Stars over the Kremlin. How ruby stars appeared on the Kremlin towers

25.10.2020

On November 2, 1937, ruby stars lit up on the towers of the Moscow Kremlin. Finishes made according to sketches chief artist of the Bolshoi Theater Fyodor Fedorovsky, have become one of the most recognizable symbols of the Russian capital.

What were the towers crowned with before the appearance of ruby stars?

Starting from the 17th century, gilded double-headed eagles made of copper “sat” on the spiers of the Kremlin. They decorated four towers - Troitskaya, Spasskaya, Borovitskaya and Nikolskaya. In 1935, the eagles were replaced with stars, which were made of stainless steel, lined with copper sheets and decorated with Ural gems. The state allocated 67.9 kg of precious metal for gilding the pommel. The entire scope of work was carried out under the control of the operational department of the NKVD and took two weeks. A few months after that, the stars that were illuminated by searchlights dimmed.

What was proposed to replace the double-headed eagles?

In place of the double-headed eagles, at first they were going to install flags or emblems with a hammer and sickle. But in the end, the authorities opted for the stars. The sketches were commissioned artist Evgeny Lansere. At his first job, Stalin made the remark: "Good, but it would be necessary without a circle in the center." The word "without" is underlined twice. Lansere fixed everything and again gave the sketch for approval. After that, the general secretary made another remark: "Good, but it would be necessary without a fastening stick." "Without" is again underlined twice. As a result, Lansere was removed from the project.

Double-headed eagles taken from the Kremlin towers. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Why did five ruby stars appear on the towers instead of four eagles?

In 1937, at the direction of Joseph Stalin, not four, but five stars were installed on the spiers of the Kremlin. Ruby finials, in addition to Spasskaya, Troitskaya, Borovitskaya and Nikolskaya, were also received by the Vodovzvodnaya tower. The leader of the peoples motivated his decision by the fact that the Kremlin would look more beautiful this way.

What is the size and weight of the Kremlin stars?

The size of each star depends on the height and architecture of the tower. So, the distance between the ends of the rays of the star on the Vodovzvodnaya tower is 3 meters, on Borovitskaya - 3.2 meters, on Troitskaya - 3.5 meters, on the Nikolskaya and Spasskaya towers - 3.75 meters each. One star weighs about a ton, but at the same time, thanks to the bearings installed at the base, it can turn in the wind.

Ruby on the outside, milky on the inside?

The supporting structure of the stars is made of stainless steel. The rays of the tops of the Trinity, Borovitskaya, Spasskaya and Vodovzvodnaya towers have 8 faces each, Nikolskaya - 12 faces. Inside them is milky glass, outside - ruby. Double glazing is necessary so that the stars do not look dark during daylight hours.

The recipe for brewing ruby glass was created by a famous glazier Nikanor Kurochkin. Special lamps are installed inside the stars, their power on the Spasskaya, Troitskaya, Nikolskaya towers is 5 kilowatts, on Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya - 3.7 kilowatts.

The stars burn day and night.

The Moscow Kremlin. Photo: www.russianlook.com

Have the stars ever gone out?

Yes. They went out only twice. The first time they were extinguished during the Great Patriotic War and covered with a tarpaulin so that the Kremlin was not so visible to German aviation. The second time the stars were extinguished in 1999 at the request of directed by Nikita Mikhalkov for the filming of "The Barber of Siberia".

How often do stars get repaired?

Reconstruction was carried out twice. The first time in 1945-1956, when the stars were damaged during the war, again in 1974. Maintenance of the Kremlin stars usually takes place every five years. To climb to them, special lifting structures and scaffolding are used. In 2010, freezing rain fell in Moscow, and giant icicles up to three meters long formed on the stars. They had to be cleaned.

The stars on the Kremlin towers appeared not so long ago. Until 1935, in the very center of the country of victorious socialism, there were still gilded symbols of tsarism, double-headed eagles. Under the cut is the difficult history of the Kremlin stars and eagles.

