The purpose of the monument is Tsar Cannon. Tsar Cannon

Tsar Cannon and Tsar Bell - Moscow

Photos of the Kremlin area

The famous Tsar Cannon in the Kremlin, one of the most visited sights of the Moscow Kremlin, can be seen today on the western side of Ivanovskaya Square. Each of the tourists who arrived in Moscow necessarily includes an inspection of the grandiose weapon of the 16th century in the program of their visit. A brief history of the Tsar Cannon for both children and adults is given in our article.

Cast in gigantic sizes from high-quality bronze, the cannon is even listed in the Guinness World Book of Records. And this is no accident. Here are just its most basic parameters:

• length - more than 5 m.,
• the outer diameter of the trunk reaches 134 cm.,
• caliber - 890 mm,
• the product weighs about 40 tons.

When and why was it created?

Photo 1. Tsar Cannon - one of the main attractions of the Kremlin

History and little-known facts about the Tsar Cannon in the Kremlin

In 1586, an alarming message was brought to the city of Moscow: the Crimean Khan was marching on the capital with his large army. To repel the invasion, by order of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, who was ruling at that time, at the Cannon Yard of Moscow, a Russian foundry worker Andrei Chokhov cast a huge artillery gun, which was intended for firing with stone buckshot.

Since the gun was originally intended for the defense of the Kremlin, it was installed on a hill above the banks of the Moskva River - on Red Square, not far from the famous Execution Ground and the Spasskaya Tower.

However, the Crimean Khan never approached the walls of the Mother See of the capital, and therefore the Muscovites were never able to find out how powerfully this gun, nicknamed the Tsar Cannon for its dimensions, shoots.

Later, during the reign of Peter I, the gun was moved to the territory of the Kremlin with the help of special rollers: first to the courtyard of the Arsenal under construction, and then to its main gate. There it was mounted on a wooden carriage, which, along with the carriages of other guns, burned down in a fire in 1812.

In 1835, at the Berd shipyard in St. Petersburg, according to the drawings of the military engineer Witte (in some sources, academician Alexander Pavlovich Bryulov is mentioned as the author of the sketch), a more durable, cast-iron carriage for a grandiose gun was made.

In 1843, the Tsar Cannon was removed from the gates of the Arsenal, where it had been all this time, and installed next to the old building of the Armory. She stood there until 1960, when, as part of the construction of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, the gun was again transferred, this time to Ivanovskaya Square, where it remains to this day.

So, we briefly described the history of the gun, and now for the more inquisitive children and adults we will continue our story.

Description of the legendary Tsar Cannon

As mentioned above, the gun carriage is made using the iron casting method and performs purely decorative functions. The body of the gun itself is cast in bronze. Next to the carriage are cast-iron cannon balls, which are also a decorative element.

On the right side of the gun there is an image of the autocrat Fyodor Ivanovich, sitting on a war horse. The head of the prince is crowned with a royal crown, and in his hands is one of the symbols of Russian power - a scepter. There is an inscription explaining the image next to it.

One of the hypotheses for the appearance of the name "Tsar Cannon" is precisely the image of the king who ruled at the time of the creation of this formidable artillery gun, which is immortalized on the plane of the cannon. True, there is another name that occurs in Russian documents of different eras - this is the “Russian shotgun”. The fact is that this is how the guns intended for firing shots (in a different way - buckshot) were designated.

The left side of the gun is decorated with an inscription commemorating its creator and which reads "Ondrey Chokhov".

The very plane of the trunk, among other things, is decorated with an original ornament.

Separately, I would like to highlight the carriage itself, which is decorated in such a way as to clearly highlight high status artillery gun. Its main component is the image of a lion - a formidable and strong king of beasts. The symbolic depiction of a lion fighting a mythical serpent can also be seen in the intricacies of ornamental plants on the plane of the gun carriage.

I would like to add that to move the cannon located in the Moscow Kremlin, 200 draft horses were harnessed at the same time.

Despite the impressiveness of the weapon, some experts agree that it was still made not for shooting, but solely to intimidate the enemy, in a particular case, the troops of the Crimean Khan advancing on the capital. The technical side of the gun will be discussed further, from which we will find out whether this is a props or a really formidable artillery gun.

We note right away that the cast-iron cores placed in a pyramid near the carriage are only a decoration, hollow inside. If they are made real, then the stone core will weigh about 819 kilograms, and the cast-iron core will weigh under 2 tons.

