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The Tsar Bell (; ), also known as the Tsarsky Kolokol, Tsar Kolokol III, or Royal Bell, is a , bell on display on the grounds of the Moscow Kremlin. The bell was commissioned by Empress Anna Ivanovna, niece of Peter the Great.
It has never been in working order, suspended, nor rung.
The present bell is sometimes referred to as Kolokol III (Bell III), because it is the third generation.
The bell is decorated with relief images of baroque angels, plants, oval medallions with saints, and nearly life-size images of Empress Anna and Tsar Alexei, who was reigning at the time the previous Tsar Bell was cast.
The second Tsar Bell was cast in 1655, using the remnants of the former bell, but on a much larger scale. This bell weighed , but was again destroyed by fire in 1701.
After becoming Empress, Anna ordered that the pieces be cast into a new bell with its weight increased by another hundred tons, and dispatched the son of Field Marshal Münnich to Paris to solicit technical help from the master craftsmen there. However, a bell of such size was unprecedented, and Münnich was not taken seriously. In 1733, the job was assigned to local foundry masters, Ivan Motorin and his son Mikhail, based on their experience in casting a bronze cannon.
A pit deep was dug (near the location of the present bell), with a clay form, and walls reinforced with rammed earth to withstand the pressure of the molten metal. Obtaining the necessary metals proved a challenge, for in addition to the parts of the old bell, an additional of silver and of gold were added to the mixture. After months of preparation, casting work commenced at the end of November 1734. The first attempt was not successful, and the project was incomplete when Ivan Motorin died in August, 1735. His son Mikhail carried on the work, and the second attempt at casting succeeded on November 25, 1735. Ornaments were added as the bell was cooling while raised above the casting pit through 1737.
However, before the last ornamentation was completed, a major fire broke out at the Kremlin in May 1737. The fire spread to the temporary wooden support structure for the bell, and fearing damage, guards threw cold water on it, causing eleven cracks, and a huge slab to break off. The fire burned through the wooden supports, and the damaged bell fell back into its casting pit. The Tsar Bell remained in its pit for almost a century. Unsuccessful attempts to raise it were made in 1792 and 1819. Napoleon Bonaparte, during his occupation of Moscow in 1812, considered removing it as a trophy to France, but was unable to do so, due to its size and weight.
It was finally successfully raised in the summer of 1836 by the French architect Auguste de Montferrand and placed on a stone pedestal. The broken slab alone is nearly three times larger than the world's largest bell hung for full circle ringing, the tenor bell at Liverpool Cathedral.
For a time, the bell served as a chapel, with the broken area forming the door.
Voltaire once joked that the Kremlin's two greatest items were a bell which was never rung and a cannon (the Tsar Cannon) that was never fired.
At the first stage, the parameters and features of the AE radiation of the bell material were investigated. This part of the work was carried out on the territory of the F. E. Dzerzhinsky Academy when testing specially made large-sized (more than 10 cm thick and weighing about 100 kg) samples made of a bronze alloy identical to the bell material. At the second stage, acoustic calibration and diagnostics of the Tsar Bell itself were carried out on the territory of the Kremlin. The work on the bell consisted, if we do without scientific terms, as if in "listening" to it for the presence of ultrasonic radiation of growing cracks. It was found that the condition of the Tsar Bell at the time of diagnosis is satisfactory, and in the near future it is not in danger of catastrophic destruction.
To further monitor the condition of the bell cracks, Rostov residents were asked to make a multi-channel AE diagnostic system with the installation of a separate sensor at the top of each of the large cracks. However, for the permanent installation of AE receiving sensors on the bell, it was necessary to coordinate many different issues. For example, it was necessary to prove that a constantly working system listening to the bell would not be able to listen to anything else "wrong" around and so on. However, as a result of restructuring during Perestroika, further assessment of the bell was deprioritized; the discussion and coordination of issues surrounding its preservation have since been delayed.
Judging by some external signs, a slight deformation of the bell still continues. The "tradition" of pushing metal coins into the cracks of the bell is also alarming. And if earlier small coins had a composition close to the bell material, then the current ones are made of completely different metals, which in the presence of moisture can cause noticeable electrochemical corrosion of the material inside the cracks. For a reliable assessment of the condition of the Tsar Bell in the future, it is necessary to periodically conduct a procedure for diagnosing the possible growth of cracks in its walls by non-destructive testing methods.
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