The Moscow Kremlin is the oldest and central part of Moscow on Borovitsky Hill, on the left bank of the Moscow River. Its walls and towers were built from white stone in 1367, and from brick in 1485-1495. The modern Kremlin has 20 towers.
In the 50s of the 17th century, the coat of arms of the Russian Empire - a double-headed eagle - was erected on top of the tent of the main Kremlin tower (Spasskaya). Later, coats of arms were installed on the highest passage towers of the Kremlin: Nikolskaya, Troitskaya, Borovitskaya.
After the revolution of 1917, the question repeatedly arose about replacing the royal eagles on the Kremlin towers with figures symbolizing a new period in the life of the country - the coats of arms of the USSR, gilded emblems with a hammer and sickle, or with simple flags, as on other towers. But in the end they decided to install the stars. However, this required large financial expenses, which the Soviet government could not afford in the first years of its existence.
In August 1935, the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was published to replace the double-headed eagles on the Kremlin towers with five-pointed stars with a hammer and sickle by November 7, 1935. Before this, back in 1930, the authorities asked the famous artist Igor Grabar about the historical value of eagles. He found out that they were changed on the towers once every century, or even more often. The oldest was the eagle on the Trinity Tower - 1870, and the newest - on Spasskaya - 1912. In a memo, Grabar said that “not one of the eagles currently existing on the Kremlin towers represents an ancient monument and cannot be protected as such.”
The double-headed eagles were removed from the Kremlin towers on October 18, 1935. For some time they were exhibited on the territory of the Park of Culture and Recreation, and then.
The first five-pointed star was erected on the Spasskaya Tower on October 24, 1935, with a large crowd of people on Red Square. On October 25, the star was installed on the spire of the Trinity Tower, on October 26 and 27 - on the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers.
Throughout all the years of their existence, the Kremlin stars were provided with the most careful care. They are usually washed every five years. To maintain reliable operation of auxiliary equipment, scheduled preventative maintenance is carried out monthly; more serious work is carried out every eight years.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
On October 24, 1935, the last symbol of the Russian monarchy - the double-headed eagles on the Kremlin towers - was ordered to live long. Instead, five-pointed stars were installed. Let's remember 7 facts about Kremlin stars.
1. SYMBOLICS
Why the five-pointed star became the symbol of Soviet power is not known for certain, but what is known is that Leon Trotsky lobbied for this symbol. Seriously interested in esotericism, he knew that the star - a pentagram, has a very powerful energy potential and is one of the most powerful symbols.
The symbol of the new state could well be the swastika, the cult of which was very strong in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. The swastika was depicted on the “Kerenki”; swastikas were painted on the wall of the Ipatiev House by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna before being executed. But by an almost unanimous decision, at the suggestion of Trotsky, the Bolsheviks settled on a five-pointed star. The history of the 20th century will show that the “star” is stronger than the “swastika”... The stars also shone over the Kremlin, replacing the double-headed eagles.
2. TECHNIQUE
Placing thousand-kilogram stars on the Kremlin towers was no easy task. The catch was that there was simply no suitable equipment in 1935. The height of the lowest tower, Borovitskaya, is 52 meters, the highest, Troitskaya, is 72. There were no tower cranes of this height in the country, but for Russian engineers there is no word “no”, there is the word “must”.
Stalprommekhanizatsiya specialists designed and built a special crane for each tower, which could be installed on its upper tier. At the base of the tent, a metal base - a console - was mounted through the tower window. A crane was assembled on it. So, in several stages, the double-headed eagles were first dismantled, and then the stars were erected.
3. RECONSTRUCTION OF TOWERS
The weight of each of the Kremlin stars reached up to a ton. Considering the height at which they were supposed to be located and the sail surface of each star (6.3 sq.m.), there was a danger that the stars would simply be torn out along with the tops of the towers. It was decided to test the towers for durability. Not in vain: the upper ceilings of the tower vaults and their tents have fallen into disrepair. The builders strengthened the brickwork of the upper floors of all towers: additional metal connections were introduced into the tents of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya towers. The tent of the Nikolskaya Tower turned out to be so dilapidated that it had to be rebuilt.