Since the 1600s, four Kremlin towers (Troitskaya, Spasskaya, Borovitskaya and Nikolskaya) have been decorated with symbols of Russian statehood - huge gilded double-headed eagles. These eagles did not sit on spiers for centuries - they changed quite often (after all, some researchers still argue what material they were made of - metal or gilded wood; there is evidence that the body of some eagles - if not all - was wooden, and other details - metal; but it is logical to assume that those first two-headed birds were made entirely of wood). This fact - the fact of the constant rotation of spire decorations - should be remembered, because it will later play one of the main roles during the replacement of eagles with stars.

In the first years of Soviet power, all double-headed eagles in the state were destroyed, all but four. Four gilded eagles perched on the towers of the Moscow Kremlin. The question of replacing the royal eagles with red stars on the Kremlin towers repeatedly arose shortly after the revolution. However, such a replacement was associated with large financial costs and therefore could not be carried out in the first years of Soviet power.

The real opportunity to allocate funds for the installation of stars on the Kremlin towers appeared much later. In 1930, they turned to the artist and art historian Igor Grabar with a request to establish the artistic and historical value of the Kremlin eagles. He answered: "... none of the eagles that now exist on the Kremlin towers represent an ancient monument and cannot be defended as such."

1935 parade. Eagles watch as Maxim Gorky flies and spoil the holiday of Soviet power.

In August 1935, the following TASS message was published in the central press: "The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided by November 7, 1935 to remove 4 eagles located on the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya, Troitskaya towers of the Kremlin wall, and 2 eagle from the building of the Historical Museum. By the same date, it was decided to install a five-pointed star with a sickle and a hammer on the indicated 4 towers of the Kremlin.

The design and manufacture of the first Kremlin stars was entrusted to two Moscow factories and workshops of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI). An outstanding decorator, academician Fedor Fedorovich Fedorovsky took up the development of sketches of future stars. He determined their shape, size, pattern. The Kremlin stars decided to make them from 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 were to sparkle.

When the sketches were created, life-size models of stars were made. The hammer and sickle emblems were temporarily encrusted with imitations of precious stones. Each mock-up star was illuminated by twelve spotlights. This is how the real stars on the Kremlin towers were supposed to be illuminated at night and on cloudy days. When the searchlights were turned on, the stars sparkled and sparkled with a myriad of colored lights.

The leaders of the party and the Soviet government came to inspect the finished models. They agreed to the production of stars with an indispensable condition - to make them rotating so that Muscovites and guests of the capital could admire them from everywhere.

Hundreds of people of various specialties participated in the creation of the Kremlin stars. For the Spasskaya and Troitskaya towers, the stars were made in the workshops of TsAGI under the guidance of the chief engineer of the institute, A. A. Arkhangelsky, and for the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers, at Moscow factories under the supervision of the chief designer.

All four stars differed from each other in decoration. So, on the edges of the Spasskaya Tower star 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.

The supporting structure of the stars was made in the form of a lightweight but durable stainless steel frame. Framing decorations made of sheets of red copper were superimposed on this frame. They were covered with gold with a thickness of 18 to 20 microns. On each star, on both sides, the emblems of a sickle and a hammer, measuring 2 meters and weighing 240 kilograms, were strengthened. The emblems were decorated with precious Ural stones - rock crystal, amethysts, alexandrites, topazes and aquamarines. For the manufacture of eight emblems, it took about 7 thousand stones ranging in size from 20 to 200 carats (one carat is equal to 0.2 grams.) From the report of Pauper, an employee of the NKVD operational department: in a separate silver caste with a silver screw and nut. The total weight of all stars is 5600 kg."

Star for the Nikolskaya Tower. 1935 ph. B. Vdovenko.

The frame of the emblem was made of bronze and stainless steel. Each precious stone was attached to this frame separately in a setting of gilded silver. Two hundred and fifty of the best jewelers in Moscow and Leningrad worked for a month and a half to create emblems. The principles of the location of the stones were developed by Leningrad artists.

