Petersburg is considered the watchmaking capital of Russia. The first city clock in St. Petersburg appeared in 1704. It was a mechanical clock that was installed under the spire of the Peter and Paul Church, which was then wooden. The first city chimes appeared in 1710 on the bell tower of St. Isaac's Church. On the stone bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, exactly the same ones were mounted in 1720. In 1852, a clock from the Friedrich Winter company was installed on the building of the Moscow Station, which also installed them. The same company supplied clock mechanisms, which were placed in 1869 on the Main Admiralty and on the tower of the City Duma in 1884. Later, the same clock was installed on the building of the School House in 1911.

The first electric clock appeared in St. Petersburg in 1880, when Siemens and Halske took up their installation. New electric clocks were installed on the buildings of the Main Admiralty and the Imperial Public Library. On the tower of the Main Chamber of Weights and Measures, located on Moskovsky Prospekt, in 1905, an astronomical clock from the Neuger and Sons company with three dials was installed. By 1910, about 70 city clocks and chimes were located in the city, and St. Petersburg time became the standard. Mass installation of clocks on the streets of St. Petersburg began in the 30s.

For the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg, the Swiss Confederation made an official gift - "100 hours for St. Petersburg". Representatives of the Swiss company Moser-Baer AG, together with OOO Matis, carried out work on the reconstruction and restoration of historical clocks. They were equipped with new Swiss movements with radio correction and an arrow position sensor. The watch hands are controlled via a communication satellite. Today, about 800 hours operate on the streets of the northern capital. Their reconciliation is carried out according to the astronomical clock of the exact time. But watchmakers say that some of them stop from time to time, freezing on some of their own historical time.

Chimes of the Peter and Paul Fortress

The history of tower clocks in St. Petersburg began in 1704, when the first clock was installed under the spitz of the wooden bell tower of the Peter and Paul Church. History has preserved the name of the master Nikifor Arkhipov. Unfortunately, the mechanism he created was soon lost and the melody that announced the new hour was played on the bells by hand. With the erection of a stone cathedral designed by Domenico Trezzini, the question of making watches again arose. This time the chimes were ordered by Peter I from Holland. According to the memoirs of Berchholz, the chamber junker of the Duke of Holstein, at the Peter and Paul Bell Tower of Peter the Great's time every day at 12 o'clock a special organist played pieces. And the Big Clock played by itself every quarter of an hour. Having existed for more than three decades, the clock was destroyed during a fire in 1756. The search for the master was entrusted to Count Ivan Golovkin, who at that time represented the interests of Russia in The Hague. The choice fell again on the Dutch watchmaker Oort Krass. The chimes he created were delivered to the Neva banks in August 1761, but they languished for another 15 years, waiting in the wings due to the repair of the bell tower. But still they took their rightful place. 38 Dutch bells were installed on the belfry, on which the musicians played various melodies. The hammers that struck them were connected by special cables to the keyboard. After the modernization of the chimes of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, carried out by the Moscow workshops of the Butenop brothers in 1858, the musicians playing melodies on the keyboard were successfully replaced by four ingenious mechanisms. At the same time, after the “musical knot” was improved, the melodies “How glorious is our Lord in Zion” and the anthem of the Russian Empire “God save the Tsar, strong, sovereign, reign for glory ...” sounded from the bell tower. The political changes in the country that came after 1917 also affected the chimes of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, "retuned" first to the "International", and from 1952 to 1989 to the anthem of the Soviet Union. And only in 2002, the melodies originally intended for them sounded again over the Peter and Paul Fortress. To date, there are 103 bells on four tiers of the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Including a carillon donated by Flanders in 2001, consisting of 51 bells of various sizes. Their voices can be heard during concerts in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Clock on the tower of the Main Admiralty

In 1711, a clock appeared on the tower of the Main Admiralty, which served the city faithfully for more than a century.

And the modern clock was installed only in 1869. Then the mechanism in the clock was connected to the bells that chimed.

Their mechanism worked until 1907, the time when it was stopped in order to connect the dial to new electrical devices.

It is known that during the blockade the clock on the tower of the Main Admiralty did not work. But already in 1944, their shooters "ran" again.

Clock on the tower of the city Duma

The Duma clock tower has its own special biography. Built at the end of the 18th century according to the project of the Italian Giacomo Ferrari, it became both the tower of the town hall, and signal in case of fire, and later one of the links of the world's longest (1200 km) optical telegraph line St. Petersburg-Warsaw. The clock on the tower of the Duma was installed immediately, which can be judged from B. Petersen's watercolor, but which one is unknown. They served for about 80 years. In the 70s of the XIX century, the mayor of St. Petersburg F. Trepov conceived an ambitious project - night lighting of the clock on the tower of the City Duma. In 1882, after examining the mechanism of the watch, experts came to the conclusion that it had long since deteriorated "due to its complete dilapidation." The city government decided to allocate 3,570 rubles for the installation of a new mechanism, with two metal and two matte glass dials, illuminated at night. In June 1883, an agreement was concluded with watchmaker F. Winter to install this clock. Moreover, he could receive payment only after all the work. If the clock began to fall behind by more than two minutes in a month, the master should have been subject to a fine. The master undertook to start the mechanism for 50 rubles a year. The clock struck four times an hour. Alexander Blok wrote: “You can’t hear the noise of the city, there is silence over the Neva tower ...” And silence over the Neva tower under Blok could only be in between the quarter chimes of the clock. It is known that the clock was repaired several times, but already in Soviet times. A case was connected with them, which the newspapers of that time dubbed "the clinical death of the main Leningrad avenue." For the first time in many years, silence reigned over the Neva Tower in the summer of 1986, when an uninvited guest entered it, who unscrewed a nut from a huge mechanism. The half-pound piece of iron was soon returned to its place. But two years later, several gears and a counting wheel were stolen from the mechanism. The "Voice of Nevsky" fell silent again. The Duma clock was repaired in 1989, then in 1994. The old clock was running, and with a deviation of no more than 30 seconds per week. They walked despite the fact that in winter the mechanism was blown with snow, the watch dials cracked, and Vladimir Repin, a repairman for old large-sized watches, twisted the cracked dials with bandages and manually wound the mechanism - 760 revolutions, lifting three weights for a fight and for the clock. After the recent repair and renovation of the chimes, the voice of Nevsky Prospekt finally sounded in a new way.

