Fyodor Savelyevich Kon (russian: Фёдор Саве́льевич Ко́нь;

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1585–1600) was a 16th-century Russian military engineer and architect who built the Smolensk

Kremlin The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty, Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of th ...

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

stallion A stallion is a 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, "cresty" nec ...

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

Ivan the Terrible 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 ...

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

Boris Godunov Borís Fyodorovich Godunóv (; russian: Борис Фёдорович Годунов; 1552 ) ruled the Tsardom of Russia as ''de facto'' regent from c. 1585 to 1598 and then as the first non-Rurikid tsar from 1598 to 1605. After the end of his ...

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