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The Palace of Facets is the oldest secular building, not only in the Kremlin but in the whole of Moscow. Built in 1487-91 by Marco Ruffo and Pietro Antonio Solari, it is the only part of the huge complex constituted by the Great Kremlin Palace, the Terem Palace and associated buildings which has been almost completely preserved in it's original form. The name of the palace, which is almost exactly square in plan, comes from the faceted limestone blocks which pattern the main front - a form of rustication which originated in the Early Italian Renaissance.
The Palace of Facets is a large chamber with high grained vaults resting on a thick central rectangular pillar. Its area is 495 square metres and it's height is 9 metres. Murals were painted for the first time in the late16th century. In 1882 the Palekh painters, the Belousov brothers, restored the murals of the Palace of Facets from the copies made 200 years previously by Simon Ushakov.
Gold seals above the door proclaim it, as if the thousands who waited here day after day didn't already know. This is the waiting room of Ivan the Terrible. Encircling the room are a series of hand-painted frescos, painted from the bible, which seem to suggest that being one step away from the Czar was a peaceful prospect. But in Ivan the Terrible's court, there was a saying, The closer to the Czar, the closer to death.
And this is his Throne Room, where you slowly came forward, if Ivan summoned you. His advisers and members of his court all clustered against the wall, dwarfed by a giant ceiling, every inch of it covered by scenes from the Bible, all of it lighted by four bronze chandeliers. The Czar's wife was the only woman allowed in court, so Ivan cut a window-there-above the arch, so the other women of the palace could watch. Many official ceremonies and receptions have taken place here, even for centuries after Ivan the Terrible's reign, from Empress Catherine the Great holding court in the early 18th Century to banquets in the early 19th Century to Mikhail Gorbachev welcoming U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the 20th Century.