Clock on the tower of the Institute of Metrology

Almost in the very center of the city, next to the University of Technology, an old building with a clock tower is hiding in the shade of trees. High, under the most semicircular roof, on this tower are three huge dials. One of them is unusual: it does not have the usual twelve digits, but twenty-four - by the number of hours in a day. The clock on the tower of the Institute of Metrology is the most accurate clock in St. Petersburg. They were installed on the initiative of Dmitri Mendeleev. All clocks at the Research Institute of Metrology are linked into a single mechanism. This is not just a set of various instruments for measuring time, but a whole well-coordinated electromechanical system introduced by Mendeleev. At the head of this system are exemplary clocks, on which all the others, primarily tower clocks, “orient themselves”. The exemplary clock is located in a special room. The translation of time on the tower clock is carried out as follows: the mechanism is stopped for a day, and the next day the system is started at the “new” time and the hands again begin their usual course. This tower clock did not stop even during the blockade and was a symbol of life for the inhabitants of Leningrad. During the war, 12 laboratories worked at the institute, including the laboratory of time. Her work did not stop even in the winter of 1941-1942, since it was allowed to use part of the electricity intended for the Olga radio transmitter, which was installed at the research institute and connected the city with the mainland. The clock mechanism, which is more than a hundred years old, is enclosed in a human-height glass cabinet. Behind the transparent wall are numerous gears. Every minute there is a movement - an endless rotation. The work of the clock is similar to the vital activity of a complex organism. Initially, the course of the clock was provided as follows: a huge weight was lowered into the mine - a bucket filled with lead weights, "pigs". The number of "pigs" was strictly regulated: as soon as one was removed, the total weight, the period of oscillation of the pendulum, and hence the accuracy of the clock, changed. In the 1960s, the pendulum stood forever - the clock was transferred to an electric drive through a gearbox.

Clock-chimes of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra

The first chimes on one of the towers of the Lavra's Holy Trinity Cathedral were installed in 1782. A 13-ton bell was hoisted on the neighboring tower. Four years later, the cathedral, designed by Ivan Starov, was consecrated and the relics of Alexander Nevsky were transferred to it. The clock worked for more than a century, but did not survive the first years of Soviet power. The Lavra waited a long time for the chimes to return, and only in 2013, when the 300th anniversary of the monastery was celebrated, was a copy of the old clock installed. Their battle, like the ringing of new cast bells, again sounded over St. Petersburg. The arrival of electronics to the aid of watchmakers has simplified the control of chimes. The chimes strike every 15 minutes. The first quarter - two bells, 30 minutes - four, three quarters - six, all the bells play for a full hour, and then the 600 kilogram bell beats the required number of strokes.

Clock on the facade of the building of the Nakhimov Naval School

The construction of the building with the clock became possible thanks to the victory in the competition of architectural projects dedicated to the 200th anniversary of St. Petersburg, architect A.I. Dmitriev. In 1909-1910. The school building named after Peter the Great was erected. Since 1944, the Nakhimov School has been located in the building.

Watches at the Blacksmith's Market

This clock is one of the most mysterious clocks in St. Petersburg.

The blacksmith's market was built in the late 1920s. Soviet ideology was sung by images, hammer and sickle, ears of corn, figures of workers and peasants.

And only the tower clock looks more than strange against this background: the dial with a five-pointed star is framed by the signs of the Zodiac.

No information about their author and manufacturer has survived to this day. In the 1950s, the clock disappeared, replaced by an empty attic window. And only in the 90s, during the reconstruction of the entire market, they decided to return the clock to its place.

For more than half a year, the masters restored the original appearance of the clock according to the only existing photograph.

Clock at the Transfiguration Cathedral

Previously, on the site of the Transfiguration Cathedral, there was another church that burned down in 1825. After 4 years, the cathedral was rebuilt, but only the northwestern belfry was left without a dial. The clock was returned to its historical place after a quarter of a century in 1853. They were made in London by the John Moore & Sons watch company. During restoration, 32 bullet holes from the times of the Civil War were found on the clock: the temple was shot from the side of Liteiny Prospekt. There is a legend that the main clock bell - the battle bell, which strikes every hour day and night, is made of decorative elements that adorned the hearse of the mother of Nicholas I, Maria Feodorovna.

Clock at the Marble Palace

The clock on the building of the Marble Palace was installed in 1781. But the clock on the building today is new, made in the mid-1990s. The clock was restored from some details that were accidentally preserved among the debris at the bottom of the clock shaft.

Every three days, the watch requires manual winding. Seven-meter chains lift weights weighing more than 150 kg.

Like the old tsarist times, the bells of the palace beat off every 15 minutes.

Clock at the Hermitage

The project of the Winter Palace, authored by the famous architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli, did not provide for any clock on the facade of the building. But in 1796, by order of the sovereign, the Russian inventor Ivan Kulibin moved the clock here from the Chesme Palace on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. However, their century was not so long, in a new place they barely had time to count their fortieth birthday. The clock was irreparably damaged by fire during the fire of 1837. The restoration of the imperial residence was started immediately, but the clock was reached only two years later. With the task of creating a new clock, they turned to the venerable mechanic A. Gelfer, who had previously designed a tower clock for the Lutheran Church named after St. Peter and Paul. The master graciously agreed, asking His Imperial Majesty for eight months and funds for implementation. As a result, a new clock appeared on the pediment of the Winter Palace in 1839. The dial of the clock is made of steel in the shape of a circle and covered with black lacquer. The numbers and hands of the watch are gilded. The diameter of the dial is 160 cm. The height of the numbers is 20 cm, and the distance between the minute divisions is 8 cm. The length of the minute hand is 100 cm, and the hour hand is 78 cm. The dial is at a height of 22 m and is attached directly to the wall of the Winter Palace. Since this is a clock with a quarter bell ringing, the hour belfry is installed behind the ridge of the pediment on the roof of the palace. Today, as in 1839, watches are wound by hand. One plant is enough for three days. Once the depth of the shaft, through which the weights walked, was 16.5 m, or about half the height of the Winter Palace. At the same time, the watch had only a daily winding. Today, modern technology has made it possible to shorten the shaft for weights to 4.6 m. The last time the clock was restored was in 1994-1995. Figures adorn the dial on both sides. Nowhere else are they repeated. Hades and Persephone are the rulers of earthly and underground treasures. On the central pediment of the Northern facade - Hercules and Neptune.

Clock on Vege's house

The building in the form of a hexagon, which is called the Vega apartment building, is located between the Mariinsky Theater and Nikolsky Morskoy. During the construction of the house, the main facade was decorated with a clock, with Roman numerals on the dial.

