From: Eagle_wng
Monday, April 18, 2005.
Changing the Kremlin Guard, Tsarist-Style
By Kevin O’Flynn
Staff Writer
Vladimir Filonov / MT
Federal Guard Service officers riding in a circle during Saturday’s changing of the guard for several hundred visitors on the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square.
On the final stroke of noon from the Kremlin’s bell tower, a centuries-old tsarist tradition — the ceremonial changing of the guard — was revived Saturday on Cathedral Square.
Just as millions of tourists each year witness the changing of the guard at London’s Buckingham Palace, now tourists wandering around the Kremlin will have the chance to see Russia’s version — if they fork over the cash.
At noon this and every Saturday through the summer the Federal Guard Service, which forms President Vladimir Putin’s bodyguard, will perform a ceremonial changing of the guard involving infantry and cavalry in resplendent tsarist-era uniforms, reviving a tradition first started by Peter the Great.
Unlike in London, where the ceremony is free but helps feed a huge tourist industry, there is one catch: Visitors, whether foreign or Russian, will have to pay 1,000 rubles ($35) for special tours to see it.
On Saturday, the ceremony was performed for the press and visitors to the Kremlin. For this time only, it was free.
Tourists, none of whom knew the event was going to happen, crowded behind a cordon for their unexpected treat and watched the performance — unaware that they were the first to witness the spectacle.
A guard of honor marched the Russian tricolor flag into the square and goose-stepped up to the Terem Palace, accompanied by drums and flute played by the presidential orchestra, which has performed at the Kremlin since 1938.
Twelve riders on horseback from the Kremlin cavalry division and 45 infantry troops took part, wearing uniforms that city tourism officials said were based on those worn by Tsar Nicholas II’s dragoons in the years leading up to the tricentennial of the Romanov dynasty in 1913.
The ceremony was a mix of intricate movements by the infantrymen and cavalrymen. The 12 horsemen circled with swords drawn, while the infantrymen goose-stepped with fixed bayonets.
While the ceremony involved many tsarist army traditions, a few innovations surfaced, such as when infantrymen kicked their rifles to their shoulders in a single movement that could have come straight from a Broadway show.
“I thought it was great. It was so well choreographed,” said Joey Marquart, 27, a tourist from New York.
“It’s like ballet,” said his friend Joseph Stuart, 24.
“There is no reason why this shouldn’t become a feature of Russian ceremonial life,” said an impressed Struan Simpson, a veteran of the Honorable Artillery Company, the British army’s oldest regiment, formed by King Henry VIII in 1537.
Simpson, who had come specially to see the ceremony, said he was interested in forming links between the British regiment, which regularly performs similar ceremonies such as firing royal salutes at the Tower of London and providing guards of honor for royal and visiting dignitaries, and its Russian counterpart.
Vladimir Filonov / MT
Guards tossing their rifles in the air and goose-stepping during the ceremony, which will be part of the Saturday tours.
Most of the foreign tourists at the Kremlin said that they would be willing to pay a 1,000 ruble fee to see the ceremony.
Lieutenant General Sergei Khlebnikov, the commandant of the Kremlin, said that he hoped that Russian visitors would be able to buy tickets at a lower price than the 1,000 rubles foreigners would have to pay.
Unless they take an all-inclusive tour, most visitors have to buy separate tickets to the various parts of the Kremlin open to the public, with Russians paying less than foreign tourists.
Tickets for the weekly changing of the guard tours will be sold only via specially chosen tourist agencies and it is uncertain whether any unsold tickets will be sold at the Kremlin’s ticket kiosks, said a spokesman for the city’s tourism committee who asked not to be named.
“The aim is to create a tourist product and to improve the image of Russia,” he said.
The ceremony will take place every Saturday at noon from this Saturday through the summer, probably until October.
For their 1,000 ruble tickets, visitors will be given tours of the Kremlin’s Annunciation, Assumption and Archangel cathedrals and of the Patriarch’s Palace and the Church of the Twelve Apostles.
Other exhibitions, such as the Armory and the Diamond Fund, are not included in the price of the ticket.
While the ceremony has been pitched as the revival of a tsarist tradition, the changing of the guard normally took place in St. Petersburg, the imperial capital, rather than at the Kremlin. However, a similar ceremony would have taken place in the Kremlin at a new tsar’s inauguration and on a few other official state occasions.
The revival of the ceremony was a joint initiative taken by the city’s tourism committee, the Kremlin museum complex and the Federal Guard Service.
The only time the new ceremony had previously been seen by the public was at Putin’s second inauguration as president last May. A rehearsal for Saturday’s ceremony was held last fall, but the public was not allowed entry.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/18/002.html
