Sukharev Tower

Sukharev Tower (Сухарева башня) was one of the best known landmarks and symbols of Moscow until its destruction by the Soviet authorities in 1934. The tower was built in the Moscow baroque style at the intersection of the Garden Ring with the Sretenka street in 1692-1695.

Tsar Peter the Great envisaged the tower as the Sretenka Gates of the Earth City in Moscow, but the edifice proved to be more than this. First it was used as barracks for the Streltsy regiment commanded by the colonel Sukharev (hence the name). Then it housed the Moscow School of Mathematics and Navigation and the Admiralty. Count Yakov Bruce made the upper storey his astronomical observatory, the first in Russia. Catherine the Great allowed Moscow merchants to use the tower premises for storehouses and shops. A large market, or Sukharevka, was bustling around the tower in the 19th century. The Soviet government closed down the market and turned the tower into the Moscow City Museum.

"The bride of the Ivan Velikiy" (as Muscovites used to call the tower) was demolished in 1934 during the Stalinist reconstruction of the Moscow downtown. They say that the Moscow authorities decided to restore it, but there is no official corroboration of that information.

ee also

* Menshikov Tower
* Naryshkin baroque