I Have Seen Kremlin In Ruins

Tsardom. Episode 5

Putin became president again, and his inauguration in the shining golden interiors of the Kremlin was, as usual, reminiscent of a coronation. Watching this, it's easy to think: of course, Russia needs a tsar; this aesthetic has developed over centuries, and Russians are accustomed to it. However, I have visited the Kremlin many times and spoken to people who rebuilt it. I am convinced that these decorations have nothing to do with historical tradition—they are simply a monument to corruption.

What Lies Behind the Curtain

The last time I was in the Kremlin was on March 18, 2014. I was then running Russia's only opposition TV channel, so I was invited to a ceremonial event—Putin was ceremoniously signing the decree to annex Crimea into Russia. This was a kind of mockery by his press service: I was invited to an official event for the first and last time. It symbolized that we, the liberal journalists, the regime's opponents, the people who dreamed of a free and democratic Russia, had lost—and I was called to the Kremlin to witness the triumph of autocracy with my own eyes.

Along with the other guests, I entered the Kremlin through the Spasskaya Tower (the most famous one, with the clock). To get to the historic Grand Kremlin Palace, you have to walk right along the so-called Building 14 (also known in English as Kremlin Presidium). It’s the place where the presidential administration worked. The offices of the hight ranking bureaucrats were on the top floor, offering a beautiful view through the Kremlin wall to Red Square.

This time, I found the facade of the Building 14 covered with dense fabric. This was not surprising; the building had started undergoing renovations a few years prior, which, however, did not prevent most employees from continuing to work there. But for some reason, I decided to pull back the edge of the fabric and peek inside.

It was astonishing. Inside, there was almost nothing. Where the building, which recently housed Putin's administration, once stood were now ruins. What on earth was happening here? Why and how was the building in the Kremlin, where all of Russia's leadership, all of Putin's most influential aides, worked, destroyed?

Deputies, governors, and ministers walked past me as if nothing had happened, but they did not peek behind the curtain or wonder where the building had gone.

I took a couple of photos on my phone and proceeded to the dazzling Grand Kremlin Palace, where in half an hour, Putin was to announce Russia's transformation into a pariah state after occupying part of a neighboring country.

Soviet Style

The building I found in ruins can be considered a symbol of modern Russia. In June 1991, when the Soviet Union still existed, Russia held its first democratic presidential elections, and Boris Yeltsin won. It was after this victory that Yeltsin was allocated an office in the Building 14 of the Kremlin, which became the first official residence of Russia's first president.

The official residence of the President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, was nearby, in the more prestigious Senate Palace.

The Senate Palace and the Building 14 are the only two buildings in the Kremlin visible from Red Square. However, the Senate is a historic building constructed in the 18th century by architect Matvey Kazakov on the orders of Catherine the Great. Lenin moved into the Senate Palace in 1918 when he transferred the capital from Petrograd to Moscow. All subsequent Soviet leaders, including Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev, worked there.

In contrast, the Building 14 is a newer structure built in the 1930s under Stalin on the site of the Chudov Monastery, which was demolished by the Bolsheviks. During the Soviet era, it housed the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

While the Kremlin was home to both presidents, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the security faced significant challenges. They complained, "Try coordinating two motorcades arriving at the same time." This "dual power" situation did not last long: on December 25, 1991, when the dissolution of the USSR became inevitable, a deserted Gorbachev recorded his farewell address in a half-empty Kremlin and left his post. He even walked to the gates on foot—under the astonished eyes of tourists—and permanently left the Kremlin. That evening, the red flag above the Senate Palace was replaced with the Russian tricolor.

Yeltsin immediately moved into the Senate Palace, taking Gorbachev's place. No special renovations were undertaken.

His aides particularly enjoyed Lenin's memorial office. They often celebrated staff birthdays there. "We'd take a bottle of vodka, a couple of sandwiches, and head to Lenin's office. It was very fun," one presidential administration employee described the customs of that time.

Meanwhile, staff from the presidential administration continued working in the Building 14.

