What the chimes of the Peter and Paul Cathedral played after the revolution. Cathedral of the Apostles Peter and Paul of the Peter and Paul Fortress (photo tour)

06.09.2023

Read also

Cathedral of the Apostles Peter and Paul of the Peter and Paul Fortress (photo tour)

"Casting Pearls Before Swine": Biblical Origins, Meaning and Moral

How many generalissimos were there in Russia?

What is the "Speech of the Day"? The meaning of phraseological units. The meaning and origin of the phraseological unit “the topic of the day.” Use in the media and literature. Phraseologism Neither to the village nor to the city. Phraseologism At the crossroads The topic of the day meaning and origin

No, I won't tell you about Peter and Paul Fortress or himself Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. To do this, you need to deeply understand history. I, as an ordinary tourist, had an amazing opportunity to climb observation deck of the Bell Tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral and I got up. In this article I would like, so to speak, to lend you my eyes for a while. Just look, admire the amazing views that open from above. Perhaps, when you yourself find yourself in St. Petersburg, you will also want to climb the bell tower, because not a single photograph conveys the full atmosphere of soaring “above the city.” In the meantime... are you ready to rise? Then follow me!

Spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral it's hard not to notice. It can be seen from almost anywhere in the historical part of the city. Of course, it doesn’t shine through the walls of houses, but you go out to the banks of the Neva and - there it is! Height - 122 meters!

Being in St. Petersburg for the first time after a forty-year absence, not knowing the rules, I did not even imagine that it was even possible to enter the Peter and Paul Fortress, let alone climb the bell tower. No wonder I thought so. It was enough to stumble upon two closed doors:

to understand that the entrance there is either completely closed to mere mortals, or it is available only to some special people, or for a lot of money. Over time, it became clear that the gates at that particular moment were closed only because I rushed to the Peter and Paul Fortress at 6 o’clock in the morning.

In fact, entry to the territory is completely free. A detailed overview of the complex’s territory will be presented in a separate article, but now let’s move on to the topic observation deck on the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

When, while wandering near the mint, I suddenly noticed a man at the top, I had the thought that if he could somehow find himself there, next to the bells, then maybe I could somehow do it too?

It was here on the square in front of the bell tower that I made this unexpected discovery. By the way, pay attention to the benches - this is a place where you can listen to the sound of a very special musical instrument - carillon. We'll see him and listen to some music a little later, but for now, just so you know. A carillon is a musical instrument with a keyboard, the sounding parts of which are bells.

And then in the window under the clock I suddenly saw a man. Look, look, he’s still looming there!

Overwhelmed by timid hope for the seemingly unattainable, I walked across the square straight to the entrance to the cathedral. They immediately made me happy: Yes, you can go up, but to do this you must first buy a ticket to the cathedral itself (450 rubles), and then, once inside, buy another ticket to the bell tower (150 rubles).

In vain, foaming at the mouth, I admonished the auntie at the turnstile that the cathedral itself did not really interest me, but I needed to “go up there.” The attendant was as impregnable as Trubetskoy’s bastion and sent me to get a ticket.

No matter how sorry it was to part with the money that had been prepared for a snack in the canteen, I had to choose - either daily food or spiritual food. Based on the fact that you are reading this report, it is not difficult to guess what exactly prevailed on that wonderful autumn evening.

Tickets were sold in a separate building called by a strange name" Botny house".

Yes Yes. This is a yellow building with columns (entrance from the back). Thinking about the origin of such a strange name, at first I thought that everyone there was being “botted” or, at least, they used to be “botted”. In practice, it turned out that inside, oddly enough, there was a real boat, albeit a small one. It's nothing more than Boat of Peter I. After the end of the Northern War in 1721, Peter I decided to move his boat to St. Petersburg. At first they built a simple canopy for it, and then they built an entire building.

Moreover, the building was first built, and then they began to think, “how can we drag this boat inside now?” Naturally, she did not go through doors and windows. We had to dismantle part of the wall and drag the “grandfather of the Russian fleet” - as the Boat of Peter I was called - into the room through the resulting opening. In a word, we did everything right :). And this is still commonplace. First we do, then we think.

And here he is - Botik:

In fact, this fragile little boat has a very interesting history. Unfortunately, it is impossible to cover it completely within the scope of this article. Therefore, if you are interested, check with Wikipedia. Everything is written there briefly but clearly.

