All that glitters is not gold, but surely some of it is! See how the hit PS2 RPG stands and shines on the PlayStation Vita!

I shall open with a claim that is non-standard, and probably a bit daft: I think that Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is the film out of all 12 Star Trek features that comes closest to the spirit of the TV show it’s based on (okay, so Star Trek: Insurrection probably comes even closer, but for a much more dubious reason. ETA: And now that there are 13 Star Trek features, I have to give some credit to Star Trek Beyond). “Are you mad? The time travel comedy with culture-shock jokes and whales? Is closest to the original series?”, I could almost imagine you sputtering, if I thought you were an insane person who challenged the sanity of a blogger by shouting at your computer screen. Or if I didn’t expect you to understand rhetorical gambits.

But yes, that’s exactly the one I’m referring to, and I think I can make it stick. Firstly: The Voyage Home is the only Star Trek movie where nobody dies (onscreen), and is the first in four tries that ends with the “hurray!” feeling that so many episodes of the show did: no dead Spocks, no exploded starships, just a big happy send-off. Secondly, comedy wasn’t as rare in the TV series as it is in the movies: there were only two outright comic episodes that I can immediately recall, but the comic byplay between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy was much more an integral part of all but the most arch, serious episodes than it is in most of the films that aren’t trying to make an active point of it; and the specific nature of the humor in this film bears quite a resemblance to the scattered moments of comedy in “The City on the Edge of Forever” (a time-travel episode that is largely not funny at all) and the overarching comedy in “A Piece of the Action” (one of the two overt comic episodes, set in a planet modeled after ’20s gangland Chicago).

Thirdly, and this is actually the most important part, The Voyage Home is a message movie unlike anything that the other eleven films even thought about touching, and that’s something that happens a lot in the TV show; it being one of the most touching elements of Gene Roddenberry’s rose-colored worldview that he could use his sci-fi adventure show not merely to comment on society (a privilege of science fiction above nearly all other genres), but to actively agitate for improving society. How many episodes of Star Trek were nothing but little morality plays in disguise! Frequently not even that much disguise; the planet of half-white, half-black people warring with the half-black, half-white people leaps to mind, what I’d refer to as an allegory about racism if the word “allegory” didn’t imply at least a surface-level attempt to hide the subtext.

So yes, The Voyage Home is the environmentalist Star Trek movie, the plea to stop and think about what we’re doing to our planet: subjecting to the wrath of an alien probe 300 years hence that will destroy us for making humpback whales go extinct. Which, in a long line of profoundly silly bits of scientific nonsense peddled by the Star Trek franchise over nearly half a century, I’m not certain if anything is quite as boldly loopy as “a race of alien whales is in communication with terrestrial whales, and that is what whalesong is for”. But the film means it so darn earnestly, and there had to be some way of getting us back to the Earth of 1986. Anyway, the film’s environmental themes are woven into the script so cleanly, and tied so tightly in with more message-neutral dramatic concerns, that even at is most overt, the film never feels like it’s giving up storytelling in order to lecture us. Take note, Stanley Kramers of the world! You can get just as much mileage and a whole lot more entertainment out of a laugh line like “Judging by the pollution content in the atmosphere, I believe we have arrived at the latter half of the 20th Century” as you can from breast-beating monologues.

Anyway, The Voyage Home: after the events of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the crew of the late U.S.S. Enterprise merely waits on the rehabilitation of the resurrected Spock (Leonard Nimoy) to head back to Earth and face trial for their acts of insubordination and sabotage; but as they idly cool their heels on Vulcan, Earth is under a strange kind of attack from a strange alien probe, a huge black cylinder with a small blue protuberance uttering an otherworldly noise and blanking out power in every station and ship it passes. Having set up shop above Earth’s atmosphere, the probe is now vaporising the oceans, turning the planet into a cloud-locked hell. As the Enterprise crew returns on their commandeered Klingon Bird of Prey, they’re able to determine that the probe’s message is in fact identical to the songs of humpback whales, and from there it’s easy to deduce that the probe is searching for a species that has been extinct for two hundred years. Obviously, then, the best solution is to go back to the 20th Century, when such animals were reasonably plentiful and bring a mating pair back to the 23rd Century to communicate with the alien vessel; obviously. But once arrived in Starfleet’s future hometown of San Francisco in the film’s release year of 1986, just getting around in a wholly alien culture proves to be challenge enough, to say nothing of using primitive technology to repair their horribly damaged ship (trips through time aren’t a cakewalk, you know), and to build an enclosure for the whales that, at this point, haven’t yet been found.

