Fyodor Savelyevich Kon (; ) was a Russian

military engineer Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics ...

and

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

who built the

Smolensk Kremlin The Smolensk Kremlin () is a fortified complex (kremlin (fortification), kremlin) enclosing the center of the city of Smolensk in western Russia. The partially preserved fortress wall was built between 1595 and 1602, during the reigns of the tsars ...

(1597–1602) and the Bely Gorod fortification ring of

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

(1585–1593).

Biography

The exact year and circumstances of his birth and early years remain unknown. Kon, as a mature man, and his relatives living in Moscow appear to be affiliated with the Boldino Monastery near Dorogobuzh, as evidenced by records of their donations to the monastery. Thus, it is assumed that Kon's ancestors came to Moscow from the Dorogobuzh area. The architect used the nickname ''Kon'' (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

for

stallion A stallion is an adult male horse that has not been gelded ( castrated). Stallions follow the conformation and phenotype of their breed, but within that standard, the presence of hormones such as testosterone may give stallions a thicker, "cre ...

) as early as in 1584, as evidenced by his written plea to

Ivan the Terrible Ivan IV Vasilyevich (; – ), commonly known as Ivan the Terrible,; ; monastic name: Jonah. was Grand Prince of Moscow, Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1533 to 1547, and the first Tsar of all Russia, Tsar and Grand Prince of all R ...

. According to this account, Kon ran away to a "foreign land" and learned construction crafts there, specifically emphasizing his skills in fortifications like city walls, dams, ponds, moats, and "secrets" (tunnels). Kon received a public beating for his defection but was soon assigned to lead the construction of Bely Gorod, a 10-kilometer outer ring of Moscow fortress that stood in the path of present-day

Boulevard Ring The Boulevard Ring (; transliteration: ''Bulvarnoye Koltso'') is Moscow's second innermost ring road (the first is formed by the Central Squares of Moscow running along the former walls of Kitai-gorod). Boulevards form a semicircular chain along ...

. His best known project, the Kremlin of Smolensk, was launched by

Boris Godunov Boris Feodorovich Godunov (; ; ) was the ''de facto'' regent of Russia from 1585 to 1598 and then tsar from 1598 to 1605 following the death of Feodor I, the last of the Rurik dynasty. After the end of Feodor's reign, Russia descended into t ...

in 1597. Fyodor Kon has been the subject of an eponymous poem by Dmitri Kedrin (1940).

References

* 16th-century births 16th-century deaths Russian architects Russian military engineers 16th-century architects 16th-century Russian engineers {{Russia-architect-stub