. V-VI; see also: N. N. Voronin. Zodchestvo Severo-Vostochnoy Rus ' XII-XV vv. Vol. II. M. 1962, p. 165. V. V. Kostochkin. Russkoe oboronnoe zodchestvo kontsa XIII-nachala XV V. [Russian Defense Architecture of the late 13th-early 15th centuries]. Moscow, 1962, pp. 191-192; M. G. Rabinovich. About ancient Moscow, pp. 33-34.

12 N. S. Shelyapina. Archaeological study of the Moscow Kremlin (ancient topography and stratigraphy). Abstract of cand. diss. M. 1974, p. 19.

13 V. I. Fedorov, N. S. Shelyapina. New in the Kremlin ensemble. "Museum business in the USSR", Moscow, 1971, pp. 89-92; P. N. Maksimov. To the characteristics of Moscow architecture of the XIV-XV centuries "Materials and research on the archeology of the USSR",, N 12, 1949, p. 209.

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conduct a difficult "four-sided" struggle , as V. O. Klyuchevsky put it14-with the Golden Horde, Ryazan, Tver and Lithuania. And in this struggle, the goal of which was to unite the disparate Russian principalities and overthrow the Mongol-Tatar yoke, the protection of the capital became particularly important. It is not without reason that the chronicler placed the news of the construction of the white-stone Kremlin in Moscow in direct connection with the power of the principality and the unifying tendencies of its policy. It remains only to add that this chronicler was hostile to Moscow. "Prince Dmitry Ivanovich the great, having read fortunes with his brother Volodimir Andreyevich and with all the oldest boyars, and thought of setting the city in stone, but if he intended, then he created the same winter and brought the stone to the city... In the same summer, the princes of Russia began to set up the city of Kamen on Moscow, hoping for their great power, and the princes of Russia began to bring it into their will, and those who stopped[and] disobeyed their will, they began to encroach on them with malice, " 15 he wrote. N. N. Voronin in his original work was able to give not only a complete description of the fortress, but also with a high degree of probability to calculate the huge labor costs that were made in this case. The construction, which was completed in one season, employed at least 2,000 people every day16 . It should not be assumed that all of them were Muscovites; probably, under the leadership of the princely city - making masters, both citizens and peasants "driven" from the parish worked. According to some later sources, even an approximate distribution of this feudal service is known: out of every five households, one person was sent to work (from the fifth courtyard), and the fourth courtyard supplied him with everything necessary .17 The white stone walls and towers that grew up in the center of the city radically changed its appearance. Isn't it since then that Moscow has become popularly known as Belokamennaya?

The Kremlin of Dmitry Donskoy occupied almost the same territory as the Kremlin now occupies (with the exception of the northern corner facing the 50th Anniversary of October Square, with the Corner Arsenal Tower). The wall was about 2 km long and had eight or nine towers, and six of them were passageways: three gates faced the current Red Square; two-on the bank of Neglinnaya and one-on the bank of the Moskva River (according to the later Constantino-Eleninskaya, Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Troitsky, Borovitskaya and Tainitskaya towers). At the same time, the first stone bridge in Moscow was built over the Neglinnaya River near the modern Trinity Tower. The location of the gate points to the already established radial layout of the posad with its streets - roads that diverged from the center to the periphery: Smolenskaya, Volotskaya, Tverskaya, Dmitrovskaya, Pereyaslavskaya, Vladimirskaya, Kolomenskaya, Ordynskaya, and Kaluzhskaya. Providing access to these roads was so important that the builders of the fortress were not afraid to even slightly increase the chances of attackers by arranging many gates. Otherwise, the fortress of b*e1la is equipped with the latest technology of that time. The first Russian cannons soon began to speak from its walls.

The white-stone Kremlin not only reliably strengthened, but also decorated Moscow. The ensemble was supplemented by the new Grand Duke's palace, which created, in the modern language of art historians, an important vertical. The high palace was decorated with a" golden-domed "embankment terem, which had a rare novelty for that time - "glass" windows (possibly made of colored glass). "The Legend of the Battle of Mamai" tells how the Moscow nobility marched out of the three gates of the Kremlin in three columns to join forces with the troops of other Russian lands at Kolomna and move further south, towards the hordes of Mamai. The army was so numerous that it was necessary to go by three different roads, and the Grand Duchess and her ladies-in-waiting saw them off in the golden-domed tower at the glass windows, 18 and for a long time saw the gleam of their weapons in the field. Probably, the soldiers, looking back, saw from afar a white-stone hail and a golden-domed tower.

14 V. O. Klyuchevsky. Course of Russian History, Part 2, Moscow, 1957, p. 50.

15 PSRL. Vol. XV, issue 1. Ptgr. 1922, pp. 83-84.

16 N. N. Voronin. The Moscow Kremlin (1156-1367). "Materials and research on the archeology of the USSR", N 77, 1958, pp. 57-66.