The design of the stars was designed for the load of a hurricane wind. Special bearings made at the First Bearing Plant were installed at the base of each star. Thanks to this, the stars, despite their considerable weight, could easily rotate and become their frontal side against the wind.

Before installing the stars on the Kremlin towers, the engineers had doubts: would the towers withstand their weight and storm wind loads? After all, each star weighed an average of a thousand kilograms and had a sailing surface of 6.3 square meters. A careful study revealed that the upper floors of the vaults of the towers and their tents came to a dilapidated state. It was necessary to strengthen the brickwork of the upper floors of all the towers on which the stars were to be installed. In addition, metal ties were additionally introduced into the tents of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya towers. And the tent of the Nikolskaya Tower turned out to be so dilapidated that it had to be rebuilt.

Now the specialists of the All-Union office Stalprommekhanizatsiya L. N. Shchipakov, I. V. Kunegin, N. B. Gitman and I. I. Reshetov faced a responsible task - to raise and install stars on the Kremlin towers. But how to do that? After all, the lowest of them, Borovitskaya, has a height of 52 meters, and the highest, Troitskaya, is 77 meters. At that time there were no large cranes, but the specialists of Stalprommekhanizatsiya found an original solution. They 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 built in through the tower window. On it, they assembled a crane.

The day came when everything was ready for the rise of the five-pointed stars. But first we decided to show them to Muscovites. On October 23, 1935, the stars were delivered to the Central Park of Culture and Leisure. M. Gorky and installed on pedestals upholstered with red calico. In the light of searchlights, gilded rays sparkled, Ural gems sparkled. The secretaries of the city and district committees of the CPSU (b), the chairman of the Moscow Council, arrived to inspect the stars. Hundreds of Muscovites and guests of the capital came to the park. Everyone wanted to admire the beauty and grandeur of the stars that were soon to flare up in the sky of Moscow.

The removed eagles were put on display there.

On October 24, 1935, the first star was installed on the Spasskaya Tower. Before lifting, it was carefully polished with soft rags. At this time, the mechanics checked the winch and the crane motor. At 12 hours 40 minutes, the command “Vira little by little!” The star broke away from the earth and began to slowly rise upwards. When she was at a height of 70 meters, the winch stopped. The climbers standing at the very top of the tower carefully picked up the star and pointed it at the spire. At 13:30, the star descended exactly on the support pin. Eyewitnesses of the event recall that on that day several hundred people gathered on Red Square to follow the operation. At that moment, when the star was on the spire, this whole crowd began to applaud the climbers.

The next day, a five-pointed star was installed on the spire of the Trinity Tower. On October 26 and 27, the stars shone over the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers. The installers worked out the lifting technique so well that it took them no more than an hour and a half to install each star. The exception was the star of the Trinity Tower, the rise of which, due to a strong wind, lasted about two hours. A little more than two months have passed since the newspapers published the decree on the installation of stars. To be exact - only 65 days. Newspapers wrote about the labor feat of Soviet workers, who created real works of art in such a short time.

The star from the Spasskaya Tower now crowns the spire of the River Station.

The first stars adorned the towers of the Moscow Kremlin for a short time. A year later, under the influence of atmospheric precipitation, the Ural gems faded. In addition, they did not fully fit into the architectural ensemble of the Kremlin because of their large size. Therefore, in May 1937, it was decided to install new stars - luminous, ruby. At the same time, one more tower was added to the four towers with stars - Vodovzvodnaya. Professor Alexander Landa (Fishelevich) was appointed chief engineer for the development and installation of stars. His project is still kept in Samara - five massive albums of drawings in red bindings. They say they are no less impressive than the stars themselves.

