Kremlin

President of Russia

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| DISCOVERING THE KREMLIN |
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National Priorities:
| Military Reform
| Pension Reform
| Against New Threats

DISCOVERING THE KREMLIN |

The Second Half of the 18th Century

The next stage of construction in the Kremlin began during the reign of Catherine the Great (1762-1796). Following ancient tradition, Catherine was crowned in Moscow, even though St. Petersburg had become the country’s official capital.

A special commission to draw up a new code of laws to replace the old code that dated from the time of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was called in Moscow and held its sessions in the Kremlin’s Faceted Palace. This was a sign that the state would be ruled not only from St. Petersburg, but also from Moscow.

One of the buildings commissioned by Catherine the Great was the Senate. Simple in form on the outside, it had a very rich interior and blended harmoniously with the existing Kremlin architecture that had taken shape over the centuries.

Under Catherine, the Senate was divided into several departments, with four in St. Petersburg and two newly founded departments in Moscow – the judicial and administrative departments. Catherine the Great saw the Senate as the guardian of the laws and placed great importance on its role as both the nation’s highest judicial authority and the body managing day-to-day state affairs.

[Next... 1812 and the Restoration of the Kremlin]

| The Histiry of the Kremlin |  | The Era of Peter the Great
| The Origin of the Kremlin |  | The Second Half of the 18th Century
| The “Small Wooden Town” on Borovitsky Hill |  | 1812 and the Restoration of the Kremlin
| The Kremlin in the 13th Century |  | Construction Work in the Kremlin in the 19th Century
| A Residence Fit for Princes |  | The 20th Century: the Kremlin’s Losses
| The White Stone Kremlin of Dmitry Donskoi |  | The Most Recent History of the Ancient Kremlin
| The Kremlin in the 15th - 17th Centuries |  |

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