Imperial Style

Starting in 1993, Yeltsin's worldview began to change, and with it, the habits of the Kremlin's inhabitants. Yeltsin drank more, showed less interest in routine matters, felt increasingly regal, and often referred to himself in the third person, calling himself "the President" with a weighty tone. His entourage flattered him more and more, referring to him as "the Tsar" behind his back. Yeltsin himself jokingly called himself Boris I several times. This was, of course, a mistake; in reality, if he were a tsar, he would be Boris II, as Russia already had a tsar with that name in the 17th century—Boris Godunov. He ended the dreadful times of Ivan the Terrible, but it was his reign that marked the beginning of the Time of Troubles. Boris Godunov also lived and died in the Kremlin.

As Yeltsin transformed into a tsar, it was the moment of glory for his affairs manager, Pavel Borodin—a man who, for the journalists of the 90s, became a symbol of corruption. A former mayor Siberian city of Yakutsk, Borodin entered the Kremlin when it looked entirely Soviet and impoverished. "I visited him in the Kremlin," Borodin recounted in an interview when I was writing a book about the 90s. "He had one yellow plate, another blue, a third colorless, metal spoons, faceted glasses... I said, 'You know, presidents don't live like this.' He didn't even have a personal toilet in his office; he used a communal one."

Borodin proposed to Yeltsin the restoration of all the historical buildings in the Kremlin. The president moved back to the same Building 14.

Sensing the changes in their boss's character, Yeltsin's entourage designed a pompous, imperial residence: with stucco and gilding. The president's press service claimed that the Kremlin commandant, future FSB director Mikhail Barsukov, allegedly personally found the drawings of 18th-century architect Matvey Kazakov. Years later, Borodin admitted to me that this was all fiction; the original drawings had not survived—in essence, the Kremlin was rebuilt without regard to what had been there during the tsarist era. The decorations for the president-democrat’s residence were devised by artist Ilya Glazunov, a fierce Russian nationalist and monarchist.

All the old walls were demolished, and the furniture of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev was sold off or discarded—similarly to how the Bolsheviks renovated the Kremlin in 1918, breaking walls and destroying tsarist interiors. Now, it was Pavel Borodin ridding the Kremlin of Soviet legacy, creating a new Russian aesthetic far removed from the image of a young democracy.

According to Borodin, many contractors were involved in the renovation. However, only one company went down in history—Mabetex. In the late 90s, the Swiss prosecutor's office investigated the case of corruption during the Kremlin's renovation for several years. According to the investigation, procurement prices were inflated by an average of 30%, while Borodin and other officials received kickbacks to their Swiss bank accounts. Incidentally, in January 2001, Borodin was even arrested in New York and spent two months in Brooklyn jail—Switzerland demanded his extradition, accusing him of money laundering.

By the way, it was Pavel Borodin, the architect of the Kremlin's reconstruction, who happened to be Putin's first boss in Moscow, the man who invited him to work in the Kremlin. In 2001, Putin saved him in return—finally the US extradited Borodin not to Switzerland, but to Russia.

New Style

The restoration was nearly completed by Yeltsin's 65th birthday on February 1, 1996—just before the next presidential elections. There was no trace of Gorbachev style. Lenin was gone too; his memorial office was moved to the museum. Instead, a new imperial palace was built: not historical, but rather reflecting the idea of imperial luxury and wealth as imagined by Russian businessmen of the 90s. It was designed to look as luxurious as possible to justify the enormous amounts of money spent on the renovation.

However, Yeltsin's inaugurations, both the first in 1991 and the second in 1996, were conducted not in an imperial but in a Soviet style—in the hall where the Communist Party of the Soviet Union always held its congresses. During his second inauguration, Yeltsin was already gravely ill, having suffered his fifth heart attack during the election campaign, from which he never fully recovered. As a result, the ceremony was minimally solemn—Yeltsin's speech lasted only 45 seconds.

The renovations in the Kremlin were finally completed just in time for the next inauguration—Vladimir Putin's first swearing-in. It was then that the current ceremonial was devised. This had no connection to historical practices: tsars were crowned through religious rites, and there were no inaugurations for the General Secretaries of the Communist Party. Therefore, a new tradition was invented for Putin. With each subsequent inauguration, it became even more reminiscent of a monarchical ceremony.

