Huge tsar-cannon of a small tsar. Tsar Cannon. Can it be fired? What was the tsar cannon supposed to shoot

The Tsar Cannon has long been one of the symbols of Russia. And she also entered dozens of jokes, which featured 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 jokers are wrong. Firstly, the Tsar Cannon fired, and secondly, this gun is not a cannon at all.
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.

HISTORY Tsar Cannon
In 1586, alarming news came to Moscow: the Crimean Khan was moving towards the city with his horde. In this regard, the Russian master Andrei Chokhov, on the orders of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, cast a huge gun, which was intended to protect the Kremlin.

A giant gun 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 across the Moscow River and the Spassky Gates and laid on the ground next to the Peacock cannon. To move the gun, ropes were tied to eight brackets on its trunk, 200 horses were harnessed to these ropes at the same time, 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. 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.

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 (only lighter stone ones) - the Tsar Cannon will be blown to smithereens! It should be said right away that 4 cast-iron cores, folded in a pyramid near the foot of the cannon, perform 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 shoot shot, which in the 16th-17th centuries consisted of small stones. A minority of experts generally rule out the possibility of combat use of the gun, 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.
In fact, this is not a cannon or a shotgun, but a classic bombard. It is customary to call a gun a gun with a barrel length of more than 40 calibers. And this gun has a length of only four calibers, the same as the bombard. Bombards are large-sized wall-beating weapons that destroy 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 artillery crews, since such guns often burst. 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.
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.
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 shots (stone), and later - 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 written into shotguns.

FIRST SHOT
According to legend, the Tsar Cannon, nevertheless, fired. It 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 changeable 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. It was a "commercial execution", which was subjected only to persons of "vile" origin.

On the day of the election, Tsar Vasily ordered the removal of False Dmitry from the square. The corpse was tied to a horse, dragged out into the field and buried there by the side of the road.
Near the pit, which became the last refuge of the king, people saw blue lights rising straight from the ground.
The next day after the burial, the corpse was found near the almshouse. He was buried even deeper, but after a while, the body reappeared, but in a different cemetery. People said that his land does not accept.
Then the cold broke out, and all the greenery in the city withered.

The clergy were alarmed by these rumors and deliberated for a long time how 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 pit, dragged for the last time through the streets of the city, after which it was taken to the village of Kotly south of Moscow and burned there. After that, the ashes were mixed with gunpowder and fired from the Tsar Cannon towards Poland - from where False Dmitry came.

Another refutation of the use of the gun 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 Fedor Ioanovich, Grand Duke of Moscow and Tsar of All Russia, died in the Moscow Kremlin. During the reign of the last of the direct Ruriks, significant events happened quite a few. Cities were founded: Samara, Saratov, Tsaritsyn (Volgograd), Voronezh, Arkhangelsk, Tobolsk, Surgut - new frontiers of the actively growing Russian State were fixed.

The next Russian-Swedish war was completed and Russia, as a result of which access to the Baltic Sea was returned along the Koporye-Yam line ... Not a few worthy deeds are obtained, but Tsar Fedor is not remembered for this ... The main memory of him still stands on the Ivanovskaya Square of the Moscow Kremlin, and the name 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 world's largest artillery gun was created, which remains so to this day. Let not in size, but in terms of the caliber of the barrel - for sure.

In 1586, on the royal command, work began on the creation of a grandiose cannon. Historians are still struggling with the reason for such an unusual move, but most are inclined to believe that the weapon was created to produce an external effect on foreign ambassadors. Like, look what we can do. Let's eat so much that 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 unsightly physically and meek in character).

The production was led by foundry master Andrey Chokhov.

Andrey Chokhov (1545 - 1629) - the famous Russian caster, the creator of a large number of cannons and church bells. One of the surviving examples of the uniqueness of creativity is Chokhov's siege squeakers. The students continued and developed the traditions of the master (in particular Alexey Nikiforov).

Casting work was carried out at the Moscow Cannon Yard (now the area of ​​​​Lubyanskaya Square) for several months. The main material for production was bronze. According to the production technology, the gun fully corresponded to the standards adopted at that time. Only more…much more!

With the help of two hundred horses, the finished superweapon was dragged to the Red Square of the Kremlin for demonstration to the sovereign. The barrel of the cannon was skillfully decorated with the image of Fyodor Ivanovich with all the royal regalia and on horseback. In addition, the patterns go around the entire circumference of the trunk in the form of a ligature. Whether the giant cannon was fired during the demonstration - no evidence has been preserved, and, given the meek disposition of Tsar Fedor, most likely not.

On the trunk there is also a dedication to Tsarina Irina Fedorovna Godunova (wife of Tsar Fyodor) and a mention of what the “Litez Chokhov” made the monster.
According to one version, in connection with the presence of the image of the king, the cannon was called “Tsar Cannon”.

