The casting of the great bells was made a state function as well as a church ceremony; as late as the nineteenth century, the old form of blessing the bell was followed in the case of the Big Bell, which is described at length by Dr Lyall who was present:—
“On the 17th March 1817, the Archbishop Augustine went into the cavity in which the metal was to be run, and sprinkled the place with holy water, as also the metals to be used in founding the bell; gave his benediction to the masters of the foundry, and called the workmen to receive his blessing and kiss the cross. The molten metal ran by a gutter into the mould; and, the casting finished, the Archbishop again gave thanks to God. The leading inhabitants were present at the casting, and freely threw in gold and silver trinkets. On the 23rd February 1819 this bell was removed from the foundry. It was placed on an oak sledge, and after the Te Deum had been sung, a willing crowd seized the many ropes attached and drew the sledge down the Srietenka and Lubianka to the Kusnetski Most, Mokhovaya, and the whole length of the Kremlin wall to the Borovitski Gate by which it made its entrance, and reached the Belfry of Ivan Veliki, where the Te Deum was sung again. It was hung in the summer of 1819.”
Closely allied to the art of the bell-maker was that of cannon-founder, and the Kremlin contains some curious and excellent specimens of old weapons. The most striking is the huge gun known as the Tsar Pushka, “King of Guns,” familiarly as the “drobovnik” (fowling piece), which was cast in the reign of Theodore Ivanovich (1586), by one Chokof. It weighs 36 tons, and is of too large calibre and too weak metal ever to have been used as a weapon. When Peter I. after the battle of Narva, ordered old cannon and church bells to be cast into new ordnance, this was spared. So was the mortar by its side, for it was cast by the false Dmitri, who not only took a great interest in the manufacture of fire arms, but tested them himself. Among the cannon arranged along the barrack terrace is “The Unicorn” cast in 1670; the carriage of this, of the Tsar Pushka, and of others are new, made by Baird, of St Petersburg. Along the front of the arsenal are arranged the 875 cannon, 365 French, taken from “the twenty nations” who invaded Russia with Napoleon.
It has already been stated that the Kremlin was at one time a complete city; to a certain extent it is so still. Again and again buildings have been destroyed and restored; streets made, and swept away. In sinking the foundations for the Alexander memorial the debris of three distinct ruins superimposed showed how one town has succeeded another, and as at that point, so at many others. The exercising ground was long covered with dwellings; there were the hostelries of the Krutitski monastery, the houses of the priests, seminaries, private dwellings—at one time as many as twenty streets were to be found within the Kremlin walls. Under the barracks and the Chudov monastery are immense vaults of ancient brick; below the Synod are known to be two large chambers which have not