In addition to the bot itself, the building hosts an extensive souvenir trade. And what’s not here:

The nice thing is that you can pay by card. The unpleasant thing is that the prices here are simply indecent. There is also a ticket office here. Here are the prices valid until the end of October 2016:

Then I immediately realized how important have information. The fact is that before this moment I had already visited the Museum of Cosmonautics and Rocketry, paying 150 rubles for the entrance. Now to visit the cathedral I had to pay another 450 rubles. That is, together it already turns out to be 600.

For the same price you could buy a so-called “complex ticket” and visit several more interesting exhibitions. The all-inclusive ticket does not have to be used on the same day. It is valid for two days and allows you to visit all specified museums once. Unfortunately, I didn’t know about this, so I unknowingly limited my options. And both for myself and for you, since I will not be able to show reports on other exhibitions. Next time I'll be smarter. And keep this in mind too.

The same applies to excursions around St. Petersburg. It is important to know where to buy them so as not to overpay to intermediaries.

Ascent to the observation deck of the Peter and Paul Cathedral

But finally, all the formalities have been settled, the ticket to the Peter and Paul Cathedral is in hand. It's time to go. Unfortunately, my ascent took place late in the evening, so the pictures that you will see from above will be more likely to be in the evening.

Here let me give one important piece of advice. If one of the purposes of your climb to the bell tower is to take photographs, then it is better for you to climb in the morning until lunch. At this time, the sun illuminates the part of the panorama that you can photograph. After lunch, the sun will shine in your eyes and you may no longer get good photos. In any case, the lighting will no longer be so interesting.

Let's go! It all starts when you go through the turnstile. There your ticket will be redeemed, and you yourself will have two plans for the further development of events.

You immediately go straight to the Peter and Paul Cathedral
You buy another ticket to the bell tower, go there first, and then to the cathedral.

A ticket to the bell tower can be purchased on the spot and costs an additional 150 rubles.

After purchasing a ticket (attention! cards are not accepted here!) you can begin the climb yourself. It's comfortable. The fact is that you can still go up to the observation deck on the bell tower as part of an organized excursion. I already felt what a crowd of people in a confined space is like in the example of climbing the bell tower of the St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral. Therefore, the prospect of climbing on my own suited me more than well.

First, the ascent goes along a narrow corridor:

Of course, the passage here is wider than, say, in Pereslavl-Zalessky. There's definitely no way for two people to separate there! The Peter and Paul Bell Tower is a little more spacious, but in any case a group of people will have to advance in single file.

In total, we have to climb about 270 steps to the observation deck. I can’t say more precisely, while I was counting, I got lost a couple of times, but the total number is approximately the same. To imagine a similar staircase, try walking up to the 13th floor of a high-rise building. For some people this is not an easy task. It's good that you can climb in several steps. The first room we encounter on the way is the “attic” of the bell tower. There is an exhibition on the history of the Peter and Paul Cathedral here.

Here, for example, you can find out that initially the statue of an angel on the spire of the bell tower was conceived completely differently than the one we are used to seeing. You can see the frame of the statue in life size:

Just here, in the attic, I was met by a young man who checked and tore my ticket. Then for some reason he followed me until the moment I left the tower. Perhaps we tourists still need to be kept an eye on. And that’s who we are! What if, God forbid, we touch the bell, but there’s no way we can do that. Corresponding strict announcements are found here at every step.

In principle, he didn’t bother me, he didn’t sniffle in my ear, he just stood aside and was “present.” However, surveying the panorama of the city under the supervision of an attendant who was just waiting “for this idiot to look at it and take photographs” was somehow uncomfortable. However, I completed the filming program completely. I shot everything I was going to, with all the lenses that were appropriate in this case. You'll see everything for yourself soon.

Pay attention to the steps of the stairs. Each of them has a natural stone overlay. On the one hand, this is good - they are more durable. On the other hand, they are polished by the soles of more than one million feet. Therefore, be careful and try to hold on to the handrails. In unfavorable conditions, you may slip.

During the ascent at this stage, a massive wooden frame will accompany us in the middle of the room. It stretches in the middle of the tower and goes somewhere upward:

After walking a few more flights, we can examine the musical wonder. This is the Carillon. A musical instrument made of bells connected to a keyboard mechanism. By the way, what do you think is the name of a musician who plays the carillon? A trumpeter plays the trumpet, a drummer plays the drum. We also know guitarists, harpists, violinists, etc. Who plays the carillon? I'll give you a few paragraphs to think about.

