The huge Tsar-cannon of the little Tsar. Tsar Cannon. Is it possible to shoot from it? What was the Tsar's cannon supposed to fire?
The Tsar Cannon has long become one of the symbols of Russia. And it was also included in dozens of jokes that feature the Tsar Cannon that never fired, the Tsar Bell that never rang, and some other non-working miracle Yudo.
But, alas, our venerable historians and dissident joke-tellers are wrong. Firstly, the Tsar Cannon fired, and secondly, this weapon is not a cannon at all.
The dispute over whether the Tsar Cannon fired was settled in 1980 by experts from the Academy. Dzerzhinsky. They examined the bore of the gun and, based on a number of signs, including the presence of particles of burnt gunpowder, concluded that the Tsar Cannon had been fired at least once.
HISTORY OF THE KING OF THE GUNS
In 1586, alarming news arrived in Moscow: the Crimean Khan and his horde were moving towards the city. In this regard, the Russian master Andrei Chokhov, by order of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, cast a huge weapon that was intended to protect the Kremlin.
A giant cannon weighing 2,400 pounds (39,312 kg) was cast in 1586 at the Moscow Cannon Yard. The length of the Tsar Cannon is 5345 mm, the outer diameter of the barrel is 1210 mm, and the diameter of the thickening at the muzzle is 1350 mm. After the Tsar Cannon was cast and finished at the Cannon Yard, it was dragged and installed on a hill to protect the bridge over the Moscow River and the defense of the Spassky Gate and laid on the ground next to the Peacock cannon. To move the gun, ropes were tied to eight brackets on its barrel; 200 horses were harnessed to these ropes at the same time, and they rolled the cannon, which lay on huge logs - rollers.
Initially, the Tsar and Peacock guns lay on the ground near the bridge leading to the Spasskaya Tower. In 1626, they were lifted from the ground and installed on log frames tightly 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 Kashpirova cannon, at the Nikolsky Gate. In 1636, the wooden rolls were replaced with stone ones, inside which warehouses and shops selling wine were built.
Currently, the Tsar Cannon is on a decorative cast-iron carriage, and next to it lie decorative cast-iron cannonballs, which were cast in 1834 in St. Petersburg at the Berda iron foundry. It is clear that it is physically impossible to shoot from this cast-iron carriage, nor to use cast-iron cannonballs (only lighter stone ones) - the Tsar Cannon will be smashed to smithereens! It’s worth saying right away that 4 cast-iron cannonballs, stacked in a pyramid near the foot of the cannon, serve a purely decorative function. They are hollow inside.
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 fire shot, which XVI-XVII 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 ambassadors Crimean Tatars. Let us remember that in 1571 Khan Devlet Giray burned Moscow.
In the 18th - early 20th centuries, the Tsar Cannon was called official documents shotgun. And only the Bolsheviks in the 1930s decided to increase its rank for propaganda purposes and began to call it a cannon.
In fact, this is not a cannon or a shotgun, but a classic bombard. A cannon is usually called a gun whose barrel length is more than 40 calibers. And this gun is only four calibers long, the same as the bombard. Bombards are a battering weapon large sizes, destroying the fortress wall. The carriage was not used for them, since the barrel was simply buried in the ground, and two trenches were dug nearby for the artillery crew, since such guns often exploded. Please note that the Tsar Cannon does not have trunnions, with the help of which the gun is given an elevation angle. In addition, it has an absolutely smooth rear section of the breech, with which it, like other bombards, rested against a stone wall or frame.
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 a cast iron core of this caliber weighs 120 pounds (1.97 tons). As a shotgun, the Tsar Cannon was extremely ineffective. At the cost of the cost, instead, it was possible to produce 20 small shotguns, which would take much less time to load - not a day, but only 1-2 minutes.
Who and why wrote the Tsar Cannon into shotguns? The fact is that in Russia, all the old guns located in the fortresses, with the exception of mortars, over time were automatically transferred to shotguns, that is, in the event of a siege of the fortress, they had to shoot shot (stone), and later - cast iron grapeshot at the infantry marching for assault. It was inappropriate to use old guns to fire 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 in shotguns.
FIRST SHOT
According to legend, the Tsar Cannon nevertheless fired. This happened once. After the impostor False Dmitry was exposed, he tried to escape from Moscow. But on the way he was brutally killed by an armed detachment.
