There’s a cannon in the Kremlin so big it’s never been fired in anger; no cannon ball has ever left its cavernous aperture. The Tsar Cannon keeps guard, uselessly, as waves of tourists stream past. Just down the path lies the Tsar Bell, the largest bell ever cast. But a huge, ten ton chunk broke off during the casting and its note has never sounded. They’re both massive and imposing, and designed only ever to be those.
The Kremlin is full of such stuff, spanning the mega, the mini, and all in between. Elsewhere there were swords, regalia, thrones, helmets, shields, and guns. All owned by Prince this and Tsar that. There was a throne for the twin Tsars, complete with a secret compartment from which their mother and regent could whisper to them. And then, as if it were totally normal, you stumble into a side room and come eye to eye with a fully stuffed horse.
The best bit was the royal carriages. These ornate wooden traps, often entirely gilded, or painted a deep maroon, were splendid, though it was the wheels, gigantic and spindly, both glamorous and somehow nervous at the same time, that stuck with me most. There was even a carriage given as a gift from James I in 1604. I felt a strange twinge of pride: here was a bit of England in the Kremlin. The Tsar’s sleighs, used for winter transport, seemed as if they’d sprung from the pages of fairytales.
The Hermitage had been talking the language of money. The Armoury was too. It had it all, save one thing whose ghostly presence I felt most keenly when gawping at the Faberge eggs. Crafted by Carl Faberge and his workshop and used as gifts from Tsar to Tsarina, these are objects of beauty and miniaturist precision. They spoke the word opulence with a mouth of gold.
The Trans-Siberian Egg, perhaps the most remarkable Faberge, created to celebrate the opening of the Trans-Siberian railway, had within its ‘shell’ a solid gold train, studded with diamonds and affixed with rubies as headlights. The egg was produced in 1900. When such huge swathes of the country were destitute (as they long had been), their rulers were investing their money in toy trains made of gold. But things were changing in Russia in the 20th century, as soon the Romanovs would learn.
The Armoury had a good claim to contain all the material wealth and history of Russia, excepting two most humble implements: nondescript, and utterly interchangeable. And it was them that brought all that money, finery, and power crashing down. You could stare long and hard at the Trans-Siberian Egg, but look up quickly and you might just catch, in the reflection of the cabinet glass, a glimpse of the hammer and sickle.
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