CHAPTER XIII.
IN THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW.
The guide led his party directly to the Tower of Ivan Veliki, though the students saw the great bell and a dozen other objects which challenged their attention at the same moment. The curious spires, domes, and cupolas, so different from anything they had seen before, were full of interest. They were covered with gold, and glittered in the sunshine. These domes are not such as are seen in the United States, but are purely Oriental. They are somewhat in the shape of an inverted onion. But there are also cupolas of almost every other shape—round, square, and octagonal, and even all three in the same one. The doctor hurried the boys into the tower, wishing them to obtain a general view before they attended to the details.
This tower is a very singular structure. It was built in 1600, by Boris Godunoff. It is three hundred and twenty-five feet from the ground to the top of the cross, and contains five stories, the first four of which are square, and the last circular, with a dome. In the lower story is a chapel, and the next three contain thirty-four bells of all sizes, the largest of which weighs sixty-four tons. Though it is a pygmy compared with the great bell at the foot of the tower, it is a monster beside those in ordinary use, for our church bells rarely exceed one sixth of its weight. There are forty or fifty bells in the entire tower, all of which are rung at Easter, to proclaim anew that "Christ is risen." The great bell thunders forth the glad tidings, which are also gently chanted in the sweet tones of the small silver bells.
From each story of the tower a view of the city is obtained, but in the highest beneath the dome, the most sublime panorama is presented. There is no such city as Moscow in the world, and the sight is therefore as unique as it is beautiful. For half an hour the students gazed with wonder and admiration upon the beautiful picture.
The party descended, and hastened to the Great Bell, called the Czar Kolokol, or Czar of Bells. Some say that it was never hung, though a Polish traveller, in 1611, speaks of a bell he saw that required twenty-four men to swing the clapper in ringing it. The present bell was recast by order of the Empress Anne, in 1733, its predecessors having fallen in the several fires, and been broken. This one also had a fall in a fire in 1737, which knocked a piece out of the side. It lay buried in the ground where it fell till Nicholas caused it to be placed on a stone platform in 1836. The bell weighs about two hundred and twenty tons. The piece broken out weighs eleven tons. The interior is twenty feet high, with a diameter of twenty-one feet. It is two feet thick, and has figures in relief of Alexis and Anne, and of some sacred subjects, with an inscription relating to its origin and size. On the summit is a cross, and the interior has been consecrated as a chapel. The bell is regarded as holy by the people. At five cents a pound, the material would be worth over twenty thousand dollars. As the thing is utterly useless either for service or as a work of art, and perpetuates no historical event, this dead capital would be better employed in planting school-houses in the villages, the influence of which would soon transform the shanties into houses, and add wealth to the nation by the more intelligent and rapid development of its vast resources.
The party next visited the palace occupied by the members of the royal family when they visit Moscow. On this locality stood the palaces of the ancient sovereigns, which were partially destroyed by fire, and rebuilt. The present structure was built in the reign of Nicholas, and all that was left of the old palaces was incorporated in it. A porter was detailed to accompany the students, and they passed through the private apartments of the emperor and empress, which are very elegant, and the boys looked with no little curiosity into bed-rooms, cabinets, bath-rooms, where royalty slept, wrote, and took its bath in marble tubs. The guide was very particular to show an elevator in which the empress is raised to her apartments above; but it was hardly a curiosity to the young Americans, who had seen vastly superior machines of this kind in the hotels of their own country.
In the palace are three magnificent halls, which are not surpassed by anything in Europe. The one devoted to the order of St. George is two hundred feet long. The old parts of the palace, which have been restored in the ancient style are as curious as they are interesting. Connected with the main building are the throne-room and banqueting-hall, where the emperor, after his coronation in the church, sits in state, wearing for the first time the imperial insignia; and here also he dines with the nobles. Near this is the Terema, a most singular edifice, four stories high, but each of them diminishing in size till the upper one contains but a single room. In ancient times it was occupied by the Czarina and her children. Above the first, each story opens upon a balcony on which the inmates could walk. The affair looks more like a pyramid than a house. It contains many relics of the ancient sovereigns.