Further, according to experts, the carriage itself is not technically adapted for firing from such a powerful gun, and the heavy cast-iron cores themselves would not physically fit - the barrel of the Tsar Cannon would simply break during the shot. His combat use of facts in history is not attested.

But it cannot be that in those distant times, before the threat of an attack on Moscow, an artillery gun would be created only in order to “splurge”. Let's try to figure this out!

Let's start with the fact that until the 20th century, military experts and historians still designated the current "Tsar Cannon" as a shotgun, i.e. intended for shooting with buckshot, which was replaced in those days by ordinary small stones. The current name has been fixed only since 1930, when the authorities decided to raise the status of the weapon for propaganda purposes. What? Probably, based on the fact that in a great country, there should be everything grandiose in the world. It's like a joke from Soviet times that the USSR has "the largest radio components in the world."

But let's not slander and continue, especially since the veil of secrecy over the cannon was nevertheless lifted, and this happened during the planned restoration work carried out in 1980.

The gun was removed from the carriage and sent to one of the military factories in the city of Serpukhov, where it was restored. Together with the usual work in this case, the forces of military specialists from the Moscow Artillery Academy measured the Tsar Cannon, although the main report has not yet been made public. True, draft drawings have been preserved, which emphasize that this gun is not a gun at all in its actual designation.

So, in order. The diameter of the bore, from which the cannon is loaded with nuclei, is 90 centimeters, and by the very end of the warhead it decreases to 82. The depth of this cone is about 32 centimeters. Next comes the charging chamber with a flat bottom 173 centimeters deep, with a diameter of 44.7 centimeters at the beginning, increasing to 46.7 centimeters towards the end.

These data make it possible to attribute the gun to the bombard class, which means that it was quite possible to shoot stone cannonballs from it. It is impossible to call this artillery installation a cannon, because. one of the main conditions is not met: the length of the barrel must be at least 40 calibers. Right here we are talking only about four. As for using the weapon as a buckshot-shooting shotgun, then, based on the available characteristics, this would be very ineffective.

The bombards themselves belong to the class of battering rams designed to destroy fortress walls. In most cases, they did not even make a gun carriage for them, because. part of the trunk was simply buried in the ground. The calculation of the gun was located in the trenches arranged next to the bombard, because. the barrels were often torn when fired. The rate of fire left much to be desired and rarely reached 6 shots ... per day.

At research work particles of gunpowder were found in the Tsar Cannon channel. The only question is, was it a test shot or did they manage to use the gun against the enemy? The latter is most likely impossible. It can also be confirmed by the fact that no longitudinal scratches were found on the walls of the barrel, which should have remained either from the core or from stone shrapnel.

The myth of the gun and the impostor tsar False Dmitry

And yet she shot!? The myth that has come down to our time says that the only shot was fired by the ashes of the temporary Russian Tsar False Dmitry.

After being exposed, he tried to escape from Moscow, but came across a combat patrol and was brutally killed. The body was buried twice, and twice it again appeared on the surface: either at the almshouse, or at the churchyard. Rumors spread that even the earth did not want to accept him, after which it was decided to cremate the body, and fire a cannon with the ashes, turning the gun in the direction of the Commonwealth (now Poland), where he was from.

Such is the history of the Tsar Cannon in brief - the largest weapon of its era.

Today, smaller copies of the Kremlin guns are installed in Donetsk, Perm and Yoshkar-Ola. However, neither in terms of parameters nor characteristics, they even come close to the Moscow giant.

On the Ivanovskaya Square Moscow Kremlin installed an artillery gun, which is considered the most significant work of Russian gunsmiths. The Tsar Cannon is not just a masterpiece of the fortress artillery of the New Age, but also one of the largest cannons among all known in the world.

The Tsar Cannon has served as a museum relic since the 1930s, when it was installed near the entrance to the Armory. Today, a masterpiece of foundry art, made by a master Andrey Chokhov, is an exhibit of the Moscow Artillery Museum.

History of Russian firearms

The invention of gunpowder served as an impetus for the development and improvement of throwing weapons, which until the 14th century were widely used during the siege. Fortifications were now subjected to shelling from primitive artillery pieces, the barrels of which were made of iron, and the shells were iron or stone cannonballs. Imperfect technology for the production of charges became the cause of injuries received by gunners when firing. After the technology for the production of gunpowder in the form of a bulk mass was mastered, the effectiveness of artillery guns increased, and the caliber of guns increased.

