Red gate triumphal arch. red gate

Red gate history. The triumphal arch "Red Gate" was built in 1709 by order of Peter I to commemorate the victory in the Battle of Poltava in 1709. It was a wooden structure, and they were then called the Triumphal Gate. Subsequently, Catherine II replaced them with new ones in 1724. After a fire, the gates completely burned down in 1732 and were restored in 1742 during the coronation celebrations at the accession to the throne of Elizabeth Petrovna, whose cortege was supposed to pass under the gates during the ceremonial passage from the Kremlin to Lefortovo. But after 6 years the gate burned down again. In 1753, the arch was built again according to the project of the architect D. Ukhtomsky, only now it was a red baroque stone structure with beautiful stucco, paintings and white bas-relief. In 1926 the gate was restored. The red gates began to be dismantled on June 3, 1927, in the course of the plan for redevelopment of the capital during the expansion of the Garden Ring. Many bas-reliefs and elements of the arch were broken and broken, and some have survived to this day and are now in the Museum of the History of Moscow. In 1928, the nearby Church of the Three Hierarchs was demolished. Now this place is the metro station "Red Gate", and the square is named after the arch (Red Gate Square). This is the only thing that reminds me of her today.

Red gate photo:

Red Gate in 1864-1874

Red Gate Square in 1896

Red Gate and the Church of the Three Saints in 1900

Red Gate in 1905

Red Gate circa 1906

Red Gate at the beginning of the 20th century

View of the Red Gate. 1850s Artist L. J. Arnoux.

In our time on the site of the Red Gate:

How Moscow streets were named

Muscovites gave this gate an unofficial name "Red" (beautiful). There is a version that this name was given because the path to the palace Krasnoye Selo went through them.

The wooden arch burned down in 1737, but it was rebuilt for the coronation of Elizabeth Petrovna. The new wooden gate was damaged in a fire in 1748. They were restored according to the project of D.V. Ukhtomsky in 1757 is already in stone.

In the 19th century, the gate was painted red. This became the basis for saying that their name was color in meaning. And in 1926, the Red Gate again became white.

There was white Moscow
There were red gates
Became red Moscow
The gates are white.

In 1928, the Red Gate was demolished, but their image remained imprinted in the interior of the Krasnye Vorota metro station. The figure of Glory, which adorned the triumphal arch, can be seen in the State Historical Museum.

Also in 1941-1992, the Red Gate Square was called Lermontovskaya, in memory of Mikhail Lermontov. The poet was born in a house on the site of which stands a Stalinist skyscraper. Near the Red Gates he was baptized - in the Church of the Three Hierarchs. Now it's a square near the subway. In 1994, the historical name of the square was returned, and the name "Lermontovskaya Square" remained only behind the northern part, where there is a monument to the poet.

They say that...... in the 1860s, the “Commission on the Benefits and Needs of the Public” under the Moscow City Duma secretly sold the Red Gate for scrapping to the post office official Milyaev for 1,500 rubles. But when this became known, the sale was banned.

The name of this square is reminiscent of the triumphal gates that were erected here in 1709 on the occasion of the meeting of Russian troops returning from the Poltava victory.

The Triumphal Arch then so delighted the Muscovites with its beauty that it was nicknamed the Red (beautiful) Gate, although officially it was called the Triumphal Gate on Myasnitskaya Street near Zemlyanoy Gorod.

Until the end of the 17th century, here, on both sides of the Earthen Wall (now the Garden Ring), there were garden settlements. Inside the city there is a palace garden settlement with the Kharitonia church in Ogorodniki, outside, behind the rampart, are the gardens of the Ascension Monastery. The nearest travel tower of Skorodoma (wooden walls with towers erected in the 16th century around Zemlyanoy Gorod) was located in the Staraya Basmannaya area, but the locals made their way here by breaking through the so-called break gates. And already Peter I traveled to Preobrazhenskoye and Nemetskaya Sloboda along the new road: through Nikolskaya, Myasnitskaya and the break gates along the street, which was called Novaya Basmannaya. At the same time, the garden settlement ceased to be such, because. The officers of the amusing and soldier regiments settled here and turned into the Captain's.

