- Type
- Fortress
- Built
- 1520 · 16th century
- Coordinates
- 54.1954°, 37.6201°
History
In 1507 Grand Prince Vasily III of Moscow ordered an oak stockade to be built at Tula to guard the road to Moscow against Crimean Tatar raids. In 1514 a masonry kremlin was begun inside it and completed around 1520: a rectangle of about 6 hectares enclosed by a wall roughly 1 km long with nine towers. In 1552 the garrison and townspeople held off the army of Khan Devlet I Giray, in 1605 the pretender False Dmitry I stayed here briefly, and in 1607 the kremlin became the last stronghold of Ivan Bolotnikov's uprising. Once the frontier moved further south the fortress lost its military role, and in the 18th and 19th centuries the Assumption and Epiphany cathedrals were built within it. After repairs in the 18th and 19th centuries and a restoration in the 1960s, the kremlin was extensively renovated ahead of its 500th anniversary in 2020, and the bell tower demolished in the 1930s was rebuilt in 2012–2014.
What to see
The entire kremlin is part of a museum. An exhibition complex inside the walls covers the region's military history, folk art, samovars and Tula gingerbread, and an archaeology museum displays a model of the 17th-century kremlin. The visitor route includes a walk along the walls and into the Ivanovsky Gate and Nikitskaya towers, with displays on Tatar raids and the siege of 1552. Part of the arms museum collection is shown in the Epiphany Cathedral, and the Assumption Cathedral has a painted interior. An obelisk in the grounds commemorates the siege of 1607.
Wikipedia article Wikidata Q770040
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