Kremlin Chimes

the clock with striking mechanism in the Spasskaia Tower of the Moscow Kremlin.

The earliest information about the Kremlin clock dates from 1404; this clock was placed near the Blagoveshchenskii Cathedral. In 1621 the British clocksmith Christopher Gallway made a clock for which Russian masons, in 1625, erected a stone superstructure on the Spasskaia Tower. The clock had two faces with a diameter of nearly 5 m. The faces were made from separate oak parts joined by iron hoops. The outer circle of the face, which revolved, was divided into 17 equal parts (hours). Each hour was indicated by a Slavonic letter and a smaller Arabic numeral. In 1706 a new clock was placed in the Kremlin. Purchased by Peter I in Holland, it was brought to Moscow from Amsterdam on 30 carts. In 1737 the clock’s mechanism was ruined by a fire. The clock was restored in 1767 but was damaged again during the fires of 1812.

The modern Kremlin chimes are the “clock recast in 1851 by the Butenop brothers in Moscow” (as the inscription on the iron mounting of the clock reads). The chimes are placed on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the Spasskaia Tower. Their mechanism consists of four separate parts: the clock movement, the striking mechanism for the quarter hours, the striking mechanism for the hours, and the chimes. Each of the mechanisms has an independent winding shaft that is set in motion by cylindrical iron weights. Depending on the purpose of the mechanism, the weights range from 100 to 200 kg. The striking and chime mechanisms include a program cylinder on which pins are fastened in a specific order. At the appropriate time the stopper of the program cylinder shuts off and the cylinder, in response to the action of the weight, begins to revolve; the pins, via rods, knock against levers of small hammers that make the bells sound. For example, the cylinder of the striking mechanism for the quarter hours controls nine bells. In the first quarter of the hour, the program of the strike sounds once; in the second, third, and fourth quarters, it sounds two, three, and four times, respectively. After the strike of the quarter hours, the striking mechanism for the hours is turned on. After the last blow of the hour bell, the mechanism of the playing of the chimes is actuated. In prerevolutionary times the Kremlin chimes played the tune So Glorious Is Our Lord in Zion at noon and The Preobrazhenskii March at midnight.

In the October Socialist Revolution, during the artillery bombardment of the Kremlin, one of the shells hit the face of the chimes, breaking a hand of the clock and putting out of action the mechanism for the rotation of the hands. The clock stopped on Nov. 2, 1917. In August 1918, on V. I. Lenin’s orders, restoration work was begun. In September 1918 the damages to the mechanism for the hands were repaired and the musical mechanism of the chimes was altered; the International was played at noon and the tune You Fell in Sacrifice at midnight. In 1935 the musical mechanism was disassembled.

The clock of the Kremlin chimes is wound twice each day, at noon and midnight. The faces of the clock look out from the four sides of the Spasskaia Tower. The diameter of the face is 6.12 m. The height of the Roman numerals indicating the hours is .72 m. The hour-hand is 2.97 m long, and the minute hand is 3.27 m long. The rim of the face, the numerals, and the hands were covered with gold in 1937. The pendulum is 1.5 m long and weighs 32 kg. The pendulum has a wooden compensator, so that changes in air temperature do not affect the precision of the clock’s working.