Moscow cannon yard was created at the end of the 15th century and was located on the Neglinka River in the area where Lubyanka Square is today. Being a state-owned enterprise, the Moscow Cannon Yard had modern melting furnaces, hundreds of craftsmen worked in it, and in a technical sense, this manufactory was one of the most advanced among such enterprises. The most famous products of the Moscow Cannon Yard are the bronze piskal of the master Yakov of 1483, the guns installed in the Grisholm castle in Sweden and the Moscow sights Tsar Bell and Tsar Cannon.

In the 16th century there appeared Russian artillery. The masters of the Moscow cannon yard cast heavy guns called bombards, and by the beginning of the 18th century, the Russian army had 9,500 gunners professionally handling heavy artillery. Collapsible molds began to be used to cast gun barrels.

How did the Tsar Cannon

In 1584, he sat on the Russian throne Tsar Fedor I Ioannovich, the third son of Ivan the Terrible. Boris Godunov was the king's brother-in-law. Since 1587, his position at court was so significant that he actually ruled the state. It was Godunov who came up with the idea to cast a huge artillery piece from bronze, which would symbolize the military power of the Russian army and the entire state. The name given to the cannon, according to some historians, appeared due to its size. Others believe that the cannon is named after Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich.

In 1586 the master Andrey Chokhov fulfilled the royal decree and made a tool that became the largest and glorified the name of the caster for centuries. At that time, Chokhov worked at the Cannon Yard for about 20 years and had extensive experience in casting artillery pieces. After the Tsar Cannon was ready, Andrey Chokhov took a special position among the other foundry workers, and numerous students began to adopt his experience.

The sovereign ordered the installation of the Tsar Cannon on Red Square near the Execution Ground. Symbol military power symbolically guarded the Spassky Gates and the Intercession Cathedral and at the same time served as a reminder to all passing reminders of the role of Boris Godunov in Russian state.

Despite full combat characteristics, which were given to the gun by the master, it never showed itself in a real battle. Only once was the Tsar Cannon ready to fire, but she didn’t have to - the troops of the Crimean Khan Kazy Giray retreated before the help of the main gun of the Russian army was needed.

Permutations of the gun

In the first third of the 18th century, grandiose construction was launched in the Moscow Kremlin. Appeared by order of Peter I Arsenal located between Nikolskaya and Troitskaya towers. In it, the sovereign intended to arrange a military warehouse and store military trophies. The Tsar Cannon interfered with the implementation of the project and was moved to Arsenal yard. The French, retreating, blew up many buildings of the Kremlin, and the Arsenal was significantly damaged. The Tsar Cannon, fortunately, lost only a wooden carriage, and itself remained unharmed.

In 1817, the gun was moved to the gates of the restored Arsenal, and a couple of years later the architect Henri Montferrand the idea was born to perpetuate the memory of the feat of the Russian army in Patriotic war 1812. Montferrand suggested using the Unicorn Cannon and the Tsar Cannon as the central elements of the memorial composition. However, the project was not approved and cast-iron gun carriages were received only in 1835.

An engineer worked on the carriage of the Tsar Cannon Pavel de Witte and architect Alexander Bryullov. Their project was implemented by employees of the Byrd plant in St. Petersburg. Four cores were also cast there, installed next to the gun carriage. The weight of each of the shells is almost two tons.

The Tsar Cannon, along with other Kremlin artillery pieces, moved again in 1843. They were transferred to Armory. Its old building was later turned into barracks, and a cannon guarded the entrance to them until the 60s of the 20th century. Then the barracks were demolished, in their place they erected Kremlin Palace of Congresses, and the Tsar Cannon went on the last known journey in its lifetime - to the northern facade of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower.