On December 21, 1709, the victorious Russian army solemnly entered Moscow. The procession stretched for several miles, in the middle - Peter I himself, nearby - Field Marshal Menshikov and the commander of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, Prince Dolgoruky. All along the way, the troops greeted the common people, threw branches and wreaths, and the procession itself passed under seven arches, “the height and splendor of which,” according to the memoirs of the Dane J. Just, it was impossible to describe. The arches were decorated with gold, emblematic paintings, covered with inscriptions.

The triumphal arch on Zemlyanoy Val was erected by Moscow merchants at their own expense. In 1721 and 1727 the wooden gates were renovated. And in 1742, on the occasion of the coronation (a solemn procession from Lefortovo to the Kremlin had to pass through the arch), they were rebuilt according to the project of the architect M. Zemtsov. The thematic design of 1742 is the glorification of knowledge, arts, industry and trade. However, in a dry May 1748, the gate burned down. And in December 1752, the architect D.V. Ukhtomsky was instructed to put "again the same gates and in the same place." He put the arch already stone, marbled. However, according to researchers, the gates became red (in color) later, already in the 19th century, when the ancient meaning of the word began to be forgotten. That is how they met the revolution, they were restored and whitewashed in 1926 and almost immediately demolished by the decision of the Moscow City Council, "due to the narrowness of the place for the passage of vehicles." At the same time, the nearby Church of the Three Hierarchs was also demolished.

True, they tried to demolish the gate in the 19th century. So, it is known that in the 1860s, the “Commission on the benefits and needs of the public” under the Moscow City Duma secretly sold the gate for scrapping to the post office official Milyaev for 1,500 rubles, but as soon as this became known, the sale was prohibited. The Commission in 1873 once again tried to raise the issue of demolition, but the Duma again rejected this proposal. No more encroachment on the gate.

But the current square is not only memorable for the Red Gates. On the night of October 2-3 (from the 14th to the 15th according to the new style), 1814, he was born in the unpreserved house of Major General Tolya at the Red Gate. “On October 2, in the house of the late Major General and Chevalier Fyodor Nikolaevich Tolya, a son, Mikhail, was born to the living captain Yuri Petrovich Lermontov. Archpriest Nikolai Petrov prayed with the deacon Yakov Fedorov. Baptized the same October 11th day. Grandmother M.Yu. insisted on his arrival in Moscow back in August 1814. Lermontova - Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva, because I was very worried about the health of my daughter Maria Mikhailovna. The baby was baptized in the Church of the Three Hierarchs at the Red Gate (demolished in 1928), according to other sources - right in the house. It is believed that the Lermontov family wintered in Moscow, and in April 1815 moved to the estate of E. A. Arsenyeva - the village of Tarkhany, Chembarsky district, Penza province.

The house where the poet was born was demolished at the very end of the 1930s with the words “we have people who know Lermontov”, a memorial plaque erected on the centenary of the poet’s birth is now kept in the house-museum of M.Yu. Lermontov, in 1964 a new memorial plaque will appear on a high-rise nearby, marking now only a place, and in 1965 a monument to the poet will be erected in the square (the one about which Oblique from the film "Gentlemen of Fortune" says the immortal: "Who will plant him He's a monument!") by sculptor I.D. Brodsky.

In 1933-1934, the architect, designing, embodied the memories of the arch, the ground vestibule also reminds us of the lost.

The Red Gate Square in 1941, in connection with the centenary of the death of the poet, was renamed Lermontovskaya, but the townspeople still called the square the Red Gate. As a result, the name of Lermontovskaya went to the square and the square outside the Garden Ring, and the square on the inside, near the metro lobby, in 1994 returned its former name. There are no houses in this area.

The destruction of old Moscow did not begin today, although it is precisely today that the last - and therefore the most valuable - are being barbarously destroyed! - historical monuments. Most of all, the Bolsheviks tried to destroy Moscow, dreaming of wiping the first capital of Russia off the face of the earth and building a utopian city of the communist Sun in its place. And the first victim on June 3, 1927 fell the Red Gate - the Triumphal Arch, built by decree of Emperor Peter the Great in honor of the victory in the Battle of Poltava.

