Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,826
The bell that never rang...!
Tsarina Anna Ivanovna (1693 – 1740)…
…deigned to want to own the largest church bell in the world.
So, on July 26, 1730 of our era, the tsarina ordered the making of what would one day be called the “Tsar Bell” (= “Tsar Kolokol”).
The master foundryman Iwan Motorin (* around 1665, † 1735)...
... is commissioned with the production, the decorations are supposed to be made by the little-known sculptor Fyodor Medvedev...:
The preparations for casting this bell behemoth are immense!
It took four and a half years to create the mold, which was buried in a ten meter deep pit...
...not far from the bell tower "Ivan the Great" at the Kremlin, where the bell should one day find its place...:
The casting at the end of September 1734 fails completely - the casting never takes place!
The casting mass, consisting of 100,000 kilograms of molten bronze, damages the walls and floor of the melting furnaces and a lot of things leak again - at least the furnaces have become unusable!
Finally - on November 25, 1735 - the furnaces were repaired and improved to such an extent that a new attempt could be made.
The master foundryman Motorin died in August and will not live to see the completion of his work.
This second casting attempt was successful - but the work on the outer decorations of the bell took a long time - until 1737!
When the bell was almost finished, a major fire broke out in the Kremlin on May 29, 1737, killing almost all the wooden buildings in the complex...:
The wooden frame for lifting the Tsar Bell...
...that is already standing is also caught in the fire, burning pieces of wood fall down - and blast a 11.5 ton piece out of the bell!
Other parts of the bell are damaged by cracks.
There are plans to repair the bell, but none of them come to fruition. So the piece rots away.
It was not until July 23, 1836 that the bell was lifted out of the pit with a newly built wooden construction and cable pull...
... and placed on a specially constructed base in the Kremlin - where it still stands today...:
"Zar Kolokol" is 6.14 meters high and up to 61 cm thick with a diameter of 6.60 meters at the bottom and a weight of 201,924 kg...:
Two hundred and one tons of weight!
For comparison: The largest bell in Cologne Cathedral - the Sankt Petersglocke weighs just a ninth of that - 24 tons...:
The second largest bell in Cologne is the "Pretiosa" with 10.5 tons, it does not even weigh as much as the blown off "splinter" of the Tsar Bell!
The "Zar Kolokol" holds another record: it never rang!
A well-known Russian proverb says:
“We wanted to do well and we did our best! But it happened, as it always happens with us..."
Rarely did it fit better!
Tsarina Anna Ivanovna (1693 – 1740)…
…deigned to want to own the largest church bell in the world.
So, on July 26, 1730 of our era, the tsarina ordered the making of what would one day be called the “Tsar Bell” (= “Tsar Kolokol”).
The master foundryman Iwan Motorin (* around 1665, † 1735)...
... is commissioned with the production, the decorations are supposed to be made by the little-known sculptor Fyodor Medvedev...:
The preparations for casting this bell behemoth are immense!
It took four and a half years to create the mold, which was buried in a ten meter deep pit...
...not far from the bell tower "Ivan the Great" at the Kremlin, where the bell should one day find its place...:
The casting at the end of September 1734 fails completely - the casting never takes place!
The casting mass, consisting of 100,000 kilograms of molten bronze, damages the walls and floor of the melting furnaces and a lot of things leak again - at least the furnaces have become unusable!
Finally - on November 25, 1735 - the furnaces were repaired and improved to such an extent that a new attempt could be made.
The master foundryman Motorin died in August and will not live to see the completion of his work.
This second casting attempt was successful - but the work on the outer decorations of the bell took a long time - until 1737!
When the bell was almost finished, a major fire broke out in the Kremlin on May 29, 1737, killing almost all the wooden buildings in the complex...:
The wooden frame for lifting the Tsar Bell...
...that is already standing is also caught in the fire, burning pieces of wood fall down - and blast a 11.5 ton piece out of the bell!
Other parts of the bell are damaged by cracks.
There are plans to repair the bell, but none of them come to fruition. So the piece rots away.
It was not until July 23, 1836 that the bell was lifted out of the pit with a newly built wooden construction and cable pull...
... and placed on a specially constructed base in the Kremlin - where it still stands today...:
"Zar Kolokol" is 6.14 meters high and up to 61 cm thick with a diameter of 6.60 meters at the bottom and a weight of 201,924 kg...:
Two hundred and one tons of weight!
For comparison: The largest bell in Cologne Cathedral - the Sankt Petersglocke weighs just a ninth of that - 24 tons...:
The second largest bell in Cologne is the "Pretiosa" with 10.5 tons, it does not even weigh as much as the blown off "splinter" of the Tsar Bell!
The "Zar Kolokol" holds another record: it never rang!
A well-known Russian proverb says:
“We wanted to do well and we did our best! But it happened, as it always happens with us..."
Rarely did it fit better!