Putin's first inauguration was opened by the head of the Central Election Commission, who announced the election results. Later, this role was eliminated as an unnecessary link. The inauguration became detached from the concept of a popular vote.

Upon becoming president, Putin reinstated the Soviet anthem, which his predecessor Yeltsin openly despised. Thus, the ceremony became an even more bizarre mix of Soviet and imperial motifs.

Under Putin, the renovations of the Kremlin, which had consumed colossal amounts of money in the 90s, began anew. In 2001, the restoration of the Building 14 started—the only edifice that had not been completely rebuilt during Yeltsin's tenure. Despite the renovations, the building continued to house staff from the administration and the Security Council. However, in 2011, it was decided to relocate them to the former building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, outside the Kremlin on Staraya Square. A more thorough renovation of the Building 14 was planned. It is known that beneath it, during Soviet times, there was a bomb shelter built for Soviet leaders—this bunker was now set to be modernized.

It was during the third year of this renovation that I came to the Kremlin, in March 2014, peeked under the covering, and discovered that the Building 14 was gone, demolished. And this is not the end of the story.

Empty Space

Four months after I discovered the ruins in the middle of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin unexpectedly gathered a few trusted Kremlin journalists and announced that he had decided not to continue the renovation of the Building 14. He had a better idea: to demolish it and restore the ancient Chudov Monastery, which had been destroyed by the Bolsheviks.

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This shocked even the court journalists. They didn’t dare to contradict Putin but wrote that such a bold move would require UNESCO’s permission, as the Kremlin is a protected historical monument. However, they didn’t know that the Building 14 had already been almost entirely demolished—it was strange that they hadn’t bothered to peek under the fabric-covered facade.

Soon, other details emerged. Over three years, 8 billion rubles were spent on the renovation—approximately $250 million at the time. But after the Sochi Olympics, the company that was renovating the Building 14 and also constructing several Olympic facilities ceased to exist.

Several more years passed—the remains of the former Building 14 were dismantled, but no ancient monastery was built in its place. Nothing appeared there at all. It's just an empty space.

So, the building that served as the primary working residence of the President of Russia was demolished, and nothing was built instead. Moreover, almost no one noticed—it has never been discussed in Russia. The Kremlin is, after all, a medieval fortress surrounded by walls, and ordinary people have little idea of what happens inside.

Can you imagine the President of the United States demolishing the White House, planning to build something else in its place, but then changing their mind and leaving it as an empty lot?

Dictator’s Style

Putin’s inauguration took place amidst the very decor built in the 90s by Pavel Borodin. There is nothing historical about it, and even less tradition in the ceremony itself. It is more inspired by pseudo-historical films.

Starting in 2012, another element was added to the inauguration—after the ceremony, President Putin went to the Annunciation Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, where the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church held a prayer service for his assumption of office. This year, during the church service, the patriarch referred to Putin as “Your Highness,” but then awkwardly corrected himself to “Your Excellency.”

The patriarch, of course, watches too many movies. The titles “Your Highness” and “Your Excellency” were never used in Russian history; from a historical perspective, neither of these addresses makes any sense.

In general, Putin's aesthetic has no relation to history or any traditions. All pre-revolutionary ceremonies have been completely forgotten— almost no one in Russia has any idea what coronation ceremonies really looked like or how the nobility and clergy behaved. The traditions and values of the Romanov dynasty were eradicated during the Soviet years, and current attempts are nothing more than a farce of flattery and sycophancy invented in recent years.

No matter how unshakeable these Putin traditions may seem, it is obvious that their time is limited. In a post-Putin Russia, the Kremlin will likely no longer be the presidential residence—this is increasingly discussed by opponents of the regime. The medieval fortress, where people have been killed for centuries, is certainly a powerful symbol. But the current Kremlin is not the same structure that was besieged by the armies of Genghis Khan's heirs. It is a monument to corruption, numerous constructions and renovations made to create an illusion of tradition.

Putin's main legacy will be emptiness. The emptiness that remains in place of his predecessor Yeltsin's former residence. It was demolished to expand the bunker and steal money. This, of course, vividly symbolizes modern Russia.