When visiting the Moscow Kremlin, one of the most impressive attractions you’ll see is a ginormous cannon. Everybody appears amazed by its size, but few people wonder and enquire about its fascinating story.
The Tsar Cannon is one of my personal favorite items to show in the Kremlin. One can't really see it when entering the fortress as the cannon is well hidden behind trees. One would see golden domes first and head towards them hoping to get beautiful pictures in Cathedral Square, but then they spot the cannon and stop with a questioning look. I always ask my guests to guess how much it weighs. And the most popular question I get is: "Has it ever been fired?!" Read my post and find out!
The Tsar Cannon was cast in bronze in 1586 in Moscow by legendary Russian master Andrey Chokhov. As there were no copper mines in Russia at that time the metal had to be imported, and thus it was extremely expensive. The cannon weighs 39.312 tons; the barrel measures 5.34 m in length and 890 mm in caliber which makes it the largest (by caliber) cannon in the world.
The cannon is massive indeed. The name of the cannon has nothing to do with its size, and it’s so called because there’s a bas-relief of Tsar Theodor/Fyodor. Often cannon were decorated and named after images on their barrels as people believed that plain, 'ugly' cannon would have nothing but bad luck in battle.
Fyodor was the son of Ivan IV the Terrible and the last ruler of the Ryuriks, a royal family that reigned over Russia for nearly 700 years. Fyodor died heirless in 1598, and thus the dynasty interrupted. It was under and by order of Tsar Fyodor that the cannon was made; on the barrel you see him seated on horseback holding a scepter in his right hand. It is noteworthy that this depiction of the tsar is one of the earliest known Russian bas-reliefs.
In the 18th-19th centuries the common belief was that the cannon was actually a large shotgun which was meant to fire grapeshot (a cluster of small balls) instead of solid cannonballs. However, before the 1980 Summer Olympics the cannon was examined by specialists from the Peter the Great Military Academy of Strategic Missile Forces who came to a conclusion that the Tsar Cannon is in fact a giant bombard.
The cast-iron gun carriage and cannonballs were made by the Baird Works in St. Petersburg in 1835; there's a trademark on the wheel. The carriage weighs 15 tons.
I personally love how elaborate it is. The decoration was designed by Russian artist and architect Alexander Brullov.
The cannonballs, which are hollow, weigh 1 ton each. Interestingly, they could have never been used as their caliber is 10 mm larger than that of the barrel. Just like the carriage, the cannonballs are purely decorative.
Although the Tsar Cannon seems frightening and terrifying, this is the most peaceful artillery piece in the world. It was never actually used in combat and killed nobody: studies have shown that the touch hole (a hole through which the charge is ignited) wasn’t fully drilled, and thus the cannon wasn’t completed and cannot be fired. The only shooting happening in the Kremlin is photographs being taken.
The Tsar Cannon originally stood in Red Square in front of the Kremlin. In the first half of the 17th century it was mounted on a specially erected pedestal.
Foreign ambassadors passed by the cannon on their way to the Kremlin, the tsar's residence, and, supposedly, were very impressed by the giant gun.
It was not until in the second half of the 18th century that the Tsar Cannon was moved inside the Kremlin. In 1820 it was placed near the Arsenal, and in 1843 it was moved close to the first building of the Armory where it stood for almost 120 years.
In the 19th century the Tsar Cannon became a major attraction appearing in many photographs, postcards as well as guide books; all of them are fantastic historic documents.
In 1959 the construction of the Palace of Soviets started in the Kremlin, and the Tsar Cannon was moved to a new site closer to Cathedral Square where it still is today.
On the eve of the 1980 Summer Olympics the Tsar Cannon, carriage and cannonballs were studied, measured and carefully restored. An important result of that work were answers to all our questions about the cannon.
Unfortunately, not everybody can travel to Moscow and visit the Kremlin, especially now, during the pandemic. Luckily, there's a few replicas of the Tsar Cannon in case you can't make it to Russia's capital.
Every year thousands of people take pictures of the Tsar Cannon. I encourage you to go beyond that and take a while to truly appreciate one of the greatest monuments of the Russian casting craft.