The desecration of the body of False Dmitry showed how fickle the people are in their sympathies: a carnival mask was put on the dead face, a pipe was inserted into the mouth, and for another three days the corpse was smeared with tar, sprinkled with sand and spat on. This was a “trade execution”, to which only persons of “vile” origin were subjected.
On the day of his election, Tsar Vasily ordered the removal of False Dmitry from the square. The corpse was tied to a horse, dragged into a field and buried there by the side of the road. When the corpse of “Dmitry” was being transported through the fortress gates, a storm blew off the top of them.
Near the pit, which became the king’s last refuge, people saw blue lights rising straight from the ground.
The day after the burial, the corpse was found near the almshouse. They buried him even deeper, but after a while, the body appeared again, but in a different cemetery. People said that the land did not accept him.
Then the cold weather hit, and all the greenery in the city withered.
The clergy was alarmed by these rumors and deliberated for a long time on how best to put an end to the dead sorcerer and sorcerer.
On the advice of the monks, the corpse of False Dmitry was dug out of the hole, in last time dragged through the city streets, after which they were taken to the village of Kotly, south of Moscow, and burned there. After this, the ashes were mixed with gunpowder and fired from the Tsar Cannon towards Poland - where False Dmitry came from.
Another refutation of the use of the weapon specifically for combat purposes is the absence of any traces in the barrel, including longitudinal scratches left by stone cannonballs.
On January 7, 1598, the servant of God Fyodor Ioanovich died in the Moscow Kremlin, Grand Duke Moscow and Tsar of All Rus'. During the reign of the last of the direct Rurikovichs significant events quite a bit happened. The cities were founded: Samara, Saratov, Tsaritsyn (Volgograd), Voronezh, Arkhangelsk, Tobolsk, Surgut - new frontiers of the actively growing Russian State were established.
The next Russian-Swedish war was completed and Russia, as a result of which, returned access to the Baltic Sea along the Koporye-Yam line... Quite a few worthy deeds are being accomplished, but this is not what Tsar Fedor is remembered for... The main memory of him still stands on Ivanovo Square of the Moscow Kremlin, and his name to her - Tsar Cannon!
Story
Not much time has passed since the death of Ivan the Terrible, the dust raised by the hooves of the guardsmen’s horses has not yet settled, and in Moscow the largest artillery gun in the world was created, which remains so until today. Maybe not in size, but definitely in terms of the caliber of the barrel.
In 1586, by order of the highest order, work began on the creation of a grandiose cannon. Historians are still struggling with the reason for such an unusual step, but most of tends to believe that the weapon was created to produce an external effect on foreign ambassadors. Like, look what we are capable of. Let's eat so hard it won't seem enough!
More seriously, the cannon was intended to testify to the growth of the power of the Russian State, both industrial and military. And, of course, she exalted the ruling Sovereign! (and Fyodor Ioanovich, according to contemporaries, was very unprepossessing physically and had a meek disposition).
The production was led by foundry master Andrei Chokhov.
Andrei Chokhov (1545 - 1629) - famous Russian foundry worker, creator large quantity cannons and church bells. One of the surviving examples of the uniqueness of creativity is Chokhov’s siege arquebuses. The students continued and developed the traditions of the master (in particular, Alexey Nikiforov).
The casting work was carried out at the Moscow Cannon Yard (now the Lubyanka Square area) for several months. The main material for production was bronze. In terms of production technology, the weapon fully complied with the standards accepted at that time. Only more...much more!
The finished super-weapon was dragged with the help of two hundred horses to the Kremlin’s Red Square for demonstration to the sovereign. The barrel of the cannon was skillfully decorated with the image of Fyodor Ioannovich wearing all the royal regalia and riding a horse. In addition, the patterns run along the entire circumference of the trunk in the form of a ligature. Whether the giant cannon fired during the demonstration - no evidence has survived, and, given the meek disposition of Tsar Fedor, most likely not.
On the trunk there is also a dedication to Tsarina Irina Fedorovna Godunova (the wife of Tsar Fedor) and a mention of the fact that the monster was made by the “litz Chokhov”.
According to one version, due to the presence of the image of the Tsar, the cannon was named “Tsar Cannon”.
According to the second version, the name is associated primarily with the size of the work of cannon masters and foundries medieval Rus'.
Another name for the gun was “Shotgun”, since it was intended for firing small projectiles - “shot” (stone or metal uncalibrated buckshot).