This is what this rare musical instrument looks like (I couldn’t resist taking a kind of selfie with the carillon:):

There are 51 bells with a total weight of 15 tons mounted on a massive frame. However, you can read more about this tool on the plate:

I can add the following interesting information from myself. When this carillon was installed in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, it suddenly became clear that there was no one in particular to play it. And there is no one to even send to study. The Peter and Paul Fortress “does not have a full-time carillonneur.” By the way, here is the answer: a carillonneur is a musician who plays the carillon.

I'm afraid to assume the worst, but it's not there even now. Therefore, concerts of carillon music are performed by an ordinary “boy” who simply selects the next melody on his smartphone. So, the music you will hear in the next video is not played by a person, but by a Samsung smartphone according to a predetermined program. I saw it happen myself.

Video. Concert of carillon music (I wish I could tear my hands off)

The quality of execution, of course, does not stand up to criticism. I don't dare say so. This may not always be the case. Maybe during the season a maestro in a tailcoat really comes up here and captivates the onlookers gathered below with his art. Alas, I saw a slightly different approach to the matter.

To prevent visitors from falling down and being killed by the carillon bells, in addition to the railings, there is an additional mesh along the stairs. We rise higher and higher inside the tower. Looking out the windows we are in a state of pleasant excitement. After all, very soon we will find ourselves on the observation deck and see this!!!

This is the final goal of our journey. Frankly, at first, when I saw the closed staircase, I was a little confused:

It turned out that we were on the platform on the left. This is where the fun began.

The first thing that surprised me very much, and not to say pleasantly, was the grid. She covered the entire opening through which one could admire the city:

It is clear that the height is large - 43 meters. Probably theoretically you can fall. But... it was so unexpected! To be honest, I was not prepared for such a turn of events. During my travel history, I have climbed high bell towers more than once (Prepobenskaya in Suzdal, Bogoyavlenskaya in Pereslavl-Zalessky), there was also a theoretical possibility of falling down.

But nowhere did I have to look at the landscape through the Rabitz grid. What is there to see? How would you like to take photographs through it?

The second ambush - of the four “windows” facing different directions of the horizon, you can only approach one. Unfortunately, the rest are closed.

I thought, now I’ll take a full 360-degree panorama of St. Petersburg, as I once did in Suzdal. And here, not only is there only one window available, but there’s also a mesh! In a word, on the observation deck of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, I had to, forgive the banality, come down from heaven to earth.

After stumbling around in indecision, I decided to at least take a photograph, somehow. Just to indicate that I was actually here. First I clicked a little inside the bell tower:

Out of frustration, I decided to break the ban and touched the tongue of the bell. And just at that moment I noticed that there was a gap in the mesh where my 77mm lens could be inserted. By the way, this gap is a little visible in the previous photo. Do you see the river in the background on the left? True, the hole was clearly made by some midget. It was at the level of my waist. But... you know, sometimes people go to more serious hardships to take good photos. I had to remove it by bending over like an “G”.

What can I say: art requires sacrifice (and destruction). I attached the correct lens to the camera and the work began. Next you will see a number of photographs taken from the observation deck. In fact, there are many more of them. The most successful ones were simply selected.

This is the famous St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Admiralty and the Palace Bridge across the Neva. On the right side you can just barely see the monument to Peter I on horseback:

This is Birzhevoy Bridge, Makarova Embankment, in the foreground is a horseshoe-shaped building - the Archives Building (on the site of the Secret House):

This is the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island - the place where the Neva divides into two large branches. It turns out Neva (goes to the left) and Malaya Neva (to the right, from where Meteor floats):

Saint Isaac's Cathedral. Alas, the top is under restoration. In the foreground are the Admiralty and the Palace Bridge:

Here is the same view, but taken with a telephoto lens. Here you can see the stairs along which tourists climb to the observation deck of St. Isaac's Cathedral. Alas, I didn’t get to it this time (but I promise to improve):

One of the famous Rostral Columns. Interestingly, at the very top there are gas burners that are lit on holidays. In one of the following articles I will show you the burner very close, but for now look at the Rostral Column from afar:

Ships sail along the Neva every now and then, adding variety to the landscape:

This photo shows the stadium on Krestovsky Island. It will not be completed in time for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. On the right is the future skyscraper - Lakhta Center. When it is built to the end, it will be the tallest building in Europe with a height of about 460 meters:

Here are some more photos of St. Petersburg at night:

And here are the guns from which the famous midday shot is fired. This tradition is very old. In 1865, at exactly noon on February 6 (18), the first midday shot was fired in St. Petersburg. Moreover, at first the signal cannon was installed in the courtyard of the Admiralty. In 1872 it was moved to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

In general, the very first midday shots were fired in Sevastopol and Nikolaev back in 1819. Their goal was not to scare away the crows, as it might seem, but to give a clear signal by which the clocks on ships and in the Admiralty were set.