When the chronometer got up, it was covered with a sheet of plywood. They tried to reconstruct the clock mechanism, but all attempts were unsuccessful. The chronometer stood for about 50 years.

In the fall of 2015, it was replaced with a complete copy of the mechanism that was installed here more than a century ago.

Clock at the Moscow railway station

The Moskovsky railway station was built in 1847 and, until it acquired its current name, it bore the name of Nikolaevsky, and then Oktyabrsky.

The architect built the station, which in appearance resembles a European town hall.

One of the main architectural details in the exterior of the building is a 4-corner clock tower located on top of the central entrance.

Some time after the completion of construction work, a unique watch device with a bell was placed on the tower.

Clock on the tower of Finland Station

The first station building was built on the Finnish Railway in 1870 according to the project of the architect Peter Kupinsky.

Above the facade of the Finland Station, on the metal structure of the tower, there is a city white metal clock with a five-meter diameter.

Clock of the Gatchina Palace

The Gatchina Palace was built in 1781 and even then was decorated with a tower clock. In Soviet times, the watch was lost, in place of the dial there was a gaping void. Optical engineer Yuri Platonov restored the clock from a photograph of the clock of the Marble Palace, built in the same period by the same master, Antonio Rinaldi. From the clock of the Marble Palace by that time only a few details remained. According to them, the dimensions of the clock mechanism were calculated. It took over a year to create. In 1993, a clock mechanism was installed in the Gatchina Tower, and in 1994 the dials showed the time, beating every quarter of an hour. The watch worked for 15 years, it didn't run for 2 years. But in 2012 they were restored, the tower was insulated. Now the clock is running.

Clock tower of Vyborg

Vyborg Cathedral survived six centuries, but was destroyed in the twentieth century, during the German bombing during World War II.

Despite the almost complete destruction of the cathedral, its bell tower was not damaged. Some townspeople see this as "God's providence", but the case did not always keep the belfry. The first strong fire happened in 1678, the fire spread from one building to another and gradually reached the clock tower of the cathedral. The heat from the flame melted both the clockwork and the brass bells.

The inhabitants quickly restored the tower, reinforcing it with stone. After 60 years, the fire was repeated, and in 1793 the bell tower, like the whole city, burned for the third time.

At the time of the next restoration, the clock was moved to the upper part of the bell tower. The new mechanism was ordered from a watchmaker from Helsinki. The new clock began to show the time in all parts of the world, and residents to this day can find out what time it is from any part of the city.

July 12 is the day of the holy apostles Peter and Paul. We invite you to take a photo tour of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul of the Peter and Paul Fortress together with the chairman of the Society of Church Bell Ringers Igor Vasilyevich Konovalov and find out how the bells of the highest bell tower in Russia are arranged and who sang the anthem of the Soviet Union on the church bells.

Surprisingly: Peter the Great, founding a new capital on the banks of the Neva, first of all erects a bell tower with a very high spire. It is the bell tower, and not some other structure, that is a kind of banner, which means that Russia stands firmly on the banks of the Neva.

Many believe that in terms of architecture, the Peter and Paul Cathedral was built like a Western church. I think it's wrong. If we carefully look at it, we will find out that from the Western church architecture there is only one element there - the pulpit, that is, the elevation at the left pre-altar pillar. A sermon is delivered from the pulpit and the Holy Scriptures are read for those who are in the temple, so that the preacher or reader can be clearly seen and heard.

Another noteworthy detail is the wooden carved iconostasis with a rich set of icons. They say it was made somewhat theatrically, in the form of a theatrical scenery. Perhaps this is so. The iconostasis does not block the entire altar, but the altar curtain fills the role of the missing wooden parts.

The bell tower of the cathedral, as is canonically accepted in Orthodox churches, is located above the western entrance.

It acquired its final form, that is, the one it was before the revolution of 1917, just a few years ago, when a carillon was installed in the lower tier of the ringing - a musical instrument in which bells are used instead of strings. It is possible to perform all kinds of secular musical works on it, because the bells are tuned clearly according to the chromatic scale.

Above the carillon is the so-called church bell or, as it is mistakenly called, the “Russian belfry”, although the belfry is not a set of bells, but a bell-bearing structure, made in the form of a wall with bells hanging on it.

The bell ringing of the Peter and Paul Cathedral includes one of the heaviest surviving historical bells of St. Petersburg - a 5-ton evangelist. This bell was cast under Nicholas II in Gatchina at the Lavrov bell foundry and brought to the cathedral. And at the same plant, medium and small bells of Russian bell ringing were cast.

Due to some circumstances that are not clear to us now, the church bell ringing of the Peter and Paul Cathedral was in some desolation even before the revolution. Many bells were broken, many hung uselessly. And the ringing itself was quite "motley". The history of the largest bell is interesting. It was cast from an old bell cast under Tsars Ioann Alekseevich and Pyotr Alekseevich around the 80s of the 17th century. By the will of Tsar Peter the Great, he was moved from somewhere to the new capital, St. Petersburg.

The bell set of the Peter and Paul Cathedral is one of the few that survived after the revolution, and in fact most of the bells were melted down in the late 20s and early 30s. The "second wave" of the death of bells - the years of the so-called "thaw", they are also the period of exacerbation of the persecution of the Church.

It is difficult to say why the bells were preserved in the Cathedral of Peter and Paul. Perhaps they hung too high. Or maybe they were not of particular value for remelting: their total weight is only 8 or 9 tons, which is not much.

Above the Russian church bells, in an octagonal superstructure under the spire, there is another completely unique set of bells - Dutch tuned chimes of the middle - end of the 18th century, during the reign of Catherine II.

Clockwork

The spire of the cathedral burned several times, the bells were damaged and broken, but were restored by the will of the emperors and empresses. These bells played the melodies of the clocks of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The bells beat quarters: at 15 minutes - once, at half an hour - two, at three quarters of an hour - three times. When an hour passed, they played 4 quarters and the hour bell sounded on the number of hours. Until 1917, they sang at the beginning of every hour "How glorious is our Lord from Zion", and at 12 o'clock in the afternoon - the national anthem "God Save the Tsar". The watch was made in Holland by Ort Krass.

Under the Soviet regime, it was decided that the clock of the Peter and Paul Cathedral should play the anthem of the Soviet Union - "Unbreakable Union of Free Republics." But the local party organs forbade the anthem to be performed on the upper bells, specially tuned for the performance of hourly melodies, because they considered it a flagrant disgrace to perform the USSR anthem on foreign-made bells.