Actually, the first arch was wooden, and in 1753 the gate burned down. And then the Senate ordered to build new gates on the same place - stone, but in the same form. The work of restoring the triumphal Red Gate was entrusted to the sculptor and architect D. V. Ukhtomsky. An outstanding Russian architect developed a project for a new square, placing a triumphal gate in its center on a hill. Unlike the wooden gates, the new gates were a four-sided three-dimensional structure, designed for a circular view from all sides of the square. The gates were painted in marble, gilded and decorated with 8 gilded statues, symbolizing Courage, Fidelity, Abundance, Vigilance, Economy, Constancy, Mercury and Grace. At the top of the gate was a bronze statue of Glory (Fama) holding a palm branch and a trumpet.

Muscovites called it the Red Gate for its beauty and grace, according to the old Russian custom (in addition, the road to Krasnoye Selo passed through the arch - the gate stood across the current traffic on the Garden Ring).

During the great Moscow fire in 1812, the gates were burned. True, they were later restored.

Near the arch, the Lermontovs' house is visible.

The last time the Red Gate was repaired was under Soviet rule, in 1926. And at the end of the same year, they were on the list compiled by the municipal services department of the Moscow City Council, among the buildings to be demolished! The motivation was standard for those times: "... due to the narrowness of the place for the passage of vehicles."

It turns out that it was here that the cyclopean avenue of the Palace of the Soviets was supposed to pass, which cut through the city from the proposed stadium in Izmailovo through Stromynka, Komsomolskaya Square and further - through the odd side of 25th October Street (the former Nikolskaya) doomed to demolition, through the almost completely destroyed Volkhonka and Ostozhenka to Komsomolsky Prospekt and the South-West.

The public of Moscow has risen to protect the city sights. The architect A.V. Shchusev, artist A.M. Vasnetsov, Academician, Secretary of the USSR Academy of Sciences S.F. Oldenburg, Moscow Architectural Society. On January 10, 1927, the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR applied to the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee with a request to suspend the demolition order. The letter stated that the Red Gate "is the only one of its kind, not only on an all-Union scale, but also on a global scale ... The Moscow Council's indication of an obstacle to traffic ... seems unconvincing, since the center of the square is always not used."

On April 6, the Moscow Department of Public Education sent a request to the Moscow Council to include the Red Gate "in the list of registered monuments." On April 16, the answer came: "... There is no need to include the Red Gate in the list of monuments."

Soon the gates were demolished.

Some decorative decorations of the Red Gate are preserved in the branch of the Museum of Architecture named after A.V. Shchusev (former Donskoy Monastery) and in the Museum of the History of the City of Moscow. The drawings of the gate, drawn up in 1932 by the architect S.F. Kulagin according to previously performed measurements. Alas, this is all that has survived from the magnificent monument of baroque architecture - the famous Red Gate.

The same fate befell the Church of the Three Hierarchs at the Red Gate in 1928. In 1814, M.Yu. Lermontov was baptized in this church. The court poet Demyan Bedny joyfully wrote:

"Nichola's cross was knocked down -
It became so light around!
Hello new Moscow
Moscow is new - crossless!"

The house where Lermontov was born was also demolished - a high-rise administrative and residential building was built in its place, on the lower floor of which the northern exit from the Krasnye Vorota metro station was arranged. The main exit from the Krasnye Vorta metro station was built in 1935 by the architect N.A. Ladovsky just on the site of the dismantled Red Gates.

The history of the capital's Red Gate Square - the memory of the military and construction victories of Russia

Square near the Krasnye Vorota metro station (Photo: Konstantin Kokoshkin / Global Look)

Red Gate Square is one of the most famous place names in the city, which arose long before Moscow formed within its current borders. Its history dates back to 1709, when Emperor Peter I ordered the construction of a triumphal gate on Myasnitskaya Street near Zemlyanoy Gorod (today's Zemlyanoy Val) in honor of the victory of Russian troops in the Battle of Poltava. It was these low (less than 10 m) wooden gates that became the first triumphal arch in Russia, which was completely rebuilt several times over two hundred years.

The first transformation of the gate is associated with the name of Empress Catherine I - in 1724, on her orders, a new one, also wooden, was erected on the site of the Peter's arch. Ten years later, the building burned down and was restored already during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna.