17 The" arrival "of peasants for the construction of the fortress is noted by chronicles in the XIV and XV centuries in Tver and Veliky Novgorod (PSRL. Vol. XV. SPB. 1863, p. 433; "Novgorod I Chronicle". Moscow-L. 1950, p.416).

18 "The Tale of the Battle of Mamayev" ("Tales of the Battle of Kulikovo", Moscow, 1959, p. 55).

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The victory at Kulikovo field in 1380 marked the beginning of the liberation of Russia from the Mongol-Tatar yoke, and Moscow, although it was ravaged by the troops of the Tatar Khan Tokhtamysh two years later, rose again from the ashes of the fires, becoming even more beautiful. 10 years later, by the end of the 14th century, the suburbs of Moscow occupied mainly the territory of the modern Boulevard Ring. The monasteries-forts of Petrovsky, Rozhdestvensky, Sretensky-moved to this line, and by 1394 the first attempt to build external fortifications along the line of the future Kitay-Gorod and from the modern Dzerzhinskiy Square to the Moskva River 19 dates back . In the second half of the XIV century, along with Zaneglimenye and Zayauzye, Zarechye was first mentioned. However, the settlement of this area dates back to the 15th century . Omitting the question of researchers ' disagreements about the degree of population in a particular part of the city, 21 we note only that at the turn of the XIV-XV centuries and later the city was distinguished by extensive gardens and vacant lots, which gave it a great picturesque appearance. In general, Russian medieval cities differed from Western European and eastern ones in their relatively free development.

The 15th century was a time of new challenges and great victories for Moscow. The feudal war started by the appanage princes almost destroyed all the achievements of the past. In the course of it, Moscow fell into the hands of opponents, and the Moscow Prince Vasily Vasilyevich was captured, blinded and expelled from his city, although later, with the support of wide circles of feudal lords and citizens, he again occupied the Moscow throne. The unification of the Russian lands around Moscow into a single centralized Russian state continued. In 1480, the Horde yoke finally fell. By the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, almost all Russian feudal principalities were part of the state that their western neighbors called Muscovy and which in the 16th century was given the name of Russia. 22 And the capital Moscow itself went through a kind of feudal fragmentation: Kalita bequeathed the city to his three sons, and only by the end of the XV century.these "thirds" were united; in 1504, Grand Duke Ivan III bequeathed the whole of Moscow to his son Vasily III.

These processes could not but affect the composition of the population and the appearance of the city. If by the end of the XIV century the population of Moscow reached, according to M. N. Tikhomirov's rough estimates of 23 , 30-40 thousand people, then in a century it more than doubled: almost 100 thousand citizens .24 Such intensive population growth was not due to its natural growth; feudal lords and their numerous households moved to Moscow, merchants and artisans from the annexed cities (for example, from Novgorod and Pskov), and peasants came in droves, hoping to get rid of the ever-increasing feudal oppression.

Due to the increase in the population, the question arises about the ethnic processes that took place in Moscow. The main ethnic core of the city was formed in the XI-XII centuries. and by its origin was closely connected with the rural population surrounding the city-the Slavs-Vyatichi. In the cultural layer of the capital, only Vyatich women's jewelry was found; there are not even any that could belong to neighboring Krivichi. Similar material was provided by the earliest of the Moscow cemeteries studied, which was located at one time near the later Assumption Cathedral 25 . This Vyatich core of Muscovites (the word "Muscovites" appeared on the pages of chronicles in 1214, initially as the designation of the city army 2b ) turned out to be strong and active in ethnic terms: it assimilated all the newcomers, even if they settled not among the old-timers, but in special settlements.

19 PSRL. Vol. VI. SPB. 1853, p. 124; see also P. V. Sytin. History of planning and development in Moscow. T. I. "Proceedings" of the Museum of History and Reconstruction of Moscow, Issue 1. Moscow, 1950, pp. 83-84.

20 M. N. Tikhomirov. Medieval Moscow, p. 53.

21 P. V. Sytin. Op. ed., pp. 50-89; M. N. Tikhomirov. Drevnyaya Moskva [Ancient Moscow], Moscow, 1947. Medieval Moscow, pp. 23-41.

22 M. N. Tikhomirov. Russia in the XVI century, Moscow, 1962, p. 25.

23 M. N. Tikhomirov. Medieval Moscow, pp. 66-68.

24 " History of Moscow. A brief sketch", p. 39.

25 M. G. Rabinovich. On the ethnic composition of the original population of Moscow. "Soviet Ethnography", 1962, N 2; N. S. Shelyapina. Archaeological research in the Assumption Cathedral, pp. 56-62.

26 "Annals of the Moscow society of history and Russian antiquities". Book IX. Moscow, 1851, pp. 111-112.

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Of course, the very development of the city led to the elimination of tribal isolation, but the further process of formation of the Russian nation was also based on ancient Slavic elements. In particular, the researchers draw attention to the fact that the "akanye" characteristic of the Moscow dialect could have been a feature of the Vyatich region. Archaeological findings show that at the end of the 15th century a Moscow craftsman could have written "karova" instead of "cow" on his product (for example, "Seal of Ivan Karovi").