Ruby glass was brewed at a glass factory in Konstantinovka, according to the recipe of the Moscow glass maker N. I. Kurochkin. It was necessary to weld 500 square meters of ruby glass, for which a new technology was invented - "selenium ruby". Prior to this, gold was added to the glass to achieve the desired color; selenium is both cheaper and the color is deeper. At the base of each star, special bearings were installed so that, despite their heaviness, they could rotate like a weather vane. They are not afraid of rust and a hurricane, because the "rim" of the stars is made of special stainless steel. The fundamental difference is that weathercocks indicate where the wind is blowing, and the Kremlin stars indicate where. Have you understood the essence and significance of the fact? Due to the diamond-shaped cross-section of the star, it always stubbornly stands head-on against the wind. And any - up to a hurricane. Even if everything around is blown clean, the stars and tents will remain intact. That's how it's 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 two-layer, and the lower, inner layer of glass should be milky white, which scatters light well. By the way, this provided both a more even glow and hiding the filaments of lamps from human eyes. By the way, a dilemma also arose here - 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. A combination of different thicknesses and color saturation of the glass helped. In addition, the lamps are enclosed in refractors consisting of prismatic glass tiles.

A photo chistoprudov

From powerful lamps (up to 5000 watts), the temperature was heated up inside the stars, as in a locomotive firebox. The heat threatened to destroy both the bulbs of the lamps and the precious five-pointed rubies. The professor wrote: "It is quite clear that it is impossible to prevent the glass from bursting and cracking in the event of rain or a change in the weather and the glass falling down. The fans work flawlessly. About 600 cubic meters of air per hour are passed through the stars, which completely guarantees against overheating." The five-pointed Kremlin luminaries are not threatened with a power outage, since their power supply is autonomous.

Lamps for the Kremlin stars were developed at the Moscow Electric Lamp Plant. The power of three - on the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya and Troitskaya towers - is 5000 watts, and 3700 watts - on Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya. In each, two filaments are mounted, connected in parallel. If one burns out, the lamp continues to burn, and a malfunction signal is sent to the control panel. The mechanism for changing lamps is interesting: you don’t even have to climb to the star, the lamp goes down on a special rod right through the bearing. The whole procedure takes 30-35 minutes.

Beautiful ruby stars fit so harmoniously into the appearance of five ancient Moscow towers that they seem to be their natural continuation. But for many years no less beautiful double-headed eagles sat on the Kremlin towers.

Huge gilded double-headed eagles appeared on the four towers of the Kremlin from the mid-50s of the seventeenth century.

Spasskaya tower with an eagle

Spasskaya tower with an eagle and a mausoleum. 1925

In the first years after the revolution, the Bolsheviks tried to destroy all the symbols of the old world, but they did not touch the eagles on the Kremlin towers, the hands of the Soviet government did not reach them. Although Lenin repeatedly reminded of the need to dismantle them, this operation required a lot of money, was very technically difficult, and at first the Bolsheviks could not decide what to replace the eagles with? Various proposals came in - with flags, the coat of arms of the USSR, the emblem with a sickle and a hammer ... Finally, they settled on the stars.

In the spring of 1935, watching the planes flying by at the parade, Stalin was especially annoyed by the sight of the royal eagles, spoiling the whole picture.

Parade on Red Square. 1935

At the end of the summer of 1935, a TASS message came out: "The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of 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 on indicated 4 towers of the Kremlin five-pointed star with a hammer and sickle.

All the stars decided to make it different, each with its own unique pattern. For the Nikolskaya Tower, they designed a smooth, without a pattern, star.

When the layouts were ready, the leaders of the country came to look at them and gave the go-ahead for the production of real stars. Their only wish was to make the stars rotate, and they could be admired from everywhere.
They decided to make the stars from high-alloy stainless steel and red copper. The symbol of Soviet Russia, the hammer and sickle, sparkling in the sun and under the beams of searchlights, was to become a real decoration. A whole army of jewelers worked on the creation of this beauty from a huge number of Ural gems for a month and a half.

The stars turned out to be much heavier than the eagles, the weight of each star was about 1000 kg. Before installing them, it was necessary to additionally strengthen the tents on the towers. The design had to withstand even hurricane winds. And in order for the stars to become rotating, bearings were installed at their base, which were made for this purpose at the First Bearing Plant.

