<P> After 1851, the Kremlin changed little until the Russian Revolution of 1917; the only new features added during this period were the Monument to Alexander II and a stone cross marking the spot where Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia was assassinated by Ivan Kalyayev in 1905 . These monuments were destroyed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 . </P> <P> The Soviet government moved from Petrograd to Moscow on 12 March 1918 . Vladimir Lenin selected the Kremlin Senate as his residence . Joseph Stalin also had his personal rooms in the Kremlin . He was eager to remove all the "relics of the tsarist regime" from his headquarters . Golden eagles on the towers were replaced by shining Kremlin stars, while the wall near Lenin's Mausoleum was turned into the Kremlin Wall Necropolis . </P> <P> The Chudov Monastery and Ascension Convent, with their 16th - century cathedrals, were dismantled to make room for the military school . The Little Nicholas Palace and the old Saviour Cathedral were pulled down as well . The residence of the Soviet government was closed to tourists until 1955 . It was not until the Khrushchev Thaw that the Kremlin was reopened to foreign visitors . The Kremlin Museums were established in 1961 and the complex was among the first Soviet patrimonies inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1990 . </P> <P> Although the current director of the Kremlin Museums, Elena Gagarina (Yuri Gagarin's daughter) advocates a full - scale restoration of the destroyed cloisters, recent developments have been confined to expensive restoration of the original interiors of the Grand Kremlin Palace, which were altered during Stalin's rule . </P>

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