In the XIII-XIV centuries. The influx of population to Moscow from other Russian lands increased, especially from those that were subject to repeated Tatar raids. The "Zalesskaya" Moscow land was safer in this respect. In the 15th century, large groups of Novgorodians and Tverites moved here, and in the 16th century - Pskov residents. A non-Slavic ethnic element also appeared in the city. In the XIV century. these were, for example, "Sourozhans" - merchants from the Genoese colony of Surozh (now Sudak in the Crimea) of Italian and Greek origin. In the 15th century, entire Tatar settlements were formed in Moscow (in Zamoskvorechye) as the Tatar khanates, which the Golden Horde split into, weakened. At the end of the century, artisans and military personnel from different countries of Western Europe began to systematically come to Moscow. Already in the second or third generation, these newcomers lost their language and culture, merging with the main core of Muscovites. It was only through special historical research that it was possible to establish that the famous Russian architect Vasily Yermolin and the poet Fyodor Tyutchev came from Sourozh. The "secret" here was that although the newcomers outnumbered the old-timers, at any given time the latter had both a quantitative and cultural advantage, because the newcomers were already cut off from their ethnic environment and metropolis. They, for example, lived in Russian homes and often dressed in Russian clothes .28 And the next group of newcomers found themselves again in front of the monolithic core of Muscovites, who had already managed to assimilate the previous group.

Gradually, Moscow became the most important cultural center of the Great Russian nation. This was marked by the development of the Moscow chronicle, which created all-Russian chronicle vaults, the Moscow school of painting, which gave the world Andrei Rublev, Moscow architecture and many other bright phenomena of medieval Russian culture, which had a huge impact on other Russian lands. And in the image of Moscow in the XV century. there were serious changes. Large production centers - handicraft settlements-were created in the city. If earlier the focus of Moscow's craft was Veliky Posad, where excavations revealed the remains of many workshops of various specialties - leather and shoe-making, krichny (where iron was extracted from ore), foundry and jewelry, pottery and others, then in the XV - XVI centuries. artisans mostly moved to the then outskirts of the city. This was especially true for those industries that were associated with fire, and therefore with the danger of fire, which is always extremely large for a wooden city. The appearance of such an important area of "hot" handicraft industries as Zayauzye dates back to the 15th century: there the Patrikeev princes already had a settlement with the monastery "with Kuzmodemyan"29 , that is, apparently, a small Kuznetsk settlement (Kuzma and Demyan were considered patrons of the blacksmiths). Soon, the production of weapons, copper ware - boilers, tagans, etc., and, perhaps, most of all - pottery was established in this area. 30 A traveler approaching Moscow from the north-east along the Bolvanovskaya Road must have seen the smoke and fire of blacksmith's and potter's forges from a distance, and at least from the site of modern Taganskaya Square, he must have heard the continuous sound of hammers coming from almost every courtyard.

No less important for the city was the area of desalination of blacksmiths and foundry workers in Zaneglimenye, where one of the streets is still called Kuznetsky Most, although the Neglinnaya River, over which this bridge stood, is no longer visible on the surface. Only kru-

27 M. N. Tikhomirov. Medieval Moscow, p. 30.

28 V. L. Snegirev. Moscow suburbs. Essays on the history of Moscow Posad of the XIV-XVIII centuries, Moscow, 1956, p. 214.

29 "Spiritual and contractual charters of the grand and appanage dukes of the XIV-XVI centuries". Moscow-L. 1950, " p. 346.

30 B. A. Rybakov. Craft of Ancient Russia, Moscow, 1948, p. 749; M. G. Rabinovich. About ancient Moscow, pp. 149-182.

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the steep slopes of its banks have not yet been erased by modern buildings. On the high bank, where the building of the Detsky Mir department store is now located, in the 80s of the XV century there were first a Cannon Hut, and then a Cannon Yard, the largest foundry at that time. Here they made cannons, which formed the basis of the power of the Moscow army, and bells, the beautiful ringing of which was appreciated not only by Muscovites. Behind the palisade towered huge conical foundry furnaces, and even later, in the XVII century, stone workshops and clerical offices were built (the Pushkin Order was also located in the Cannon Yard). The Austrian ambassador S. Herberstein, who visited Moscow in the first quarter of the 16th century, wrote that there are many houses of blacksmiths and other artisans on the outskirts of the city .31 In addition to the Kuznetsk settlements (such a settlement existed in the XVI century. and in Zamoskvorechye, in the area of the current metro station "Novokuznetsk"), blacksmiths were certainly in every house of armory settlements. One of these settlements, Bronnaya, was located between the modern Boulevard and Garden Ring from Nikitsky Gate to Mayakovsky and Vosstaniya squares. In Zayauzye, where Kozhevnicheskaya Street is now, tanners moved, the production of which was not convenient for the city center for sanitary reasons. The shoemakers, having separated from them, remained on Bolshoy Posad in its southern part, in Zaryadye. Krichny production stopped there, and Moscow blacksmiths began to work on imported raw materials. The list of handicraft settlements could be continued (only within the boundaries of the modern Boulevard Ring there were 21 of them), only those settlements that influenced the appearance of the city are named here.

