On the palace's southern facade is the Red Porch, an external staircase decorated with stylized lion sculptures on the railings.

In 1487, Grand Duke Ivan III commissioned two Italian Renaissance architects, Marco Ruffo and Pietro Solario, to build a stone palace after a series of fires that had ravaged the then predominantly wooden Kremlin.

The new palace was completed in 1492 and served as the most important venue for formal receptions of the Tsar, coronation celebrations, feasts, and state ceremonies.

It was also within the Palace of Facets that the Zemsky Sobor was held in 1654, resulting in the Treaty of Pereyaslav uniting the Russian Empire with Ukraine.

In June 2012, after an extensive restoration, the Palace of Facets was reopened to public,[1] though in practice only organized prearranged tours are available.