In the fall of 1935, the last symbol of the Russian monarchy was ordered to live long - the double-headed eagles that had 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. state emblem. At the time the eagles were removed they were all different years production: the oldest eagle of the Trinity Tower is from 1870, the newest is from the Spasskaya Tower, from 1912.
After October Revolution V. I. Lenin repeatedly spoke about the need to dismantle the double-headed eagles from the 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.
On June 20, 1930, the manager of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Gorbunov wrote to the secretary of the presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR A. S. Enukidze:
V.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 emblems of the USSR. However, only in August 1935 a 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 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.”
Removing the double-headed eagles from the Kremlin towers and attaching stars to them was not an easy task. The height of the lowest tower, Borovitskaya, is 52 meters, the highest, Troitskaya, is 72 meters. At that time there were no large high-altitude cranes to help with this operation.
Specialists from the all-Union office “Stalprommekhanizatsiya” developed 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.
Double-headed eagles taken from the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers, in the Central Park of Culture and Culture named after. Gorky, October 23, 1935
On October 18, 1935, all 4 double-headed eagles were removed from the Kremlin towers. 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. Having made sure 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: To 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 Central Park culture and recreation named after Gorky and installed on pedestals upholstered in red. New symbols appeared for review by Muscovites and guests of the capital state power, shimmering with gold and Ural gems. 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.
The new gem stars weighed about a ton. The tents of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya and Borovitskaya towers were not designed for such a load, so they 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.
October 24 large number Muscovites gathered on Red Square to watch the installation of a five-pointed star on the Spasskaya Tower. October 25 five pointed star was installed on the spire of the Trinity Tower, on October 26 and 27 on the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers.
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 first stars, installed in October 1935, 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, a hammer and sickle was laid out with Ural gems - a symbol of Soviet Russia, 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 was on the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin in 1935-1937, was later installed on the spire of the Northern River Station.
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. Ruby glass was welded according to the recipe of the Moscow glassmaker N.I. Kurochkin at the glass factory in Konstantinovka. It was necessary to cook 500 square meters ruby glass, for which it was invented new technology- “selenium ruby”. Before this to achieve desired color gold was added to the glass, which was inferior to selenium in cost and color saturation.
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. 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 ray of the Spasskaya, Troitskaya, Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya towers has 8, and the Nikolskaya tower has 12 faces.
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 stars, which allowed the stars to look bright and, in addition, made the filaments of the lamps invisible. The 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.
During the Great Patriotic War the stars were extinguished and covered with a tarpaulin, since they were a very good reference point for enemy aircraft. When the protective camouflage was removed, fragmentation damage from a Moscow anti-aircraft defense battery of medium and small calibers, 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.
Before the rise of the restored star to the Trinity Tower, March 1946/kp.ru
The stars are not in danger of a power outage, since their energy supply is self-sufficient. The lamps were manufactured at the Peterhof Precision Stones Plant. Each lamp contains two filaments connected in parallel, so even if one of them burns out, the lamp will not stop shining. and a fault signal will be 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. The power of electric lamps in the stars on the Spasskaya, Troitskaya, Nikolskaya towers is 5 kW, on Borovitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya - 3.7 kW.
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 the Moscow night scene for the film “The Barber of Siberia” at the personal request of director Nikita Mikhalkov.
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Such a wonderful story about the Kremlin stars, and the plant at which they were made, their glass part, to be more precise, was written by Mikhail Letuev - nord_traveller . Due to a little confusion and a glitch in LiveJournal, the authorship was initially indicated incorrectly. Now I'm fixing it. Here is a link to the original post - Part 1. Say a word about the Kremlin stars. And there is another continuation, no less interesting - Part 2. Is it too late for us to stop? .
Tver region Vyshny Volochek village Red May, Glass Factory - where the Kremlin stars were made. 