What was a typical Moscow street like? Bolshaya Street was distinguished by the fact that it was paved: so they said - bolshye mostovye streets (remember the old city song "Along Mostovaya Street"). Pavements were an essential element of the improvement of Russian cities. And in Moscow, pavements appeared almost simultaneously with the city itself (in one of the Kremlin pavements, according to archaeological observations, there were logs cut down, as shown by dendrochronological analysis, at the end of the XI century.)32 . The moist Moscow soil perfectly preserves wood, and ancient wooden pavements have been discovered by archaeologists in various parts of the city. It was possible to study their design well: the blocks cut from above lay across the movement on longitudinal logs. This design hasn't changed in centuries. As far back as the end of the sixteenth century, the English ambassador J. Fletcher wrote that "in the streets, instead of paving stones, there are cut trees, one next to the other."33 The pavement was laid so that the water drained from it, that is, slightly higher than the surrounding ground; sometimes special ditches and wooden pipes were arranged on the sides, diverting water to nearby ravines, streams and rivers that abounded in the city. Externally, the street of the XH - XV centuries presented such a picture: on the sides of the pavement there were solid palisades of fences, interrupted here and there by the blank walls of outbuildings and gates through which it was possible to enter the townspeople's estate.

The apartment building was usually located at the back of the courtyard. The estate certainly included a garden and vegetable garden. The size of the estates was far from the same: the court of a rich and noble person was many times larger than the court of a poor person. It could be a whole town in a city-with a manor house," human " huts where servants huddled, cellars and glaciers, stables and stables, even with its own church. In the XV-XVI centuries, the process of changing the layout of the city estate began. Houses began to move towards the street. This was done primarily on artisan estates to facilitate communication with customers. A little later, the houses of boyars and wealthy merchants also began to put the facade on the street. Accordingly, the decorations of the dwelling were also modified. Until the 15th century, it was mainly those parts that were visible from the street that were decorated, especially the gates, vereyas and panels of which were covered with carvings and patterns of special decorative nails with shaped caps. A peculiar decoration was the shape of the roof itself, high, with a figure skate. When the house began to face the street, there were carved decorations of the facade - pricheliny, "towels", window platbands, shutters.

31 p. Herberstein. Notes on Moscow Affairs, St. Petersburg, 1908, p. 99.

32 N. S. Shelyapin a. Archaeological observations in the Moscow Kremlin 1963-1966. "Antiquities of the Moscow Kremlin", p. 142.

33 " About the Russian state. The Work of Gils Fletcher", St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 78.

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The 16th century was marked by the development of the so-called tent architecture. A characteristic feature of Russian civil and religious buildings of that time were high roofs in the form of a tent, usually crowned with some other decorations. Scribes of the time called the tent building "up"; for example, "church so-and-so up". Tents completed the fortress towers, churches, high "tumbleweeds" of rich houses, " lockers "(platforms) of the external stairs of their porches. The first third of the XVI century was the time of development of this style in stone architecture, while in wooden architecture it found its spread earlier. The hipped style became the leading one in Russian architecture of the XVI-XVII centuries. Suffice it to say that the towers of the Kremlin, built in the Italian style, were decorated with tents in the 17th century. The elegance of the hipped buildings, the peculiar severity and at the same time the picturesque character of the ensemble created by them are inherent in the Moscow Kremlin and the buildings of Kolomenskoye.

A rich Moscow house was usually built from several log cabins, which were attached one to the other. They stood on high "subways", a kind of lower rooms, which often had an economic purpose. Living rooms with vestibules and passageways were located as if on the second floor, which was reached from the outside by intricately decorated stairs. In the 14th century, the vestibule in Moscow and other ancient Russian cities was a formal outdoor terrace where guests were received, 34 and only later it turned into a closed room intended for the front. Above the living rooms were teremas and greenhouses for the female half. A rich estate usually had one or several potsherds - high tower-like buildings of three or four floors, the interior of which was decorated with paintings. The Grand Duke even decorated his palace with a clock tower in the 15th century. Rich houses in the XVI-XVII centuries had many roofs (one above each room) of extremely complex outlines. The most common overlap was "barrel" - keeled, with a beautiful grid at the top. In general, the rich Moscow house bore little resemblance to the buildings familiar to us from later eras with a single architectural solution - symmetrically located parts and a common facade. This was not required by the tastes of that time and did not allow the different construction times of individual parts. But it was precisely the heterogeneity of the building, the diversity of its elements that created a unique picturesque and beautiful ensemble.

