Not-So-Ugly Betty

Other interesting facts about the Kremlin:

The current walls of the Kremlin were built in 1492, just as Columbus was sailing the ocean blue.

A giant belltower, whose bell tolls every quarter of an hour, was donated by Elizabeth I, on whom Ivan the Terrible had designs. Indeed, Ivan killed at least one of his wives in the hopes that Elizabeth would favor him with her hand in marriage. Not surprisingly, Good Queen Bess declined. My guide referred to the belltower as "Big Betty".

After the Communist takeover, red stars replaced the double-headed eagles atop the Kremlin's towers. There is some eagerness in Russia to have the stars removed, but because the Kremlin is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is no longer possible to alter the Kremlin in any way. Thus, UNESCO protects the Communist symbols atop the Kremlin.

Nikita Krushchev is the only Soviet leader not buried in the area of Red Square and the Kremlin. He is instead buried in Novodoveichy Convent, near the grave of Anton Chekhov, because he died out of office and out of favor with the Communist Party. From Stalin's death in 1953 until 1961, Stalin's remains were interred alongside Lenin's in the Lenin Mausoleum. They were spirited out in the middle of the night and buried within the Kremlin Walls as part of Krushchev's program of de-Stalinization.