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At first, the tower was called Frolovskaya - after the church of Frol and Lavr on, to which the road led from the tower. The church has not survived. The prison where the participants of the salt and copper riots languished was not preserved either.

The increase in the tax on salt put the "black people" of the settlements in a difficult position. Under pressure from the population, the government canceled the tax, but decided to collect arrears immediately for 3 years. The abuses of persons close to the tsar aggravated the situation, and on June 1, 1648, Alexei Mikhailovich, on the way from the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, was surrounded by a crowd demanding to punish extortionists.
The next day, the king was again surrounded: people demanded the extradition of the villains and even began to smash the boyars' houses. The tsar decided to give Pleshcheev to the executioner, but the crowd dragged him to Red Square and tore him to pieces. Then Alexei Mikhailovich promised to expel the hated boyars from Moscow. And then the fire started. According to rumors, those close to the king were guilty. In response, the people destroyed Morozov's mansions, the court of the merchant Vasily Shorin, killed the clerk Chisty and the boyar Trakhaniotov. The uprising fizzled out.

Soon, new reasons for discontent were added to the old ones: the protracted war against Poland and the depreciation of copper money. Trying to get out of the financial crisis, the government issued copper money, making it equal in price to silver. Because of this, prices have risen, and many fakes have appeared. On the night of July 25, 1662, "thieves' lists" appeared in crowded places in Moscow, accusing the tsar's relatives. The sounds of the alarm floated over the city, and the crowd rushed to the village of Kolomenskoye to Alexei Mikhailovich.
The king had already persuaded the people to disperse, but reinforcements were added to the rebels. Then the "quietest" king ordered to deal with the rebels. Many people suffered, but copper money was abolished.

Reminiscent of that time are the treasures found by Soviet archaeologists on. One of them contained 33,000 silver coins from the time of Mikhail Fedorovich and Alexei Mikhailovich.

The name of the Spasskaya Tower was given by the over-gate icon of the Savior of Smolensk.

To the left and right of the Spassky Gate until 1925 there were chapels - the chapel of the Great Council Revelation (Smolenskaya), and the chapel of the Great Council Angel (Spasskaya). From the gates of the Spasskaya Tower, regiments went to battle, and foreign ambassadors were met here. All processions from the cross went through these gates, all the rulers of Russia, starting with Mikhail Fedorovich, passed through them before the coronation. Therefore, the Spassky Gate was also called the Royal or Holy.

In the 17th century, the icon of the table was in a special icon case, and it was strictly forbidden to pass through the gates of the Spasskaya Tower in a headdress or ride a horse. For "forgetfulness" they were beaten with batogs or forced to make 50 bows to the earth. At the same time, when Napoleon was passing through the Spassky Gates, a gust of wind tore off his cocked hat. And when the French in 1812 tried to steal the precious salary from the icon of the Savior of Smolensk, a miracle happened: the attached ladder fell, and the shrine remained unharmed.

But in Soviet times, the icon disappeared from the Spasskaya Tower and was considered lost until May 11, 2010. In its place was a plastered white rectangle. And during the restoration of the tower, it became clear that the icon of the Savior of Smolensk was not lost, but hidden. The architect Konstantin Apollonov, following the order to destroy the painting, hid the image under a chain-link mesh and a layer of concrete. So they saved the icon, and the safety of the image was 80%.

Now the icon of the Savior of Smolensk is again over the gates of the Spasskaya Tower. And from the diaries of N.D. Vinogradov, it becomes clear that the commandant of the Kremlin himself allowed the icons to be hidden in any way, so long as they were not visible.

In the 16th century, figures of lions, bears and peacocks were installed on the Spasskaya Tower. Now it is believed that these were symbols of royal power (lions and unicorns). They survived, although they suffered in 1917.

And in the 16th century, figures of naked people appeared on the Spasskaya Tower. And the church in Rus' did not even allow ordinary curly images! True, under Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, their nakedness was bashfully covered with specially tailored clothes. But we cannot see this curiosity - time and fires did not spare it. The statues themselves were used as foundation stones.

And during the time of Peter the Great, near the Spasskaya Tower on Red Square, mannequins with model clothes of French and Hungarian cut appeared. The guards stood nearby and, in the absence of proper clothing, cut the floors and beards with scissors.