The houses of ordinary Muscovites were built both on subfloors and lower, underground ones, In the latter case they were insulated with a blockage. In the XH-XV centuries. these were houses consisting of only one room, without an entrance hall. But there were also two-chamber houses - pyatistenki (the fifth, transverse wall divided the house into two rooms) and even three-chamber, where two huts or a hut and a crate were connected by an entrance hall. The residential buildings were wooden, cut down from resinous pine logs. It was believed that they are healthier than stone. But since the middle of the 15th century, stone and brick buildings of a non-ecclesiastical nature were already being built in Moscow. The first of these was the refectory, which was built in his courtyard in 1450 by Metropolitan Jonah. Soon the merchant Tarokai built stone chambers, and then other rich and noble Muscovites.

In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the center of Moscow was reconstructed. The fortifications built under Dmitry Donskoy have fallen into disrepair. Many of their sections collapsed and were replaced by wooden log cabins, so that the Italian Ambrose Contarini even wrote in his diary that the fortress in Moscow is wooden. Ivan III, who already called himself "the ruler of All Russia", was very concerned about giving his capital the proper shine. On the Cathedral Square, cathedrals that have survived to this day were built on the site of old small stone churches. The Assumption Cathedral was built in 1475-1479 by the Italian architect Aristotle Fioravanti. Fulfilling the task of the prince and Metropolitan, he built a building similar to the Vladimir Assumption Cathedral (for which he specially went to Vladimir), in the traditions of Russian church architecture, but with an original solution of details. The House Church of the Grand Dukes-Annunciation Cathedral was completely rebuilt by Pskov craftsmen. The new Archangel Cathedral was built in 1505-1509 in the Baroque style by the Italian architect Aleviz (Aloysius). The new cathedral, according to the Western custom of that time, had

34 For example, Dmitry Donskoy received news of Mamai's campaign when he was feasting with his courtiers and guests "in the quays' hall." For more information about the structure of a residential building, see "The ancient dwelling of the peoples of Eastern Europe", Moscow, 1975.

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an open gallery, the foundation of which was discovered several years ago during archaeological work. In 1532-1543, the Ivan the Great Bell Tower was rebuilt. From the top of it, you could see the city. The bell tower, therefore, had not only a cult significance, but also played the role of a watchtower - "vezha".

This is how the ancient city center was "raised". In 1485-1495, grandiose works were carried out on the construction of new brick walls and towers of the Kremlin. Its territory was somewhat expanded: the corner was extended to the north, where there were springs that provided the fortress with fresh water in case of a siege; the western wall was lowered lower, to the bank of Neglinnaya. The new Kremlin, with its 18 towers, was one of the strongest fortresses in Europe. It was built by Milanese craftsmen Marco Ruffo (Mark Fryazin) and Pietro Antonia Solari (Peter Fryazii). The Kremlin is several times larger than the then Milan Castle, but the principle of defense that formed the basis of its construction is the same as that which prevailed in Europe at that time, when artillery had not yet forced to change the entire fortification: the fortress is designed to resist direct assault, the enemy sought to oppose water and high-altitude obstacles. Archaeological research has shown that the walls and towers of the Kremlin, built according to the recommendations of the best engineering manuals of that time, were much higher than they seem to us now, and the travel bridge towers stood on high conical plinths and were equipped with drawbridges. 35 In 1508-1516, the so-called Alevizov ditch was dug, connecting the Neglinnaya River above its mouth and the Moscow River, after which the Kremlin cape turned into an island. By 1491, Ruffo and Solari had built the famous Faceted Chamber, a reception hall that overlooked Cathedral Square. Soon Aleviz began construction of a stone palace on the embankment of the Moskva River, which was completed in 1508. Parts of this palace are being opened during the renovation of the Grand Kremlin Palace.

The construction of the late XV-early XVI centuries changed the appearance of Moscow, gave the city a greater parade and solemnity. In the first quarter of the sixteenth century, the Grand Duke of Moscow's ambassador to the court of the Pope, Dmitry Gerasimov, described Moscow: "It is the most glorious of all the cities of Muscovy, both in its position, which is considered the middle of the country, and because of the remarkably convenient location of rivers, the abundance of dwellings, and the loud fame of its very fortified fortress. It is the city buildings that stretch in a long strip along the bank of the Moskva River for a space of five miles. Wooden houses are generally divided into three rooms: a dining room, a kitchen and a bedroom; they are spacious in capacity, but not huge in their construction and not too low. Almost all houses have separate gardens, both for the use of vegetables and for the pleasure of the owners, which is why a rare city seems so huge in its circumference. In each quarter there is a separate church, and in a prominent place is the Church of the Virgin Mary, famous for its structure and size... At the most important part of the city, the Neglinka River flows into Moscow, which drives grain mills. At its confluence, this river forms a peninsula, on the edge of which a surprisingly beautiful fortress with towers and strelnits was erected by the art of Italian architects. Almost three parts of the city are washed by three rivers, while the rest is surrounded by a very wide moat, richly filled with water drawn from the same rivers. And on the opposite side the city is protected by another river, which is called the Yauza... The city of Moscow is recognized as quite worthy of the name of Tsarskoe Selo already for the advantages that we have indicated earlier, so that, apparently, when compared with other cities, it, according to universal recognition, has appropriated to itself the well-deserved honor of superiority and the honor that can never run out. " 36 The above excerpt is taken from a recording made by the Italian Bishop Pavel Ioviy Novokomsky from the words of Gerasimov. Perhaps he did not understand everything exactly from the story (for example, the purpose of the three cameras of an ordinary Moscow house). In some places, the number of rivers is confused. But even in this exposition it is clearly felt that-

