Corner Arsenal Tower

The Corner Arsenal Tower (formerly the Sobakina Tower) was built in 1492 by architect Pietro Antonio Solari. The tent roof was added in the 1680s. The height of the tower is 60.2 m (198 ft).

This was Solari's last building and it completed the Kremlin's line of defense on the Red Square side. It was originally called the Sobakin Tower after the residence of the Sobakin boyar family nearby. Its present name appeared after the erection of the Arsenal in 1737.

The most powerful of all the corner towers, the Arsenal Tower has sixteen facets, which give it a special austere expressiveness. The broad base creates an impression of massive strength. The upper section of the tower is encircled with numerous machicolations which form a kind of frieze. The walls are up to four metres thick. The tower contains a well, fed by a spring.

In 1707, fearing an attack on Moscow by King Charles Xll of Sweden, Peter the Great ordered loopholes to be made for cannons.

The tower's interesting decorative upper section of octagons, a truncated tent roof and an octagonal turret topped by a metal flag, were added in the seventeenth century. In 1812, the tower was badly damaged when the Arsenal and neighboring St.Nicholas Tower were blown up.