The right to fire the midday shot is sometimes granted to especially honored guests of the city. Since I am still very far from such status, I have to limit myself to simply contemplating two guns.

Descent from the observation deck of the Peter and Paul Cathedral

You can stay here for a very long time. In general, it would be interesting to go up here several times - at night, in the morning, during the day, in different weather conditions. Despite the unchanged landscape, the pictures will be interesting in their own way every time. But then the moment came when it was necessary to think about the return journey. After all, I still had time to visit the Peter and Paul Cathedral itself (I shouldn’t have bought the ticket).

Having put my ammunition in my backpack, I begin a careful descent. Why careful? It's simple. Remember when I wrote about stone overlays on each step? These slabs, polished with many soles, are very treacherous:

If you hesitate and slip... at best, you'll end up with a couple of broken arms. At worst - a magical flight, a fateful meeting with the carillon and a farewell BOMMM! But the surroundings are really interesting; you want to look around while descending. So it’s better to hold on to the handrail, like in the subway. And in general, they say that height is “addictive.” Although there are railings and mesh here, the large space under your feet still gives rise to an amazing and hitherto unknown desire. The desire to fly:)

Along the way, you still manage to approach the windows on lower floors and, albeit through a mesh, take interesting photographs. This is the dome of the Peter and Paul Cathedral itself. In the background is Kuibysheva Street.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to get close to the net - the passage was closed. Just in case, keep in mind a simple rule: the closer the lens is to the reticle, the less it is noticeable. The camera focuses on the background, and the grid in the foreground blurs and becomes almost invisible.

Then there is a small exhibition of bells (which are forbidden to touch with hands):

Gradually descending, we find ourselves in the attic of the bell tower, where the museum exhibition is located. Alas, there was simply no time to look at her for a long time:

The last flight of stairs, and we find ourselves at the entrance to the Peter and Paul Cathedral:

Here you can immediately go outside or proceed to the cathedral. Naturally, I chose the second option. I had a ticket!

However, I would like to give a description of the Peter and Paul Cathedral and photographs from it in a separate article.

And now, it’s time to say goodbye and sum up some results.

Conclusion

Climbing to the observation deck of the Peter and Paul Cathedral for me personally became the most striking and interesting event when visiting the Peter and Paul Fortress. Of course, you should only go up in good weather. In strong winds and rain, I think the pleasure will be somewhat dampened.

If you go there yourself, take a good camera. Maybe binoculars. The view from the height is excellent.

It is very important to choose the right time to visit. The sun beating directly into your eyes in the afternoon can ruin your ascent experience just as much as pouring rain.

If you're a big fan of guided tours, it's worth buying a ticket and going up with a guide. Such organized ascents take place four times a day (alas, I did not specify the time). Going up with a guided tour has its pros and cons.

The advantage is that you do not have to pay 450 rubles for visiting the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The excursion will cost much less. In addition, you will listen to the guide’s speech and learn a lot of new and interesting things.

The downside is that you will be crowded, standing in line at the hole in the net to take good photos. You will have to work in a hurry, so the result may be far from expected.

If photography is the main reason you go up to the observation deck, then it’s better to go on your own. It will be a little more expensive, but you can stay at the top as long as you want and calmly do everything you have in mind.

I wish you successful climbs and pleasant memories.

4 am, white nights, bridges are open, I’m sitting with friends on the roof, taking pictures of city views, and we also have a bottle of red wine with us... It’s quiet on the street, and suddenly I hear a beautiful melody; bell and ancient. It took me about five minutes to realize that I understood this - I could hear the notes of the melody “How Glorious is Our Lord in Zion.” Yeah, I remembered the composer’s last name - Bortnyansky, which means I hear the clock of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Perhaps, for this reason it was worth climbing onto the roof at night - to take pictures of beautiful views under the melodic ringing of a bell, unexpectedly heard in the night. In general, all that was left to do was to get to the bell tower and look at the clock, ancient bells, tower and spire.

No sooner said than done, and here we are, together with the clockmaker of the chimes of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, Andrei Aleksandrovich Kudryavtsev, climbing the bell tower. There are 131 bells, part of the so-called Russian ringing, part of the European one. Russian bells are not tuned, because they are initially cast with a certain sound, while European bells are bored after casting and tuned to the desired sound.