The coming year could be marked by two dates - albeit not jubilees, but significant in their own way: the 157th anniversary of the founding of a chemical plant near Vyshny Volochok and the 87th anniversary of the day when this plant received its last name, under which it is all they know - “Red May”. They knew. Today, instead of a unique enterprise, once famous for its crystal, there are only ruins. However, there is also a round date - exactly 70 years ago, stars made of glass made at Red May shone over the Moscow Kremlin. Once upon a time the plant was famous throughout the USSR. Of course! "They shine over the whole country Kremlin stars, made by the hands of Krasnomaysk craftsmen,” I read a guidebook from 1988. Of course, not entirely: the ruby tops of the tower spiers are complex engineering structure, on the creation of which dozens of enterprises and research institutes worked. But the laminated glass manufactured at Krasny May is not the last part of this structure. Therefore, the words of almost thirty years ago, despite the pathos, are close to the truth. What remains of that pride? Destroyed workshops that are unlikely to ever be rebuilt. Yes, a museum that survives on nothing more than a word of honor. A few kilometers from Vyshny Volochyok towards St. Petersburg is the village of Krasnomaysky. Is it true, local residents it is not called that; this toponym exists only in official documents. “I’ll go to Red May”, “I live on Red May” - when people say this, they mean the village, not the plant. IN mid-19th century, here was the village of Klyuchino, where in 1859 the future flagship of the glass industry arose. First as a chemical. Its first owner, titular councilor Samarin, has further development production did not have enough funds, and three years later the plant was bought by the merchant of the second guild, Andrei Bolotin, who soon built a glass factory in its place. Later, he founded another plant in the territory of the current Vyshnevolotsky district - Borisovsky (now - OJSC Medsteklo Borisovskoe). The first glass melting furnace at the Klyuchinsky plant was launched by the merchant and founder of the Bolotin dynasty of glassmakers in 1873. Also, at the expense of the plant’s owners, a workers’ settlement, quite comfortable by the standards of that time, was built.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the Klyuchinsky plant produced glass pharmaceutical, tableware and confectionery dishes, kerosene lamps, lampshades, fulfilling orders from almost all parts of the empire. Soon the October Revolution broke out, the plant was nationalized and in 1929 received the name “Red May”. A village of 5 thousand inhabitants with a hospital, school, music school, a vocational school that trained, in addition to specialist glassmakers, tractor drivers and car mechanics. Much was written about “Red May” in the regional and central press. Let us remember what newspapers and magazines were talking about then and compare all this with the current remnants of former greatness. “When you look at the Kremlin stars, it seems as if from time immemorial they have been crowning pointed towers: so organic is their flame in unity with the beautiful monument of Russian architecture, so Moreover, the natural inseparability of two symbols in our minds is the heart of the Motherland and the five-pointed star” (“Pravda”, 1985). It just so happened that when we say “Red May,” we mean five ruby finials. And vice versa. That’s why I want to start my story from this page. Moreover, the Vyshnevolotsk stars, which now decorate the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya, Trinity and Vodovzvodnaya towers of the Kremlin, were not the first. For the first time, five-pointed stars replaced the symbol of autocratic Russia - double-headed eagles - in the fall of 1935. They were made of high-alloy stainless steel and red copper, with a gold-plated hammer and sickle in the center of each star. However, the first stars did not decorate the Kremlin towers for long. Firstly, they quickly faded under the influence of precipitation, and secondly, in the overall composition of the Kremlin they looked rather ridiculous and disturbed the architectural ensemble. Therefore, it was decided to install ruby luminous stars.
New tops appeared on November 2, 1937. Each of them could rotate like a weather vane and had a frame in the form of a multifaceted pyramid. The order for the production of ruby glass was received by the Avtosteklo plant in the city of Konstantinovka in the Donbass. It had to transmit red rays of a certain wavelength, be mechanically strong, resistant to sudden temperature changes, and not discolor or be destroyed by exposure to solar radiation. The glazing of the stars was double: the inner layer consisted of milky (matte, dull white) glass 2 mm thick, thanks to which the light from the lamp was scattered evenly over the entire surface, and the outer layer was made of ruby 6-7 mm. Each star weighed about a ton, with a surface area of 8 to 9 square meters.