4. SO DIFFERENT AND TURNING
They didn't make identical stars. The four stars differed from each other in their artistic design.
On the edges of the star of the Spasskaya Tower there were rays emanating from the center. On the star of the Trinity Tower, the rays were made in the form of ears of corn. The star of the Borovitskaya Tower consisted of two contours inscribed one into the other, and the rays of the star of the Nikolskaya Tower had no pattern.
The stars of the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers were the same in size. The distance between the ends of their beams was 4.5 meters. The stars of the Trinity and Borovitskaya towers were smaller. The distance between the ends of their beams was 4 and 3.5 meters, respectively.
Stars are good, but spinning stars are doubly good. Moscow is big, there are a lot of people, everyone needs to see the Kremlin stars. Special bearings manufactured at the First Bearing Plant were installed at the base of each star. Thanks to this, despite their significant weight, the stars could easily rotate, turning to face the wind. By the location of the stars, therefore, one can judge where the wind is blowing from.
5. GORKY PARK
The installation of the Kremlin stars became a real holiday for Moscow. The stars were not taken under cover of darkness to Red Square. The day before they were installed on the Kremlin towers, the stars were put on display in the Park named after. Gorky. Together with mere mortals, the secretaries of the city and district CPSU(b) came to look at the stars; in the light of the spotlights, Ural gems sparkled and the rays of the stars sparkled. The eagles removed from the towers were installed here, clearly demonstrating the dilapidation of the “old” and the beauty of the “new” world.
6. RUBY
Kremlin stars were not always ruby. The first stars, installed in October 1935, were made of high-alloy stainless steel and red copper. In the middle of each star, on both sides, the hammer and sickle emblems, laid out in precious stones, sparkled. The precious stones faded after a year, and the stars were too big and did not fit well into the architectural ensemble.
In May 1937, it was decided to install new stars - luminous, ruby ones. At the same time, another one was added to the four towers with stars - Vodovzvodnaya.
Ruby glass was welded at a glass factory in Konstantinovka, according to the recipe of Moscow glassmaker N.I. Kurochkin. It was necessary to weld 500 square meters of ruby glass, for which a new technology was invented - “selenium ruby”. Previously, gold was added to glass to achieve the desired color; Selenium is cheaper and the color is deeper. Special bearings were installed at the base of each star so that, despite their weight, they could rotate like a weather vane. They are not afraid of rust and hurricanes, since the “frame” of the stars is made of special stainless steel. The fundamental difference: weather vanes indicate where the wind is blowing, and Kremlin stars indicate where the wind is blowing. Have you understood the essence and significance of the fact? Thanks to the diamond-shaped cross-section of the star, it always stubbornly faces the wind. And any - up to a hurricane. Even if everything around is completely demolished, the stars and tents will remain intact. That's how it was designed and built.
But suddenly the following was discovered: in sunlight, ruby stars appear... black. The answer was found - the five-pointed beauties had to be made in two layers, and the bottom, inner layer of glass had to be milky white, scattering light well. By the way, this provided both a more even glow and hiding the filaments of the lamps from human eyes. By the way, a dilemma arose here too - how to make the glow even? After all, if the lamp is installed in the center of the star, the rays will obviously be less bright. The combination of different thicknesses and color saturations of the glass helped. In addition, the lamps are enclosed in refractors consisting of prismatic glass tiles.
7. LAMPS
The Kremlin stars not only rotate, but also glow. To avoid overheating and damage, about 600 cubic meters of air per hour are passed through the stars. The stars are not in danger of a power outage because their energy supply is self-sufficient. Lamps for the Kremlin stars were developed at the Moscow Electric Tube Plant. The power of three - on the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Troitskaya towers - is 5000 watts, and 3700 watts - on Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya. Each contains two filaments connected in parallel. If one lamp burns out, the lamp continues to light, and a fault signal is sent to the control panel. To change lamps you do not need to go up to the star; the lamp goes down on a special rod directly through the bearing. The entire procedure takes 30-35 minutes.