Specifications and Features

Military historians believe that the Tsar Cannon is more likely bombard, since its design is more typical for heavy siege weapons:

• A cannon is considered to be an artillery gun with a longer barrel, and according to modern classification it generally belongs to the class of shotguns. Moreover, she was conceived as a defensive weapon and she was even called at one time "Russian Shotgun".
• The alloy from which the Tsar Cannon was cast consists mainly of copper - 91.9%. There is also tin, lead, antimony, aluminum and even traces of silver in the cannon.
• If the Tsar Cannon had to fire, it would have to be loaded with stone cannonballs, the weight of which would be from 750 kg to one ton. Gunpowder for each charge would require from 85 to 120 kg.
• The outer diameter of the barrel is 120 cm, the patterned belt decorating the muzzle is 134 cm. The gun has a caliber of 89 cm, and its weight is almost 40 tons.
• The opinion of some historians that the country's main cannon fired at least once is refuted by restorers. They found that the gun had not been completed - the craftsmen had not cleaned inner part muzzle from bumps and influxes and did not drill a seed hole.
• The barrel of the Tsar Cannon is decorated with reliefs depicting the Tsar. Fedor I Ioannovich is sitting on a horse, and above and on the sides of the sovereign there are inscriptions about the royal command to cast a cannon, the date of completion of the work and the master who completed them.
• The carriage is decorated with bas-reliefs depicting ornaments and a lion mask.

The Tsar Cannon occupies a worthy place in the Guinness Book of Records as an artillery piece with the largest caliber.

The Tsar Cannon and the nearby Tsar Bell are surprising in size, but they were never used for their intended purpose.
Some consider them the creations of a national genius, others the personification of bragging, window dressing and impracticality, recalling the well-known lines: "Russia cannot be understood with the mind."

The caliber of the Tsar Cannon is 890 mm, the barrel length is 5.345 m, the weight is 39.312 tons (2400 pounds), the weight of the stone core is 819 kg (50 pounds). A cast-iron core of the same size would weigh 120 pounds. To push it out would require a powder charge, which the barrel would not withstand.

200 horses moved the giant gun from place to place on wooden rollers, so it was practically non-transportable.

The main characteristic of an artillery gun is the barrel caliber. According to this indicator, the Tsar Cannon is in fourth place in the world. The first three share the two mortars of Mallet and the Little David mortar, made respectively in Britain and the USA in 1857 and 1945. All of them had a caliber of 914 mm (36 inches), like the Tsar Cannon, they were never used in combat and are museum pieces.

But is it? We'll get the expert's opinion at the end of the post.

The largest artillery gun used in practice (during the siege of Sevastopol in 1942) is the German Dora gun with a caliber of 800 mm. She also owns records for barrel length (32 m) and projectile weight (7.088 tons).

The Tsar Cannon was cast in the third year of the reign of Ivan the Terrible's son Fyodor, known for his meek disposition, extreme piety and lack of interest in state affairs. The actual initiator of the creation of the "superweapon" was his brother-in-law and de facto regent Boris Godunov.

It was intended to protect against the Crimean Tatars, who in 1571 burned Moscow and threatened to repeat the raid. In 1591, Khan Kazy-Girey again approached Moscow and withdrew without attempting an assault. Whether the presence of the Tsar Cannon in the Russians played any role in this is unknown. In the future, the military need to use it did not arise.

Experts from the Artillery Academy who examined the gun in 1980 determined that it had been fired at least once, probably for testing purposes.

Structurally, the Tsar Cannon was classic bombarda- a medieval tool with a thick short barrel, widespread in Europe, Ottoman Turkey and India of the Great Moghuls. The bombard was dug into the ground with its breech, loaded from the muzzle and fired up to six shots a day, mainly with the aim of destroying enemy fortifications. A trench was set up nearby for calculation, because the bombards were often torn apart.

In Turkey, old bombards stood on the forts defending the Dardanelles until 1868. Last case their successful application dates back to 1807. A 244-kilogram stone ball hit the powder magazine of a British battleship"Windsor Castle", which sank as a result of the explosion.

Since the Tsar Cannon had to fire not at the walls, but at the infantry and cavalry approaching the Kremlin, it could fire both stone cannonballs and cast-iron shrapnel or small stones ("shot"), and therefore is referred to in many sources as the "Russian Shotgun" .

Its creator Andrei Chokhov was honored to put his name on the trunk next to the name of the monarch. He entered the Moscow Cannon Yard on the Neglinka in 1568 as a 23-year-old boy, quickly moved forward and, in more than 40 years of work, cast more than twenty large guns. The master successfully survived the terror of Ivan the Terrible and Time of Troubles and died at the age of 84, witnessing six reigns.

The Tsar Cannon was located near the Execution Ground and covered the Spassky Gates of the Kremlin. At first, it lay on the ground, in 1626 it was hoisted onto a log cabin (“peel”) filled with soil, after 10 years a stone peal was built, inside of which there was a wine shop.

