The great fire of Moscow in 1547 destroyed sections of

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

that had been built almost entirely of wood. The fire swept into the Kremlin and blew up the powder stores in several of the Kremlin's towers. The fire began on 24 June, several months after

Ivan IV Ivan IV Vasilyevich (russian: Ива́н Васи́льевич; 25 August 1530 – ), commonly known in English as Ivan the Terrible, was the grand prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and the first Tsar of all Russia from 1547 to 1584. Ivan ...

, better known as "Ivan the Terrible," was officially crowned as first

Tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. The fire displaced about 80,000 people and killed about 2,700 to 3,700 people (not including children), and led to widespread

poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...

among the survivors.

Metropolitan Makarius Macarius ( in Russian) (1482 – 12 January 1563) was the Metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus' from 1542 until 1563. He was the tenth Metropolitan in Moscow to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as had ...

was apparently injured in the fire when the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Kremlin was threatened by the flames and the metropolitan was taken out through a breach in the Kremlin walls and let down by rope into the Moscow River. He may have never fully recovered from his injuries, although he lived another 16 years. The Muscovites put the blame on the tsar's maternal relatives from the Glinski family. A rebellion began and Yuri Glinski was stoned to death inside the Cathedral of the Dormition in front of a horrified Metropolitan Makarii. Yuri's brother, Mikhail Glinski attempted to flee to

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

but failed, and his mother, Anna – the tsar's grandmother – was accused of using sorcery to start the fire.Madariaga, ''Ivan the Terrible'', 62. The rebellion resulted in the fall of the Glinski party and eventually strengthened the positions of the young tsar, although he did not hand his grandmother over to the mob as they demanded.

References

*Аванта: ''Российские столицы. Москва и Санкт-Петербург'' (2001) (). *Аванта: ''История России'' (1996) ().

1547 Year 1547 ( MDXLVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–June * January 8 – The first Lithuanian-language book, a ''Catechism'' (, Simple Words of ...

16th-century fires 16th century in Moscow 1547 in Russia

Urban fires in Europe {{russia-hist-stub