Given its reputation as a fish-out-of-water comedy, broadly accessible to just about anybody (a reputation that made the film the highest grossing in the series, and the only one to break $100 million in box office receipts, until 2009’s Star Trek; adjusted for inflation, it’s still the series’ third-highest grosser, and likely to remain that way), it’s a little shocking to realise how long it takes until The Voyage Home finally warps to 1986, or starts to be funny. A full quarter of the movie is dedicated just to setting things up on Earth and re-introducing the characters – poorly; this might be the first Star Trek movie that baldly requires you to have seen at least the preceding two movies if not the whole show to have even vaguest idea of what’s going on with this talk of katras, and mind-melds, and large portions of the first and third-act narrative. And this at least has the benefit of moving quickly and getting the stakes escalated fast. Almost too fast, and too escalated, perhaps, for the series’ most self-consciously comic entry. But I am not one of the movie’s five credited writers (including Nimoy, and Nicholas Meyer, the latter returning the franchise’s bosom after being offended at the mere existence of The Search for Spock), and they undoubtedly would not care about my opinion.

Frankly, the 23rd Century parts of the movie are fine, nothing more, though Nimoy’s directing is a great deal more focused than it was in the last film. It’s quite apparent that what the filmmakers cared about most, and what they expect us to care about the most, was the central time-travel comedy; time-travel comedies being big business in the mid-’80s, what with the previous year’s Back to the Future and all. And to the film’s immeasurable credit, the 1986 sequences are all pretty great. Funny as heck, with its humor rooted (like nearly all great humor is) in the truth of the characters: funny to see Spock badly mangling an attempt to swear and use slang like a human, funny to see whiz-bang engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan, easily the best he is in any of the features) being sniffy and superior about 20th Century technology; funny to see Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) being the same way about medicine. Some of the jokes are lost to the Cold War; the bit about Chekhov (Walter Koenig) asking in battered English, “Where are the nooklear wessels” isn’t nearly as clever when you have to remind yourself that a Russian asking about nukes in ’86 would have a much different connotation than in the 2010s.

The other, much less predictable reason that the 1986 material works is that it finally solves – for the only time in the film series – the consistent problem that Star Trek had with its ensemble: giving them all something to do. It’s still, unquestionably, driven by Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock, hunting for whales and getting entangled with a local marine biologist (Catherine Hicks) – whom Kirk, in best Kirk fashion, promptly starts to hit on (the only time that happened in the movies, really, until the younger, sexier Kirk of the reboot). But every single character has at least one small chance to shine, to get a little comic moment all their own, even if it’s just a few well-timed reaction shots in Uhura’s (Nichelle Nichols) case.

Nimoy, as director, is on much surer footing here: his instinct to let his castmates feel their way into the script rather than demanding they hew to it pays off substantially better than in The Search for Spock, and he’s infinitely better at shaping comic moments than tragic ones (the shape of the rest of his limited directorial career bears that out). The tender moments that are here still work, but they’re mostly Spock’s own moments, suggesting that Nimoy was better at acting that kind of emotion than bringing it out in others.

Anyway, there’s not much room for sincerity; The Voyage Home is consciously a lark, trivialising its world-threatening conflict, ending with the happiest conclusion of any of the movies that point, and cramming in broad laughs along the way. Happily, its also a completely effective and well-made lark, a bit flimsy to be legitimately counted as “great” Star Trek, but aware enough of its characters and their attachments to each other and the audience that it’s completely, undeniably “fun” Star Trek.

Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) enjoys his newfound confidence and exhibits a new spring in his step.

Your friendly neighborhood web-slinger is back, only this time his sunny outlook has become partially overcast in the third chapter of director Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man saga. Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and James Franco return to reprise their roles from the previous two installments, with Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, and Bryce Dallas Howard making their first appearances in the series as Flint Marko (aka Sandman), Eddie Brock (aka Venom), and Gwen Stacy, respectively. Peter Parker (Maguire) has finally leaned to walk the middle ground between being the superhero that his city needs and the man that Mary Jane (Dunst) loves. All is well in New York City until one night, as Peter and M.J. sit gazing at the stars, a falling comet streams across the sky and crashes into the ground close by. But this isn’t any ordinary shooting star, and upon impact the mysterious space rock is split open to reveal a shape-shifting symbiote with the power to overtake anything that it comes into contact with. Later, as Harry Osborn (James Franco) acquires his late father’s flying board, engineers a powerful new Goblin outfit, and takes to the sky to avenge dad’s death, the mysterious space sludge infects both Peter’s Spider-Man suit and ambitious street photographer Eddie Brock (Grace). Peter’s strange new suit gives him a newfound sense of power as it gradually overpowers his personality, and he discovers that escaped convict Flint Marko was in fact the man responsible for the death of Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson). Unfortunately for Peter, Marko has recently acquired the power to morph at will and quickly completes his transformation into the dreaded Sandman. As the Sandman gives in to his darkest criminal instincts and the slithering space symbiote transforms Eddie Brock into the nightmarish fanged villain known as Venom, the citizens of New York City must once again call on Spider-Man to fend off destructive forces that are far too powerful for the likes of mortal man.

The West End is a neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, located between the Coal Harbour neighbourhood and the financial and central business districts of Downtown Vancouver to the east, Stanley Park to the northwest, the English Bay to the west, and Kitsilano to the southwest across the False Creek opening.

The definition of the “official neighbourhood” of the West End, according to the city, is the area west of Burrard Street, east of Denman Street, and south of West Georgia Street. Historically the term originated and remains used by Vancouverites to refer to everything from Burrard Street to Stanley Park, including the Stanley Park Neighbourhood west of Denman Street and the Coal Harbour Neighbourhood. Coal Harbour Neighbourhood is officially designated as west of Burrard and to the north of West Georgia, although the newly built areas between West Pender Street and the waterfront are expressly “Coal Harbour” and not considered part of the West End.

Like all of Vancouver, the West End was originally a forested wilderness. The area was purchased in 1862 by John Morton, Samuel Brighouse, and William Hailstone, three men known as the “Three Greenhorn Englishmen,” or just the “Three Greenhorns,” owing to the belief that the naive men paid too much for the remote land. The men had plans to establish a brickworks on the shore of Coal Harbour, and their land claim was originally staked with the hopeful intent of mining for porcelain clays, but the grade of clay was not fine enough for that use. When those plans failed (a lack of transportation being a key factor) they sold a good portion of the area, by then known as the Brickmaker’s Claim, to Victoria investors who in turn tried to promote its development as New Liverpool. The only thing that happened with that scheme was a subdivision plan registered with the Land Titles office in New Westminster. Another name used for the property was the Brighouse Estate (Brighouse as a name came to refer to a particular part of Richmond, where “Greenhorn” J. Morton also owned property). One of the partners, observant that brick was a valuable building commodity despite the abundance of timber in the region, moved the brick-clay operations to Sumas Mountain, establishing the community of Clayburn, now a neighbourhood of Abbotsford.

