"Alexis Michaelovich of happy memory, Autocrat of Great and Small Russia and of White Russia, gave the order that for the Cathedral of the pure and glorious Assumption of the Holy Virgin, a bell should be cast with 8000 poods of copper, in the year of the world 7162 and of the birth of Jesus Christ our Saviour, 1645. This bell was used in the year 7176 (A.D. 1668), and served until the year of the creation 7208 and of Jesus Christ 1701; in which last year on the 19 June it was broken in a great fire that destroyed the Kremlin: it was mute until the year of the creation ... and of our Lord.... By the command of the majestic Empress-Autocrat Anna Ivanovna, for the glory of God, of the Holy Trinity, and in honour of the Holy Virgin, in the Cathedral of her glorious Assumption, they melted the metal of the old bell of 8000 poods, damaged by the fire and added thereto 2000 poods of new metal, the year of the world 7241 and of the birth of our Saviour 1734, and the fourth of the glorious reign of Her Majesty." "Thirty-four bells hang in these three towers; the largest is the "big bell" of the Uspenski Sobor, which is in the middle tower and on the lowest tier. It was cast in 1817 by Bogdanof, to replace the bell broken when the tower was wrecked by the mine exploded beneath it in 1812. A bell of 7 tons is the largest in the tower of Ivan, which, originally founded in 1501 by Afanasief, has been subsequently recast; the next storey has three old bells and amongst those of the highest storey are two "silver" bells. The oldest here dates from 1550; other old bells, Russian, Dutch, and others, are hung in the belfry of Spass na Boru, in that of St Michael in the courtyard of the Chudov Monastery, and in the belfry of the Vossnesenski Convent. Russian bells are not swung, but are sounded by moving the clapper, to the tongue of which the bell rope is attached; the clapper of the "Kolokol" is 14 feet in length and 6 feet in circumference. The famous bells of Moscow are:-- "The Tsar Kolokol, 185 tons; Assumption or 'Big Bell'--in use--64 tons; The Thunderer (Reut), 30 tons, cast by Chokov in 1689, it also fell in 1812 but was not broken; The Every Day (Vsednievni), 15 tons, cast in 1782; The Seven-hundredth (Semisotni), 10 tons; Bear (Medvied), 7 tons; Swan (Lebeda), 7 tons; Novgorodsk, 6 tons; The 'Wide' Bell (Shirokoi), 4½ tons; Slobodski, 4½ tons; Rostovski, 3 tons." 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:--