June 29 in Russian history

I had planned to write about the battle of Kosovo yesterday, but I was too busy. Sorry. I still would like to mention this anniversary, so here's a photo of a graffiti in Samara. It says in Serbian: "Serbs and Russians are brothers forever. Greece, Serbia, Russia. ".

1561: The Saint Basil's Cathedral is officially opened in Moscow. The construction started in 1555 to commemorate the victory over the Kazan Khanate. The building was consecrated in 1557 and was named the Cathedral of intercession of the Virgin on the moat, but the construction went on till 1561. It is still unclear who was the architect. The traditional version says that there were two of them: Barma and Postnik. It is possible, though, that these are two names of one man. Yet another version maintains that it was an anonymous architect from Western Europe. The temple consists of eight towers grouped around the ninth one. Once again, traditionally each tower is thought to be dedicated to a certain battle with Kazan. Viewed from the top, they look like two squares forming an eight-pointed star. Number 8 represents the resurrection of Christ and what was called "the eighth kingdom" — the age after the second coming of Christ, after the end of the human history represented by the apocalyptic number 7. The square is a symbol of solid faith and persistence. Its four corners are the four evangelists, four sides of the world, four ends of the cross, four equal sides of the celestial Jerusalem. The eight-pointed star should also remind of the Bethlehem star and symbolize the Christian church which leads human beings, like a star, to the celestial Jerusalem. Mary sometimes appears on orthodox icons in a shawl with three eight-pointed stars.

The cathedral is small, but there's a reason for this. No cathedral would be large enough to accomodate all Muscovites. So, during large holidays, like Easter or Christmas, the whole Red Square became a church and the cathedral played the role of the altar in this church.

Yet another theory says that the cathedral was modeled after the famous Qol-Sharif mosque in Kazan, destroyed by Ivan the Terrible. However, we do not know how the mosque looked like. It is clear, though, that the new Qol-Sharif built in 2005, however beautiful, is not a copy of the old one.

Initially, there were 16 more little towers around the main one, but in late XVIII century they were removed and the temple was painted the way we see it today. In the end of the XVII century one more tower was added, the tower of St.Basil. In 1924 during the archaeological excavations, bricked up narrow loopholes were found in the lower tier of the edifice. Probably, it was intended to serve as a small bastion.

In 1812, Napoleon first planned to move the temple to Paris, but someone explained to him that it was impossible, he ordered to destroy it. The temple was saved by a sudden rain which extinguished the fuses leading to the explosives. After the revolution, bolsheviks also planned to get rid of the cathedral. In 1919 the senior priest was executed and in 1929 Lazar Kaganovich, the head of the apparatus of the Communist Party, offered to dismantle the cathedral. A rumour is that he prepared a small model of the Red Square to prove to Stalin that the temple was an obstacle for the traffic. During the discussion he suddenly said: "And what if we do so?" and tore away the St.Basil from the model. Stunned Stalin was silent for some seconds and then he said slowly: "Put it back, Lazar." However, the truth is probably that the temple was saved due to the activity of a prominent restorator P.Baranovsky. They say that he fell on his knees before the Central Committee of the Communist Party, imploring to spare the temple.

As for Basil (Vassily) himself, he was a Moscow fool. He was born in 1469 and died in 1552. When he was 16, he began to prophesy. He walked almost naked and lived on the streets. He threw stones into the houses of the people who led sinful (in his opinion) life. He used to smash up the stalls in the marketsquares when he thought that the owners were too greedy. When Ivan the Terrible gave him gold, he didn't give it to the poor, but handed to a nearby merchant. It was found out later that this merchant lost all his possessions recently and didn't dare to ask for alms. The tsar gave him wine, but Vassily poured it away to "quench" the fire in Novgorod. He often rebuked Ivan the Terrible and was the only man Ivan was afraid of. Ivan was among the people who carried Vassily's coffin in 1552.