In the entire history of the stars, they went out only 2 times. The first time was during World War II. It was then that the stars were extinguished for the first time - after all, they were not only a symbol, but also an excellent guiding light. Covered in burlap, they patiently waited out the bombing, and when it was all over, it turned out that the glass was damaged in many places and required replacement. Moreover, the unintentional pests turned out to be their own - the artillerymen who defended the capital from fascist air raids. The second time was when Nikita Mikhalkov filmed his “The Barber of Siberia” in 1997.
The central control panel for star ventilation is located in the Trinity Tower of the Kremlin. The most modern equipment is installed there. Every day, twice a day, the operation of the lamps is visually checked, and the fans for blowing them are switched.
Once every five years, the glasses of the stars are washed by industrial climbers.
Well, who is interested in old photos - The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -In contact with
The caps of the spiers of the Moscow Kremlin towers in the shape of five-pointed stars, made of ruby glass and installed instead of the Armorial Eagles of the Russian Empire in the 1930s on five Kremlin towers - Borovitskaya, Troitskaya, Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Vodovzvodnaya
Made according to the sketches of the People's Artist of the USSR, the main artist of the Bolshoi Theater - Academician F. F. Fedorovsky in 1935-37.
The first five-pointed star was installed in 1935, it replaced the “Tsar’s Eagle” on the Spasskaya Tower. Next, stars were placed on the Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya and Trinity towers. Then, when the stars were replaced in 1937, a fifth star appeared on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, where state symbols had not been placed before.
Xepec, Public DomainInstallation of stars on the Kremlin towers
Dismantling the eagles
Double-headed eagles, being the state symbols of Russia, have been on the tops of the tents of the Kremlin towers since the 17th century. About once a century, the gilded copper eagles were changed, as was the image of the state emblem. At the time of removal of the eagles, they were all of different years of manufacture: the oldest eagle of the Trinity Tower was made in 1870, the newest one, of the Spasskaya Tower, was made in 1912.
After the Bolsheviks came to power, V.I. Lenin repeatedly spoke about the need to dismantle the double-headed eagles from the Kremlin towers. However, at that time, for various reasons, this was not done. In newsreels from the early 1930s, the towers of the Moscow Kremlin are still crowned with double-headed eagles.
unknown, Public Domain In 1930, the operational department of the NKVD ordered specialists from the Central Art and Restoration Workshops, under the leadership of the famous Russian artist and restorer I. E. Grabar, to conduct an examination of the Kremlin double-headed eagles. Academician Grabar, in his report by the manager of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR to Gorbunov, wrote that “... not one of the eagles currently existing on the Kremlin towers represents an ancient monument and cannot be protected as such.”
A week later, on June 20, 1930, Gorbunov writes to the secretary of the presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee A. S. Enukidze:
"IN. I. Lenin several times demanded the removal of these eagles and was angry that this work was not done - I personally confirm this. I think it would be nice to remove these eagles and replace them with flags. Why do we need to preserve these symbols of tsarism?
With communist greetings,
Gorbunov."
In an extract from the minutes of the meeting of the secretariat of the USSR Central Executive Committee dated December 13, 1931, there is a mention of a proposal to include 95 thousand rubles in the estimate for 1932 for the cost of removing eagles from the Kremlin towers and replacing them with the coats of arms of the USSR.
However, only in August 1935 the Politburo resolution was issued:
“The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) decided by November 7, 1935 to remove 4 eagles located on the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya, Trinity towers of the Kremlin wall and 2 eagles from the building of the Historical Museum. By the same date, it was decided to install a five-pointed star with a hammer and sickle on the indicated 4 Kremlin towers.”