Later, with the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway, with its terminus at nearby Coal Harbour, the West End became Vancouver’s first upscale neighbourhood, home to the richest railroad families. Many of these families lived along Georgia Street, known at that time as “Blue Blood Alley” for all the posh mansions built there. Later mansions (including the Davie mansion) were built in then remoter areas of the West End as the financial district’s land values displaced the high-toned residences. This role was ultimately dropped with the increasing vogue for the upscale Shaughnessy neighbourhood, and as middle-class housing of various kinds began to fill out the West End. As the city grew, the West End became a transitory place for new arrivals from elsewhere in Canada, the United Kingdom, and later for immigrants from other countries, establishing a tradition of diversity. Following World War II, a significant German commercial community emerged along Robson Street, giving birth to the nickname Robsonstrasse, a name still occasionally used in marketing despite the loss of its original meaning.

The West End is bordered by downtown on the one side, Stanley Park on the other and by water on two. The West End is home to a mixed population, old and young, of Canadians, immigrants and international transient residents. Like other downtown neighbourhoods, the West End is very densely populated. It is adjacent to the downtown core business and financial districts, with traffic calmed streets punctuated by concrete islands, sidewalk barricades, and mini-parks and many residential heritage buildings including The Manhattan, The Beaconsfield, The Beverly and The Queen Charlotte.

Close to 45,000 people of all ages, incomes, ethnicities, and sexual orientations live in the West End. The age group of 20–39 years consistently ranks the largest at 48%, followed by 40-64 at 34%, 65+ at 13% and under 19 at 6%. Containing 7.4% of the City’s population, the West End welcomed 14% of new Vancouverites between 2001 and 2006. The West End is also home to Western Canada’s largest LGBTQ community. Vancouver’s gay village, called Davie Village, is centred primarily on Davie Street between Burrard and Bute.

The share of single-parent families in the West End is about 12%, compared to 17% for the City of Vancouver. Statistics also show that the West End is home to many children — the downtown peninsula now has more children than traditional family neighbourhoods such as West Point Grey or Kerrisdale. Lord Roberts Annex offers kindergarten to grade 3. The student population of Lord Roberts Elementary School (k-grade 7) represents 43 countries and 37 languages. King George Secondary School (grades 8-12) celebrated 100 years in 2014.

West End residents have been very active in shaping their neighbourhood and maintaining its liveability. In the 1970s, residents banded together to calm traffic that was using the neighbourhood as a shortcut between downtown Vancouver and the suburbs of the North Shore, across the Lions’ Gate Bridge. They also staged a successful, yet destructive “Shame the Johns” campaign to rid the West End of the sex work that was then visible in the neighbourhood. This campaign was formed by a group of politicians called the Concerned Residents of the West End (CROWE), prominently containing cisgender white gay men, who aided in the formation of a 1984 injunction granted by then-B.C. Supreme Court Justice Allan McEachern. This injunction banned sex workers from working west of Granville Street, which forcibly displaced them away from the relative safety and community support of Davie Street. Following this, they were forced into Yaletown, then Mount Pleasant, where they were repeatedly protested by “Shame the Johns vigilantes”, down East Broadway, and eventually into the Downtown Eastside, where already vulnerable sex workers are more open to violence and abuse than ever before. These displacements were a worsened repetition of the early erasers that happened on Dupont and Alexander Street. Further, this displacement largely targeted transgender, two-spirit and First Nations women, replicated the colonial practices and dispossession of land from the Musqueam, Burrard, and Squamish First Nations. Today, groups such as the West End Citizens Action Network, the West End Residents Association and West End Neighbours continue to be actively involved in keeping the West End liveable, leaving this history largely erased.

The West End is particularly famous among visitors for Robson Street. It was historically known as the Robsonstrasse, for the postwar period when it was a hub for immigrants from Germany, and was home to owner operated boutiques, schnitzel houses and other bistro-style dining establishments until the 1980s when the transition to the current fashionable shopping and dining area stretching from Burrard Street to Jervis Street, began. Many restaurants and shops can also be found along Denman Street closer to Stanley Park, and Davie Street between Burrard and Jervis streets.

Numerous parks and beaches can be found throughout the West End including Alexandra Park, Cardero Park, Nelson Park, Stanley Park and Sunset Beach. These parks range in size from 0.22 hectares (Morton Park) to over 406 hectare (Stanley Park). A portion of the Stanley Park Seawall promenade runs along the waterfront from Burrard Bridge to Ceperly Park.