During the Great Patriotic War, the stars were extinguished and covered up. When they were reopened after the Victory, multiple cracks and traces of shell fragments were discovered on the ruby surface. Restoration was needed. This time, the Vyshnevolotsk plant “Red May” was entrusted with the task of making glass. The local craftsmen made it four layers: transparent crystal at the bottom, then frosted glass, again crystal and, finally, ruby. This is necessary so that the star is the same color both during the day in sunlight and at night, illuminated from the inside. “The ruby stars manufactured at the Konstantinovsky plant did not fulfill the task set by the designers. A double layer of glass - milky and ruby - did not make it possible to preserve the bright color of the stars. Dust accumulated between the layers. And by that time, laminated glass was produced, in my opinion, only at Krasny May (Kalininskaya Pravda, 1987). “I think that readers will be interested to know how prototypes of star glass were made. To make a multilayer ruby for just one star, 32 tons of high-quality Lyubertsy sand, 3 tons of zinc muffle white, 1.5 tons of boric acid, 16 tons of soda ash, 3 tons of potash, 1.5 tons of potassium nitrate were required" ("Yunost", 1981). The renewed stars began to shine in 1946. And they still shine, despite calls from some public figures to replace them with eagles again. The next reconstruction of the ruby “luminaries” was in 1974, and again Krasnomaysk craftsmen took part in it. Despite the existing experience, the cooking technology had to be created, so to speak, from scratch: archival documents, according to which it was possible to restore the “recipe”, have not been preserved.
It must be said that in 2010, a lot was written about the 75th anniversary of the first Kremlin stars in the central media, but the contribution of “Red May” was never mentioned anywhere. Not in 1996, when the plant was still working, at the very least, despite the fact that they began to pay out salaries in vases and wine glasses. Not in 2006 - at least to catch up with the already departed train...
“Yesterday, a batch of parts made of colorless and milky glass for lighting fixtures at the Moscow Conservatory named after P. I. Tchaikovsky was sent from the Vyshnevolotsk “Red May” plant. It was not easy for glassmakers to replicate the bizarre shapes of ancient chandeliers and sconces that have illuminated the halls of this musical for more than a hundred years. educational institution"(Kalininskaya Pravda, 1983). “Several years ago, the craftsmen of the Vyshnevolotsk glass factory “Red May”, at the request of Bulgarian friends, made ruby glass for the friendship memorial built on the famous Shipka. And here is a new order from Bulgaria - to make four-layer glass for the star that will crown the Party House in Sofia. The teams of craftsmen N. Ermakov, A. Kuznetsov, N. Nasonov and A. Bobovnikov were entrusted with executing the export order” (“Pravda”, 1986). “A beautiful garden village with asphalt roads, comfortable cottage houses, a club, a school and others public buildings, with a factory-garden in the center, from where products of almost two thousand items are distributed all over the world” (“Kalininskaya Pravda”, 1959). “Yesterday, a joyful message came from Moscow to GPTU-24 of the Vyshnevolotsk plant “Red May”. Resolution of the Main Exhibition Committee of the VDNKh USSR for the development and participation in the production of the “Jubilee” and “Cup” vases presented at the All-Union Show artwork vocational schools, vocational training masters T. Orlova and T. Shamrina were awarded bronze medals. And students Irina Yarosh and Eduard Vedernikov were awarded the medal “ Young participant VDNKh USSR" ("Kalininskaya Pravda", 1983). For comparison. The garden village is an ordinary outlying village, of which there are thousands. It doesn’t seem to be abandoned, but there’s also no hint of being well-groomed. The cottage houses are apparently wooden two-story barracks that still have cesspools. The plant-garden now has pipes rising above the ruins of its workshops, a rusty plaque of honor, like a ghost from the past. On the territory itself there is some small business: car repair, warehouses. In the former factory premises there was not even any old furniture left, only heaps of construction waste. The railway line, with the exception of a few sections, has been almost completely dismantled. GPTU also keeps up with the times. Back in the mid-2000s, the specialty of tractor driver, once the most popular among teenagers, was closed there. And not the most hopeless one in life. Is there really no need for tractor drivers anymore? Naturally, there are no blowers or glass grinders either. “A glass is a seemingly simple product, but its manufacture requires great skill. The glassmakers of the Vyshnevolotsk plant “Red May” are fluent in this skill. Two types of glasses produced here in millions of copies have been awarded the State Quality Mark. A vase for berries, a rosette for jam, and an ashtray made of zinc sulfide glass received the same high praise" (" Soviet Russia", 1975). In the workshops of the plant, by the way, the third largest after similar ones in Gus-Khrustalny and Dyatkovo, not only crystal products and ruby stars were produced.
