Spasskaya Tower

Interesting facts

Each of the clock's four faces is 6.12 metres across, with a minute hand about 3.27 metres long and Roman numerals 72 cm tall.

The clock mechanism with its dials and hands weighs about 25 tonnes and fills the tenth tier of the tower.

In 1625 the new upper tier was adorned with nude Mannerist statues; Tsar Michael had them clothed in specially sewn cloth garments.

Peter the Great replaced the clock in 1706 with a Dutch-made mechanism and a 12-hour dial, and his officials collected beard tax at the gate.

The current chimes were built by the Butenop brothers in 1851–52 and played a regimental march and Bortnyansky's hymn at set hours.

After 1918 the chimes played the Internationale at noon; from 1938 they fell silent except for striking the hours and quarters.

In 2020 twelve newly cast bells were added to the belfry, and the chimes first rang with them on 4 November that year.

The first Soviet star on the spire, installed in 1935, was studded with Ural gemstones and weighed about a tonne before a glowing ruby star replaced it in 1937.

During the Second World War the star was switched off and boarded over, and in 1942 a bomb exploded between the Spasskaya and Nabatnaya towers.

Its bricks are unusually heavy, up to about eight kilograms each, and the tower rises through ten floors.

Why it is worth it

The Spasskaya Tower is the main tower of the Moscow Kremlin's eastern wall and the face that the Kremlin turns to Red Square: a fortified gate tower below, a tiered top with a hipped spire, the great clock, and a red star at the summit. Its height with the star is 71 metres. The lower part is the work of an Italian: Grand Prince Ivan III brought Pietro Antonio Solari from Milan, and a Latin inscription over the gate records that the tower was built in 1491. It was first named the Frolovskaya Tower after a Kremlin church that no longer exists.

In 1624–25 the tower became the first in the Kremlin to receive its tall pinnacled top, designed by Bazhen Ogurtsov together with Christopher Galloway. A clock has hung on the tower since at least the sixteenth century; the chimes, known as the Kremlin kuranty, mark official Moscow time. The present name comes from the icon of the Saviour Not Made by Hands placed above the inner side of the gate in 1658. On the outer side, a sixteenth-century wall icon of the Saviour of Smolensk was plastered over in 1937 and uncovered and restored in 2010.

The gate beneath the tower was for centuries the ceremonial entrance of the Kremlin. It greeted foreign ambassadors and processions, and men passing through it traditionally dismounted and took off their hats — a custom that ended in Soviet times. In the 1930s the double-headed eagle on the spire gave way to a red star. The gate was closed to ordinary traffic in 1999 and now opens only on special occasions such as parades and inaugurations. The Kremlin and Red Square together have been a World Heritage Site since 1990.

Getting there

The tower stands on the eastern side of the Kremlin, facing Red Square in the centre of Moscow. Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO) is about 28 km away.

Spasskaya Tower

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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