And an unheard-of decision was made: for the performance of the melody of the anthem of the Soviet Union, to adapt the bells of the Russian church ringing. They were added in quantity, outweighed, undermined, connected to a specially made clock mechanism ... A hammer was attached to a large 5-ton evangelist - and it struck the clock. For the first time the anthem of the USSR was performed on these bells in 1952.

I heard this performance of the USSR anthem when I was in Leningrad in 1976. The sound was discordant and relatively reminiscent of the hymn melody. But those who knew that it was the anthem, of course, could recognize it.

Russian bells adapted for performance melodies of the anthem of the Soviet Union

Big Annunciation Bell clock hammer attached to it

Including because of this adaptation of the bells to the performance of the anthem, today it is difficult to say exactly how many bells of the pre-revolutionary set have been preserved in the cathedral.

There is no more curious bell tower, on the tiers of which such multi-functional bells - hour, church and carillon - would be located - in the Russian Church.

As for the carillon, the appropriateness of its presence in the bell tower is an open question. Perhaps, Peter I thought of it there at a time when the cathedral had not yet become an imperial tomb.

But then, according to his will, Peter I was buried in an unfinished cathedral (it was consecrated already in the 30s of the 18th century) and over time the cathedral became the burial place of Russian emperors: all Russian emperors before Alexander III rest there.

Tombs of Emperor Nicholas I and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna

In September 2006, the ashes of his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna, were transferred to the cathedral, and two loving hearts united in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

Tomb of Empress Maria Feodorovna

It is surprising that the graves of Peter III, Paul I, the tombs of Alexander I and Alexander III are constantly decorated with fresh flowers. They are brought by the inhabitants of St. Petersburg themselves, so these are the sovereigns whom the Russian people themselves single out.

And, of course, there are many flowers at the tomb of the founder of the city on the Neva, Emperor Peter I.

Nowadays, the shutters are sometimes opened, the carillonaire sits down at the instrument and performs melodies. For example, last year the famous carillonist Jo Haazen performed Borodin's Polovtsian Dances, which left our senses a little confused: an instrument designed to entertain the crowd does not, to put it mildly, fit well with the necropolis.

The restoration of the ringing on the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress began in Soviet times. In 1988, the Russian Bell Art Association was founded. The specialists of this AKIR took the initiative in the revival of bell ringing in various belfries, which at that time belonged to museums or were under the museum's jurisdiction. One of the rather high-profile deeds of AKIR was a concert on the bell tower of St. Basil's Cathedral in 1990 or 1991.

The same specialists, among whom was the late Ivan Vasilyevich Danilov, Valery Lokhansky, Sergei Starostenkov, were engaged in restoring the ringing of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. From those bells that could be sounded, that is, those that had tongues and were suspended freely enough to ring, they made a bell-ringing system. The tongues of the middle bells were brought to the posts, the reeds were hung from the small ringing bells.

The tongue of the big bell hung freely; in the Soviet years, nothing was done to it, but simply a clock hammer was attached. However, this tongue swayed quickly, the rhythm of the ringing was fast enough.

As a specialist, I really didn't like the ringing that was revived by the AKIR specialists, and in many respects it was precisely because the big bell sounded very sharp, loud due to the too fast rhythm.

For three years now, we, the specialists of the Society of Church Bell Ringers, have been ringing in the Peter and Paul Fortress during the Moscow Easter Festival. The Peter and Paul Cathedral has its own ringers who ring during worship, but it so happened that we never crossed paths. Actually, the "owners" of the bell tower are not they, but the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, which is in charge of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. We have good contact with the director of the museum, the keeper of the cathedral and the keeper of the bells.

The first thing we did when we came to the bell tower was to put the big bell on the pedal in order to be able to give it a rhythm coming from the sound and breath of the bell itself. The fact is that when ringing from the pedal, the rhythm can vary within any limits.

Surprisingly, the former loud, “barking”, slightly iron ringing was replaced by a very beautiful, “velvet”, not so loud, but very pleasant sound, because the rhythm became slower. And now, on the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, it has become possible to reproduce the classic chimes of the Russian Church.

We always ring the bells of Peter and Paul Cathedrals in close cooperation with our dear colleagues - bell ringers from St. Petersburg - Ekaterina Baranova, Andrey Ivanov, Marat Kapranov.

Naturally, we have big creative plans for the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Not all bells that were adapted to play the anthem of the Soviet Union have tongues hanging, not all bells are hung properly, many are attached to death to beams, so today they cannot be rung. . On the bell tower it is necessary to make a platform.

The Russian ringing of the Peter and Paul Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress needs reconstruction, decoration, it needs to be brought back to life so that the bells sound beautiful, loud and melodious.

Photos by Igor Vasilyevich Konovalov

Somehow I never set out to get to the Bell Tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. I didn't really know that it was possible to get there. It's embarrassing, of course. It turns out that you can get there only with a guided tour and at a certain time (Tours start at 11.30 Moscow time, 13.00 Moscow time, 14.30 Moscow time, 16.00 Moscow time) The cost of tickets for adults is 130 rubles, students - 70 rubles, pensioners - 60 rubles. The number of tickets sold is limited .

The oldest church in St. Petersburg is the Peter and Paul Cathedral. A small wooden church in the name of the Apostles Peter and Paul was founded on Hare Island a little more than a month after the founding of the city, on July 12 (June 29), 1703, and on April 14, 1704, it was completed and consecrated in the name of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, it was "cross-shaped in appearance and about three spitz, on which pennants were raised on Sundays and holidays, it was painted with yellow marble to look like a stone." In 1712, when St. Petersburg became the capital of the Russian Empire, construction began on its site.
stone Peter and Paul Cathedral designed by the first architect of the city Dominico Trezzini. Peter hurried the builders with the erection of the bell tower, and already in August 1721 he and his associates climbed the bell tower and admired the city under construction and the panorama of the banks of the Neva and the Gulf of Finland. Chamber junker F. V. Berkhholz, who visited St. Petersburg at that time, wrote in his diary: “The fortress church ... it has a bell tower in a new style, covered with copper, brightly gilded sheets, which are unusually good in sunlight. But inside this temple is not yet completely finished..

Work on the construction of the wooden spire was completed by the end of 1724, and at the same time, chimes were installed on the bell tower, bought by Peter I in 1720 in Holland for huge money at that time - 45,000 rubles. The historian Ruban says this about this clock: “there are 35 large and small sentry bells on this clock. Each bell has two hammers and one tongue. Clock chimes play with hammers, and noon chimes play with tongues, driven by human hands.

