Society and culture: A number of cultural heritage monuments at the Kremlin will be rebuilt

The President of Russia Vladimir Putin proposed the idea to discuss the project to restore the Ascension Monastery and Chudov Monastery on the Kremlin grounds.

“That is how the idea came up of rather than restoring the 1930s building, returning the site to its historical appearance instead, with the two cloisters and the church. In today’s situation of course, they would be restored as cultural heritage monuments only.

Naturally, we would need to discuss this idea with the public, the people of Moscow, the architects’ community, and we would also need to get UNESCO’s approval, because the Kremlin is under UNESCO protection. We would need to examine everything very thoroughly, so as go about this work calmly, without fuss and haste, if we do decide that this is a project that should go ahead”, - Vladimir Putin said.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin had another idea – to open the gates of the Spasskaya Tower, so tourists could enter there. “If there is an exit directly through to the Red Square through the Spasskaya Tower, then this would be more convenient for residents and tourists”,- he said.

“Here we can conduct extra archaeological studies. Perhaps we will see the foundations of the churches as well as the later historical layers”, - he added.