With the help of European ringing bells, you can type a series of notes and play melodies from the notes. That’s why the chimes of the Peter and Paul Cathedral contain ancient European bells, cast in Holland and brought to St. Petersburg in 1760. The modern corillon also has bells made by a Dutch company, but the bells that ring during church services are domestic. The sounds of chimes coming from a height of 62 meters. This height was just enough to hear the clock striking within the old city boundaries in the 18th century. And there was clearly less noise in St. Petersburg at that time than now.

The clock sounds every 15 minutes and every hour. Twice a day - at 12 and 18 o'clock - the anthem of the Russian Empire - "God Save the Tsar" - is performed. In 1937, an attempt was made to dial the melody of the Internationale on the clock, but nothing worked, and only in 1952 was it possible to dial the melody of the Anthem of the Soviet Union, which the clock played until 1989.

In general, I was interested not only in seeing the clock and the tower, but also in talking with the keeper. Andrey Alexandrovich has been responsible for this watch since 1998. It was then, after the tragic death of the previous master, that he, as the person most familiar with the structure of the ancient mechanism, was offered this job. Since then, he is ready at any time to overcome the 280 steps of the staircase in the bell tower and promptly eliminate any malfunction if it arises in the mechanical heart of St. Petersburg. After 16 years of work, the master can determine deviations in the operation of the watch even by a slightly changed sound of the chimes and immediately come to the rescue. In addition to the daily worries of cleaning the mechanism, changing the lubricant, and other work on servicing the complex “heart,” the master also needs to be a bit of a musician. It was he who, in 2002, played two melodies on a special musical drum using pegs - “How Glorious is Our Lord in Zion” and “God Save the Tsar.” The work was not easy - there are 120 rows (120 musical bars) of 100 holes for pegs on a large musical drum, there are 12,000 in total. But, armed with ancient sheet music from 1858, still stored in the archive, and using the knowledge gained in childhood at the music school, Andrei Alexandrovich coped with this task.

After examining the clock, we rose higher - into the belfry, and after that - even higher - into the spire! Built in 1858 according to the design of military engineer Dmitry Zhuravsky, the openwork metal spire is covered with gilded metal sheets and attached to the stone bell tower building with 16 strands. A very heavy key is stored in the bell tower for tightening the huge nuts of these strands - after all, in a stormy wind, the amplitude of movement of the spire reaches 160 centimeters.

But, according to the watchmaker, this key has never come in handy.

Inside the spire there is an elegant metal staircase, ending with a landing and a small hatch to the outside. It was through it that during the Siege, climbers who worked to camouflage the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress went out onto the outer staircase of the spire. They, weakened from hunger, found it very difficult to do this - for example, they succeeded in climbing at a negative angle onto the “apple” and onto the figure of an angel only after 3 days of unsuccessful attempts. Inside the lantern under the spire you can see St. George's ribbons - they were tied by a participant in that ascent to the spire, the famous climber Mikhail Mikhailovich Bobrov.

While in the flashlight, I never lost the feeling of flying. High windows, the sky all around, the sun and clouds, the thin metal walls of the spire, the spiral staircase “as if into the sky” - I just didn’t want to leave there, I just wanted to put the camera aside and look at the city, at these clouds floating above it, changing states of nature. I felt that I was in the heart of the city, in the historical place where it began, and where its irrational beginning, metaphysics is very well felt. But it was necessary to go down - this was the very case when the descent is more difficult than the ascent. But it seems to me that I will return there again. Necessarily.

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 ringing of the tallest bell tower in Russia is arranged and who sang the anthem of the Soviet Union on the church bells.

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

Many people believe that from an architectural point of view, the Peter and Paul Cathedral was built like a Western church. I think it’s in vain. If we look at it carefully, we will find out that from Western church architecture there is only one element - the pulpit, that is, the elevation at the left altar pillar. A sermon is preached from the pulpit and the Holy Scriptures are read to those in the church, 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 set. Perhaps this is true. The iconostasis does not block the entire altar, but the altar curtain fills in the role of the missing wooden parts.

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

It acquired its final form, that is, the way it was before the 1917 revolution, just a few years ago, when a carillon, a musical instrument that uses bells instead of strings, was installed in the lower tier of the bell. It is possible to perform all kinds of secular musical works on it, because the bells are tuned precisely 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 - the 5-ton blagovestnik. This bell was cast under Nicholas II in Gatchina at the Lavrov bell foundry and brought to the cathedral. And at the same factory, medium and small bells of the 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 useless. 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 Ivan Alekseevich and Peter Alekseevich around the 80s of the 17th century. By the will of Tsar Peter the Great, it 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 the revolution, but most of the bells were melted down in the late 20s and early 30s. The “second wave” of the death of bells is the years of the so-called “thaw”, they are also a period of intensified persecution of the Church.