The first watch in Russia appeared on the Spasskaya Tower in the 15th century. And at the end of the 16th century, there were clocks on two more towers of the Kremlin - Troitskaya and Taynitskaya.

In 1585, watchmakers were in the service of all these towers. In 1613-1614, watchmakers were also mentioned at. This work was very responsible and required compliance with the rules: do not drink alcohol, do not play cards, do not sell wine and tobacco, do not communicate with thieves.

At that time, watch faces were huge so that everyone who did not have a personal watch could tell the time from them. That is, the flow of time in the city depended on the clock on the Kremlin towers. There was no minute hand on the clock, but they could still be in a hurry or behind by a couple of hours - this depended on the haste of the watchmaker, who manually translated the hands every hour. The countdown was even more interesting: the day was divided not in half, but into day and night. In summer, the day began at 3 o'clock in the morning and ended at 8 o'clock in the evening, and therefore the dial was calculated at 17 o'clock.

The first mechanical clock for the Spasskaya Tower was created by Galloway. They weighed 400 kg. Along the contour of the dial painted "under the sky" there were Arabic numerals and Church Slavonic letters, denoting numbers in pre-Petrine Rus'. At the same time, the dial rotated, and the arrow looked straight up.

In our watches, the arrow moves towards the number, in Russia, on the contrary, the numbers move towards the arrow. A certain Mr. Galloway - a very inventive person - came up with a dial of this kind. He explains this as follows: "Since the Russians do not act like all other people, then what they produce should be arranged accordingly."

Sometimes watchmakers set up a business right next to the tower. So on the Spasskaya Tower, the watchmaker built himself a hut, planted a garden and raised chickens. And this caused great displeasure of the authorities and residents of the city.

The clock on the Spasskaya Tower served faithfully until it was sold to Yaroslavl. In 1705, by decree of Peter I, they installed a new clock with a 12-hour dial, ordered from Amsterdam. What melody these chimes played is unknown. And for a short time they pleased the Muscovites with a chime: the clock often broke, and after the fire of 1737 they fell into disrepair. And since the capital was moved to St. Petersburg, they were in no hurry to repair it.

In 1763, large English chimes were found in the Faceted Chamber and the German master Fatz was invited to install them. And in 1770, the Kremlin chimes began to play the German song "Ah, my dear Augustine."

During the fire of 1812, this clock was damaged. A year later, watchmaker Yakov Lebedev offered to repair the chimes, and in 1815 the clock was started again. Yet time has not been kind to them.

The Spassky tower clock is currently in a state close to complete disorder: the iron wheels and gears are so worn out from longevity that they will soon become completely unusable, the dials have become very dilapidated, the wooden floors have settled, the stairs require indispensable alteration, ... the oak foundation under rotted away for hours.

New chimes were made in 1851-1852 at the Russian factory of the Butenop brothers. Some old parts and all the watchmaking developments of that time were used.

The performance of the melody was laid on a playing shaft - a drum with holes and pins connected by ropes with bells under the tent of the tower. To do this, 24 bells had to be removed from the Troitskaya and Borovitskaya towers and installed on Spasskaya, bringing the total number to 48.

The choice of music was not an easy one. Composer Verstovsky and bandmaster of Moscow theaters Stutsman selected 16 melodies most familiar to Muscovites, but Nicholas I left only two - the Transfiguration March of Peter the Great and the prayer "Glorious be our Lord in Zion." They wanted to play the anthem of the Russian Empire “God Save the Tsar!” on the playing shaft, but the emperor forbade it, saying that the chimes could play any song except the anthem.

In 1913, for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, the chimes on the Spasskaya Tower were restored.

But on November 2, 1917, during the storming of the Kremlin, a shell hit the clock. He damaged the mechanism, and the clock stood up for almost a year. Only in 1918, at the direction of V.I. Lenin's chimes were restored.

First, for the repair of the chimes, they turned to the company of Bure and Roginsky, but they requested 240 thousand gold. Then the authorities turned to the Kremlin locksmith Nikolai Berens, who knew the device of the chimes (he was the son of a master from the Butenop Brothers company). By July 1918, Behrens started the chimes again. But since he did not understand the musical device of the watch, the ringing was assigned to the artist and musician Mikhail Cheremnykh. Of course, preference was given to revolutionary melodies, so the chimes began to be played at 12 o'clock "The Internationale", at 24 o'clock - "You fell a victim ...". In August 1918, the commission of the Moscow City Council accepted the work, having listened to each melody from the Execution Ground three times.