The top of the spire of the bell tower was crowned with the figure of the patron angel of the city. Domenico Trezzini proposed to install an angel on top of the bell tower. The architect made a drawing according to which the work was done. That angel was different from the one that exists now. It was made in the form of a weather vane, the figure of an angel held the axle with two hands, in which the turning mechanisms were placed.

authentic frame and turning mechanism of an 1858 weather vane angel.

The height of the Angel is 3.2 meters, and its wingspan is 3.8 meters.

Even the angel on the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress could have looked different (in the photo - Trezzini's original drawing), and the fortress itself was taken at least three times - and in 1925, by the decision of the Leningrad City Council, it was almost demolished, like the Paris Bastille. Fortunately, the project of the stadium, which was going to be built in its place, was never approved.

The second angel of the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral died during a hurricane in 1778. A strong wind broke the figure, the turning mechanism was damaged. The third angel was designed by Antonio Rinaldi. He combined the center of gravity of the angel and the cross, now the figure did not "fly" holding the cross with both hands, but seemed to be sitting on it. In addition, the angel ceased to function as a weather vane. He continued to rotate under the influence of the wind, but the effort for this had to be applied much more. The rotation of the figure was now only necessary to reduce its windage. The construction of the cathedral itself continued until 1733 (21 years). In 1733 the cathedral was consecrated under the Empress Anna Ioannovna. The completion of the construction of the cathedral was led by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli. The grand opening and consecration of the cathedral took place on June 29, 1733.

The height of the bell tower is 122.5 meters. Volutes seem to serve as a continuation of the western wall, repeating the outlines of the decorative eastern wall. They create a smooth transition from the volume of the cathedral to the first tier of the bell tower; the outlines of the next two volumes of the bell tower, placed one on top of the other, smoothly pass through a small dome and a drum cut through by windows into a light, swift spire. The original height of the bell tower was 106 meters; in the 19th century, the wooden structure of the spire was replaced by a metal one. The spire was lengthened at the same time by 16 meters, which emphasized the slenderness of the bell tower, without violating the general proportional relationships.

The wooden spire did not have a lightning rod, and fires were repeatedly caused by lightning strikes. A particularly strong fire was on the night of April 29-30, 1756. The spire that caught fire collapsed, and the chimes perished. The fire engulfed the attics and the wooden dome (the iconostasis was quickly dismantled and carried out), the masonry of the walls gave cracks, and the bell tower was forced to be dismantled to the windows of the first tier.
In 1766, it was decided to restore the bell tower "... to do it exactly as it was before, since all other plans are not so beautiful." The work continued for 10 years. During the restoration, the size of the dome was reduced, the shape of the roof was simplified.

In 1776, a chiming clock was installed on the bell tower

The chimes of the Peter and Paul Cathedral are the oldest outdoor clock in the city of St. Petersburg.
It is almost a mechanical computer from the middle of the 18th century.
Every quarter they beat the quarter chime. Four different musical phrases.
Every hour they play the melody "How glorious is our Lord in Zion", and
every six hours - "God save the king."
And everything happens automatically!”

Empress Elizaveta Petrovna ordered the Chancellery to take care of the construction of court houses and gardens to create new clocks similar to those that had burned down. In a letter dated May 11, 1856, the Chairman of the Chancellery on the Construction, Count Fermor, asked the envoy to Holland, Privy Councilor Count Golovkin, to find ready-made clocks for placing them in the Peter and Paul Fortress. If it was not possible to find ready-made ones, it was supposed to order them again from the best masters. At that time, O. Crassus was very famous. It was he who in 1750 created the famous perpendicular clock for the elector in Cologne. The Governing Senate entrusted him with the creation of a new watch, ordering Count Golovkin to conclude a contract with him on the terms that Crassus submitted to the Governing Senate for consideration.

The contract was concluded on July 7, 1757, and O. Crass set to work. Already in November 1759, he informed Count Golovkin that by April next year the work on creating the clock mechanism would be fully completed and asked that by that time everything be ready in St. Petersburg for installing the clock on the Peter and Paul Bell Tower. In addition, Oort Krass expressed doubt that one apprentice would be enough for him to successfully install the clock on the bell tower, as was stipulated in the contract. Therefore, he asked Count Golovkin for permission to take four more apprentices to St. Petersburg and take their maintenance, as well as salaries, to the account of the Russian government. Count Golovkin agreed and on December 11, 1759 concluded an agreement with Crassus, which, due to the count's illness, was signed by his son and sealed with the seal of the embassy.

In 1760, as promised by the master Crassus, the clock was completely ready. After the clock arrived in Petersburg, Crassus was in for great grief. The bell tower, for which the clock was created, was not only not completed, but the construction did not even begin. Therefore, to accommodate the clock, it was decided to build a wooden house 4 soots wide. and a height of 6 ars. Oort Crassus was instructed by the office of the building to collect and force to put into action the entire complex huge mechanism, which was intended for a tower 26 sazhens high, in this small house. Therefore, many details that were created based on a high bell tower had to be completely redone.
Crassus was promised a reward only after the clock was set. The master stayed in St. Petersburg, spent all the money to maintain the mechanism in working condition, due to serious troubles in April 1764. Crassus fell very ill and died on May 27 of the same year .. So sadly ended his life in a foreign land, an outstanding mechanic who was known throughout Europe.
His death stopped the final setting of the clock for a long time. In 1765, a free watchmaker Johann Ridiger was found in St. Petersburg, who was instructed to assemble the clock and then install it on the bell tower. After inspecting the watch, Ridiger announced that the design of the watch was very successful and that it would take no more than 2 months to bring its movement into action. However, Ridiger's conditions were accepted by the Chancellery on the structure only in 1776.

At the end of 1776, the inhabitants of the capital again heard the music that they had lost in a fire exactly 20 years earlier. According to Ruban, the chime of the clock was as follows:
- half a quarter clock strikes a few bells a little;
- a quarter of an hour a few bells strike a small chime;
- for half an hour they play many bells a small chime in half a tone;
- the hour chimes play all the bells in full tone;
- a small bell is beaten for half an hour;
- at the end of the hour, the big bell is struck.

To this day, the clock mechanism has come down almost unchanged.