The area is also known for English Bay Beach, a large park on English Bay which is thronged during the annual Celebration of Light fireworks display each year mid-summer. St. Paul’s Hospital, one of Vancouver’s largest and oldest health facilities, sits at the neighbourhood’s eastern edge on Burrard Street.

Community Centres in the West End include the Vancouver Aquatic Centre, West End Community Centre, Coal Harbour Community Centre and Barclay Manor. Depending on the centre, they offer swimming pools, gyms, fitness centres and an ice rink, as well as many meeting and all-purpose rooms for rent.

The West End is not to be confused with the West Side (which denotes the western half of the non-downtown part of Vancouver city to the south) or West Vancouver (“West Van”), a separate municipality. (Conversely, and to the confusion of some, “East Van,” “the East End,” and “the East Side” all denote East Vancouver.)

On November 4, 2015, The Canadian Institute of Planners announced winners of its fifth annual Great Places in Canada contest. A jury of seven professional planners named the West End as the Great Neighbourhood. Juror Jaspal Marwah MCIP, RPP stated that “the West End makes it easy, safe and inviting for residents to walk and bike to work, to access thriving local businesses and to explore Vancouver’s beaches, trails and Stanley Park. Transit access, traffic calming, street furniture, treed promenades, pocket parks and public spaces reflect a thoughtful approach to place-making. Home to the city’s LGBTQ community, the West End’s density is evenly matched by its diversity of residents, and by a strong commitment to creating an inclusive community that prioritizes affordable housing.”

The Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) is one of the greatest examples of Brutalist architecture in Africa. The building is an important reflection on the countries feelings as a newly independent country. The choice of architectural style, brutalism, is important. Brutalist architecture wanted to escape from all architectural conventions and to create truly modernist architecture that could be applied to buildings universally around the world.

So what is brutalism, let start by looking at the etymology of the word. Although many people think brutalism comes from the English word brutal the word actually comes from the French term béton-brut, meaning raw concrete. The word brutalism was coined by British architecture critic Reyner Banham. Hence raw concrete is one of the most important features of brutalism. Although concrete had been extensively used in buildings in the 20th century it was almost always covered and hidden by some other material in the facade. Brutalism wanted to show concrete as it was, the honesty of the building is an important idea in brutalist architecture. The building unapologetically showing what it is. A building must be honest and people should be able to ‘read’ the building’s structure from the outside. Brutalism was also conflated with equality and can be seen as one of the most important architectural styles of communist countries. Brutalism wanted to build a world of equality and egalitarianism, this meant doing away with historical and cultural backgrounds.

Brutalism wanted to show what concrete could do and to be bold in its use. Concrete is interesting for a number of reasons, the most important being that it takes the shape of the mould in which you place it, this makes it incredibly versatile. Furthermore, concrete can be used for structural and non-structural parts of a building. This means that concrete is just as useable to create a non-structural wall or an ornament as it is in creating the structural parts of the building. This meant that there did not need to be a distinction between materials used for structural parts of the building and materials used for ornamental or functional parts of the building, it could all be done in concrete. Brutalism can be seen at its base as an experiment in what concrete can do and how it could be used.

Brutalism became an architectural experiment in medium but also a political and social experiment. In the west, brutalism became the go-to style for large social housing projects, like Robin Hood Gardens, and large public institutions, like the Boston city hall.

Brutalism had its heyday in the 1960’s and 1970’s right around the same time as many African nations were become independent, like the DCR (1960), Kenya (1963), Nigeria (1960) and Zambia (1964). These newly independent countries needed to build new buildings for there institutions and put their countries on the world stage.

African leaders needed an architectural style that showed how modern these countries were but also shows their independence from their former European oppressors. This required an architecture style that did not follow European conventions of architecture and a style that pushed away from all that had come before, brutalism was the perfect fit.

One such building is the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi.

