This, of course, is the grand-daddy of all Moscow churches, St Basil's Cathedral in Red Square (see also the first picture in this section). It was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1555 to commemorate the capture of the Khanate of Kazan on the Volga from the Tatars, a victory which cleared the way for Russia's expansion into Siberia. It is said that Ivan was so pleased with the final result that he had the architect, Postnik Yakovlev's, eyes put out and his hands cut off so that he could not build anything comparable for anyone else. Rumours of this sort came to the ears of Queen Elizabeth I of England, whom Ivan once expressed a wish to marry. Apparently they influenced her decision to refuse the Tsar's hand. (Where, I have often wondered, would they have lived if they had got married? It is hard to see her in Moscow or him in Whitehall Palace.) Four hundred years later, Stalin was asked by Lazar Kaganovich whether it would not help facilitate military parades to have St Basil's demolished as part of the Soviet reconstruction of Moscow in the 1930s. Stalin is said to have curtly dismissed the suggestion.
Sunday 24 June 2007
Moscow miscellaneous
This, of course, is the grand-daddy of all Moscow churches, St Basil's Cathedral in Red Square (see also the first picture in this section). It was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1555 to commemorate the capture of the Khanate of Kazan on the Volga from the Tatars, a victory which cleared the way for Russia's expansion into Siberia. It is said that Ivan was so pleased with the final result that he had the architect, Postnik Yakovlev's, eyes put out and his hands cut off so that he could not build anything comparable for anyone else. Rumours of this sort came to the ears of Queen Elizabeth I of England, whom Ivan once expressed a wish to marry. Apparently they influenced her decision to refuse the Tsar's hand. (Where, I have often wondered, would they have lived if they had got married? It is hard to see her in Moscow or him in Whitehall Palace.) Four hundred years later, Stalin was asked by Lazar Kaganovich whether it would not help facilitate military parades to have St Basil's demolished as part of the Soviet reconstruction of Moscow in the 1930s. Stalin is said to have curtly dismissed the suggestion.