True, in 1856 it was overhauled, and minute hands were installed on the dials of the bell tower. Before that, it was possible to determine the time by the chimes only approximately: clockwise and a quarter chime. The only element that has been touched by technological progress is the mechanism for lifting weights, they set in motion musical drums and the clock itself. For almost two hundred years, four weights weighing 450 kilograms each were lifted by hand using a winch. Since the forties of the last century, this work has been performed by an electric motor.

In Soviet times, watches tried to teach new songs. Soviet ideologists could not allow the sound of “God Save the Tsar” to be heard over Leningrad. And since 1937, the chimes began to play the "Internationale", and from 1952 to 1989 - the anthem of the Soviet Union. True, not every hour, but only four times a day (at 6 am, at 12 noon, at 6 pm and at 12 am). In addition, apparently, for ideological reasons, the chiming mechanism was then connected not to the Dutch belfry, as it was before the revolution, but to the Russian one. On Russian bells, unlike Dutch ones, it is impossible to play melodies by notes. They "sound like a chord" and are intended exclusively for church chimes. Therefore, playing the "Internationale" and the anthem of the Soviet Union, the chimes were desperately out of tune. Then, for more than ten years, the chimes did not sing at all - they only chimed the time and quarter chimes.

The melodies originally intended for chimes resounded over Petropavlovka only five years ago.

But in 1830 there was a daredevil - a roofer Petr Telushkin. Having shown resourcefulness and fearlessness, he managed to climb the spire without any scaffolding with the help of ropes. At the base of the cross, he fixed a rope ladder and climbed the spire daily for six weeks to repair the figure of the angel and the cross.

In 1829, during a storm, the sheets were torn off the cross, and the wings of the angel were damaged. An expensive restoration with the preliminary construction of scaffolding was coming. At this time, the roofing master Pyotr Telushkin submitted a written statement that he undertakes to repair all the damage in the cross and the angel of the cathedral without building scaffolding. Telushkin, like a poor artisan, having no collateral required for contractors for construction work, “mortgaged,” as Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti put it, “his life to secure the work he had taken over.” For his work, he did not appoint a certain remuneration, leaving the authorities to establish its value, but asked only for the issuance of 1471 rubles for the materials that he would need in the manufacture of repairs. Telushkin's proposal was accepted, although no one believed in a favorable outcome of his enterprise. Nevertheless, Telushkin did the job he had taken on, showing extraordinary physical strength, dexterity and quick wits.

For his work he was paid from one to five thousand rubles in banknotes. President of the Academy of Arts A.N. Olenin introduced Telushkin to Tsar Nicholas I, who rewarded the brave roofer with money and a silver medal on the Annensky ribbon with the inscription "For Diligence".

There is a legend that Telushkin was also presented with a letter, seeing which they were obliged to pour for free in any tavern, but he lost it; then he was given a special brand under his right cheekbone, on which Telushkin, when he came to a drinking establishment, snapped his fingers - from here a characteristic gesture denoting drinking alcohol allegedly went. The event described in the legend would have been quite probable for the reign of Peter I, but it is unlikely for the reign of Nicholas I, so it is most likely an element of urban folklore.

In 1857 - 1858, the wooden structures of the spire were replaced with metal ones according to the project of the prominent scientist and engineer D. I. Zhuravsky. Metal structures were made in the Urals at the Votkinsk plant, they were transported in parts to St. Petersburg, partially assembled on the square in front of the cathedral, and then raised to the bell tower. The spire is made of a metal frame sheathed with gilded copper sheets. Its height was 47 meters, weight - 56 tons. Inside there is a staircase for 2/3 of the height, then there is an exit to the outside, brackets lead to the end of the spire. The total height of the spire with the cross and the figure of an angel was 122.5 meters. It is still the tallest architectural structure in St. Petersburg. The design is designed for vibrations in the horizontal plane up to 90 centimeters. Due to the rotation of the Earth, it sways constantly, but for all the time the spire has shifted to the side by only 3 centimeters. They replaced the figure of an angel, the figure slightly changed its appearance, it is in the form created then that you can see the angel to this day. When replacing the structures of the spire, the chimes are also reconstructed. A minute hand is added to the clock, the chimes are reconfigured to play two melodies ("How glorious is our Lord" and "God save the Tsar").

The multi-tiered bell tower of the cathedral is crowned with a spire upholstered in gilded copper sheets, which ends with a weather vane in the form of a figure of a flying angel with a cross. The Peter and Paul Cathedral is the tallest building in St. Petersburg, except for the tower of the TV center. The height of the cathedral is 122.5 meters, the height of the spire is 40 meters, the height of the figure of an angel is 3.2 meters, and its wingspan is 3.8 meters.

In the summer of 2001 in St. Petersburg, one of the most beautiful and powerful instruments in the world was installed on the bell tower of the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul: 51 bells, designed for four octaves. Such a carillon was presented by Flanders to our city.

We still consider the word "carillon" foreign, although Peter the Great brought the first carillons from Holland to St. Petersburg - to the bell tower of St. Isaac's Cathedral and to the Peter and Paul Fortress (both have not been preserved), - explained Sergey Alekseevich Starostenkov, vice-president of the Russian Bell Art Association , researcher at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. Peter the Great (Kunstkamera). - The second carillon for Petropavlovka was cast in 1760 and ceased to sound more than 150 years ago (now it is being restored). Both in Europe and in St. Petersburg, the same bells were used for playing by means of the keyboard (carillon) and for mechanical ringing (chimes). Therefore, contemporaries perceived the carillon as part of the chiming clock and called it differently: "playing clock", "playing machine", "manual chimes", "colossus that is controlled by hands and feet", "organ clock", etc.

The construction of a new, Flemish carillon began in 1994 on the initiative of Mr. Jo Haasen, director of the Royal Carillon School named after Jef Deneuin (Mechelen, Flanders, Kingdom of Belgium). He fell in love with our city so much that he not only married a Petersburger and learned Russian, but also raised 300 thousand dollars to make a carillon from 353 sponsors from all over the world - from Flanders, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, England, France, the USA, New Zealand and even Japan. The Belgian Queen Fabiola donated 1 million Belgian francs for the largest of the bells (diameter 1695 mm, weighs more than 3 tons!) , and ordinary Flemings gave one or two francs. Many bells were cast with private donations, including the smallest one (diameter 190 mm, weight 10.3 kg). Bell number 31 bears the name of Jo Haazen and his wife Natasha - as well as other donors. Among the sponsors are several Russian ones, including Mikhail Peskov, soloist of the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra. In the Royal Bell Foundry "Petit & Fritzen" (Netherlands), whole slogans were also cast on the bells, for example: "Let this bell ring for the glory of Russia!" Eternal memory to the Russians and Flemings who fell in Krasnoe Selo in the war of 1941-1945" (note: they fought on opposite sides of the front ...).