Now the daunting task of dismantling the double-headed eagles and the subsequent erection of huge stars in their place was ahead. The towers had a height of 52 to 72 meters, and there were no suitable equipment - high cranes - then. It was necessary to come up with something, and the engineers still found a way out. A crane was designed separately for each tower, which was installed on the upper tier on a special metal base, specially mounted for this.

Dismantling the eagles

After the eagles were dismantled with the help of this technique, they did not immediately raise the stars in their place, but decided to first show them to Muscovites. To do this, for one day they were put on public display in the Park. Gorky.

Eagles were also placed nearby, from which the gilding has already been removed. Of course, the eagles lost next to the sparkling sparkling stars, symbolizing the beauty of the new world.

Double-headed eagles, taken from the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers, in the TsPKiO im. Gorky, October 23, 1935

On October 24, 1935, having thoroughly checked the equipment, they began to slowly raise the star to the Spasskaya Tower. Having reached a height of 70 meters, the winch was stopped, and the climbers, carefully guiding the star, very accurately lowered it onto the supporting spire. Everything worked out! Hundreds of people gathered in the square and watching this unique operation applauded the installers.

A star is rising

The first Kremlin stars over Moscow

Over the next three days, three more stars were installed, shining on the Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya and Troitskaya towers.

However, these stars did not last long on the towers. Two years later, they lost their luster, faded - soot, dust and dirt did their job.
It was decided to replace them, while it was recommended to reduce their size, since the first stars still looked rather heavy. The task was set - to do it as soon as possible, by the 20th anniversary of the revolution.

This time it was decided to make stars from ruby glass and glow from the inside, and not from spotlights. To solve this problem, the best minds of the country were involved.
The recipe for ruby glass was developed by the Moscow glassmaker N. I. Kurochkin - to achieve the desired color, selenium was added to the glass instead of gold. Firstly, it was cheaper, and secondly, it made it possible to obtain a richer and deeper color.

And so, on November 2, 1937, new, ruby stars lit up on the Kremlin towers. Another star appeared - on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, and there were five such towers, like the rays of the star.

These stars really shine from within.

This effect is achieved thanks to special custom-made 5000 watt lamps inside them. In addition, they have two filaments, one for safety net. In order to change the lamp, you do not need to climb up to it, you can lower it on a special bar.
The stars have double glazing. Ruby glass on the outside for color and milky white on the inside for better diffusion. Milky white glass is used so that ruby glass does not appear too dark in bright light.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Kremlin stars went out - they were sheathed, since they were an excellent guide for the enemy. And after the war, when the tarpaulin was removed, it turned out that they received minor shrapnel damage from an anti-aircraft battery located nearby. I had to send the stars for restoration, after which they shone even brighter. A new three-layer glazing of the stars was made (ruby glass, frosted glass and crystal), and their gilded frame was also updated. In the spring of 1946, the stars were returned to the towers.

Before lifting the restored star to the Trinity Tower, March 1946

Once every five years, industrial climbers rise to the stars to wash them.

It is interesting that now on Red Square against the background of the Kremlin ruby stars you can again see eagles. In the summer of 1997, four eagles returned to their rightful places, which, along with lions and unicorns, adorned the roof of the Historical Museum. The eagles were removed from the museum in 1935, just like the eagles from the Kremlin towers. But these were more fortunate - they returned.

A copy of the golden double-headed eagle, returned in 1997 to the tower of the State Historical Museum in Moscow.

And in December 2003, the lions and unicorns were also returned to their former places on the low towers of the museum.

Unicorn on the building of the Historical Museum

Lions on the building of the Historical Museum

New ruby star

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 coat of arms of the state. The first double-headed eagle was hoisted 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 travel 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 hoisted 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 set in a setting.

