Palace of Facets

Stand in Cathedral Square and turn toward the low white building with the sharp, chiselled face. Run your eye across that wall. Every stone is cut into a small pyramid, a raised point that catches the light on one side and throws a tiny shadow on the other. On a bright morning the whole facade seems to flicker as clouds pass. This is the Palace of Facets, and that pattern of cut stone is where it gets its name.

In Russian it is called the Granovitaya Palata. The word for 'facet' is the same word used for the cut faces of a gemstone. The builders dressed the eastern wall in white limestone shaped into these diamond points. This technique comes from Italy, where it is called rustication. It means stone left deliberately bold and textured, so a wall looks strong and heavy. Here, in the middle of the Kremlin, it gives the building a quiet, armoured look.

That Italian connection is no accident. The palace went up at the end of the fifteenth century, under Grand Prince Ivan the Third. Ivan was rebuilding the Kremlin as the seat of a rising Russian state. He invited Italian master builders to Moscow. Two of them, Marco Ruffo and Pietro Antonio Solari, are credited with this palace. Solari also worked on the Kremlin's red brick walls and towers. So the building in front of you belongs to the same wave of construction as the fortress around you.

Here is the first surprise. Despite its name, this was never a palace in the sense of a home. Nobody lived here. It was built as a single great ceremonial hall, a throne room for the most important moments of the state. It is widely described as the oldest surviving civic building in Moscow. Churches older than it still stand nearby. But for a secular hall, a place of government rather than worship, this one comes first.

The main chamber sits on the upper floor. It is almost square, and its ceiling is held up in a remarkable way. A single massive pillar rises from the centre of the room. From the top of that pillar, four broad vaults spread outward to the walls, like the branches of a stone tree. There are no other supports. For the late fifteenth century, it was a bold piece of engineering. Visitors who enter the hall often say the pillar pulls the eye before anything else.

What happened in that room shaped Russian history. Foreign ambassadors were received here, brought before the ruler with great formality. Grand feasts were held at long tables under the vaults. Coronations were celebrated here, and councils of the land met here to debate matters of state. Tradition holds that Ivan the Terrible feasted in this hall after his army captured the city of Kazan in 1552. Later rulers marked their own victories in the same space.

Now for the second surprise. Above the western entrance of the hall there is a small hidden chamber with a narrow window. According to long tradition, the women of the royal family sat there. Custom kept them away from public ceremonies. So they watched the receptions and feasts from above, unseen by the guests below. Imagine the scene. Ambassadors in heavy robes, the tsar on his throne, and somewhere above, quiet faces watching through a grille.

The walls of the hall are covered in painting. The colours are deep reds, golds and blues, with figures from the Bible and from Russian history. But the paintings you would see inside today are not the originals. The first murals were painted in the sixteenth century and were later lost. In the late nineteenth century, icon painters from the village of Palekh repainted the hall. They worked from older written descriptions of the lost images, so the new murals follow the spirit of the old ones.

Look now at the side of the building facing the square, where a broad staircase once rose. This was the Red Porch. In old Russian, the word for 'red' also meant 'beautiful'. Tsars walked down these steps to the cathedrals after their coronations, while crowds watched from the square. The staircase was destroyed in the Soviet period. It was rebuilt in the 1990s, following old drawings and descriptions. So the steps you see are young, but they stand exactly where history happened.

Take a moment to notice the windows on the facade. They are framed with carved white stone, with columns and decorative details around each opening. These frames were changed after the original construction. Over the centuries, the palace was repaired, adjusted and restored many times. Fires were a constant danger in old Moscow. Each repair left its mark. So the wall in front of you is not one single moment in time. It carries several centuries of work.

Today the palace is part of the larger Grand Kremlin Palace complex, which stands behind it. The hall is still used for official state ceremonies and receptions. For that reason, it is generally closed to ordinary visitors. Most people experience it the way you are experiencing it now, from the outside, from the square. That is worth knowing. It means the facade is the main event, and it rewards slow, careful looking.

From where you stand, look at the buildings around you. To one side rises the Cathedral of the Dormition, where the tsars were crowned. Nearby stand the Cathedral of the Annunciation and the Cathedral of the Archangel. The Palace of Facets completes this square. Faith, crown and state sat side by side here. A coronation could begin in one building and end with a feast in this hall, only a short walk away.

Before you move on, look once more at those cut stones. Watch how the light moves across their points as you shift your position, even by a step. Five centuries of rulers, ambassadors and guests walked past this same wall. Listen to the sound of the square around you, the footsteps, the voices, the bells if they are ringing. Then, as you walk away, glance back over your shoulder. The facets will still be catching the light.