Having admired it enough, the cannon was hoisted onto a wooden frame (carriage) and placed on combat duty near the walls of the Kremlin (opposite the modern GUM). There she stood for almost a century! Once they tried to use the gun against the attacking Tatars of Khan Kazy - Girey, but they did not dare to approach effective shooting distance and the shot was missed.
Subsequently, already under Pyotr Alekeseevich Romanov in 1706, having gathered their strength, the cannon was dragged into the courtyard of the Kremlin Arsenal. AND for a long time the whole country admired the skill of the gunsmiths and were amazed at the size, and also demonstrated it to overseas guests.
In 1835, a new cast-iron carriage was cast for the cannon (designed by Academician A.P. Bryullov) and decorative cannonballs weighing approximately 2 tons each. They then rolled it to the Armory, where other samples of guns were put on display.
In the 60s of the 20th century, the Tsar Cannon was finally installed in the place where it still stands today, near the bell tower of Ivan the Great. Or not quite that, since already in the 70s the gun was sent for restoration to Serpukhov, where it was equipped with a new decorative carriage and returned to its place in 1980.
Features of the device and application
If we talk about the Tsar Cannon in the language of gunsmiths, then it is, first of all, a military weapon, such as a bombard, intended for firing along a flat or mounted trajectory. The charge was a small “shot” with a total weight of up to 800 kilograms. It does not have an ignition hole, although there is a platform for it. The shot could only be fired when the fuse was fired from the side of the barrel; for this, an ignition cord was inserted into the powder chamber from the side of the muzzle.
Total weight artillery dinosaur is about 39 tons 312 kg, barrel length is 5 meters 34 centimeters, barrel caliber is 890 millimeters.
There are several opinions as to whether the Tsar Cannon fired for its own sake. centuries-old history. When carrying out restoration work in Serpukhov, experts from the Artillery Academy named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky concluded that the cannon was fired at least once.
The historian L.N. Gumilev there is a mention that the ashes of False Dmitry I were scattered by a shot from legendary weapon.
However, there are supporters and versions that the cannon was never fired. Intact traces of casting inside the barrel are indicated as evidence.
About records
The Tsar Cannon occupies an honorable place among the world record holders in the Guinness Book as a weapon of the largest caliber (890mm).
The Tsar Cannon Family
In 2001, in the city of gunsmiths Izhevsk, by order of the Government Russian Federation two copies of the symbol of artillery valor were made with almost exact adherence to the basic parameters. One copy was solemnly presented to the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, where it was installed near the city hall building.
The second replica adorns the territory of the Izhstal OJSC plant in Izhevsk.
In Yoshkar-Ola, on Obolensky-Nogotkov Square, there is a relatively small copy (weight - 12 tons). Also, the design of the gun does not correspond to the original; a number of patterns on the barrel are missing, others have been changed, and the decorative cores are also significantly smaller than the original ones. The cannon was suitable for firing, so the barrel was caulked with a special cannonball.
But the most interesting “Tsar Cannon” is in the museum under open air"Motovilikha plant" in the city of Perm. A real combat ship mortar, created in 1868 for the defense of St. Petersburg from the forts of Kronstadt.
The weight of the gun with carriage is 144 (!) tons, caliber 508 mm.
Having successfully passed artillery tests, the gun never entered combat duty - during tests and demonstrations in 1873 in Vienna, it became technically obsolete after Krupp created a bolt for loading guns from the breech. By decree of Tsar Alexander II, the cannon was preserved as a museum exhibit.
Conclusion
Why exactly was the Tsar Cannon created in our time? special significance does not have. The main thing is that it is an eloquent symbol of the centuries-old military and industrial power of Russia, a bronze embodiment of the fighting spirit of the Russian people!
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The Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell located nearby are surprising in size, but were never used for their intended purpose.
Some consider them the creations of a national genius, others the personification of bragging, showing off and impracticality, recalling famous lines: “You can’t understand Russia with your 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 cannonball of the same size would weigh 120 pounds. To push it out would require powder charge, which the trunk could not withstand.
The giant gun was moved from place to place by 200 horses on wooden rollers, so it was practically non-transportable.
The main characteristic of an artillery gun is the caliber of the barrel. According to this indicator, the Tsar Cannon is in fourth place in the world. The first three are shared by two Mallett mortars and a Little David mortar, manufactured in Britain and the USA in 1857 and 1945, respectively. All had a caliber of 914 mm (36 in), like the Tsar Cannon, they were never used in combat and are museum pieces.