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.
The question of replacing the royal eagles on the Kremlin towers with figures symbolizing a new period in the life of the country repeatedly arose soon after the 1917 revolution. In 1930, specialists from restoration workshops led by Igor Grabar gave a conclusion according to which the figures of double-headed eagles were not of historical value and, therefore, could be replaced. Instead of “symbols of tsarism” they decided to install stars.
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. For each tower, special cranes had to be made; 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.
Developed sketches of new stars folk artist USSR Fedor 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 throughout inner surface stars, 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 in bright conditions. 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, having removed the camouflage, experts discovered that cracks and holes appeared on the ruby glasses 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. 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
October 29th, 2013On 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 swastika, the cult of which was very strong in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, could well have become a symbol of the new state. The swastika was depicted on the “Kerenki”; swastikas were painted on the wall of the Ipatiev House by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna before execution. 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 were different from each other decoration.
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 position of the stars, therefore, one can judge from where the wind is blowing.
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, lined with 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 star's diamond-shaped cross-section, it always points stubbornly head-on into 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, since 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 installed modern equipment. Every day, twice a day, the operation of the lamps is visually checked, and the fans for blowing them are switched.
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. Below the cut is the difficult story of the Kremlin stars and eagles.
Since the 1600s four Kremlin towers(Troitskaya, Spasskaya, Borovitskaya and Nikolskaya) were decorated with symbols 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 information 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 constant rotation of spire decorations - should be remembered, because it is he who will subsequently 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 sat on the towers of the Moscow Kremlin. The question of replacing the royal eagles with red stars on the Kremlin towers repeatedly arose soon after the revolution. However, such a replacement was associated with large financial expenses and therefore could not be carried out in the first years of Soviet power.
The real opportunity to allocate funds for installing stars on the Kremlin towers appeared much later. In 1930, they turned to the artist and art critic Igor Grabar with a request to establish the artistic and historical value of the Kremlin eagles. He replied: “... none of the eagles currently existing on the Kremlin towers represent an ancient monument and cannot be protected as such.”
Parade 1935. Eagles watch Maxim Gorky fly by and spoil the holiday of Soviet power.
In August 1935, it was published in the central press next message TASS: "Advice People's Commissars 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.”
The design and production of the first Kremlin stars was entrusted to two Moscow factories and workshops of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI). An outstanding decorative artist, academician Fyodor Fedorovich Fedorovsky took up the development of sketches of future stars. He determined their shape, size, pattern. They decided to make the Kremlin stars from high-alloy stainless steel and red copper. In the middle of each star, on both sides, the emblems of the hammer and sickle, lined with precious stones, were supposed to sparkle.
When the sketches were created, life-size models of the stars were made. The hammer and sickle emblems were temporarily inlaid with imitation precious stones. Each model star was illuminated with twelve spotlights. This is exactly how they intended to illuminate the real stars on the Kremlin towers at night and on cloudy days. When the spotlights were turned on, the stars sparkled and sparkled with a myriad of colorful lights.