Most of all in St. Petersburg I love the Peter and Paul Fortress. Here the air is cleaner, the atmosphere is different, the water is different, people are different, with a different mentality, - expressively explains Jo Haazen. - Some kind of mysticism ... Maybe it's all because of the angel on the spire. Maybe because of the extraordinary beauty! Or maybe due to the fact that my last name is translated into Russian as "Zaitsev" - that's why Zayachy Island is especially close to me ...

The carillon is not a Catholic instrument, but a secular instrument, Mr. Jo Haazen explained. - You can play different melodies on the carillon: original baroque music, romantic music of the 19th century and modern rhythms, music of the 20th century, even folklore motifs ... My favorite music is from the opera "Prince Igor" by Borodin, and many, I know, like lyrical melodies. And the carillon has such a wide range of sound that it allows you to play any music. We have carillon concerts in Mechelen on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, it has long become a city tradition. I hope that soon the same tradition will appear in St. Petersburg - carillon concerts in the Peter and Paul Fortress will become regular, I will do my best for this.

Now on the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral there is a unique building, the only one in the world, with three levels of ringing: two carillons (new Flemish and old Dutch, XVIII century, its 18 bells will soon "work" as chimes) and an Orthodox belfry, 22 more bells, about hundreds of bells!

Above the carillon is the so-called church bell or, as it is mistakenly called, the “Russian belfry”, although the belfry is not a set of bells, but a bell-bearing structure, made in the form of a wall with bells hanging on it.

The bell ringing of the Peter and Paul Cathedral includes one of the heaviest surviving historical bells of St. Petersburg - a 5-ton evangelist. This bell was cast under Nicholas II in Gatchina at the Lavrov bell foundry and brought to the cathedral. And at the same plant, medium and small bells of Russian bell ringing were cast.

Due to some circumstances that are not clear to us now, the church bell ringing of the Peter and Paul Cathedral was in some desolation even before the revolution. Many bells were broken, many hung uselessly. And the ringing itself was quite "motley". The history of the largest bell is interesting. It was cast from an old bell cast under Tsars Ioann Alekseevich and Pyotr Alekseevich around the 80s of the 17th century. By the will of Tsar Peter the Great, he was moved from somewhere to the new capital, St. Petersburg.

Russian bells adapted for performance melodies of the anthem of the Soviet Union

Big Annunciation Bell clock hammer attached to it

The bell set of the Peter and Paul Cathedral is one of the few that survived after the revolution, and in fact most of the bells were melted down in the late 20s and early 30s. The "second wave" of the death of bells - the years of the so-called "thaw", they are also the period of exacerbation of the persecution of the Church.

It is difficult to say why the bells were preserved in the Cathedral of Peter and Paul. Perhaps they hung too high. Or maybe they were not of particular value for remelting: their total weight is only 8 or 9 tons, which is not much.

Above the Russian church bells, in an octagonal superstructure under the spire, there is another completely unique set of bells - Dutch tuned chimes of the middle - end of the 18th century, during the reign of Catherine II.

Under the Soviet regime, it was decided that the clock of the Peter and Paul Cathedral should play the anthem of the Soviet Union - "Unbreakable Union of Free Republics." But the local party organs forbade the anthem to be performed on the upper bells, specially tuned for the performance of hourly melodies, because they considered it a flagrant disgrace to perform the USSR anthem on foreign-made bells.

And an unheard-of decision was made: for the performance of the melody of the anthem of the Soviet Union, to adapt the bells of the Russian church ringing. They were added in quantity, outweighed, undermined, connected to a specially made clock mechanism ... A hammer was attached to a large 5-ton evangelist - and it struck the clock. For the first time the anthem of the USSR was performed on these bells in 1952.

It seemed to me that nothing could surprise me from climbing high-rise buildings. That summer was busy, almost all the most significant landmarks of the historical center of St. Petersburg were visited (St.

As you understand, we still climbed Petropavlovka, I want to tell you how we did it.

1. View towards Vasilyevsky Island

Walking around the fortress with Olya and tankizt "Oh, we decided to go to the museum of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, but we were refused, they said that the museum was closed, they offered to come another time. Then it was decided to look for other methods of getting into the Peter and Paul Tower. What would happen inside, we did not know what the road to the spire would be too.

Quite simply and imperceptibly, Olya and I found ourselves first on the roof of the cathedral, and then went into the open window in the tower of the cathedral. Then there was a series of spiral staircases and not very, several doors, which, to our surprise, were open! A bunch of bells, a clockwork and other interesting things we passed by in the hope that the final door to the insides of the spire would not be closed. We were lucky, and we got to the last spiral staircase, which was already part of the spire. First thoughts - now there will be a hatch, we will get out into it, and then along the outer stairs to the Angel! But our hopes were dashed when we heard voices just above us.

It turned out that the watchmaker arranged an excursion for his acquaintances to the spire. People, two by two, climbed to the very top to the hatch, admired from it for several minutes and were replaced by others. Everyone went down satisfied, told about their impressions. We decided that we would not lose anything if we went up too. Having waited for our turn, we were the last to go up to the watchmaker, said hello and immediately began to photograph the views from the hatch. The watchmaker was surprised at us, asked who we were and how we got here. We said briefly - "We are photographers!". It was enough to hear the answer "I don't know who you are and how you got here, but you only have five minutes, then I have to leave, I'm already late."

There was little time, and there was only one lens - 10-20mm, so I managed to shoot a little, which I regret - beautiful views open up from there, which can be photographed on a telephoto for a long time.

2. frame down

After the spire, we went down with everyone, filmed everything that was on the way down. Below is a historical note.

3. towards Trinity Bridge

May 16, 1703 on the island of Lust-Eland (Yenisaari, Hare) in the Neva delta, the fortress of St. Peter - St. Peter-Burkh was laid. It was intended to protect the lands reclaimed during the Great Northern War with Sweden. The fortress was built according to a plan drawn up with the participation of Peter himself. According to the rules of fortification art, bastions were erected at its corners. Kronverk became the defense from land. By the end of 1703 the earthen walls of the fortress were erected, and in the spring in stone. They got their names from the names of the dignitaries who oversaw the construction. In the reign of Catherine II, the walls facing the Neva were lined with granite.

