Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Official website of the State –
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On November 25, 1735, exactly 290 years ago, a miracle of Russian foundry art was completed in the Cannon Yard of the Moscow Kremlin: in 1 hour and 12 minutes, after 36 hours of continuous smelting, the Tsar Bell was cast in a ten-meter pit surrounded by four furnaces and guarded by 400 police officers with firefighting equipment.
A giant symbol of the era
The Tsar Bell is 6.24 meters high, 6.6 meters in diameter, and weighs 202 tons. Commissioned by Empress Anna Ioannovna, master craftsmen Ivan Motorin and his son Mikhail labored on it for two years. Ivan did not live to see the project completed; Mikhail took over, even requesting special permission to immortalize their names on the bell's surface. The Empress approved—in that era, this was a rare honor for a simple artisan.
Not only new metal was used for the casting, but also an old bell from the time of Boris Godunov. 525 kg of silver and 72 kg of gold were added to the copper-tin alloy—not for luxury, but to refine the future sound—and it was decorated with bas-reliefs: Christ the Savior, the Mother of God, John the Baptist, the Apostle Peter, and the Prophetess Anna. Among the saints, as a sign of continuity, were images of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Anna Ioannovna herself.
Eternal dumbness
In 1737, as the future Moscow alarm bell was being prepared for its ascent to the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, a terrible fire broke out in the capital. Flames engulfed the wooden formwork surrounding the bell, and the metal glowed white-hot. To save the bell, it was doused with water, but the sudden temperature change caused a huge chunk weighing over 11 tons to break off from the surface. The bell fell back into the casting pit, where it remained for nearly a century. Only in 1836 was it removed and mounted on a pedestal—no longer as an instrument, but as a monument to the genius and ambitions of the era.
Over nearly three centuries, the Tsar Bell has endured many changes. For example, during the revolutionary years, the White Guards placed its image on their banknotes, earning these forgotten bills the affectionate nickname "little bells." And in 1941, its cavity housed the Kremlin Regiment's communications center, and the bell itself was camouflaged, along with the Kremlin churches and towers, to protect it from Nazi bombing.
And yet it sounds
Still the largest on the planet, the Tsar Bell is not just a museum exhibit, but a living symbol of Russia. It stands near the Ivan the Great Bell Tower and is open to the public with a ticket to the Moscow Kremlin Museum Complex (student discounts, by the way!). And although this gigantic instrument has never rung—no one even cast a clapper for it; the one next to it is borrowed from another—its sound can still be heard: in 2016, scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, simulated what it might have sounded like, and this virtual ringing is now available online.
Subscribe to the "Our GUU" Telegram channel. Publication date: November 25, 2025.
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