But is it? We will find out the expert's opinion at the end of the post.
The largest artillery piece used in practice (during the siege of Sevastopol in 1942) was the German Dora cannon with a caliber of 800 mm. She also holds the 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 actual regent Boris Godunov.
It was intended to protect against the Crimean Tatars, who burned Moscow in 1571 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 among the Russians played any role in this is unknown. Further military necessity there was no need to use it.
Artillery Academy experts who examined the gun in 1980 determined that it had been fired at least once, probably for testing.
Structurally, the Tsar Cannon was a classic bombard - a medieval weapon with a thick short barrel, widespread in Europe, Ottoman Turkey and Mughal India. 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 the crew, because the bombards were often blown apart.
In Turkey, ancient bombards stood on the forts protecting the Dardanelles until 1868. The last case of their successful use dates back to 1807. A 244-kilogram stone cannonball landed in the British powder magazine. 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 shoot both stone cannonballs and cast iron shrapnel or small stones (“shotgun”), and therefore is called in many sources the “Russian Shotgun” .
Its creator, Andrei Chokhov, was honored to place his name on the trunk next to the name of the monarch. He entered the Moscow Cannon Yard on Neglinka in 1568 as a 23-year-old youth, quickly advanced and over 40 years of work cast more than twenty large guns. The master successfully survived the terror of Ivan the Terrible and the Time of Troubles and died at 84, having witnessed six reigns.
The Tsar Cannon was located at Lobnoye Mesto and covered the Kremlin’s Spassky Gate. At first it lay on the ground, in 1626 it was erected on a log frame filled with soil ("roll"), 10 years later a stone rack was built, inside which there was a wine shop.
In 1701, the Tsar Cannon miraculously survived. After the loss of most of the artillery near Narva, Peter I ordered the old Kremlin cannons to be converted into modern ones. Only at the last moment did he spare the Tsar Cannon for its uniqueness.
IN early XVIII century, it was moved to the Kremlin to the Arsenal gates (demolished due to the construction of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses), and in 1960 to its 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 the four hollow cast-iron cannonballs cast in 1835 at the St. Petersburg plant of Charles Byrd, are decorative. Placing the cannon on the carriage was a technically complex operation, for which the winning contractor, Mikhail Vasiliev, received a huge sum of 1,400 rubles at that time.
At the time of its creation, the Tsar Cannon was, to use a now favorite expression 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 have brought much more benefit. The main goal government was, in modern terms, PR.
When a heavy monument was erected in St. Petersburg in 1909 Alexander III works by Paolo Trubetskoy, 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-f...a.”
However, let me remind you of this opinion of artillery specialist A. Shirokorad
He claims that venerable historians and dissident joke-tellers are wrong all around. Firstly, the Tsar Cannon fired, and secondly, this weapon is not a cannon at all.
Currently, the Tsar Cannon is on a decorative cast-iron carriage, and next to it lie decorative cast-iron cannonballs, which were cast in 1834 in St. Petersburg at the Berda iron foundry. It is clear that it is physically impossible to either shoot from this cast-iron carriage or use cast-iron cannonballs - the Tsar Cannon will be smashed 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 fire shot, which in the 16th-17th centuries consisted of small stones. A minority of experts generally exclude the possibility of combat use of the gun, believing that it was made specifically to frighten foreigners, especially the ambassadors of the Crimean Tatars. Let us remember that in 1571 Khan Devlet Giray burned Moscow.
In the 18th - early 20th centuries, the Tsar Cannon was called a shotgun in all official documents. And only the Bolsheviks in the 1930s decided to increase its rank for propaganda purposes and began to call it a cannon.
The secret of the Tsar Cannon was revealed only in 1980, when a large truck crane removed it from its carriage and placed it on a huge trailer. Then the powerful KrAZ transported the Tsar Cannon to Serpukhov, where the cannon was repaired at the military unit No. 42708 plant. At the same time, a number of specialists from the Artillery Academy named after. Dzerzhinsky examined and measured it. 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 shape of a cone, the initial diameter of which is 900 mm and the final diameter is 825 mm. Then comes the charging chamber with a reverse taper - with an initial diameter of 447 mm and a final diameter (at the breech) of 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 "bombarda" comes from the Latin words bombus (thunderous sound) and arder (to burn). The first bombards were made of iron and had screw-mounted chambers. For example, in 1382, in the city of Ghent (Belgium), the “Mad Margaret” bombard was made, named 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 bore length is 5 klb. The weight of the gun is 11 tons. “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, made of 41 iron hoops welded together and with the inner layer. A separate screw chamber consists of one layer of disks welded together and is equipped with sockets into which a lever was inserted when screwing it in and out.