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

Above the Russian church bell, in the octagonal superstructure under the spire, there is another completely unique set of bells - Dutch tuned chimes from the mid to late 18th century, during the reign of Catherine II.

Clockwork

The cathedral spire 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 clock of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The bells struck the quarters: at 15 minutes - once, at half an hour - twice, at three quarters of an hour - three times. When the hour passed, they played 4 quarters and the hour bell rang out according to the number of hours. Until 1917, they performed at the beginning of each hour, “How Glorious is Our Lord in Zion,” and at 12 noon, the national anthem “God Save the King.” The watch was made in Holland by master Orth Krass.

Under Soviet rule, it was decided that the clock of the Peter and Paul Cathedral should play the anthem of the Soviet Union - “The Indestructible Union of Free Republics.” But local party bodies forbade playing the anthem on the upper bells, specially tuned for playing hour melodies, because they considered it a blatant disgrace to perform the USSR anthem on foreign-made bells.

And an unheard-of decision was made: to use Russian church bells to sing the melody of the anthem of the Soviet Union. They were added in quantity, reweighed, sharpened, connected to a clock mechanism specially made for this purpose... A hammer was attached to a large 5-ton evangelist - and it struck the clock. The USSR anthem was first 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 somewhat reminiscent of the melody of a hymn. But anyone who knew that this was the hymn, of course, could recognize it.

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

Big bell with
with a clock hammer attached to it

Also 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 interesting bell tower, on the tiers of which such multifunctional bells would be located - clock bells, church bells and a carillon - in the Russian Church.

As for the carillon, the appropriateness of its presence in the bell tower is an open question. Perhaps Peter I conceived 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 the unfinished cathedral (it was consecrated already in the 30s of the 18th century) and over time the cathedral became the tomb of the Russian emperors: all Russian emperors until Alexander III are buried 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 residents 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, sometimes the shutters are opened, the carillonneur sits down at the instrument and plays melodies. For example, last year the famous carillonneur Jo Haazen performed Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances,” which caused our feelings to be somewhat confused: an instrument designed to entertain the crowd does not, to put it mildly, go well with the necropolis.

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

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

The tongue of the large bell hung freely; in the Soviet years they did nothing with it, but simply attached a clock hammer. However, this tongue swung quickly, the rhythm of the ringing was quite fast.

As a specialist, I really didn’t like the ringing that was revived by AKIR specialists, and largely because the large bell sounded very sharp, loud due to the too fast rhythm.

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

The first thing we did when we arrived at the bell tower was to place a large bell on a pedal in order to be able to set it a rhythm coming from the sound and breathing of the bell itself. The fact is that when ringing from a pedal, the rhythm can vary within any limits.

Surprisingly, the former loud, “barking”, slightly iron ringing was replaced by a very beautiful, “velvety”, 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 classical bells of the Russian Church.

We always ring the bells of the 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 hanging tongues, not all bells are hung properly, many are permanently attached to the beams, so they cannot be rung today. . It is necessary to make a platform on the bell tower.

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 melodic.

Photos of Igor Vasilievich Konovalov

Somehow I never set out to get to the Bell Tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. More precisely, I didn’t know that it was possible to get there. It's a shame, of course. It turns out that you can get there only with a tour and at a certain time (Excursions are scheduled to 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 over 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 recollections of contemporaries, it was “cruciform in appearance and with three pinnacles, on which pennants were raised on Sundays and holidays, it was painted to look like a stone with yellow marble.” In 1712, when St. Petersburg became the capital of the Russian Empire, construction began in its place
stone Peter and Paul Cathedral designed by the first architect of the city, Dominico Trezzini. Peter hurried the builders with the construction of the bell tower, and already in August 1721, he and his entourage 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 cadet F.V. Berkhgolts, who was in St. Petersburg at that time, wrote in his diary: “The fortress church... has a bell tower in a new style, covered with copper, brightly gilded sheets, which are unusually beautiful in sunlight. But the inside of this temple is not yet completely finished.”.

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

The top of the bell tower spire was crowned with the figure of the city's patron angel. Domenico Trezzini proposed installing an angel at the top of the bell tower. The architect made a drawing, according to which the work was carried out. That angel was different from the one that exists today. It was made in the form of a weather vane; the figure of an angel was held with both hands by the axis, in which the turning mechanisms were placed.

authentic frame and turning mechanism of an 1858 angel weathervane.

