Moscow · RU

Ivan the Great Bell-Tower

Rising above Cathedral Square with its whitewashed octagonal tiers and a gleaming gilded dome, the Ivan the Great Bell Tower is the tallest structure in the Moscow Kremlin and one of the defining silhouettes of the city's historic core. For five centuries it has been the visual and symbolic centre of the Kremlin ensemble-the belfry that served the great cathedrals, the watchtower that once warned Moscow of fire and invasion, and today a museum whose real exhibit is the tower itself. A visit is a compact, rewarding experience: you climb a steep spiral of stairs through the tower's interior to an upper gallery, and in exchange you get a bird's-eye panorama over the Kremlin roofs, the Moscow River and the old capital-an outlook the poet Lermontov declared essential to understanding Moscow.