In 1701, the Tsar Cannon survived by a miracle. After the loss of most of the artillery near Narva, Peter I ordered the old Kremlin guns to be poured into modern ones. Only at the last moment did he spare the Tsar Cannon for its uniqueness.

At the beginning of the XVIII century, it was moved to the Kremlin to the gates of the Arsenal (demolished in connection with the construction of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses), and in 1960 to current location on Ivanovskaya Square.

The artistic casting decorating the Tsar Cannon is a work of art

The cast-iron carriage on which the Tsar Cannon now stands, and four hollow cast-iron cannonballs, cast in 1835 at the St. Petersburg factory of Charles Byrd, are decorative. Hoisting the cannon on the carriage was a technically difficult operation, for which the contractor Mikhail Vasiliev, who won the auction, received a huge sum of 1,400 rubles for those times.

At the time of its creation, the Tsar Cannon was, to use an expression now beloved in Russia, "a weapon that has no analogues in the world." At the same time, for the same money, it was possible to cast 20 guns of a smaller caliber, which would bring much more benefit. The main goal of the government was, speaking in a modern way, PR.

When in 1909 a heavy monument to Alexander III by Paolo Trubetskoy was erected in St. Petersburg, the poet Alexander Roslavlev responded with an epigram: "The third wild toy for the Russian serf: there was the tsar-bell, the tsar-cannon, and now the tsar-well ... a."

However, let me remind you that this is the opinion of an artillery specialist A. Shirokorad

He argues that venerable historians and dissident jokers are wrong all around. Firstly, the Tsar Cannon fired, and secondly, this gun is not a cannon at all.
Currently, the Tsar Cannon is on a decorative cast-iron carriage, and nearby are decorative cast-iron cannonballs, which were cast in 1834 in St. Petersburg at Byrd's iron foundry. It is clear that it is physically impossible to shoot from this cast-iron carriage or use cast-iron cannonballs - the Tsar Cannon will be blown to smithereens! Documents about the testing of the Tsar Cannon or its use in combat conditions have not been preserved, which gave rise to lengthy disputes about its purpose. Most historians and military men in the 19th and early 20th centuries believed that the Tsar Cannon was a shotgun, that is, a weapon designed to shoot shot, which in the 16th-17th centuries consisted of small stones. A minority of specialists generally exclude the possibility combat use guns, believing that it was made specifically to frighten foreigners, especially the ambassadors of the Crimean Tatars. Recall that in 1571 Khan Devlet Giray burned down Moscow.

In the XVIII - early XX centuries, the Tsar Cannon was called a shotgun in all official documents. And only the Bolsheviks in the 1930s decided to raise her rank for propaganda purposes and began to call her a cannon.

The secret of the Tsar Cannon was revealed only in 1980, when a large automobile crane removed it from the carriage and placed it on a huge trailer. Then the powerful KrAZ took the Tsar Cannon to Serpukhov, where the cannon was repaired at military unit No. 42708. At the same time, a number of specialists from the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky made her inspection and measurement. For some reason, the report was not published, but from the surviving draft materials it becomes clear that the Tsar Cannon ... was not a cannon!

The highlight of the gun is its channel. At a distance of 3190 mm, it has the form of a cone, the initial diameter of which is 900 mm, and the final one is 825 mm. Then comes the charging chamber with a reverse taper - with an initial diameter of 447 mm and a final (at the breech) 467 mm. The length of the chamber is 1730 mm, and the bottom is flat.

So this is a classic bombard!

Bombards first appeared at the end of the 14th century. The name "bombard" comes from the Latin words bombus (thunder sound) and arder (burn). The first bombards were made of iron and had screw-on chambers. So, for example, in 1382 in the city of Ghent (Belgium) the bombard "Mad Margaret" was made, named so in memory of the Countess of Flanders Margaret the Cruel. The caliber of the bombard is 559 mm, the barrel length is 7.75 calibers (klb), and the channel length is 5 klb. The weight of the gun is 11 tons. The Mad Margarita fired stone cannonballs weighing 320 kg. The bombarda consists of two layers: the inner one consisting of longitudinal strips welded together, and the outer one consisting of 41 iron hoops welded together and with the inner layer. A separate screw chamber consists of a single layer of discs welded together and is equipped with sockets where the lever was inserted when it was screwed in and out.

