Ivan the Terrible added the Grosnenskiy Porch , because he was refused entry after contravening church doctrine by marrying for a fourth time. Metro Biblioteka imeni Lenina or Aleksandrovsky Sad. It also drew crowds to visit Lenin's Mausoleum , a cubic, Russian avant-garde structure with a crystal casket containing the preserved body of the Soviet Union's founder. Each dome has distinctive patterning and colours, and the effect of the ensemble is stunning. It was built in the 1550s to commemorate Ivan the Terrible's victory over the Mongols at Kazan.
Audio tours are available for a fee.
The most important collection of traditional Russian painting in the world resides here, and the extensive collection of icons is well worth seeing as it covers the development of this art form from early Byzantine times to the more developed Russian schools of the seventeenth century. The most famous of these icons is the twelfth-century Vladimir Virgin , and there are works by Theophanes the Greek, Dionysius and Andrey Rublyov, some of Russia's greatest icon painters. The gallery's collection of paintings, sculptures and graphics covers Russian art from the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. The convent was a place of exile for noblewomen in mourning or disfavour, including Sophia, Peter the Great's sister, who instigated a coup against him from here in 1698. Up and running just four years after building started in 1931, the metro is one of the communist regime's few glories.