The KICC is named after the first president and father of the nation, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. In the 1960’s Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and his party, KANU wanted a new party headquarters in the centre of Nairobi. The party wanted a small four-story building and asked Norwegian architect Karl Henrik Nøstvik and Kenyan Architect David Mutiso to design a building.

During the design process, the IMF/World Bank choose Nairobi to host a large conference, this required a large new convention centre to host the largest conference ever to be held in Africa. The event would take place in 1973 and the KANU headquarters was chosen to host the venue. The 4 story building turned into a 28 story building with more than 200,000 square meters of space. The building’s new design needed to not only capture the new Kenya but show what a post-colonial Africa was capable of.

The new design had three main structures, a tower, plinth and auditorium. The building’s design is supposed to reflect a closed (the auditorium) and an open flower (tower). This idea is created by the cone shape roof of the auditorium and the inverted cone at the top of the tower. The building is therefore emblematic of the country blossoming into a free independent state. Nøstvik and Mutiso wanted the building to reflect Kenyan design principle and were inspired by traditional mud huts. This is where the round shapes in the building come from and also the brown colour of the building.

The building can be seen as a brutalist structure because of its use of raw concrete, most notably in the plinth. The ramps are very reminiscent of the galleries in the Robin Hood Gardens in London. The grand monumentalism of this ramp, which acts are the main entrance to the building makes the building feel gigantic. Another brutalist feature of the building is that the construction and use of the building is visible from the outside. The auditorium is clearly visible from the outside. The building is honest in its constriction not only in the exterior but also in the interior of the building, where raw concrete is also extensively used.

The building’s three main structures (tower, plinth and auditorium) are not only a separation of functions but these three structures are also visually split, most notably between the plinth and the auditorium. The joint between these two structures is formed by a glass entrance to the auditorium. The auditorium is held up by thin ‘n’ shaped concrete arches. This leads to a very clear visually division between plinth and auditorium.

The KICC is one of the many examples of brutalist architecture in post-colonial Africa. Other notable examples are the Central Bank of Kenya also in Nairobi, La Pyramide in Abidjan, the independence Arch in Accra and Kariakoo Market in Dar es Salaam. All these buildings wanted to push away from there European colonial pasts and show what post-colonial Africa would look like. Although brutalism fell out of favour across the world in the 1980’s the style forever embodies post-colonial Africa.

Inextricably linked to all the most important historical and political events in Russia since the 13th century, the Kremlin (built between the 14th and 17th centuries by outstanding Russian and foreign architects) was the residence of the Great Prince and also a religious centre. At the foot of its ramparts, on Red Square, St Basil’s Basilica is one of the most beautiful Russian Orthodox monuments.

Brief synthesis

At the geographic and historic centre of Moscow, the Moscow Kremlin is the oldest part of the city. First mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle in 1147 as a fortification erected on the left bank of the Moskva river by Yuri Dolgoruki, Prince of Suzdal, the Kremlin developed and grew with settlements and suburbs which were further surrounded by new fortifications – Kitaigorodsky Wall, Bely Gorod, Zemlyanoy Gorod and others. This determined a radial and circular plan of the centre of Moscow typical of many other Old Russian cities.

In 13th century the Kremlin was the official residence of supreme power – the center of temporal and spiritual life of the state. The Kremlin of the late 15th – early 16th century is one of the major fortifications of Europe (the stone walls and towers of present day were erected in 1485–1516). It contains an ensemble of monuments of outstanding quality.

The most significant churches of the Moscow Kremlin are situated on the Cathedral Square; they are the Cathedral of the Dormition, Church of the Archangel, Church of the Annunciation and the bell tower of Ivan Veliki. Almost all of them were designed by invited Italian architects which is clearly seen in their architectural style. The five-domed Assumption Cathedral (1475–1479) was built by an Italian architect Aristotele Fiorvanti. Its interior is decorated with frescos and a five-tier iconostasis (15th–17th century). The cathedral became the major Russian Orthodox church; a wedding and coronation place for great princes, tsars and emperors as well as the shrine for metropolitans and patriarchs.