It took about a day to load and aim large bombards. Therefore, during the siege of the city of Pisa in 1370, whenever the besiegers prepared to fire, the besieged went to the opposite end of the city. The besiegers, taking advantage of this, rushed to the attack.

The charge of the bombard was no more than 10% of the weight of the core. There were no trunnions and carriages. The guns were stacked on wooden decks and log cabins, and piles were driven in behind or brick walls were erected to stop. Initially, the elevation angle did not change. In the 15th century, primitive lifting mechanisms began to be used and bombards were cast from copper.

Let's pay attention - the Tsar Cannon does not have trunnions, with the help of which the gun is given an elevation angle. In addition, she has an absolutely smooth rear section of the breech, with which she, like other bombards, rested against a stone wall or log cabin.

Protector of the Dardanelles

By the middle of the 15th century, the Turkish Sultan had the most powerful siege artillery. So, during the siege of Constantinople in 1453, the Hungarian foundry worker Urban cast for the Turks a copper bombard with a caliber of 24 inches (610 mm), which fired stone balls weighing about 20 pounds (328 kg). It took 60 bulls and 100 men to transport it to the position. To eliminate the rollback, the Turks built a stone wall behind the gun. The rate of fire of this bombard was 4 shots per day. By the way, the rate of fire of large-caliber Western European bombards was about the same order. Just before the capture of Constantinople, a 24-inch bombard exploded. At the same time, its designer Urban himself died. The Turks appreciated the large-caliber bombards. Already in 1480, during the fighting on the island of Rhodes, they used bombards of 24-35-inch caliber (610-890 mm). The casting of such giant bombards required, as indicated in ancient documents, 18 days.

It is curious that the bombards of the 15th-16th centuries were in service in Turkey until the middle of the 19th century. So, on March 1, 1807, during the crossing of the Dardanelles by the English squadron of Admiral Duckworth, a 25-inch (635 mm) marble ball weighing 800 pounds (244 kg) hit the lower deck of the Windsor Castle ship and ignited several caps with gunpowder, as a result of which there was a terrible explosion. 46 people were killed and wounded. In addition, many sailors, frightened, threw themselves overboard and drowned. The same core hit the ship "Active" and punched a huge hole in the side above the waterline. In this hole, several people could stick their heads out.

In 1868, over 20 huge bombards were still on the forts defending the Dardanelles. There is evidence that during the Dardanelles operation in 1915, a 400-kilogram stone ball hit the English battleship Agamemnon. Of course, it could not penetrate the armor and only amused the team.

Let's compare the Turkish 25-inch (630-mm) copper bombard, cast in 1464, which is currently kept in the museum at Woolwich (London), with our Tsar Cannon. The weight of the Turkish bombard is 19 tons, and the total length is 5232 mm. The outer diameter of the barrel is 894 mm. The length of the cylindrical part of the channel is 2819 mm. Chamber length - 2006 mm. The bottom of the chamber is rounded. The bombard fired stone cannonballs weighing 309 kg, and a charge of gunpowder weighed 22 kg.

The bombard once defended the Dardanelles. As you can see, outwardly and in terms of the channel structure, it is very similar to the Tsar Cannon. The main and fundamental difference is that the Turkish bombard has a screw breech. Apparently, the Tsar Cannon was made according to the model of such bombards.

Tsar Shotgun

So, the Tsar Cannon is a bombard designed to fire stone cannonballs. The weight of the stone core of the Tsar Cannon was about 50 pounds (819 kg), and the iron core of this caliber weighs 120 pounds (1.97 tons). As a shotgun, the Tsar Cannon was extremely ineffective. At the cost of expenses, instead of it, it was possible to make 20 small shotguns, which take much less time to load - not a day, but only 1-2 minutes. I note that in the official inventory "At the Moscow arsenal of artillery" # for 1730 there were 40 copper and 15 cast-iron shotguns. Let's pay attention to their calibers: 1500 pounds - 1 (this is the Tsar Cannon), and then calibers follow: 25 pounds - 2, 22 pounds - 1, 21 pounds - 3, etc. Largest number shotguns, 11, account for the 2-pounder caliber.