There were several proposals to replace the coat of arms eagles - with simple flags, like on other towers, with the coats of arms of the USSR, gilded emblems with a hammer and sickle. But in the end they decided to install the stars. The sketches were entrusted to the artist E. E. Lansere. In the first sketch with a five-pointed star, Stalin makes the remark: “Okay, but it should be without a circle in the center.” The word “without” is underlined twice. Lanceray quickly corrected everything and again submitted the sketch for approval. Stalin makes a very strange remark: “Okay, but it would be necessary without the holding stick.” “Without” is again underlined twice. As a result, Lanceray was removed from the project and the development of the stars was given to the artist F. F. Fedorovsky.
unknown, Public Domain While the stars were being made, the builders and installers were solving the main problem - how to actually remove the double-headed eagles from the towers and fix the stars. At that time there were no large high-rise cranes to help with this operation. Specialists from the all-Union office “Stalprommekhanizatsiya” developed special cranes that were installed directly on the upper tiers of the towers. Through the tower windows at the base of the tents, strong console platforms were built, on which the cranes were assembled. The work of installing the cranes and dismantling the eagles took two weeks.
Finally, on October 18, 1935, all 4 double-headed eagles from the Kremlin towers were removed. Due to the old design of the eagle from the Trinity Tower, it had to be dismantled right at the top of the tower. The work of removing the eagles and raising the stars was carried out by experienced climbers under the guidance and control of the NKVD operational department and the Kremlin commandant Tkalun. The report of the head of the Operations Department of the OGPU Pauker to I.V. Stalin and V.M. Molotov dated November 4, 1935 states: “...I was instructed to remove the eagles from the Kremlin towers and from the Historical Museum by November 7, replacing them with stars. I inform you that this task of the Politburo has been completed..."
Convinced that the eagles were of no value, the First Deputy People's Commissar of the NKVD addressed a letter to L. M. Kaganovich:
“I ask for your order: Issue 67.9 kilograms of gold to the NKVD of the USSR for gilding the Kremlin stars. The gold covering of the eagles will be removed and handed over to the State Bank.”
On October 23, 1935, the stars were delivered to the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure and installed on pedestals covered in red. New symbols of state power, shimmering with gold and Ural gems, appeared for review by Muscovites and guests of the capital. Next to the golden stars sparkling from the light of the spotlights, they placed the removed eagles with the stripped gold, sent to be melted down the next day.
Gem stars
The new gem stars weighed about a ton. The tents of the Kremlin towers were not designed for such a load.
The tents of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya towers had to be reinforced from the inside with metal supports and pins, on which it was planned to plant the stars. A metal pyramid with a support pin for the star was installed inside the Borovitskaya Tower tent. A strong metal glass was installed at the top of the Trinity Tower. The tent of the Nikolskaya Tower turned out to be so dilapidated that it had to be completely dismantled and rebuilt.
On October 24, a large number of Muscovites gathered on Red Square to watch the installation of a five-pointed star on the Spasskaya Tower. On October 25, a five-pointed star was installed on the spire of the Trinity Tower, and on October 26 and 27 on the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers.
The first stars were made of high-alloy stainless steel and red copper. Electroplating workshops were specially built to gild 130 m² of copper sheets. In the center of the star, the symbol of Soviet Russia - the hammer and sickle - was laid out with Ural gems. The hammer and sickle were covered with gold 20 microns thick; the pattern was not repeated on any of the stars.
The star on the Spasskaya Tower was decorated with rays diverging from the center to the tops. The rays of the star installed on the Trinity Tower were made in the form of ears of corn. On the Borovitskaya Tower, the pattern followed the contour of the five-pointed star itself. The star of the Nikolskaya Tower was smooth, without a pattern.
However, very soon the stars lost their original beauty. The soot, dust and dirt of the Moscow air, mixing with precipitation, caused the gems to fade, and the gold lost its shine, despite the spotlights illuminating them. In addition, they did not fully fit into the architectural ensemble of the Kremlin due to their size. The stars turned out to be too large and visually hung heavily over the towers.
The star, which in 1935-37. was located on the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin, and later was installed on the spire of the Northern River Station.
Ruby stars
In May 1937, a decision was made to replace the semi-precious stars that had lost their shine with new stars - luminous ones made of ruby glass. The reflected light of Ural gems and gold was replaced by the light of powerful electric lamps. The ruby stars were made according to the sketches of the People's Artist of the USSR, the main artist of the Bolshoi Theater - Academician F. F. Fedorovsky. Professor A.F. Landa was appointed chief engineer for the development and installation of new luminous stars.
kp.ru, CC BY-SA 3.0 On November 2, 1937, new ruby stars lit up over the Kremlin. To the four towers with stars, another one was added, which did not previously have an ending in the form of an eagle - Vodovzvodnaya.