According to the second version, the name is associated primarily with the size of the work of cannon makers and casters of medieval Russia.
Another name for the gun was "Shotgun", as it was intended for firing small shells - "shot" (stone or metal uncalibrated buckshot).

Having admired enough, the cannon was hoisted onto a wooden peal (carriage) and put 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 a weapon against the Tatars of Khan Kazy Giray who had run up, but they did not dare to approach the distance of effective shooting and the shot fell off.

Subsequently, already under Pyotr Alekeseevich Romanov in 1706, having gathered their strength, the cannon was dragged to the courtyard of the Kremlin Arsenal. And for a long time the whole country admired the skill of gunsmiths and marveled at the size, and also showed it to overseas guests.

In 1835, a new cast-iron carriage was cast for the cannon (designed by Academician A.P. Bryullov) and decorative cannon balls weighing approximately 2 tons each. Then they rolled it to the Armory, where other models of guns were put on display.

In the 60s of the twentieth century, the Tsar Cannon was finally hoisted to the place where it still stands, at the bell tower of Ivan the Great. Or not quite right, 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 this is, first of all, a military weapon, such as a bombard, intended for firing at a flat or hinged 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 from the side of the barrel; for this, an ignition cord was inserted into the powder chamber from the side of the muzzle.

The total weight of the artillery dinosaur is about 39 tons 312 kg, the barrel length is 5 meters 34 centimeters, the barrel caliber is 890 millimeters.

There are several opinions whether the Tsar Cannon fired during its 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. Gumilyov there is a mention that the ashes of False Dmitry I were dispelled by a shot from a legendary gun.

However, there are supporters and versions that the cannon was never fired. As evidence, intact traces of the casting inside the barrel are indicated.

About records

Tsar Cannon takes pride of place among the world record holders in the Guinness Book as the largest caliber gun (890mm).

Family of Tsar Cannons

In 2001, in the city of gunsmiths Izhevsk, by order of the Government of the Russian Federation, two copies of the symbol of artillery valor were made with almost exact observance of the main parameters. One copy was then solemnly presented to the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, where it was installed near the city hall.

The second replica adorns the territory of the OAO Izhstal 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 match the original, there is no number of patterns on the barrel, others have been changed, the decorative cores are also much smaller than the original ones. The gun was suitable for firing, so the barrel was caulked with a special core.

But the most interesting "Tsar Cannon" is located in the open-air museum "Motovilikha Plant" in the city of Perm. A real combat ship's mortar, created in 1868 for the defense of St. Petersburg from the forts of Kronstadt.

The weight of the gun with a carriage is 144 (!) tons, caliber 508 mm.

Having successfully passed artillery tests, the gun did not take up combat duty - during the tests and demonstrations in 1873 in Vienna, it managed to become technically obsolete after Krupp created a shutter for loading guns from the breech. By decree of Tsar Alexander II, the cannon was preserved as a museum piece.

Conclusion

Why exactly the Tsar Cannon was created does not really matter in our time. 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!

Video

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, showing off 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.

From place to place, a giant tool was moved on wooden rollers by 200 horses, 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 a classic bombard - a medieval gun 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. The last case of their successful application dates back to 1807. A 244-kilogram stone ball hit the powder magazine of the 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 Andrey 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 youth, quickly moved forward and cast more than twenty large guns in more than 40 years of work. The master successfully survived the terror of Ivan the Terrible and the 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 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 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 experts generally rule out the possibility of combat use of the gun, 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 cannonballs 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, when the English squadron of Admiral Duckworth crossed the Dardanelles, 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. The largest number of shotguns, 11, falls on the 2-pounder.

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 shots (stone), and later - 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 in shotguns, in the late XIX - early XX 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 the Historical Museum is now located. 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.

In this article: What is the Tsar Cannon? Who and where was it created? Why was she actually put on the territory of the Kremlin? What record does she own? Where are her "twins" and has she never shot?

Tsar Cannon, like the Cap of Monomakh, is familiar to us from school time. Her photographs are in almost every textbook or historical encyclopedia. At various times, postage stamps with her image were issued. Well, in Moscow, perhaps everyone saw her. Every tourist who has visited the Kremlin will definitely take a selfie against its background. After all, it is not just a unique bombardment 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 at the famous monument. Tsar Cannon is now located in Moscow on Ivanovskaya Square not far from the Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles. It is a muzzle-loading smoothbore gun with the largest caliber in the world. According to the length of the barrel (the Cannon has 6 calibers), according to the classification of the 17th - 18th centuries, it is considered a bombard, according to the modern one - a mortar. Cast in Moscow at the Cannon Yard in 1586.

The Tsar Cannon is a huge bronze colossus. Its weight is 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 134 centimeters. Its caliber is 35 inches (890 mm).

