The Ivan The Great Bell Tower. The Tsar Bell

High above the ancient buildings of Cathedral Square soars a mighty structure, consisting of three buildings. The huge octagonal pillar tower is the Ivan The Great Bell Tower, with its belfry. Adjacent is St.Filaret's Annexe. At the foot of the bell-tower on the East side stands the gigantic Tsar Bell – the largest bell in the world!
The history of the building of the Ivan The Great Bell Tower goes back into ancient history. In the C14th this had been the location of the Kremlin's oldest church. It was dismantled in order to build a bell-tower – an octagonal tower 60m in height. In the reign of Ivan the Great, an Italian stonemason nicknamed Bon Fryazin added three further tiers to it. Then in 1600 Tsar Boris Godunov ordered two more tiers to be added, and a giant golden cupola. The huge tower was named both “Godunov's Spire” and “Ivan The Great”.
For many long years no other building in Moscow could compare in height with the Ivan the Great Bell-Tower. It was Russia's tallest building. It afforded a view for 25km around, and was used as a watchtower as well as a bell-tower. The bell-tower consists of a series of octahedrons, decreasing in size as they rise, placed one on another. Each one has a terrace and open gallery, and arches in which the bells themselves are hung. There are 24 bells altogether in the bell-tower and carillon. The bells themselves are decorated with ornament, designs and bas-relief, and each marked with the bell's own history – who cast it, when and where, and its weight.
There are stairs lining the walls of the tower's interior. The first tier of steps is a stone staircase of 83 steps. On the second tier it becomes a spiral staircase with 149 steps. By the third tier there is a metal stairway with 97 steps leading up as far as you can go. Altogether there are 329 steps.
The first-tier walls are 5m thick, whereas they're only 2.5m thick at second-tier level. Studies have shown that the octagonal base of the bell-tower only has foundations 4.3m below the level of the old pavement in Cathedral Square, or 6m below its present level. The process of restoration laid to rest the old wife's tale that the foundations run right the way through to the bottom of Borovitsky Hill.
The Assumption Carillon is built onto the Ivan the Great Bell-Tower. The two constructions look very similar, but the carillon is rather shorter.
The building of the Assumption Carillon, located directly adjacent with the northern side of the Ivan the Great Bell-Tower, was rebuilt in 1815 on foundations of older buildings destroyed in the French occupation of Moscow in 1812.
The ground floor of the Assumption Carillon houses an exhibition hall, in which temporary exhibitions from the Kremlin collections and from Russian and foreign museums are usually displayed.
By the Assumption Carillon there's an adjacent tower with a gabled roof and white stone construction. It's the Filaret Annexe – a carillon of the C17th.
The Filaret Annexe is named after Patriarch Filaret of the Russian Orthodox Church. Filaret was not only a prominent churchman – he was also father to the first of the Romanov dynasty of Tsars, Mikhail Romanov. He had been held in Poland as a political prisoner during Russia's throne-succession wars in the early C17th. On his release from captivity he celebrated his joy by building this church. Many believe that the gabled roof became a prototype of many such roofs in the C17th. The building now displays the scientific collections of the museum. The Filaret Annexe Carillon has one bell weighting 12.5 tonnes, cast in the C18th.
The Tsar Bell stands on a granite pedestal at the foot of the Ivan the Great Bell-Tower – one piece is cracked away from the rest of the bell. The impressive size justifies the name “Tsar Bell”.
The Tsar Bell was cast in the Kremlin near Ivan square in 1735. It was and remains the largest bell in the world. It weighs 200 tonnes, and is 6m high with a diameter of 6.6 metres!
The bell's surface is decorated with delicate ornamental relief-work, showing the portraits of Tsar Alexei Romanov and Tsaritsa Anna Ioannovna, along with five icons and two illustrations telling the story of the bell's casting.
The Tsar Bell had been intended for the Assumption Bell-Tower. After it was cast it was left to cool in its casting-pit – and thus the problems began. In 1737 a fire broke out in the Kremlin, unrelated to the casting of the bell. The wooden casting-frame that supported the newly-cast bell caught fire, and fire-fighters tried to douse it with water. The water fell onto the red-hot bell, causing it to fracture – a large piece weighing 11.5 tonnes broke off entirely. For many years the broken bell lay in its casting pit on Ivan Square in the Kremlin. In 1836 it was raised out and placed on the pedestal. Now it remains on public view, although it has never rung.