ITAR-TASS, CC BY-SA 3.0 Unlike semi-precious stars, ruby ones have only 3 different patterns (Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya are the same in design), and the frame of each star is a multifaceted pyramid. Each beam of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya, Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya towers has 8, and the Nikolskaya tower has 12 faces.
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At the base of each star, special bearings are installed so that, despite their weight (more than 1 ton), they can rotate like a weather vane. The “frame” of the stars is made of special stainless steel produced by the Elektrostal plant near Moscow.
Each of the five stars has double glazing: the inner one is made of milk glass, which diffuses light well, and the outer one is made of ruby glass, 6-7 mm thick. This was done for the following purpose: in bright sunlight, the red color of the stars would appear black. Therefore, a layer of milky-white glass was placed inside the star, which allowed the star to look bright and, in addition, made the filaments of the lamps invisible. Stars have different sizes. On Vodovzvodnaya the beam span is 3 m, on Borovitskaya - 3.2 m, on Troitskaya - 3.5 m, on Spasskaya and Nikolskaya - 3.75 m.
Ruby glass was welded at the Spetstekhsteklo plant in Konstantinovka according to the recipe of Moscow glassmaker N.I. Kurochkin. It was necessary to weld 500 m² of ruby glass, for which a new technology was invented - “selenium ruby”. Previously, gold was added to glass to achieve the desired color; Selenium is cheaper and the color is deeper.
The lamps for the Kremlin stars were developed by special order at the Moscow Electric Lamp Plant; they were developed by specialists from the lighting laboratory of the All-Union Electrotechnical Institute. Each lamp contains two filaments connected in parallel, so even if one of them burns out, the lamp will not stop shining. The lamps were manufactured at the Peterhof Precision Stones Plant. The power of electric lamps in the stars on the Spasskaya, Troitskaya, Nikolskaya towers is 5 kW, on Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya - 3.7 kW.
When solving the problem of uniform illumination of the star, they immediately abandoned the idea of installing many light bulbs inside the star, therefore, to ensure uniform distribution of the light flux, the lamp is enclosed in many glass prisms. For the same purpose, the glass at the ends of the rays of stars has a lower density than in the center. During the day, the stars are illuminated more strongly than at night.
During the Great Patriotic War, the stars were extinguished and covered with a tarpaulin, as they were a very good reference point for enemy aircraft.
When the protective camouflage was removed, fragmentation damage from a Moscow medium- and small-caliber anti-aircraft air defense battery, located in the area of the Kremlin's Big Square, became visible. The stars were removed and lowered to the ground for repairs. The complete restoration was completed by New Year 1946. In March, the stars were raised onto the towers again. This time the stars were glazed in a completely new way. According to a special recipe developed by N. S. Shpigov, three-layer ruby glass was made. First, a flask was blown from molten ruby glass, which was covered with molten crystal and then with milk glass. The “layered” cylinder welded in this way was cut and straightened into sheets. Three-layer glass was produced at the Krasny May glass factory in Vyshny Volochyok. The steel frame was re-gilded. When the stars were lit again, they became even brighter and more elegant.
With these renewed stars, a grand celebration of the 800th anniversary of Moscow took place in September 1947.
The central control panel for star ventilation is located in the Trinity Tower of the Kremlin. Every day, twice a day, the operation of the lamps is visually checked, and the blower fans are also switched. To protect the stars from overheating, a ventilation system was developed, consisting of an air purification filter and two fans, one of which is a backup. Power outages are not a problem for ruby stars, since they are self-powered.
Stars are usually washed every 5 years. To maintain reliable operation of auxiliary equipment, scheduled preventative maintenance is carried out monthly; more serious work is carried out every 8 years.