January 25 in Russian history

1547: Ivan IV becomes the tsar of Russia. While the term 'tsar' has been known for quite a while, Ivan IV was the first Russian ruler to be crowned as the "tsar of all Russia". He became a Grand Prince at the age of three, in 1533, and was crowned at the age of 16. The new title, tsar, had to be acknowledged by other monarchs. Patriarch of Constantinople sent his blessings in 1561, while other monarchs for a long time continued to call the Moscow rulers 'the Grand Princes'. During the first half of his reign, he was heavily influenced by his wife, Anastasia Yurieva (or Koshkina, Zakharieva, Romanova -- it's a long story :)) and a priest named Sylvester. The tsar wanted to devote all his life to serving the people and Sylvester organized a whole circle of nobility who wanted to assist the tsar in improving the life of Russians. Ivan IV updated and re-wrote the sudebnik (the law code), gave self-government to many districts and allowed to elect the local administration and judges, summoned the first Zemsky Sobor, the first Russian parliament. He put an end to the attacks of the last Tatars by seizing their capital Kazan and adjoined huge territories along Volga and Kama rivers to Russia. He had some conflicts with Sylvester and the nobility, who wanted to limit the autocratic power of the tsar, but all went well till 1560, when Ivan's wife died. It was a shock which changed him forever. In 1560, he sends Sylvester and other members of his circle into exile. In 1564, he leaves Moscow, stays in a monastery and sends a letter to Moscow, saying that he had left the capital because the boyars were plotting against him. The people asked him to come back and he agreed at last. He divided the country into "zemshchina" and "oprichnina". The first part was governed by the boyars' Duma, and the second belonged to the tsar exclusively. Oprichnina included the lands which belonged earlier to the most powerful boyars and by taking these lands under his hand Ivan attempted to minimize their influence. In practice, oprichnina turned into a removal and even elimination of many people. His guard, called oprichniki used the power given to them by the tsar to rob and to kill (mostly in aristocratic houses) and enjoyed sadistic orgies. After these atrocities he got his name Grozny, or the Terrible (this translation is not perfect, though). It is important to note, though, that the total number of his victims is estimated to be from 4,000 to 7,000 people, that is, much fewer than many other European monarchs managed to kill. He achieved his goals: the nobility lost their influence almost completely. His death in 1584 became the beginning of a long period of unrest, called the Times of Trouble.

1701: School of mathematical and navigational sciences was founded in Moscow. It was a logical step for Peter I, who wanted to turn Russia into a sea power. Children in the age from 12 to 17 from all social classes could enter the school. In 1715, the elder students moved to St.Petersburg and became the base for the Academy of Sea Guard, now called the St.Petersburg Naval Institute. Among famous graduates of the School were the admirals Kornilov, Nakhimov, Senyavin, Ushakov, Essen, Kuznetsov, Gorshkov and others, explorers Chirikov, Chelyuskin, Laptev, Lisyansky, Kruzenshtern, Nevelsky, Vrangel, etc. Many other graduates became famous in other, non-navy professions: composer Rimsky-Korsakov, writers Stanyukovich and Sobolev, painters Vereshchagin and Bogolyubov, the author of a dictionary of Russian language Dal, constructor of the first aeroplane (well, it was almost an aeroplane) Mozhaisky.

1938: Birthday of Vladimir Vysotsky, a unique poet and singer of the Soviet times. I am afraid that I will not be able to describe the huge role he played in our life in the USSR, so I will simply refer you to web pages. Read about Vysotsky at Wikipedia. Read and listen his verses and songs at the official site. Read the verses here.

1991: My home city got back its original name -- Samara. Since 1935 it was known as Kyibyshev, after the name of Valerian Kuibyshev, a Soviet politician and a Red Army commander. The city was founded in 1586. During the WWII, it was a secondary capital of USSR. The government stayed in Moscow, but many ministeries, foreign embassies, etc., were relocated to Kuibyshev. For many years, Kuibyshev has been an important centre of aerospace industry. A large share of Soviet and Russian spaceships and carriers were built here.