The leaders of the party and the Soviet government came to inspect the finished models. They agreed to make the 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 took part in the creation of the Kremlin stars. For the Spasskaya and Troitskaya towers, the stars were made in the TsAGI workshops under the leadership of the chief engineer of the institute A. A. Arkhangelsky, and for the Nikolskaya and Borovitskaya towers - at Moscow factories under the leadership of the chief designer.
All four stars differed from each other in artistic design. So, 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. But 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 light but durable stainless steel frame. Framing decorations made of red copper sheets were placed on this frame. They were plated with gold with a thickness of 18 to 20 microns. Each star had a hammer and sickle emblem measuring 2 meters in size and weighing 240 kilograms on both sides. The emblems were decorated with precious Ural stones - rock crystal, amethysts, alexandrites, topazes and aquamarines. To make 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 operational department of the NKVD: “Each stone is cut with a diamond cut (on 73 sides) and is sealed to prevent falling out in a separate silver cast with a silver screw and nut. The total weight of all stars is 5600 kilograms."
Star for the Nikolskaya Tower. 1935 ph. B. Vdovenko. 
The frame of the emblem was made of bronze and stainless steel. Each one was separately attached to this frame. gem framed in gilded silver. Two hundred and fifty of the best jewelers in Moscow and Leningrad worked for a month and a half to create the emblems. The principles for the arrangement of stones were developed by Leningrad artists.
The design of the stars was designed to withstand the load hurricane wind. Special bearings manufactured at the First Bearing Plant were installed at the base of each star. Thanks to this, the stars, despite their significant weight, could easily rotate and become their frontal side against the wind.
Before installing the stars on the Kremlin towers, engineers had doubts: would the towers withstand their weight and storm wind loads? After all, each star weighed on average one thousand kilograms and had a sail surface of 6.3 square meters. A thorough examination revealed that the upper ceilings of the tower vaults and their tents had fallen into disrepair. 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 connections 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 of Stalprommekhanizatsiya L.N. Shchipakov, I.V. Kunegin, N.B. Gitman and I.I. Reshetov were faced with the responsible task of raising and installing stars on the Kremlin towers. But how to do this? 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 specialists from Stalprommekhanizatsiya found an original solution. They designed and built a special crane for each tower that could be installed on its top tier. At the base of the tent, a metal base - a console - was built through the tower window. The crane was assembled on it.
The day came when everything was ready for the rise of the five-pointed stars. But first they decided to show them to Muscovites. On October 23, 1935, the stars were delivered to the Central Park of Culture and Leisure named after. M. Gorky and installed on pedestals covered with red. In the light of the spotlights, gilded rays sparkled and Ural gems sparkled. The secretaries of the city and district committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the chairman of the Moscow City 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 flash in the sky of Moscow.
The captured 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, mechanics checked the crane's winch and motor. At 12:40 the command “Vira little by little!” was heard. The star took off from the ground and began to slowly rise upward. When she reached a height of 70 meters, the winch stopped. The steeplejacks 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 this day several hundred people gathered on Red Square to follow the operation. The moment the star was on the spire, the 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 had perfected 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, whose rise due to 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. Or rather, only 65 days. Newspapers wrote about the labor feat of Soviet workers who, for such short term created real works of art.
The star from the Spasskaya Tower now crowns the spire of the River Station. 
The first stars did not decorate the towers of the Moscow Kremlin for long. Just a year later, under the influence of precipitation, the Ural gems faded. In addition, they did not fully fit into the architectural ensemble of the Kremlin due to large sizes. Therefore, 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. 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 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 star's diamond-shaped cross-section, it always points stubbornly head-on into 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.
Photo chistoprudov
Powerful lamps (up to 5000 watts) raised the temperature inside the stars, like in a locomotive furnace. The heat threatened to destroy both the lamp bulbs themselves and the precious five-pointed rubies. The professor wrote: “It is quite clear that the glass cannot be allowed to burst and crack in the event of rain or a change in 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 in danger of a power outage, since their energy supply is autonomous.
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. The mechanism for changing lamps is interesting: you don’t even have 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.