And yet she shot

Who wrote the Tsar Cannon into shotguns and why? The fact is that in Russia all the old guns that were in the fortresses, with the exception of mortars, were automatically transferred over time to shotguns, that is, in the event of a siege of the fortress, they had to shoot with shot (stone), and later - with cast-iron buckshot at the infantry marching to assault. It was not advisable to use old guns for firing cannonballs or bombs: what if the barrel would blow apart, and the new guns had much better ballistic data. So the Tsar Cannon was recorded as shotguns, in the late 19th - early 20th centuries the military forgot about the order in smooth-bore fortress artillery, and civilian historians did not know at all and decided by the name "shotgun" that the Tsar Cannon should have been used exclusively as an anti-assault guns for firing "stone shot".

The point in the dispute whether the Tsar Cannon fired was put in 1980 by specialists from the Academy. Dzerzhinsky. They examined the channel of the gun and, based on a number of signs, including the presence of particles of burnt gunpowder, concluded that the Tsar Cannon was fired at least once. After the Tsar Cannon was cast and finished at the Cannon Yard, it was dragged to the Spassky Bridge and laid on the ground next to the Peacock cannon. horses, and they rolled a cannon lying on huge logs - rollers.

Initially, the Tsar and Peacock guns lay on the ground near the bridge leading to the Spasskaya Tower, and the Kashpirova cannon was located near the Zemsky order, located where it is now Historical Museum. In 1626, they were lifted from the ground and installed on log cabins, densely packed with earth. These platforms were called roskats. One of them, with the Tsar Cannon and the Peacock, was placed at the Execution Ground, the other, with the Kashpir Cannon, at the Nikolsky Gate. In 1636, wooden roskats were replaced with stone ones, inside which warehouses and shops selling wine were arranged.

After the "Narva embarrassment", when the tsarist army lost all siege and regimental artillery, Peter I ordered that new guns be poured urgently. The king decided to get the copper necessary for this by melting down bells and ancient cannons. According to the “nominal decree” it was “ordered to pour the Peacock cannon into cannon and mortar casting, which is in China near the Execution Ground on a roll; a cannon to Kashpirov, near the new Money Yard, where the Zemsky order was; cannon "Echidna", which is near the village of Voskresensky; the Krechet cannon with a ten-pound cannonball; cannon "Nightingale" with a core of 6 pounds, which is in China on the square.

Peter, due to his lack of education, did not spare the most ancient Moscow casting tools and made an exception only for the largest tools. Among them, of course, was the Tsar Cannon, as well as two mortars cast by Andrei Chokhov, which are currently in the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg.

The Tsar Cannon is a medieval artillery piece, a monument of Russian artillery and foundry art. It can be seen in the Moscow Kremlin.

It was cast from bronze by the Russian master Andrei Chokhov in 1586 at the Moscow cannon yard.

Tsar Cannon Dimensions

Gun length - 5.34m, barrel diameter 1.2m, caliber 35 inches (890mm), weight 39.3t (2400 pounds)

The Tsar Cannon is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest caliber cannon. (A gun of greater weight and size is in Germany).

The Tsar Cannon is decorated with belts of reliefs, on the right side it depicts Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, on a horse with a scepter in his hands. There is an inscription on it: “By the grace of God, the Tsar and Grand Duke Fedor Ivanovich, Sovereign and Autocrat of All Great Russia”

There are brackets on the barrel for attaching ropes, in case of transporting the gun.

Origin of the name Tsar Cannon

There are 2 versions of the origin of the name of the gun

• According to the first version, the gun was named so because of big size, I stick to this version.
• According to the second - because. It depicts the Russian Tsar.

In ancient times, the cannon was also called the “Russian Shotgun”, because it was designed to fire not only cannonballs, but also buckshot.

The gun was intended for the defense of the Kremlin. But she never participated in hostilities. In the 18th century it was placed in the Moscow Kremlin.

Decorative carriages (cannon mounts) and decorative cannonballs were cast in 1834. at the Byrd plant in St. Petersburg. Cast-iron cannonballs weigh 1.97 tons, the Tsar Cannon cannot fire them, because it is designed to fire stone cannonballs weighing 800 kg.

Did they shoot from the Tsar Cannon?

According to experts, the Tsar Cannon was fired at least once.

In 1980 in the city of Serpukhov, the Tsar Cannon was repaired and examined.

Currently, the Tsar Cannon is located in the Kremlin and is open to tourists. I was in the Kremlin, I saw, touched and took pictures with the Tsar Cannon. It is huge, probably once terrified our enemies. And her nuclei are also very large. Our whole family liked her very much.