Russian empire. Moscow. The Red Gate, designed by the architect Dmitry Ukhtomsky in the middle of the 18th century (from the materials of the USSR Architectural Museum). Reproduction of TASS Newsreels (Photo: TASS Newsreel)

In 1753-1757 the gates were destroyed again as a result of a strong fire. Their enlarged copy (the building was 26 m higher than the previous one), but already in stone, was recreated by the chief architect of Moscow, Dmitry Ukhtomsky, who also developed a project for a new square, in the center of which a baroque triumphal arch towered. At the same time, the name Red, that is, beautiful, was fixed behind the triumphal gates.

Old Moscow. Red Gate, architect D.V. Ukhtomsky. /Reproduction of TASS Newsreels, 1954 (Photo: TASS Newsreel)

The bright red gates were decorated with stucco, gold capitals, bronze figures depicting the coats of arms of the provinces of the Russian Empire, as well as eight statues that personified Courage, Loyalty, Abundance, Vigilance, Economy, Constancy, Mercury and Grace. The arch was crowned with a portrait of Elizabeth Petrovna and a bronze statue of a trumpeting angel.

Red gate. 1902 (Photo: TASS Newsreel)

In the 19th century, they tried to demolish the Red Gate three times, but each time they had defenders. The fate of the construction of Ukhtomsky was decided by the Bolsheviks, who decided to demolish the arch, which prevented the passage of trams. In 1927, during the redevelopment of Moscow according to the project of Lazar Kaganovich, the Red Gates were dismantled and remained only in the name of the square.

Metro station "Lermontovskaya" (now - "Red Gate"). 1985 (Photo: Oleg Ivanov / TASS photo chronicle)

Under this square in May 1935, as part of the first section of the Sokolnicheskaya line of the Moscow metro, the Krasnye Vorota station (in 1962-1986 - Lermontovskaya) was opened, for which architect Ivan Fomin and designer Alexander Denishchenko in 1937 received the Grand Prix for World Exhibition in Paris. Both the vaulted hall of the station, made of red marble, and its southern vestibule, designed by the architect Nikolai Ladovsky, refer to the image of the triumphal gates of Ukhtomsky.

Sadovo-Chernogryazskaya street. View of the high-rise at the Red Gate. 1961 (Photo: Naum Granovsky/TASS Newsreel)

In 1952, one of the seven Stalinist skyscrapers was built next to the square, designed by the chief architect of the Central Architectural Workshop of the Ministry of Railways Alexei Dushkin. The choice was not accidental: the skyscraper was partly owned by the Ministry of Railways (MPS), whose employees subsequently settled in the residential part of the building. The initial project of Dushkin and his co-author Boris Mezentsev bore little resemblance to what we see now, says the granddaughter of the architect, historian and professor at Moscow Architectural Institute Natalia Dushkina.

Instead of a pointed spire, with which all Stalinist skyscrapers are crowned, it was supposed to install a helmet-shaped dome here - Stalin ordered so. As a result, the house looked like a stingy hero in armor and a helmet - an homage to the Russian warrior who won the just ended war. However, later this idea was abandoned due to the technical complexity of the concept - the “helmet” turned out to be too heavy for the fragile structure of the building. Moreover, its construction at some point turned out to be close to collapse in the truest sense of the word.

South entrance to the Krasnye Vorota metro station (Photo: Nikolay Galkin/TASS)

Unlike six other skyscrapers, Dushkin's building was connected to the metro: the building rises directly above the Krasnye Vorota station, which until 1952 had only one, southern exit. Dushkin insisted on building a second exit on the opposite side of the Garden Ring. Above the sloping slope in the subway was the heaviest frame of the building, blocking Kalanchevskaya street for construction meant paralyzing traffic along the main city highway.

High-rise building on Red Gate Square (Photo: Vasily Shitov/TASS)

Then Dushkin, together with design engineer Viktor Abramov, proposed to freeze the ground, and build the frame of the building with a counter-roll to the left by 16 centimeters. According to their calculation, when the ground thaws, the building will gradually lower, as a result of which the frame will straighten. Nobody in the world did anything like that then (as they did not do it after). The experiment ended successfully, the only thing the architects miscalculated was the timing: instead of the planned two or three years, it took almost ten years to level the high-rise.