Let me lead you through the streets of Moscow

by Anni Pelmeni

If those are the stars of the Kremlin Towers. There are 5 stars on the tops of the 5 biggest towers: Spaskaya, Troitskaya, Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya, Vodovoznaya.

The ruby stars shine 24/7 and they are actually a subject for heated public debates. There are those who insist to substitute the stars - a symbol of Soviet legacy - with the eagles that used to top the towers before the Revolution of 1917. The opponents insist on keeping the stars, because they've been there since 1935 and already became a part of the history. My opinion: lets keep the stars - they are the inalienable part of Moscow's image.

Each star weights about a ton and in each of them there is 2 bulbs of 5 000 W. The star-rays are between 3 and 3.75 m. When you make your promenade in the Kremlin and if it is windy you may notice that the stars rotate. The fixing of the stars to the tops of the towers is done in a such way that they smoothly rotate around their axises.

The control panel is situated in one of the towers to ensure non-stop star shining. In each star there are two bulbs to guarantee that if one fails the star will not fade. In addition the Kremlin has a separate energy supply so the energy block outs will not effect the star-shining. Each 5 years the stars are washed and undergo tech-control.

In 70 years of history the stars were turned off only once - in 1996 when the movie "Barber Of Siberia" of Nikita Mikhalkov was shoot in the Kremlin. During the WWII the stars kept shining and during the siege of Moscow in 1941 the stars were concealed in specially made covers.

Stumbe it!