35 M. G. Rabinovich. About ancient Moscow, p. 39, 44.

36 "Pavel Ioviy Novokomsky's book about the embassy of Vasily the great Sovereign of Moscow to Pope Clement VII". S. Herberstein. Notes on Moskozitskih affairs, pp. 262-265.

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The author explores the narrator's desire to present the city in the best possible light, as if to justify its right to be the capital of all Russian lands. This is a natural aspiration, since in those years (Gerasimov was sent to Rome in 1522) the unification of Russian lands around Moscow had just been completed. In addition, there were still princely estates of the brothers of the Grand Duke of Moscow.

The 16th century was a period of particularly rapid growth in Moscow. By the end of the century, the misguided development of the city occupied the area of the modern Garden Ring, according to researchers ' calculations, -1878 hectares .37 In addition, there were also commercial villages and settlements that "pulled" to the city. The population has also grown enormously. According to the chronicler, "before this Moscow was not so popular as it is now in the years of the faithful tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich, autocrat of all Russia." 38 If you believe the report of the English ambassador J. Fletcher, then in Moscow by 1570 there were 41,500 households, that is, its population should have significantly exceeded 100 thousand people (taking the calculation proposed by N. D. Chechulin-3,266 people on average per yard)39 .

In the XVI century, Moscow is surrounded by three new lines of fortifications. Less than 20 years after the construction of the new Kremlin was completed, in 1534, tree-earth walls were erected around Veliky Posad. In the construction, bundles of thin wood were used, called "kita", hence the name of the fortress "Kitay-Gorod". But these were temporary fortifications; in their place, in 1535-1538, a stone wall was built adjacent to the Kremlin from the east. Compared to the Kremlin, the walls of Kitay Gorod with its 14 towers looked squat: their thickness (6 m) was almost equal to the height (6.3 m) and 1.5 times the thickness of the Kremlin walls. This was influenced by the development of artillery, which has spread widely in the few decades that have passed since the work of Ruffo and Solari. As the excavations showed, the walls of Kitay-Gorod were placed on an elastic base of piles and a wooden frame filled with rubble. First of all, the thickness of the walls was taken into account, because it had to withstand artillery fire, and at the top of the wall there was a wide combat platform on which the then muzzle-loading guns were placed. From the many loopholes located in three tiers, it was possible to fire at the enemy even if he came very close or went down into the ditch.

It is interesting to note that the stone fortifications of Kitay-Gorod were built largely with funds that the Moscow government (this was in the childhood of Ivan IV, when his mother Elena was regent) collected from Muscovites: a third was contributed by merchants, a third by boyars, a third by clergy; from the grand ducal treasury only "eliko like"was added40 . This practice also existed in Western European feudal cities. For example, in Germany, such a tax on the construction of fortifications was called Stadtbau (that is, "urban development"). Ordinary posadsky people, apparently, did not pay money, but themselves participated in the construction of Kitay-Gorod. The construction was supervised by the Italian Netrok Maly. The walls of Kitay-Gorod separated Veliky Posad from the river, and the pier was moved to the mouth of the Yauza River. The street that once went to the pier has lost its significance as the main artery of Posad and the name Velikaya. In the XVII century, it was called Zachatskaya, and later-Mokrinsky Lane after the churches that stood on it.

In 1586-1593 the Moscow suburbs were protected by the second line of stone fortifications - the White City. It was a stone wall covered with white plaster with a length of more than 9 km, it had 27 towers, of which 10 were passageways. On the site of this fortress, a ring of boulevards later appeared, and the squares between them were called in the old way-gates (Yauzsky, Pokrovsky, Sretensky, Nikitsky, Arbat, Prechistensky). The fortress was built by a Russian master city builder, Fyodor Kon. Its construction, as far as the data of archaeological research allow, was close to the construction of the Kitaygorodskaya wall, the towers were erected on

37 "History of Moscow", Vol. 1, Moscow, 1952, p. 173.

38 PSRL. Vol. XIII, the second half. SPB. 1906, p. 455.

zd N. D. Chechulin. St. Petersburg, 1889, p. 31. Of course, Fletcher's information cannot be considered reliable. 40 "Sofiyskiy vremennik", Part II, Moscow, 1821, pp. 379-380.

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elastic base and designed for artillery fire. The architectural decoration of the towers, as can be seen in the plans-drawings, was rather strict: they were covered with small tents, and only one passing tower on the site of the present Kropotkin Gate had an intricate covering in the form of seven tents and was called "semiverkha" 41 .

