The Boy Travellers in The Russian Empire / Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey in European and Asiatic Russia, with Accounts of a Tour across Siberia, Voyages on the Amoor, Volga, and Other Rivers, a Visit to Central Asia, Travels among the Exiles, and a Historical Sketch of the Empire from Its Foundation to the Present Time

by Thomas Wallace Knox

THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW.

"There is some doubt as to the antiquity of the tower, but it is generally believed to date from the year 1600, and to have been built by Boris Godounoff. It is in five stories, of which the upper is in the form of a cylinder, while the others are octagonal in shape. The top is two hundred and seventy feet from the ground, and is reached by a winding stairway.

"The guide called our attention to the bells in the tower; there are no less than thirty-four of them, and some are very large. In the second story hangs a bell known as the 'Assumption,' which weighs sixty-four tons; it is therefore four times as heavy as the great bell of Rouen, five times that of Erfurt, and eight times as heavy as the Great Tom of Oxford, the largest bell in England! The oldest of the other bells bears the date 1550; the vechie bell of Novgorod the Great once hung in this tower, but nobody knows where it is at present. The effect of the ringing of these bells at Easter is said to be very fine, as they are of different tones, and so arranged that they make no discord. In the upper story are two silver bells, whose tones are said to be very sweet.

"We stopped a while at each of the stories to look at the bells and enjoy the view, and thus reached the top without much fatigue. But if we had been so weary as to be unable to stand, we should have been amply repaid for our fatigue. The view is certainly one of the finest we ever had from a height overlooking any city in Europe, with the possible exceptions of Paris and Constantinople.

"Moscow, with its undulating and irregular streets, with the Moskva winding through it in the shape of the letter S, with its four hundred churches and an immense variety of towers and domes and minarets, with the variations of palace and hovel already mentioned, and with the great buildings of the Kremlin forming the foreground of the scene, lay before and below us. It was Moscow (the Holy), the city of the Czars and beloved of every patriotic Russian; the city which has existed through Tartar, Polish, and French invasions; has risen from the ashes again and again; has been ravaged by famine, the plague, and the sword of the invader, but surviving all her calamities, welcomes the stranger within her walls, whose circuit is more than twenty miles. From the top of this tower we looked down upon seven centuries of historical associations.

"Listen to a fragment of the history of Moscow: It was plundered by the Tartars under Tamerlane, and many of its inhabitants were killed; again it fell into Tartar hands, and again was pillaged, and its inhabitants murdered. Twice under the Tartars (1536 and 1572) it was set on fire, and on both occasions many thousands of people perished by fire or sword. The Poles burned a large part of the city in 1611, and in 1771 the plague carried off half the population. Is it any wonder that the Russians love their ancient capital, after all that it has suffered and survived?

THE GREAT BELL UNDERGROUND.

"We lingered for an hour or more in the tower, and then descended. Our next object of interest was the 'Czar Kolokol,' or Great Bell, which stands at the foot of the Ivan Veliki Tower, and near the place where for a long time it lay buried in the earth. It is literally the great bell not only of Moscow but of the world.