For the second time in its history, the stars were extinguished in 1996 during the filming of a Moscow night scene for the film “The Barber of Siberia” at the personal request of director Nikita Mikhalkov.
Red stars abroad USSR
Many socialist countries erected red stars over their public institutions as a symbol of state policy and ideology. From 1954 to 1990, a red star rose above the Central House of the BKP in the Bulgarian capital Sofia - an exact copy of the Soviet ones that were erected above the Moscow Kremlin. Today this star can be seen in the Museum of Socialist Art. The red star was installed on the parliament building in Budapest, built between 1885 and 1904, and dismantled in 1990.
Since the 1990s, there has been public debate about the appropriateness of Soviet symbols in the Kremlin. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin stars were not dismantled, unlike other (hammer and sickle, coats of arms on palaces, etc.) Soviet symbols in the Kremlin. The attitude towards ruby stars in society is ambiguous.
Supporters of the return of double-headed eagles
A number of patriotic movements (“Return”, “People’s Council”, “For Faith and Fatherland”, etc.), as well as the Russian Orthodox Church, take a certain position, declaring “that it would be fair to return to the Kremlin towers the double-headed eagles that decorated them for centuries." In 2010, in connection with the opening of the gate icons of the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers, debates about the appropriateness of ruby stars flared up with renewed vigor.
On September 10, 2010, a month before the 75th anniversary of the installation of stars over the Kremlin, members of the Return Foundation approached the president with a proposal to return the double-headed eagle to the Spasskaya Tower, which caused a great wave of discussions in society, but no response was received from the president.
Supporters of star conservation
The museum community is skeptical about the idea of replacing stars with eagles:
Consistently throughout the discussion, communists also oppose the replacement of stars.
The spiers of the Kremlin towers were decorated with heraldic double-headed eagles. The Moscow Kremlin has 20 towers and only four of them were crowned with the state coat of arms. The first double-headed eagle was erected on top of the tent of the Spasskaya Tower in the 50s of the 17th century. Later, Russian coats of arms were installed on the highest passage towers of the Kremlin: Nikolskaya, Troitskaya, Borovitskaya.
On August 23, 1935, the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was published to replace the double-headed eagles on the Kremlin towers with five-pointed stars with a hammer and sickle by November 7, 1935.
On October 24, 1935, with a large crowd of people on Red Square, a five-pointed star was erected on the Spasskaya Tower. On October 25, the star was installed on the spire of the Trinity Tower, on October 26 and 27 - on the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers.
The body of the stars was made of stainless steel, lined with gilded copper sheets. In the center of them, on both sides, were a sickle and a hammer, decorated with Ural gems - topazes, amethysts, aquamarines. Each of the seven thousand stones used for decoration was cut and placed in a frame.
The pattern was not repeated on any of the stars. The distance between their beams on the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers was 4.5 meters, on the Troitskaya and Borovitskaya towers - four and 3.5 meters, respectively. The star on the Spasskaya Tower was decorated with rays diverging from the center to the tops. The rays of the star installed on the Trinity Tower were made in the form of ears of corn. On the Borovitskaya Tower, the pattern followed the contour of the five-pointed star itself. The star of the Nikolskaya Tower was smooth, without a pattern.
The stars weighed about a ton each. The tents of the Kremlin towers were not designed for such a load, so before installing the stars they were strengthened, and on Nikolskaya they were rebuilt. Lifting stars at that time was a big technical problem, since there were no high-rise tower cranes. Special cranes had to be made for each tower; they were installed on consoles mounted on the upper brick tiers.
Illuminated from below by spotlights, the first stars decorated the Kremlin for almost two years, but under the influence of atmospheric precipitation the gems faded and lost their festive appearance. In addition, they did not fully fit into the architectural ensemble of the Kremlin due to their size. The stars turned out to be too large and visually hung heavily over the towers.
In May 1937, it was decided to install new stars on five Kremlin towers, including Vodovzvodnaya, for the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution.
On November 2, 1937, new stars lit up above the Kremlin. More than 20 enterprises of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and glass industries, research and design institutes took part in their creation.