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 Troitskaya and Borovitskaya - four and 3.5 meters, respectively. The star on the Spasskaya Tower was decorated with rays that radiated from the center to the tops. The rays of the star mounted on the Trinity Tower were made in the form of ears of corn. On the Borovitskaya tower, the pattern repeated 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, therefore, before the installation of the stars, they were strengthened, and on Nikolskaya they were rebuilt. Raising the 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, fixed on the upper brick tiers.

Illuminated from below by searchlights, the first stars adorned 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 because of their size. The stars turned out to be too big and visually hung heavy over the towers.

In May 1937, it was decided to install new stars for the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution, moreover, on five Kremlin towers, including Vodovzvodnaya.

On November 2, 1937, new stars lit up over the Kremlin. More than 20 enterprises of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, machine-building, electrical and glass industries, research and design institutes participated in their creation.

Sketches of new stars were developed by the People's Artist of the USSR Fyodor Fedorovsky. He suggested the ruby color of 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, seem 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 a 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 load-bearing structure of the star is a voluminous five-pointed frame, resting at the base on a pipe, in which bearings are placed for its rotation. Each ray is a multifaceted pyramid: the star of the Nikolskaya Tower has a twelve-sided pyramid, while the other stars have an octagonal one. The bases of these pyramids are welded together in the center of the star.

For 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 filaments (spirals) of incandescence 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 a malfunction to the control panel. The lamps have an extremely high luminous efficiency, the temperature of the filament 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).

It was a difficult task 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, mechanically strong, not discolor and not be destroyed by solar radiation. It was made under the guidance of the famous glazier Nikanor Kurochkin.

In order for the light to be evenly scattered, each Kremlin star had double glazing: internal, made of milky glass, two millimeters thick, and external, 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 due to the characteristics of the ruby glass, which only has a pleasing color 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. Due to the internal glazing of the stars with milky glass, the light of the lamp was well dispersed, the filaments became invisible, and the ruby glass was highlighted most brightly.

The stars are illuminated from within, day and night. At the same time, to preserve the juicy ruby color, they are highlighted 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 front facing into the wind.

Unlike the first non-luminous stars, ruby ones have only three different patterns (Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya are identical in pattern).

The mechanisms for serving the Kremlin stars are located inside the towers. The control of equipment and mechanisms is concentrated at the central point, where information about the operating mode of the lamps is automatically submitted.

During the Great Patriotic War, the stars, like the entire Kremlin, were disguised. In 1945, having removed the camouflage, experts discovered that ruby glasses had cracks and holes from fragments of anti-aircraft artillery shells, which worsened their appearance and made it difficult to operate. 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. 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 mount equipment, but the main mechanisms remained the same - the 1937 model.

Stars are usually washed every five years. Every month, to maintain the reliable operation of auxiliary equipment, scheduled preventive maintenance is carried out; more serious work is carried out every eight years.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Huge gilded double-headed eagles appeared on the four towers of the Kremlin from the mid-50s of the seventeenth century.

In the spring of 1935, watching the planes flying by at the parade, Stalin was especially annoyed by the sight of the royal eagles, spoiling the whole picture.

At the end of the summer of 1935, a TASS message came out: " The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of 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 towers of the Kremlin".

All the stars decided to make it different, each with its own unique pattern. For the Nikolskaya Tower, they designed a smooth, without a pattern, star.

Eagles were also placed nearby, from which the gilding has already been removed. Of course, the eagles lost next to the sparkling sparkling stars, symbolizing the beauty of the new world.

Over the next three days, three more stars were installed, shining on the Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya and Troitskaya towers.

And so, on November 2, 1937, new, ruby stars lit up on the Kremlin towers. Another star appeared - on the Vodovzvodnaya Tower, and there were five such towers, like the rays of the star.

These stars really shine from within.

This effect is achieved thanks to special custom-made 5000 watt lamps inside them. In addition, they have two filaments, one for safety net. In order to change the lamp, you do not need to climb up to it, you can lower it on a special bar.
Glazing at the stars is double. Outside, ruby glass for color, and milky white inside, for better dispersion. Milky white glass is used so that ruby glass does not appear too dark in bright light.