As soon as the construction of the White City was completed, the outer ring of fortifications began to be built at a rapid pace. The tree-earth fortress covered the entire territory of the city at that time with a ring that crossed over to the southern bank of the Moskva River. "Summer 7102 [1593/94]...the drevyannaya grad is set up on Moscow near the entire posadu; its end is from the Vorontsov Annunciation, and the other is brought to the Semchinsky village, a little lower, and beyond the Moscow River opposite the same place is the end, and the other end is a little higher than the New Savior (Novospassky Monastery. - M. R.), and beyond Yauza, too " 42, -the chronicler wrote. The length of the new ring of fortifications, named Skorodom for the speed of its construction, reached 15 km, 50 towers were erected on the earthen rampart, including 34 passageways. In the conditions of that time, wood-earth fortifications resisted artillery fire no worse than stone ones, and later earthen bastions became the most common defensive structures. High-rise and water obstacles were no longer of the same importance as in the fifteenth century, and the moats of Skorodom, Bely Gorod, and Kitay-Gorod were much narrower and shallower than the Kremlin moat. Wooden fences and towers were very picturesque and designed in the best traditions of Russian architecture. About 20 years after the construction of Skorodom, the Pole S. Maskevich wrote about it: "The whole fence was made of sawn wood, the towers and gates were very beautiful, as you can see, they were worth the work and time." He defines the height of the wooden part of the wall "in three spears", that is, in 6 - 8 meters 43 .

One can imagine that a traveler approaching the capital of Russia, this formidable and at the same time elegant fortress should have made a great impression. After entering one of the gates, he rode to the echoing pavement between small and large houses, now hidden behind palisaded fences, now facing the street, past gardens that were hidden behind them in the depths, past wooden and stone churches with green cemeteries, and found himself in an empty space in front of a white stone wall with a gate tower. Then I drove down the street again, only busier, and again entered the undeveloped lane, now in front of the Kitay-Gorod gate, through which I entered the central shopping area of the capital. By the end of the 16th century, the center of Moscow looked even more grand than before. Bolshoy, or Great, Posad, having lost its production value, has greatly increased its trade value. Near the walls of the Kremlin is a huge square, originally called Pozhar. On it was the main Moscow market with rows of shops, sheds, shelves (counters). Here they traded both from carts And directly on the ground. Numerous churches and monasteries rose behind the rows above the mass of buildings of Zaryadye. The trading yards of visiting merchants were located on the outskirts of torg. In the northern part of Kitay-Gorod, the first Russian printing house was located - the Printing Yard.

The spectacle of a large city, admired by a contemporary, especially if he was a provincial or a peasant, may not seem so prosperous from the present point of view. Our eyes would linger not only on the palaces of the Moscow nobility and the rich, but also on the courtyards of the urban poor, which contrasted sharply with them, with small, blind houses. The huge congestion of people on the streets and shopping plazas at that time turned out to be an accumulation of sewage for the city, which, given the level of development of the urban economy, was not easy to cope with. The hooves of horses and wagon wheels did not always make a loud clatter on the pavement: they often sank into the mud that covered the pavement. A rich city attracted, of course, a lot of all sorts of "dashing people". "Tatba" - theft and open robbery were by no means rare. It was barely getting dark, and Muscovites didn't go out.,

41 N. M. Korobkov. The White City Wall. "Historical and archaeological collection", Moscow, 1948, p. 31.

4 - "Piskarevsky chronicler". ("Documents on the history of the XV-XVII centuries", Moscow, 1955, p. 92).

43 N. G. Ustryalov. Tales of contemporaries about Dmitry the Impostor. Part II. St. Petersburg, 1895, p. 58.

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like a large party or accompanied by armed servants with torches, because there was no lighting. Intersections were blocked by "slingshots", at which guards from the citizens themselves were on duty, but this measure was not very reliable. However, in those remote times, robberies, robberies, even murders on the night streets were not uncommon in the cities of Western Europe and the East. And the city streets themselves were both winding and narrow, even narrower, perhaps, than in Moscow.

In the middle of the 16th century, the main shopping area of the capital was significantly decorated. On the slope of the bank of the Moskva River, at the very entrance to the Kremlin, in 1554-1560, the Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat was erected in honor of the capture of Kazan. It was built by the Russian stonemason master Postnik Yakovlev "according to the title of Barma", that is, nicknamed Barma 44 . This cathedral, later named after the locally venerated Basil the Blessed, was then stricter in outline and coloring, its domes were covered with copper, and there was no bell tower. It acquired a modern look and coloring in the style of the Russian "uzorochya" in the XVII century. The construction of the Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat has completed the ensemble of the Moscow shopping center. Probably, since then, the square has become known as "Red", that is, beautiful.