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 attacked at least three times - and in 1925, by decision of the Leningrad City Council, it was almost demolished, like the Parisian Bastille. Fortunately, the stadium project that 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 the hurricane of 1778. A strong wind broke the figure and 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. It continued to rotate under the influence of the wind, but much more effort had to be applied to do this. Rotation of the figure was now necessary only to reduce its windage. Construction of the cathedral itself continued until 1733 (21 years). In 1733, the cathedral was consecrated under Empress Anna Ioannovna. The completion of the construction of the cathedral was supervised 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. The 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 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 by 16 meters, which emphasized the slenderness of the bell tower without disturbing the general proportional relationships.

The wooden spire did not have a lightning rod, and fires were repeatedly caused by lightning strikes. The fire was especially severe on the night of April 29-30, 1756. The spire that caught fire collapsed, and the chimes also died. The fire engulfed the attics and the wooden dome (the iconostasis was quickly dismantled and taken out), the masonry of the walls cracked, and the bell tower was forced to be dismantled down to the windows of the first tier.
In 1766, it was decided to restore the bell tower “...to do it exactly as the previous one was, since all other plans are not so beautiful.” The work lasted 10 years. During the restoration, the size of the dome was reduced and 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 external clock in the city of St. Petersburg.
This is almost a mechanical computer from the mid-18th century.
Every quarter they sound a quarter chime. Four different musical phrases.
Every hour the melody “How Glorious is Our Lord in Zion” is played, and
every six hours - “God save the king.”
And everything happens automatically!”

Empress Elizabeth Petrovna ordered the Office of the Construction of Court Houses and Gardens to take care of creating new clocks similar to the ones that burned down. The Chairman of the Chancery about the building, Count Fermor, in a letter dated May 11, 1856, asked the envoy to Holland, Privy Councilor Count Golovkin, to find a ready-made clock to place in the Peter and Paul Fortress. If ready-made ones could not be found, it was planned to order them again from the best craftsmen. At that time, O. Crassus enjoyed great fame. 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 for consideration to the Governing Senate.

The contract was concluded on July 7, 1757, and O. Crassus began work. Already in November 1759, he notified Count Golovkin that by April of the next year the work on creating the clock mechanism would be completely completed and asked that by this time everything in St. Petersburg would be ready to install the clock on the Peter and Paul Bell Tower. In addition, Oort Crass expressed doubt that to successfully install the clock on the bell tower, one apprentice would be enough for him, as was stipulated in the contract. Therefore, he asked Count Golovkin for permission to take four more apprentices to St. Petersburg and attribute their maintenance, as well as their 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 Master Crassus, the clock was completely ready. After the clock arrived in St. Petersburg, Crassus was in for great grief. The bell tower for which the clock was created was not only not finished, but construction had not even begun. Therefore, to house the clock, it was decided to build a wooden house 4 fathoms wide. and height 6 arsh. Oort Crass was given instructions by the Office of the Building to assemble and put into operation the entire complex huge mechanism, which was intended for a tower 26 soots high, in this small house. Therefore, many of the details that were created with the tall bell tower in mind had to be completely redone.
Crassus was promised to pay the reward only after the clock was installed. The master remained in St. Petersburg, spent all his money on maintaining the mechanism in working order, due to serious troubles in April 1764. Crassus became very ill and died on May 27 of the same year.. Thus sadly ended his life in a foreign land, an outstanding mechanic who was known throughout Europe.
His death stopped the final adjustment of the clock for a long time. In 1765, a free watchmaker, Johann Riediger, was found in St. Petersburg and was tasked with assembling the clock and then installing it on the bell tower. After inspecting the watch, Riediger announced that the design of the watch was very successful and that it would take no more than 2 months to put its mechanism into action. However, Riediger's conditions were accepted by the Chancellery for the building only in 1776.

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

The clock mechanism has survived to this day almost unchanged.

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

In Soviet times, they tried to teach watches new songs. There was no way that Soviet ideologists could allow “God Save the Tsar” to be heard over Leningrad. And from 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 o’clock in the morning, at 12 o’clock in the afternoon, at 6 o’clock in the evening and at 12 o’clock at night). In addition, apparently for ideological reasons, the chime 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 from notes. They "sound a chord" and are intended exclusively for church chimes. Therefore, while 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 struck the time and quarter chimes.

The melodies originally intended for the chimes resounded over Peter and Paul Fortress only five years ago.

But in 1830, a daredevil was found - a roofer Petr Telushkin. Showing resourcefulness and fearlessness, he managed to climb the spire without any scaffolding with the help of ropes. He attached a rope ladder to the base of the cross and climbed the spire every day for six weeks to repair the figure of the angel and the cross.