Along the length of the Cannon's barrel, there are four decorative embossed belts that divide it into three equal parts. On the right side, almost at the very muzzle, there is a relief image of a rider - Tsar Fyodor I Ivanovich (1557 - 1598), the third son of Ivan the Terrible. Above it is written:

In the center of the trunk are two inscriptions:

The Tsar Cannon stands on a decorative gun carriage made of cast iron, which was cast in St. Petersburg in 1835 at the Byrd factory. Artistic design was developed by A. P. Bryullov, and the drawing was prepared by P. Ya. de Witte. The carriage is decorated with floral ornaments, in front there is a grinning muzzle of a lion, on the sides behind the wheels there are lions devouring snakes.

In front of the Cannon lies five cast-iron cannonballs. Each weighs almost two tons. According to experts, the Cannon would not be able to shoot them.

"Father" Tsar Cannon

Its creator is Andrey Chokhov, a renowned caster, 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 the results of his labors have come down to us.

It is known that he studied foundry under 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 squeakers of various calibers have survived to this day. These were the squeaks of "Wolf", "Lion", "Skoropeya", and "King Achilles".

History and purpose

As mentioned above, the Tsar Cannon was made in 1586. Initially, it was installed at the Frontal Bridge for the defense of Red Square. Since the gun carriage was cast much later, it stood on a special floor made of logs, the so-called cannon peal. At this place, the Cannon stood until the 18th century, until it was moved to the Spassky Gate - the main gate of the Kremlin. Almost a century later, the Cannon was put on the carriage described above. And only in the 1960s Tsar Cannon "moved" to the place where we see it today.

There are still disputes 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 mounted fire with shot (small stone cores).

But this version is rejected by some facts. For example, the presence of bronze tides in the barrel (they are inevitable when the guns are cast, but are erased by the ejected core at the first shot). And, most importantly, the Cannon does not have a flash hole! And if it is impossible to ignite gunpowder, then it cannot shoot, by definition.

So why cast such a hulk? Did the extra bronze appear?

There are some assumptions about this. There is a theory that Cannon was cast for decorative and demonstrative purposes. She was supposed to decorate Red Square with herself, become a symbol of the power and skill of Russian foundry workers, and also impress ambassadors, merchants and other foreigners. In general, throw dust in the eyes of enemies and cause pride among compatriots.

"Twins" Tsar Cannon and its outstanding record

She has her doppelgangers. A copy of the gun stands in front of the city hall in Donetsk, another one in Izhevsk on the territory of the Izhstal OJSC enterprise, and another one in Yoshkar-Ola.

Interestingly, the Tsar Cannon got into the Guinness Book of Records as the gun with the largest caliber.

Every resident of Russia during a tour of the Moscow Kremlin, of course, 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 did not fire. This is not true. Once a shot was fired from the Tsar Cannon, although from the point of view of military science it was never an artillery gun.

Cannon for the king

Despite the fact that today the Tsar Cannon is considered a sham, it was cast in 1586 on the nominal order of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich for the defense of Moscow. The creator of the giant gun, or rather its barrel, was the foundry worker of the cannon yard Andrei Chokhov. For 18 years of his work as a gunsmith, this talented master made many unique weapons, 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 served in combat on the fortifications of Kitai-Gorod. Subsequently, it was moved to the courtyard of the Arsenal, and then to the 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 indeed made much later and are fake. The fact is that the Tsar Cannon is actually a mortar, which was never installed when firing on a carriage, but dug into the ground, reinforced with logs. Most often, this type of weapon was used in the storming of fortresses or their defense. The carriage for the Tsar Cannon was made in 1835 according to the sketch of Alexander Bryullov, when it was decided to install the gun on Ivanovskaya Square as a decoration. The cores were cast at the Byrd plant in St. Petersburg. Each of them weighs about two tons. According to the calculations of experts, if the Tsar Cannon is charged with these metal cannonballs and fired, then its barrel will break, and the gun carriage will fall apart. This is not surprising, since at the time of the creation of this tool it was assumed that it would be fired from stone cores weighing about 800 kilograms, while the tool itself would be strengthened in the ground so that the recoil from the shot went into it. No more than six shots could be fired from such a gun per day.

Weapons of the formidable king

The most interesting thing is that during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, who made many military campaigns, 11 such guns were cast. They were used in the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan, as well as in military campaigns against Sweden, Poland and Lithuania. Among the predecessors of the Tsar Cannon, the Kashpirov Cannon weighing 19.65 tons and the Peacock weighing 16.7 tons can be noted. These guns were actively used during the siege by the troops of Ivan the Terrible of Polotsk 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 conducted a study of the barrel of the Tsar Cannon in Soviet times. But, scientists could not say exactly when the shot was fired. In their opinion, it was much earlier than the Time of Troubles. Most likely, the shot was fired shortly after the gun was cast at the cannon yard, in order to test it before installation in Kitay-Gorod. At the same time, the fact that the gun never took part in battles is explained solely by the absence of hostilities near the walls of the city during the years of its combat duty, and not at all by professional unsuitability, as is commonly believed today.