But in the 1930s, the commission recognized the sound of the chimes as unsatisfactory: the worn-out mechanism of the battle and frost greatly distorted the sound. Therefore, in 1938, the clock on the Spasskaya Tower fell silent again.

In 1941, an electromechanical drive was mounted specifically for the performance of the Internationale, but it did not save the musical system. In 1944, at the direction of I.V. Stalin tried to set the clock on the Spasskaya Tower to perform a new anthem to the music of Alexandrov, but this also failed.

A major restoration of the chiming mechanism with a stop for 100 days took place in 1974, but even then the musical mechanism was not touched.

In 1991, the Plenum of the Central Committee decided to resume the work of the chimes on the Spasskaya Tower, but it turned out that 3 bells were not enough to play the USSR anthem. They returned to the task in 1995.

Then they planned to approve the “Patriotic Song” by M.I. as a new anthem. Glinka, and in 1996 during the inauguration of B.N. Yeltsin's chimes on the Spasskaya Tower, after the traditional chime and striking the clock, began to play again after 58 years of silence! And although only 10 bells out of 48 remained on the belfry, the missing ones were replaced with metal beaters. At noon and midnight, 6 am and 6 pm, the chimes began to perform the "Patriotic Song", and at 3 and 9 am and pm - the melody of the choir "Glory" from the opera "Life for the Tsar" by M.I. Glinka. After the restoration in 1999, the clock on the Spasskaya Tower began to play the national anthem of the Russian Federation instead of the Patriotic Song.

The chimes on the Spasskaya Tower are unique and completely mechanical.

The dial diameter is 6.12 meters. The dial is so huge that a Moscow metro train can pass through it! The height of the Roman numerals is 0.72 meters, the length of the hour hand is 2.97 meters, the length of the minute hand is 3.27 meters. The entire clock mechanism occupies 3 of the 10 floors of the tower.

The weight of the clock on the Spasskaya Tower is 25 tons, and it is driven by 3 weights weighing from 160 to 224 kg. Now they are lifted with the help of an electric motor twice a day. The accuracy of the movement is achieved thanks to the pendulum weighing 32 kilograms. At the same time, the arrows were switched to winter and summer time only manually (to transfer the hour back, the chimes were simply stopped for 1 hour). And although the accuracy of the movement is practically impeccable, the Astronomical Institute on Sparrow Hills still watches over the clock.

The clock strike mechanism consists of 9 quarter bells (about 320 kg) and 1 bell that strikes a full hour (2,160 kg). Every 15, 30, 45 minutes of the hour, the chime is played 1, 2 and 3 times, respectively. And at the beginning of each hour, the Kremlin chimes are called 4 times, and then a large bell strikes the clock.

The musical mechanism of the chimes consists of a program copper cylinder with a diameter of about 2 meters, which rotates a weight of more than 200 kg. It is littered with holes and pins in accordance with the typed melodies. The drum during rotation causes the pins to press the keys, from which the cables stretch to the bells on the belfry. The rhythm is far behind the original, so it is not easy to recognize the melodies. At noon and midnight, 6 and 18 hours, the anthem of the Russian Federation is performed, at 3, 9, 15 and 21 hours - the melody of the choir "Glory" from M. Glinka's opera "Life for the Tsar".

The clock on the Spasskaya Tower has become not only a symbol of Moscow, but also a symbol of all of Russia.
By the way, the first newspaper in Russia was also called Chimes. It began to be issued in the 17th century and was a long handwritten scroll. It was glued together from sheets on which the most interesting information collected by the Ambassadorial Order was recorded - they were reported by Russian envoys in other states.

