Konstantino-Eleninskaya Tower

The Konstantino-Eleninskaya tower was built by architect Pietro Antonio Solari in 1490 on the site of Timofeevsky gate through which Dmitry Donskoy in 1380 went to the Kulikovo battle. The Konstantino-Eleninskaya tower got its name from the Church of Constantine and Elena. The tower is monumental and stocky. First, the tower had a gate, a barbican and a drawbridge. Konstantino-Eeleninskaya Tower had lost its former importance by the 17th century. The gate was closed; the barbican was turned into the torture chamber. In 1680 the Konstantino-Eleninskaya tower received its hipped roof; in the end of the 18th century the barbican and the bridge were demolished, the gate was bricked up. But the gat’s arch gate, the niche for the icon above and the traces of vertical slits for the mechanism of the drawbridge have well survived preserved.