The Tobolsk Kremlin is a single stone Kremlin in Siberia. This most beautiful masterpiece of Russian fortification architecture was erected in Tobolsk during 17-18 centuries when the city was the capital of the Siberian lands stretching from the Urals to Alaska.
A battle battle between the Cossacks led by Yermak Timofeyevich and the troops of Tatar khan Kuchum took place on Chuvash Cape in 1582. As a result of the battle, which ended in the victory of the Cossacks, Siberian lands were finally annexed to Russia. Five years later, in 1587, the Cossacks built a wooden stockade with a Trinity church on the Alafeyevskaya Gora. It was located 17 kilometers from Isker, the former capital of the Sibir Khanate. That year is considered the date of the foundation of Tobolsk.
The first fortresses of Tobolsk were built from wood. This resulted in often fires and so in 1684 there was taken the decision about the construction of the first stone building in Siberia. It was the Cathedral of St. Sophia at the Tobolsk Kremlin.
In Tobolsk first stone buildings were erected by artels from Moscow and Veliky Ustyug, but in 1697 the Siberian prikaz commissioned the project of the complex development of the Kremlin to Semen Remezov, a Russian architect and a mapper. Having prepared the project Remezov went to Moscow where he studied «stone building» for several months at the Armory, which was in charge of fortress construction. In winter 1699 he returned to Tobolsk.
After the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Tobolsk there were erected strong defensive walls, the Prikaz Chamber, at the southern edge of the hill (1699-1704), and the Gostiny Dvor, on the Red Square (1702-1706), which became a trading center of Tobolsk.
A combination of the Old Russian and European architectural styles is clearly traced in the architecture of the Kremlin buildings designed by Remezov. But the main merit of Remezov is the development of the layout of the Tobolsk Kremlin, which buildings he excellently fitted into landscape. On the right is the Sophia Court (a spiritual center of the Kremlin) and on the left is the Small (Voznesensky) Town, a secular and trading center of the Tobolsk Kremlin.
Initially, Peter the Great supported the construction of stone buildings in the Tobolsk Kremlin. But in 1714 he issued a ban on the construction of stone buildings all over Russia to balance the budget of the country during the Great Northern War. However, in spite of the ban the governor of Siberia, Prince Gagarin, continued to erect stone buildings until 1718 when he was summoned to Petersburg and executed on charges of embezzlement and high treason.
In the reign of Catherine II, in Tobolsk, then the center of newly established vice-regency, there appeared the palace of the vice-regent and the house of the bishop.In 1799 in the Tobolsk Kremlin there was erected a bell tower, which then was the tallest building in the city.
But already in 19 century, after Tobolsk lost the status of a capital, the construction of stone administrative buildings was stopped. In that century the complex of convict and transit prison was the only new buildings in Tobolsk.