In the same square another Italian architect, Alevisio Novi, erected the five-domed Church of the Archangel in 1505-1508. From the 17th to 19th century, its interior was decorated by wonderful frescos and an iconostasis. In this church many great princes and tsars of Moscow are buried. Among them are Ivan I Kalita, Dmitri Donskoi, Ivan III, Ivan IV the Terrible, Mikhail Fedorovich and Alexei Mikhailovich Romanovs.

The Cathedral of the Dormition was built by Pskov architects in 1484–1489. Inside the cathedral some mural paintings of 16th–19th century have been preserved and the icons of Andrei Rublev and Theophanes the Greek are part of the iconostasis.

In 1505-1508 the bell tower of Ivan Veliki was built. Being 82 metres high it was the highest building in Russia which became the focal point of the Kremlin ensemble.

Among the oldest civil buildings of the Moscow Kremlin, the Palace of the Facets (1487–1491) is the most remarkable. Italian architects Marco Fryazin and Pietro Antonio Solario built it as a great hall for holding state ceremonies, celebrations and for receiving foreign ambassadors. The most noteworthy civil construction of the 17th century built by Russian masters is the Teremnoi Palace.

From the early 18th century, when the capital of Russia moved to St. Petersburg, the Kremlin mainly played a ceremonial role with religious functions. By the end of the century the architectural complex of the Kremlin expanded with the Arsenal reconstructed after the Fire of 1797 by Matvei Kazakov. The Senate was built in 1776–1787 according to the plans of the same architect as the home of the highest agency of State power of the Russian Empire – the Ruling Senate. Today it is the residence of the President of Russia.

From 1839 to 1849 a Russian architect K.A. Thon erected the Great Kremlin Palace as a residence of the imperial family which combined ancient Kremlin buildings such as the Palace of the Facets, the Tsarina’s Golden Chamber, Master Chambers, the Teremnoi Palace and the Teremnoi churches. In the Armory Chamber built by K.A. Thon within the complex of the Great Kremlin Palace, there is a 16th century museum officially established by the order of Alexander I in 1806.

Red Square, closely associated with the Kremlin, lies beneath its east wall. At its south end is the famous Pokrovski Cathedral (Cathedral of St Basil the Blessed), one of the most beautiful monuments of Old Russian church architecture, erected in 1555–1560 to commemorate the victory of Ivan the Terrible over the Kazan Khanate. In the 17th century the cathedral gained its up-to-date appearance thanks to the decorative finishing of the domes and painting both inside and outside the cathedral. The construction of Red Square was finished by the late 19th century together with the erection of the Imperial Historic Museum (today the State Historical Museum), the Upper Trading Rows (GUM) and the Middle Trading Rows. In 1929, , Lenin’s Mausoleum, designed by A.V. Shchusev and an outstanding example of the Soviet monumental architecture, was finished.

Criterion (i): The Kremlin contains within its walls a unique series of masterpieces of architecture and the plastic arts. There are religious monuments of exceptional beauty such as the Church of the Annunciation, the Cathedral of the Dormition, the Church of the Archangel and the bell tower of Ivan Veliki; there are palaces such as the Great Palace of the Kremlin, which comprises within its walls the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin and the Teremnoi Palace. On Red Square is Saint Basil the Blessed, still a major edifice of Russian Orthodox art.

Criterion (ii): Throughout its history, Russian architecture has clearly been affected many times by influences emanating from the Kremlin. A particular example was the Italian Renaissance. The influence of the style was clearly felt when Rudolfo Aristotele Fioravanti built the Cathedral of the Dormition (1475-79) and grew stronger with the construction of the Granovitaya Palace (Hall of the Facets, 1487-91) by Marco Fryazin and Pietro Antonio Solario. Italian Renaissance also influenced the towers of the fortified enceinte, built during the same period by Solario, using principles established by Milanese engineers (the Nikolskaya and the Spasskaya Towers both date from 1491). The Renaissance expression was even more present in the classic capitals and shells of the Church of the Archangel, reconstructed from 1505 to 1509 by Alevisio Novi.