In 1829, during a storm, the leaves of the cross were torn off and the angel's wings were damaged. Expensive restoration with preliminary scaffolding was ahead. At this time, roofing master Pyotr Telushkin submitted a written statement that he undertakes to correct all damage to the cross and angel of the cathedral without building scaffolding. Telushkin, as a poor artisan, not having the collateral required for contractors for construction work, “pledged,” as the St. Petersburg Vedomosti put it, “his life to secure the business he had taken on.” He did not assign a specific remuneration for his work, leaving it to his superiors to determine its value, but asked only for 1,471 rubles for the materials that he would need to carry out the repairs. Telushkin's proposal was accepted, although no one believed in a favorable outcome of his enterprise. Nevertheless, Telushkin completed the task he took upon himself, demonstrating extraordinary physical strength, dexterity and intelligence.

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 Emperor Nicholas I, who awarded the brave roofer with money and a silver medal on the Annensky ribbon with the inscription “For zeal.”

There is a legend that Telushkin was also presented with a letter, upon seeing which they were obliged to pour it for free in any tavern, but he lost it; then he was given a special mark under his right cheekbone, according to which Telushkin, when coming to a drinking establishment, snapped his fingers - this is where the characteristic gesture supposedly came from, indicating drinking alcohol. The event described in the legend would have been quite probable during 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 by metal ones according to the design of the prominent scientist and engineer D.I. Zhuravsky. The metal structures were manufactured in the Urals at the Votkinsk plant, they were transported in parts to St. Petersburg, partially mounted on the square in front of the cathedral, and then raised to the bell tower. The spire is made of a metal frame covered with gilded copper sheets. Its height was 47 meters, weight - 56 tons. Inside there is a staircase at 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. This 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 constantly swings, but during this entire time the spire has shifted to the side by only 3 centimeters. The figure of the angel was replaced, the figure slightly changed its appearance, and it is in the form created then that the angel can be seen to this day. When the spire structures are replaced, 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 topped with a spire covered with 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, not counting the tower of the television transmission center. The height of the cathedral is 122.5 meters, the height of the spire is 40 meters, the height of the angel figure is 3.2 meters, and its wingspan is 3.8 meters.

In the summer of 2001 in Goa 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. Flanders gave such a carillon to our city.

We still consider the word “carillon” foreign, although Peter I 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 survived), explained Sergei Alekseevich Starostenkov, vice-president of the Association of Bell Art of Russia , researcher at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. Peter the Great (Kunstkamera). - The second carillon for the Peter and Paul Fortress was cast in 1760 and stopped sounding more than 150 years ago (it is now being restored). Both in Europe and in St. Petersburg, the same bells were used for playing through a keyboard (carillon) and for mechanical ringing (chimes). Therefore, contemporaries perceived the carillon as part of a chiming clock and called it differently: “playing clock”, “playing machine”, “manual chimes”, “a machine 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 Haazen, director of the Royal School of Carillon named after Jef Denain (Mechelen, Flanders, Kingdom of Belgium). He fell in love with our city so much that he not only married a St. Petersburg woman and learned Russian, but also raised 300 thousand dollars for the production of 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. For the largest of the bells (diameter 1695 mm, weighs more than 3 tons!) the Belgian Queen Fabiola donated 1 million Belgian francs (the names of the king and queen are cast on the bell: “Baldvinus & Fabiola”, i.e. “Baudouin and Fabiola”) , and ordinary Flemings gave one or two francs. Many bells were cast through private donations, including the smallest one (diameter 190 mm, weight 10.3 kg). Bell No. 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), entire slogans were cast on the bells, for example: “Let this bell ring for the glory of Russia!”, “I have been collecting bells for forty years... The bell ringers of the Russian Land are called Smagina” or “ Eternal memory to the Russians and Flemings who fell in Krasnoye Selo in the war of 1941-1945" (note: who 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, the people are different, with a different mentality,” explains Jo Haazen expressively. - Some kind of mysticism... Maybe it’s all because of the angel on the spire. Maybe because of its extraordinary beauty! Or maybe it’s because my last name is translated into Russian as “Zaitsev” - that’s why Hare Island is especially close to me...

The carillon is not a Catholic instrument, but a secular one, explained Mr. Jo Haazen. - On the carillon you can perform different melodies: 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. In Mechelen, carillon concerts are held on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday; this 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 everything for this.

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

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

Big bell with
with a clock hammer attached to it