Sketches of the new stars were developed by People's Artist of the USSR Fyodor Fedorovsky. He suggested a ruby color for the glass, determined the shape and pattern of the stars, as well as their sizes depending on the architecture and height of each tower. The proportions and sizes were chosen so well that the new stars, despite the fact that they were installed on towers of different heights, appear the same from the ground. This was achieved thanks to the different sizes of the stars themselves. The smallest star burns on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, located in the lowland: the distance between the ends of its rays is three meters. On Borovitskaya and Troitskaya the stars are larger - 3.2 and 3.5 meters, respectively. The largest stars are installed on the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers, located on a hill: the span of their rays is 3.75 meters.
The main supporting structure of the star is a three-dimensional five-pointed frame, resting at the base on a pipe in which bearings are placed for its rotation. Each ray is a multi-sided pyramid: the star of the Nikolskaya Tower has a twelve-sided one, the other stars have an octagonal one. The bases of these pyramids are welded together in the center of the star.
To ensure uniform and bright illumination of the entire surface of the star, the Moscow Electric Lamp Plant developed and manufactured special incandescent lamps with a power of 5000 watts for the stars of the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Troitskaya towers and 3700 watts for the stars of the Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya towers, and to protect the stars from overheating, specialists developed a special ventilation system.
For more reliable operation of the lamps, two incandescent filaments (spirals) connected in parallel are mounted in each of them. If one of them burns out, the lamp continues to glow with reduced brightness, and the automatic device signals the control panel about the malfunction. The lamps have extremely high luminous efficiency; the filament temperature reaches 2800°C. In order for the light flux to be evenly distributed over the entire inner surface of the star, and especially at the ends of the rays, each lamp was enclosed in a refractor (a three-dimensional hollow fifteen-sided figure).
The difficult task was to create a special ruby glass, which had to have different densities, transmit red rays of a certain wavelength, be resistant to sudden temperature changes, be mechanically strong, and not discolor or deteriorate from exposure to solar radiation. It was made under the guidance of the famous glassmaker Nikanor Kurochkin.
To ensure that the light was evenly scattered, each Kremlin star had double glazing: the inner one, made of milk glass, two millimeters thick, and the outer one, made of ruby glass, six to seven millimeters thick. An air gap of 1-2 millimeters was provided between them. The double glazing of the stars was caused by the characteristics of ruby glass, which has a pleasant color only when illuminated from the opposite side, but the contours of the light source are clearly visible. Without backlighting, ruby glass looks dark even on bright sunny days. Thanks to the internal glazing of the stars with milk glass, the light of the lamp was well scattered, the filaments became invisible, and the ruby glass shone most brightly.
The stars are illuminated from within both day and night. At the same time, to preserve the rich ruby color, they are illuminated more strongly during the day than at night.
Despite their significant mass (about one ton), the stars on the Kremlin towers rotate relatively easily when the wind direction changes. Due to their shape, they are always installed with the frontal side facing the wind.
Unlike the first non-luminous stars, ruby stars have only three different patterns (Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya are the same in pattern).
Mechanisms for servicing the Kremlin stars are located inside the towers. Control of equipment and mechanisms is concentrated at a central point, where information about the operating mode of the lamps is automatically supplied.
During the Great Patriotic War, the stars, like the entire Kremlin, were camouflaged. In 1945, after removing the camouflage, experts discovered that fragments of anti-aircraft artillery shells had caused cracks and holes in the ruby glass, which worsened their appearance and made it difficult to use. The reconstruction of the Kremlin stars was carried out from September 7, 1945 to February 7, 1946. During it, the glazing of the stars was replaced with a three-layer one, consisting of ruby glass, crystal and milk glass. The ruby glasses on the stars of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya towers were given a convex shape. During the reconstruction, it was also possible to improve the illumination of the stars. Inspection hatches were made in all five rays of each star.
Electric winches were installed to replace lamps in the stars and install equipment, but the main mechanisms remained the same - model 1937.
Stars are usually washed every five years. To maintain reliable operation of auxiliary equipment, scheduled preventative maintenance is carried out monthly; more serious work is carried out every eight years.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