Loading and aiming large bombards took about a day. Therefore, during the siege of the city of Pisa in 1370, every time the besiegers prepared to fire a shot, the besieged went to the opposite end of the city. The besiegers, taking advantage of this, rushed to attack.
The bombard's charge was no more than 10% of the core's weight. There were no trunnions or carriages. The guns were laid on wooden blocks and log frames, and piles were driven in behind or erected brick walls for emphasis. Initially, the elevation angle did not change. In the 15th century, primitive lifting mechanisms began to be used and bombards were cast from copper.
Please note that the Tsar Cannon does not have trunnions, with the help of which the gun is given an elevation angle. In addition, it has an absolutely smooth rear section of the breech, with which it, like other bombards, rested against a stone wall or frame.
Defender of the Dardanelles
By the middle of the 15th century, the most powerful siege artillery was… Turkish Sultan. Thus, during the siege of Constantinople in 1453, the Hungarian foundry maker Urban cast the Turks a copper bombard with a caliber of 24 inches (610 mm), which fired stone cannonballs weighing about 20 pounds (328 kg). It took 60 bulls and 100 people 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 approximately the same. Just before the capture of Constantinople, a 24-inch bombard exploded. At the same time, its designer Urban himself died. The Turks appreciated large-caliber bombards. Already in 1480, during the battles on the island of Rhodes, they used 24-35-inch caliber (610-890 mm) bombards. The casting of such giant bombards required, as indicated in ancient documents, 18 days.
It is curious that bombards of the 15th-16th centuries in Turkey were in service until the middle of the 19th century. Thus, on March 1, 1807, during the crossing of the Dardanelles by the English squadron of Admiral Duckworth, a marble core of 25 inches (635 mm) caliber weighing 800 pounds (244 kg) hit the lower deck of the ship Windsor Castle and ignited several caps with gunpowder, as a result there was a terrible explosion. 46 people were killed and wounded. In addition, many sailors jumped overboard in fright and drowned. The Aktiv ship was hit by the same cannonball and punched a huge hole in the side above the waterline. Several people could stick their heads through this hole.
In 1868, over 20 huge bombards still stood on the forts defending the Dardanelles. There is information that during the Dardanelles operation of 1915, the English battleship Agamemnon was hit by a 400-kilogram stone core. Of course, it was unable to 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 in 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, the gunpowder charge weighed 22 kg.
Bombarda once defended the Dardanelles. As you can see, in appearance and in the design of the channel it is very similar to the Tsar Cannon. The main and fundamental difference is that the Turkish bombard has a screw-in breech. Apparently, the Tsar Cannon was made based on 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 a cast iron core of this caliber weighs 120 pounds (1.97 tons). As a shotgun, the Tsar Cannon was extremely ineffective. At the cost of the cost, instead, it was possible to produce 20 small shotguns, which would 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 follow the calibers: 25 pounds - 2, 22 pounds - 1, 21 pounds - 3, etc. Largest number shotguns, 11, are in the 2-pound gauge.
And yet she shot
Who and why wrote the Tsar Cannon into shotguns? The fact is that in Russia, all the old guns located in the fortresses, with the exception of mortars, over time were automatically transferred to shotguns, that is, in the event of a siege of the fortress, they had to shoot shot (stone), and later - cast iron grapeshot at the infantry marching for assault. It was inappropriate to use old guns to fire 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 in shotguns, in late XIX- at the beginning of the 20th century, the military forgot about the procedures in smooth-bore fortress artillery, and civilian historians did not know at all, and based on the name “shotgun” they decided that the Tsar Cannon was to be used exclusively as an anti-assault weapon for firing “stone shot”.
The dispute over whether the Tsar Cannon fired was settled in 1980 by experts from the Academy. Dzerzhinsky. They examined the bore of the gun and, based on a number of signs, including the presence of particles of burnt gunpowder, concluded that the Tsar Cannon had been 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.# To move the cannon, ropes were tied to eight brackets on its barrel, and 200 were harnessed to these ropes at the same time horses, and they rolled the 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 Kashpirov cannon lay near the Zemsky Prikaz, located where the Historical Museum is now located. In 1626, they were lifted from the ground and installed on log frames tightly 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 Kashpirova cannon, at the Nikolsky Gate. In 1636, the wooden rolls were replaced with stone ones, inside which warehouses and shops selling wine were built.