In 1712 on the site of the wooden church of the Apostles Peter and Paul, Trezzini laid a stone cathedral in the name of the chief apostles Peter and Paul (Peter and Paul), which became the burial place of the Russian Emperors. All the emperors and empresses from Peter I to Alexander III, inclusive, were buried in the tomb, with the exception of Peter II, who died in Moscow in 1730, and Ivan VI, who was killed in Shlisselburg in 1764. According to the name of the cathedral, the fortress began to be called Peter and Paul, and its first name, which sounded in German St. Petersburg, was transferred to the city.

5. Golovkin Bastion and across the river the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering and Signal Corps.

In the entire history of the fortress, not a single combat shot was fired from its bastions (although this statement is controversial ... during the Great Patriotic War, anti-aircraft guns, machine guns and searchlights were placed on the territory of the fortress and they repelled enemy air raids). But the fortress was always ready to repulse enemies.

The main political prison of tsarist Russia was located on the territory of the fortress in the Trubetskoy bastion, it functioned from 1872 to 1921. Even in Petropavlovka there is one of the oldest industrial productions in the city - the Mint.

If we talk about the cathedral itself in modern times: the height of the cathedral is 122.5 m, the spire is 40 m, the hatch from which we shot is at a height of just over a hundred meters. The cathedral was consecrated on June 28, 1733, services are performed according to a special schedule (since the 1990s, memorial services for Russian emperors have been regularly held in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, since 2000 - divine services, since Christmas 2008 services have been held regularly), the rest of the time it functions as a museum.

7. We start going down

The spire was damaged several times by a storm, the first time in 1777, the second in 1829. For the first time, the correction was carried out according to the drawings of arch. P. Yu. Paton. The new figure of an angel with a cross according to the drawing by A. Rinaldi was made by master K. Forshman. The second roofer Petr Telushkin made repairs without erecting scaffolding. The repair, carried out in October-November 1830, went down in the history of domestic technology as an example of Russian ingenuity and courage.

In 1856-1858. according to the project of engineer D. I. Zhuravsky, instead of a wooden one, a metal spire was built. Inside the spire, a spiral iron staircase leads to a hatch in the casing, arranged at a height of 100 m above the apple, a six-meter cross with an angel (sculptor R.K. Zaleman). The weather vane angel rotates around a rod installed in the plane of the figure itself. The volumetric parts of the angel are made by electroforming, the rest of the parts are stamped from forged copper. Gilding was carried out under the guidance of the chemist G. Struve by the gang of merchants Korotkovs. The height of the angel is 3.2 m, the wingspan is 3.8 m.

9. Outside the windows dial with arrows

10. Clockwork

At a height of 16 m, the shaft of the clock mechanism begins, going up to 30 m. Until the 20th century, weights were raised and lowered inside the shaft, providing a winding watch. The chiming clock for the cathedral was made by the Dutch master B. Oort Krass in 1760. With the help of bells, the clock played various melodies.

Now in the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral there is a set of bells unique in quantity and variety; authentic Dutch bells of the 19th-20th centuries, modern Flemish bells. In total, there are about 130 bells in the bell tower.

12. Hours - chimes. Performing 2 melodies, every hour (Kohl our Lord is glorious in Zion) and a melody (God save the Tsar) at 6 and 12 o'clock. The drum in the photo sets the melody.

During the Great Patriotic War, the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral was painted over with gray paint. The camouflage of the spire deprived the fascist artillery of a reference point for conducting aimed fire at the most strategically important objects.

According to the memoirs of M.M. Bobrov, a participant in camouflage work in the winter of 1941-1942, a "Corner of Besieged Leningrad" was made in the museum, which shows the conditions in which climbers lived in the cathedral under the stairs to the bell tower.

14. We go even lower

17. I don't know where the museum starts and ends, but these and the following photos were probably taken on its territory.

18. Tower structure

19. On the left is shown how the ascent to the angel was realized in 1830

20. When we went down to the first floor, we were met by a policewoman who told us at the very beginning that the museum was closed. This time she said smiling "Well, are you done yet?" We answered "That's it!" and went out to meet the upset Tankman (on the left in the photo). Upset because he didn't climb with us. (But today I saw photos in contact that he also climbed the other day, with which I congratulate him.)

21. That's all. The last photo is for those who do not know how the Peter and Paul Cathedral looks from the outside.

Thank you for your attention!

What melody is played by the clock - chimes at the Peter and Paul Cathedral - name and who is the author?

The chimes of the Peter and Paul Cathedral are the oldest outdoor clock in the city of St. Petersburg.
It is almost a mechanical computer from the middle of the 18th century.
Every quarter they beat the quarter chime. Four different musical phrases.
Every hour they play the melody "How glorious is our Lord in Zion", and
every six hours - "God save the king."
And everything happens automatically!”

The well-known Dutch watchmaker Bernard Oorto Crass made and brought to St. Petersburg chimes and a set of bells in 1761. True, the master did not have to see his creation in action. The construction of the stone bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, instead of the burnt wooden one, turned into a long-term construction. Crassus was promised a reward only after the clock was set. The master remained in St. Petersburg, spent all his money on maintaining the mechanism in working order, and a few years later died in poverty. The chimes were launched only in 1776.

To this day, the clock mechanism has come down almost unchanged.

True, in 1856 it was overhauled, and minute hands were installed on the dials of the bell tower. Before that, it was possible to determine the time by the chimes only approximately: clockwise and a quarter chime. The only element that has been touched by technological progress is the mechanism for lifting weights, they set in motion musical drums and the clock itself. For almost two hundred years, four weights weighing 450 kilograms each were lifted by hand using a winch. Since the forties of the last century, this work has been performed by an electric motor.

In Soviet times, watches tried to teach new songs. Soviet ideologists could not allow the sound of “God Save the Tsar” to be heard over Leningrad. And since 1937, the chimes began to play the "Internationale", and from 1952 to 1989 - the anthem of the Soviet Union. True, not every hour, but only four times a day. In addition, apparently, for ideological reasons, the chiming mechanism was then connected not to the Dutch belfry, as it was before the revolution, but to the Russian one. On Russian bells, unlike Dutch ones, it is impossible to play melodies by notes. They "sound like a chord" and are intended exclusively for church chimes. Therefore, playing the "Internationale" and the anthem of the Soviet Union, the chimes were desperately out of tune. Then, for more than ten years, the chimes did not sing at all - they only beat the time and quarter chimes.

The melodies originally intended for chimes resounded over Petropavlovka only five years ago.