They say that...... when a merchant in old Moscow went to the doctor complaining of a headache, the following dialogue usually took place: “Where do you trade? In the Kremlin? And through which gates do you go, through Borovitsky or Spassky? So, you have to go through others. And this helped, because a revered icon hung over the Spassky Gates, and at the entrance it was necessary to remove the headdress. Head and supercooled ... .
... when the French army retreated from Moscow, the Spasskaya Tower was ordered to be blown up. But the Don Cossacks who came to the rescue put out the already lit fuses.
... they built the Spasskaya Tower to protect the chimes from the rain. But there were also clocks on other towers of the Kremlin. In fact, this Jerusalem tower (leading to Moscow Jerusalem - the temple) tried to give a special look.
...The New Year begins with the first or last chime of the Kremlin chimes. But in fact, the change of year occurs with the beginning of the chime of the clock - 20 seconds before the first strike of the bell. And the 12th beat ends the first minute of the New Year.

Spasskaya Tower in photographs of different years:

Built in 1491 by the architect Pietro Antonio Solari. Its construction marked the beginning of the construction of the eastern line of the Kremlin fortifications. The tower is located on the site of the Frolovskaya Strelnitsa of 1367-1368. Its gates overlooking Red Square have always been the main front entrance to the Kremlin. They were especially revered by the people and were considered saints. The gate served for the visits of the king, the solemn exits of the patriarch, meetings of foreign ambassadors.

The tower has a tetrahedral shape and a powerful retractable archer close to it, which served to protect the passage gate. They were closed with special lowering iron gratings - gers. If the enemy penetrated the archer, the gers fell, and the enemy was locked in a kind of stone bag. He was fired upon from the upper gallery of the archer. On the facade of the tower, even now, one can see the holes through which the chains were passed for lifting and lowering the special wooden flooring of the bridge, and in the passage of the gate there are grooves along which the metal grating went. Drawbridges descended from the gates of the archer.

Above the gates of the diversion archer and the gates of the Spasskaya Tower from the side of the Kremlin, on white stone boards, inscriptions are carved in Russian and Latin, telling about the time of its construction: autocrat of all Russia and the Grand Duke of Volodymyr and Moscow and Novgorod and Pskov and Tver and Yugra and Vyatka and Perm and Bulgarian and others in the 30th year of his state, and Peter Anthony Solario did from the city of Mediolan (Milan - ed.) ”.

Initially, the tower was called Frolovskaya, due to the fact that the Church of Frol and Lavra was located nearby in the Kremlin. In 1516, a wooden bridge was thrown over the moat from the tower. Already at the end of the 16th century, a hipped roof topped with a double-headed eagle existed above the tower. By decree of April 16, 1658, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich ordered her to be called Spasskaya. The new name was associated with the icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands, placed above the gate from the side of Red Square. The icon itself has not been preserved, but the place where it hung is clearly visible.

In 1624-1625, the Russian architect Bazhen Ogurtsov and the English master Christopher Galovey erected a multi-tiered top over the tower, ending with a stone tent. It was the first tent completion of the Kremlin towers. The lower part of the building was decorated with a white stone lacy arched belt, turrets, pyramids. Fantastic figurines (“boobs”) appeared, whose nakedness, on the orders of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, was bashfully covered with specially sewn clothes. The tower rightfully began to be considered the most beautiful and most slender tower of the Kremlin. Unfortunately, during the superstructure of the tower, the white-stone reliefs of V.D. Yermolin, made for the Frolovsky Gates of the time of Dmitry Donskoy, were removed from its facades. They depicted the patrons of the Moscow princes - Saints George the Victorious and Dmitry Thessalonica. (A fragment of the relief of St. George is kept today in the Tretyakov Gallery).

In the 17th century, a stone bridge on arches was thrown over the moat to the Spassky Gates, on which there was a lively trade. In the 50s of the 17th century, the coat of arms of the Russian state - a double-headed eagle - was erected on top of the tent of the main tower of the Kremlin. Later, similar coats of arms were installed on the highest towers - Nikolskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya.

The first clock on the Spasskaya Tower was designed by Christopher Galovey. In 1707 they were replaced by Dutch chimes with music. In 1763, the clock was replaced again, and in 1851, these last chimes of the 18th century were overhauled by the brothers N. and P. Butenop. In 1920, during the repair of the Spasskaya Tower, the musician M.M.

The star on the Spasskaya Tower was first installed in 1935. In 1937, it was replaced by a new one with a wingspan of 3.75 m. Inside the star, a 5000-watt lamp is lit around the clock. The star rotates in the wind like a weather vane.

The Spasskaya Tower has 10 floors.

The height of the tower - up to the star - 67.3 m, with the star - 71 m.