The Sukharev Tower stood at the intersection of the Garden Ring and Sretenka Street in Moscow. It was built in the style known as Naryshkin Baroque, to a design by Mikhail Ivanovich Choglokov, for Tsar Peter I. Construction began in 1692 and was completed in 1701. The tower commemorated Peter's victory in 1689 over his half-sister Sofia and honored Lavrentii Sukharev, whose regiment backed Peter. It was meant as a ceremonial city gate, not a fortress.
The tower housed guardrooms, then the Moscow School of Mathematics and Navigation, and Russia's first astronomical observatory. In the 1800s steam pumps and a cast-iron tank fed fountains. In 1921 it became the Moscow Municipal Museum.
Lazar Kaganovich ordered it demolished in 1934, reportedly because it blocked traffic. Moscow authorities have considered a replica several times.
Comments