Criterion (iv): With its triangular enceinte pierced by four gates and reinforced with 20 towers, the Moscow Kremlin preserves the memory of the wooden fortifications erected by Yuri Dolgoruki around 1156 on the hill at the confluence of the Moskova and Neglinnaya rivers (the Alexander Garden now covers the latter). By its layout and its history of transformations (in the 14th century Dimitri Donskoi had an enceinte of logs built, then the first stone wall), the Moscow Kremlin is the prototype of a Kremlin – the citadel at the centre of Old Russian towns such as Pskov, Tula, Kazan or Smolensk.

Criterion (vi): From the 13th century to the founding of St Petersburg, the Moscow Kremlin was directly and tangibly associated with every major event in Russian history. A 200-year period of obscurity ended in 1918 when it became the seat of government again. The Mausoleum of Lenin on Red Square is the Soviet Union’s prime example of symbolic monumental architecture. To proclaim the universal significance of the Russian revolution, the funerary urns of heroes of the revolution were incorporated into the Kremlin’s walls between the Nikolskaya and Spasskaya towers. The site thus combines in an exceptional manner the preserved vestiges of bygone days with present-day signs of one of the greatest events in modern history.

Integrity

From the date of including the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square on the World Heritage List all the components representing the Outstanding Universal Value of the property are within its boundaries. The territory and the integrity of the World Heritage property have also remained unchanged. Within its boundaries the property still comprises all the elements that it contained at the date of nomination. The biggest threat, however, is unregulated commercial development of the adjacent areas.

Authenticity

The history of the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square is reflected in the archival documents of 12th–19th century, for example in medieval chronicles, cadastral surveys, estimated construction books, painted lists, inventories, foreign notes and in graphic matters such as manuscripts, chronicles, plans, drafts, engravings, lithographs, sketches of foreign travelers, paintings and photographs. These documents are exceptionally valuable information sources. Comparison of the data received from archival documents and those obtained in the process of field study gives the idea of authenticity of the property and its different elements. This comparison also serves as the basis for project development and for the choice of the appropriate methods of restoration that may preserve the monuments’ authenticity.

On the border of the ensemble a number of monuments destroyed in the 1930s were reconstructed according to measured plans.

Protection and management requirements

The statutory and institutional framework of an effective protection, management and improvement of the World Heritage property “Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow” has been established by laws and regulations of the Russian Federation and the city of Moscow.

According to the decree of the President of RSFSR of 18 December 1991 № 294, the Moscow Kremlin was included among especially protected cultural properties of nations of Russia – the highest conservation status for cultural and historical monuments in Russian legislation.

“Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow” is a Cultural Heritage Site of federal importance. State protection and management of federal sites is provided by Federal Law of 25.06.2002 № 73-FZ “On cultural heritage sites (historical and cultural monuments) of nations of the Russian Federation”. The federal executive body responsible for protection of the cultural property is the Department for Control, Supervision and Licensing in the Cultural Heritage Sphere of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.It is in charge of all methodological and control functions concerning restoration, usage and support of cultural heritage sites and the territories connected.

The World Heritage property is situated in the urban environment of Moscow. The city policy regarding cultural heritage protection and town-planning regulation is the responsibility of Moscow City Government, represented by the Department of Cultural Heritage, the Department of Urban Development and the Committee for Urban Development and Architecture of Moscow. In 1997 the boundaries of the protective (buffer) zone were approved in order to preserve the property, and to maintain and restore the historical architectural environment as well as the integral visual perception of the property.. There is a need to ensure the creation of an appropriate buffer zone and to develop close liaison between all stakeholders, including the Moscow City authorities, to ensure that constructions around the property do not impact adversely on its Outstanding Universal Value.

The World Heritage property is used by the following organizations: FGBUK (Federal Government Budgetary Institution of Culture), the State Historical and Cultural Museum-preserve “The Moscow Kremlin”, the Administrative Department of the President of the Russian Federation, the Federal Guard Service of the Russian Federation and OJSC “GUM Department Store”.