Even during the reign of Boris Godunov, Russian craftsmen cast a bell in Moscow, the lower part of which was about five and a half meters in diameter with a total weight of the bell over 35 tons. More than twenty people were required for the solemn evangelism. Apparently, during the fire, this bell fell and shattered.
Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich decided to pour the remains of the broken bell and create an even more grandiose one. Foundry workers called from Austria did not help.
One of the foreign travelers of those days rightly said about this bell: "… the works on its production and adaptation, required for this, are very large and innumerable."
Russian foundry workers took upon themselves these "great and innumerable works" - they successfully poured the remains of Godunov's bell and created in 1654 an unprecedented eight thousand pounds tsar bell. Later, it may have been transfused. For a long time no one dared to raise the giant bell on the belfry.
In 1668, a simple Russian man - the tsar's gatekeeper, even whose name has not survived, took up raising the tsar bell. Pavel Aleppsky and Meyerberg alike note that this mechanic was only twenty-four years old.
Alternately, on each side of the bell, a wagu was brought under its edge - a huge log used as a lever of the first kind. With the help of a pulley block and a wooden gate, the free end of the rail was pulled down. A new log was brought into the frame under the raised edge of the bell, then they acted with a wag from the second side of the bell, and again, tilting it, they laid another log in the frame, Then they acted like this from the third and fourth sides of the frame. Tilting the bell alternately on each side, they continuously built up a blockhouse under it, standing on which the tsar bell rose higher and higher. In order to facilitate the ascent, chains were attached to the bell, going up through the shafts of the gates. At the free ends of the chains, wooden platforms were suspended, loaded with stones and thereby partially balancing the bell. The main part of the pressure was taken by the frame on which the bell rested.
It took nine months for this rise to take place.
From 1668 to 1701 the bell rang out on an unparalleled bell in the world, requiring, according to foreigners, a hundred people to set its tongue in motion.
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On June 19, 1701, a fire broke out in the Kremlin. The wooden ties on which the bell was suspended burned out. It crashed when it fell.
In 1731 it was decided to recreate the tsar bell, making it even larger. The government attempted to find a skilled craftsman abroad. It was decided that it would be best to turn to the famous royal mechanic Germaine in Paris, but he took as a joke the offer to cast a nine-pound bell.
What seemed impossible to foreign technicians was done by Russian masters - father and son - Ivan Fedorovich and Mikhail Ivanovich Matorin. After lengthy training in 1733-1734. they overcame their failures and succeeded.
Casting began on November 23, 1735, and on November 25, as archival documents show, the giant bell was cast. The inscriptions on it tell its story. One of the inscriptions reads:
“Blessed and ever-worthy memory of the great great Tsar and Grand Duke Alexy Mikhailovich, all the greats and small and white of Russia, the autocrat, by command, in the primordial church, pretending to be honest and glorious of her dormition, the great bell was drained, creation of the world 7162, from the birth of the flesh of the god of the word in 1654, and from this place he began to preach the gospel in the summer of the universe 7176, the birth of Christ in 1668 and proclaimed the gospel until the summer of in the Kremlin of the former fire it was damaged, until 7239 from the beginning of the world, and from Christ in the world of Christmas 1731 was silent”.
The royal mechanic Germain considered, as indicated, a joke proposal to cast a bell weighing nine thousand pounds. Russian masters Ivan Fedorovich and Mikhail Ivanovich Matorin not only accomplished what seemed impossible to foreign technicians. They created a bell that weighed not 9000 pounds, but much more: the king-bell weighs 12 327 pounds 19 pounds, that is, about 200 tons (The greatest bells abroad weigh: the Chinese in Beiping - 55 tons and the Japanese in Kyoto - 63 tons. The casting of the Tsar Bell Ivan Matorin received 14124 pounds 29 pounds of copper and 1000 pounds of tin. When pouring 498 pounds of 6 pounds of tin were added. The twelve thousand pounds bell has a height of 6.3 meters with a diameter of 6.9 meters. Wall thickness: top - 0, 4 meters, at the bottom - 0.27 meters For the laying of the furnace in the casting pit, 1 214 000 pieces of bricks were used. The cost of work - 141 000 rubles. During the Kremlin fire in 1737 over the bell, which was still in the pit, the wooden structure covering it caught fire. Flaming logs fell into the pit. The people who fled, fearing that the bell would melt, began to flood it with water. Apparently, due to uneven cooling, a piece broke off in its lower part. For a century the bell lay in the ground, and in 1836 it was installed in the place where it now stands in the Kremlin).
Fig. 39. The rise of the tsar bell to the belfry in 1668. - Based on a drawing from the book of Palmqvist, who observed the rise and described it in a book published in 1674 in Stockholm
Fig. 39. The rise of the tsar bell to the belfry in 1668. - Based on a drawing from the book of Palmqvist, who observed the rise and described it in a book published in 1674 in Stockholm
Many Russian masters, creators of the famous Rostov, Moscow, Pskov and many other bells, successfully solved the complex tasks of climbing to a great height and installing bells weighing a thousand pounds or more.
The ancient two thousand-pound bells "Sysoy" and "Polyeleyny", raised to their places on the bell tower of the Rostov cathedral, have long been known for their voices that were included in the famous Rostov bells: Sysoevsky, Akimovsky, Yegoryevsky and everyday.
On the pages of the Russian history of bells, many thousands of successful ascents are recorded, made from the times of ancient Russia to the installation in place of the large bell of the Assumption Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, deservedly called "big". It weighs four thousand pounds.
Alexander Novak