This articleis missing information about history and common features. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on thetalk page.(August 2017)
The termkremlin (alsokremnik) is first encountered in chronicles of 1317 in accounts of the construction of theTver Kremlin, where a wooden city-fortress was erected, which was clayed and whitewashed.[12] The termdetinets (such as in theNovgorod Detinets) is considered to be older and was kept in theNovgorod region, while the termkrom (such as in thePskov Krom) was more often used in thePskov region.[13] In other Russian regions, such as in theMoscow andTver regions, fortresses in the center of cities began to use the termkremlin instead,[13][14] which superseded the termdetinets in the 14th and 15th centuries.[15]
Wooden fortresses were erected everywhere in the Russian state—from the far eastern lands to the Swedish border. They were numerous in the south, where they served as a link of fortified fortification zones cutting off the way to the central regions fromCrimean Tatars. Aesthetically wooden fortresses were not inferior to stone ones—and we can regret that the towers of wooden kremlins have not survived to this day. Wooden fortresses were built quickly: in 1638 inMtsensk fortress walls of Bolshoi Ostrog and Pletny Gorod with a total length of about 3 kilometres with 13 towers and almost one hundred meters long bridge over the RiverZusha were erected in 20 days. The town ofSviyazhsk was built similarly during theKazan campaign in the spring of 1551: fortress walls about 2.5 kilometres long, many churches and houses were erected in a month.
Later on, many Kremlins were rebuilt and strengthened. Thus, theMoscow Kremlin underIvan III was reconstructed using brick.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, about 30 stone fortresses were built in the Russian state. New kremlins have regular geometric forms in plan (Zaraisky andTula Kremlins). TheTula Kremlin is unique because it was built in a valley (which was possible because of undeveloped siege artillery of nomad Tatars).
Construction of the Kremlin lasted until the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. The last kremlin structure – theTobolsk Kremlin – was built using stone between 1699 and 1717 in the town ofTobolsk (the easternmost kremlin in Russia).
.jpg)