After the “Narva embarrassment,” when the tsar’s army lost all siege and regimental artillery, Peter I ordered new cannons to be urgently cast. The king decided to obtain the copper necessary for this by melting down bells and old guns. According to the “nominal decree”, it was “ordered to pour the Peacock cannon into cannon and mortar casting, which is on the roskat in China near the Execution Ground; the Kashpirov cannon, which is near the new Money Dvor, where the Zemsky order was located; the Echidna cannon, near the village of Voskresensky; the Krechet cannon with a ten-pound cannonball; "Nightingale" cannon with a 6-pound cannonball, 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, naturally, was the Tsar Cannon, as well as two mortars cast by Andrei Chokhov, which are currently in storage. Artillery Museum In Petersburg.
In this article: What is the Tsar Cannon? Who and where was it created? Why was it actually put on the Kremlin territory? What record does she hold? Where are her “twins” and has she really never fired?
The Tsar Cannon, like the Monomakh's Cap, is familiar to us from school. Her photographs are in almost every textbook or historical encyclopedia. IN different time were issued stamps with her image. Well, perhaps everyone in Moscow saw it. Every tourist who has visited the Kremlin will definitely take a selfie against its background. After all, it is not just a unique bombard and a historical monument. It demonstrates the art of Russian foundry workers and symbolizes the power of Russian artillery.
But what else do we know about her? Let's take a look at her interesting story.
Appearance
So let's take a closer look famous monument. The Tsar Cannon is now located in Moscow on Ivanovskaya Square near the Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles. It is a muzzle-loading smoothbore gun with the most large caliber in the world. Based on the length of the barrel (the Cannon has 6 calibers), according to the classification of the 17th and 18th centuries, it is considered a bombard; according to modern ones, it is considered a mortar. Cast in Moscow at the Cannon Yard in 1586.
The Tsar Cannon is a huge bronze colossus. It weighs 2,400 pounds, which is almost 40 tons. The length reaches 5.3 meters, its diameter along the outer edge is 1.2 meters, and together with the decorative belt it is all 134 centimeters. Its caliber is 35 inches (890 mm).
The length of the Cannon's barrel is decorated with four decorative relief belts, which divide it into three equal parts. On the right side, almost at the very barrel, there is a relief image of a horseman - Tsar Fyodor I Ioannovich (1557 - 1598), the third son of Ivan the Terrible. Above it is written:
In the center of the barrel there are two inscriptions:
The Tsar Cannon stands on a decorative cast iron carriage, which was cast in St. Petersburg in 1835 at the Berda factory. The artistic design was developed by A.P. Bryullov, and the drawing was prepared by P.Ya. de Witte. The carriage is decorated with floral patterns, in front there is a grinning muzzle of a lion, on the sides behind the wheels there are depictions of lions devouring snakes.
There are five cast iron cannonballs in front of the Cannon. Each weighs almost two tons. According to experts, the Cannon would not be able to shoot them.
"Father" of the Tsar Cannon
Its creator, Andrei Chokhov, is a famous foundry worker, bell and cannon maker. There is no date of his birth, but it is believed that he was born in 1545 and died in 1629. Almost nothing is known about his origins and personal life. Only a few facts and results of his work have reached us.
It is known that he studied foundry from the famous cannon master Kashpir Ganusov. Having become a famous foundry worker, Chokhov himself taught many students. Some of them became famous masters of their craft: P. Fedorov, G. Naumov, K. Mikhailov and others. From 1589 until his death, Andrei Chokhov worked in Moscow at the Cannon Yard. During this period of time, he created more than 20 different artillery pieces. Of these, only a few siege cannons of various calibers have survived to this day. These were squeaked by “Wolf”, “Lion”, “Stroopea”, and “King Achilles”.
History and purpose
As mentioned above, the Tsar Cannon was made in 1586. Initially it was installed at the Lobny Bridge for the defense of Red Square. Since the carriage was cast much later, it stood on a special flooring made of logs, the so-called cannon roll. The Cannon stood at this place until the 18th century, when it was moved to the Spassky Gate - the main gate of the Kremlin. Almost a century later, the Cannon was placed on the carriage described above. And only in the 1960s did the Tsar Cannon “move” to the place where we see it today.