The fate of the Moscow district that adjoined the Kremlin from the west, between the modern Herzen and Frunze Streets, was somewhat unusual in the 16th century. Here were located the palace settlements inhabited by people who served the royal court. Among these settlements were wedged significant areas allocated by the king for the construction of the courtyards of his entourage. After the establishment of the Oprichnina by Ivan IV, it was decided to create a new royal residence here - "oprichny dvor" on the site of the courtyard taken from the tsar's brother-in-law, Prince M. T. Cherkassky. Oprichny Dvor was located approximately on the site of the present new building of the State Library named after V. I. Lenin and the reception hall of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The palace was made of wood, but it was surrounded by a stone wall about six meters high. Its bottom was white stone, its top was brick. The square in front of the palace was covered with a cubit of white sand. This layer of sand was discovered by archaeologists during the construction of the metro and it was used to determine the approximate location of the palace. Entering the palace through the main gate in the northern part of the fence was greeted by carved wooden heraldic figures of lions, above which was placed the heraldic black eagle. It was not a fortress, but only the fence of the royal estate. The symbolism of feudal power was combined in this palace with an increased concern for isolation. Behind a high wall at the back of the courtyard were buildings for housing, receptions and oprichnoi offices. Only their intricate roofs, surmounted by the figures of double-headed eagles, peeked out from behind a high stone fence. The Oprichny yard burned down shortly after, during a raid on Moscow by the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray in 1571. Attempts to set up an oprichnoi courtyard elsewhere failed, and the tsar once again made the Kremlin his residence.

It has already been said that one of the first stone civil buildings in Moscow was the refectory chamber of the Metropolitan court. The court of metropolitans and later patriarchs was located in the Kremlin next to the Grand Ducal and Royal Palaces, adjacent to the Assumption Cathedral. The house church of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was the Church of the Sacrament, which simultaneously faced the palace. It seemed to correspond rhythmically to the Annunciation Cathedral and complemented the ensemble of the palace and Cathedral Square. By 1600, the main vertical of the Kremlin, the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, was built on several tiers. This is told by the preserved inscription in huge letters in vyazyu, running along its top under the dome. What did the lookout who was on this "vezha"see? He could see from the inside all four lines of Moscow's fortifications, with broad bridgeheads in front of them, and a tangled network of streets radiating from the Kremlin and Red Square. I saw the passageways to which these streets converged, forming whole bundles. Here, from the Vladimir Gates of Kitay-Gorod, Myasnitskaya and Lubyanka diverge like rays, from the Resurrection Gates - Dmitrovka and Tver-

44 Previously, it was believed that there were two masters - Postnik and Barma. N. F. Kalinin proves that they are one and the same person (N. F. Kalinin. Postnik Barma is the builder of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow and the Kazan Kremlin. "Soviet Archeology". 1957, No. 3, pp. 261-264). This opinion was supported by A. A. Zimin (see " History of Moscow. A brief sketch", p. 57).

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yokaya, from the Arbat gate of the White City - Povarskaya and Smolenskaya 45 . They go to different gates of Skorodom: Myasnitskaya - to Myasnitsky, Lubyanka - to Sretensky, Tverskaya - to Tver, Dmitrovka - to Dmitrov, Povarskaya - to Nikitsky, Smolenskaya - to Arbat. And many more crooked alleys turn off from everywhere to the gate. In those places where the streets intersect with the ring bridgeheads, squares, wastelands, and small fields have formed in front of the gates. And in Zarechye, the streets diverged from the bridge that went from Red Square across the Moskva River. They led to the Horde and Kaluga roads, to the Serpukhov and Kaluga gates of Skorodom. This lowland was less built up and less protected, with only a single line of fortifications. But the muzzle of a huge Tsar Cannon, recently installed, looked out from Red Square. More raids were expected from the other side. And, probably, the lookout looked more precisely there and saw the city pasture beyond Skorodom, where the flocks belonging to the citizens grazed, and then - the monasteries-forts. In short, the lookout saw a complex and seemingly disorderly network of streets, which we now call the radial-ring system of city planning. This is how the city was drawn by the compiler of one of the first plans-drawings of Moscow in about 1597 .46
Who visited Moscow at the end of the 16th century. foreigners recognized it as one of the largest cities in Europe, although with a much lower population density. They wrote that" the city is very large and crowded ... and it is almost impossible to compare it with any German city"; that Moscow is" more extensive than Prague"," larger than Florence"; that"the city as a whole is larger than London with its suburbs" 47. And in terms of population, Moscow was 4 times larger than the second largest Russian city of that time, Veliky Novgorod, and more than 6 times larger than Pskov or Kazan. This was the capital of Russia by the end of the XVI century.

45 Street names are given conditionally (sometimes later). But these streets themselves in the XVI century. they already existed.

46 Plan of Moscow at the end of the XVI century (the so-called Petrov drawing). See P. V. Sytin. Edict op., pasting, p. 64-65.

47 "Readings" in the Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University. Book 2, ed. III. 1896, p. 18; M. Mekhovsky. A treatise on two Sarmatians. Moscow-L. 1936, p. 113; "English travelers about the Moscow state of the XVI century". Moscow 1938, p. 56.

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