There are still debates about the purpose of the Cannon. According to a study conducted in 1980, Soviet experts came to the conclusion that it was intended for conducting overhead fire with shot (small stone cannonballs).
But this version is rejected by some facts. For example, the presence of bronze tides in the barrel (they are inevitable when the tide of the guns goes out, but are erased by the ejected cannonball at the first shot). And, most importantly, the Cannon has no ignition hole! And if it is impossible to ignite gunpowder, then by definition it cannot shoot.
So why was it necessary to cast such a huge thing? Has there really been extra bronze?
There are some assumptions about this. There is a theory that the Cannon was cast for decorative and display purposes. It was supposed to decorate Red Square, become a symbol of the power and skill of Russian foundries, and also impress ambassadors, traders and other foreigners. In general, to throw dust in the eyes of your enemies and make your compatriots proud.
“Twins” of the Tsar Cannon and its outstanding record
She has her doubles. A copy of the gun stands in Donetsk in front of the city hall, another in Izhevsk on the territory of the Izhstal OJSC enterprise, and another in Yoshkar-Ola.
Interestingly, the Tsar Cannon was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the cannon with the largest caliber.
Every resident of Russia, during a tour of the Moscow Kremlin, certainly saw two unique historical artifacts - the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell. At the same time, the guide probably claimed that the bell never rang and the cannon never fired. This is wrong. The Tsar Cannon was once fired, although from the point of view military science she artillery piece never showed up.
Cannon for the Tsar
Despite the fact that today the Tsar Cannon is considered a fake, it was cast in 1586 on the personal order of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich for the defense of Moscow. The creator of the giant gun, or rather its barrel, was the cannon yard foundry worker Andrei Chokhov. During his 18 years as a gunsmith, this talented master made many unique guns, among which the Tsar Cannon turned out to be the most grandiose. Its weight was 39,310 kilograms, with a barrel length of 5.4 meters and a caliber of 890 mm. Since the formidable weapon was intended to protect Moscow, from the moment of its creation until 1706, the Tsar Cannon carried out combat service at the fortifications of Kitai-Gorod. Subsequently, it was moved to the courtyard of the Arsenal, and then to Ivanovskaya Square of the Moscow Kremlin.
Tsar Mortar
What the guides are right about is that the cannonballs and carriage of the Tsar Cannon were actually manufactured much later and are fake. The fact is that the Tsar Cannon is actually a mortar, which was never mounted on a carriage when firing, but was dug into the ground, reinforced with logs. More often similar look weapons were used to storm fortresses or defend them. The carriage for the Tsar Cannon was made in 1835 according to a sketch by Alexander Bryullov, when it was decided to install the cannon on Ivanovo Square as a decoration. The cores were cast at the Bird plant in St. Petersburg. Each of them weighs about two tons. According to experts, if the Tsar Cannon is loaded with these metal cannonballs and fired, its barrel will burst and the carriage will fall apart. This is not surprising, since during the creation of this weapon it was assumed that stone cannonballs weighing approximately 800 kilograms would be fired from it, while the weapon itself would be strengthened in the ground so that the recoil from the shot would go into it. No more than six shots could be fired from such a weapon per day.
The weapons of the formidable king
The most interesting thing is that during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, who made many military campaigns, 11 similar guns were cast. They were used during the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan, as well as in military campaigns against Sweden, Poland and Lithuania. Among the predecessors of the Tsar Cannon, one can note the Kashpirov cannon, weighing 19.65 tons, and the Peacock, weighing 16.7 tons. These guns were actively used during the siege of Polotsk by the troops of Ivan the Terrible to destroy the walls of the city.
It should be noted that, according to legend, the Tsar Cannon was once fired... with the ashes of False Dmitry. By the way, the fact of a single shot from the Tsar Cannon was confirmed by experts who examined the barrel of the Tsar Cannon in Soviet time. But scientists were unable to say exactly when the shot was fired. In their opinion, this was much earlier than the Time of Troubles. Most likely, the shot was fired shortly after the gun was cast at the cannon yard, with the purpose of testing it before installation in Kitai-Gorod. Moreover, the fact that the cannon never took part in battles is explained solely by the lack of military operations near the city walls during the years of its combat duty, and not at all by its professional unsuitability, as is commonly believed today.