History of the Tsar Cannon (17 photos). Tsar Cannon: a weapon masterpiece or a toy? Who poured out the king's cannon

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The Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell located nearby are surprising in size, but were never used for their intended purpose.
Some consider them the creations of a national genius, others the personification of bragging, window dressing and impracticality, recalling the famous lines: “Russia cannot be understood with the mind.”

The caliber of the Tsar Cannon is 890 mm, the barrel length is 5.345 m, the weight is 39.312 tons (2400 pounds), the weight of the stone core is 819 kg (50 pounds). A cast iron cannonball of the same size would weigh 120 pounds. To push it out would require a powder charge, which the barrel would not withstand.

The giant gun was moved from place to place by 200 horses on wooden rollers, so it was practically non-transportable.

The main characteristic of an artillery gun is the caliber of the barrel. According to this indicator, the Tsar Cannon is in fourth place in the world. The first three are shared by two Mallett mortars and a Little David mortar, manufactured in Britain and the USA in 1857 and 1945, respectively. All had a caliber of 914 mm (36 in), like the Tsar Cannon, they were never used in combat and are museum pieces.

But is it? We will find out the expert's opinion at the end of the post.

The biggest artillery piece, used in practice (during the siege of Sevastopol in 1942) - the German Dora cannon with a caliber of 800 mm. She also holds the records for barrel length (32 m) and projectile weight (7.088 tons).

The Tsar Cannon was cast in the third year of the reign of Ivan the Terrible's son Fyodor, known for his meek disposition, extreme piety and lack of interest in state affairs. The actual initiator of the creation of the “superweapon” was his brother-in-law and actual regent Boris Godunov.

It was intended to protect against the Crimean Tatars, who burned Moscow in 1571 and threatened to repeat the raid. In 1591, Khan Kazy-Girey again approached Moscow and withdrew without attempting an assault. Whether the presence of the Tsar Cannon among the Russians played any role in this is unknown. Further military necessity there was no need to use it.

Artillery Academy experts who examined the gun in 1980 determined that it had been fired at least once, probably for testing.

Structurally, the Tsar Cannon was a classic bombard - a medieval weapon with a thick short barrel, widespread in Europe, Ottoman Turkey and Mughal India. The bombard was dug into the ground with its breech, loaded from the muzzle and fired up to six shots a day, mainly with the goal of destroying enemy fortifications. A trench was set up nearby for the crew, because the bombards were often blown apart.

In Turkey, ancient bombards stood on the forts protecting the Dardanelles until 1868. The last case of their successful use dates back to 1807. A 244-kilogram stone cannonball landed in the British powder magazine. battleship"Windsor Castle", which sank as a result of the explosion.

Since the Tsar Cannon had to fire not at the walls, but at the infantry and cavalry approaching the Kremlin, it could shoot both stone cannonballs and cast iron shrapnel or small stones (“shotgun”), and therefore is called in many sources the “Russian Shotgun” .

Its creator, Andrei Chokhov, was honored to place his name on the trunk next to the name of the monarch. He entered the Moscow Cannon Yard on Neglinka in 1568 as a 23-year-old youth, quickly advanced and in 40 seconds extra years cast more than twenty works large guns. The master successfully survived the terror of Ivan the Terrible and the Time of Troubles and died at 84, having witnessed six reigns.

The Tsar Cannon was located at Lobnoye Mesto and covered the Kremlin’s Spassky Gate. At first it lay on the ground, in 1626 it was erected on a log frame filled with soil ("roll"), 10 years later a stone rack was built, inside which there was a wine shop.

In 1701, the Tsar Cannon miraculously survived. After the loss of most of the artillery near Narva, Peter I ordered the old Kremlin cannons to be converted into modern ones. Only at the last moment did he spare the Tsar Cannon for its uniqueness.

At the beginning of the 18th century, it was moved to the Kremlin to the gates of the Arsenal (demolished due to the construction of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses), and in 1960 to its current location on Ivanovskaya Square.

The artistic casting decorating the Tsar Cannon is a work of art

The cast-iron carriage on which the Tsar Cannon now stands, and the four hollow cast-iron cannonballs cast in 1835 at the St. Petersburg plant of Charles Byrd, are decorative. Placing the cannon on the carriage was a technically complex operation, for which the winning contractor, Mikhail Vasiliev, received a huge sum of 1,400 rubles at that time.

At the time of its creation, the Tsar Cannon was, to use a now favorite expression in Russia, “a weapon that has no analogues in the world.” At the same time, for the same money it was possible to cast 20 guns of a smaller caliber, which would have brought much more benefit. The main goal of the government was, in modern terms, PR.

When a heavy monument was erected in St. Petersburg in 1909 Alexander III works by Paolo Trubetskoy, the poet Alexander Roslavlev responded with an epigram: “The third wild toy for the Russian serf: there was the Tsar-bell, the Tsar-cannon, and now the Tsar-f...a.”

However, let me remind you of this opinion of artillery specialist A. Shirokorad

He claims that venerable historians and dissident joke-tellers are wrong all around. Firstly, the Tsar Cannon fired, and secondly, this weapon is not a cannon at all.
Currently, the Tsar Cannon is on a decorative cast-iron carriage, and next to it lie decorative cast-iron cannonballs, which were cast in 1834 in St. Petersburg at the Berda iron foundry. It is clear that it is physically impossible to either shoot from this cast-iron carriage or use cast-iron cannonballs - the Tsar Cannon will be smashed to smithereens! Documents about the testing of the Tsar Cannon or its use in combat conditions have not been preserved, which gave rise to lengthy disputes about its purpose. Most historians and military men in the 19th and early 20th centuries believed that the Tsar Cannon was a shotgun, that is, a weapon designed to fire shot, which in the 16th-17th centuries consisted of small stones. A minority of experts generally exclude the possibility of combat use of the gun, believing that it was made specifically to frighten foreigners, especially the ambassadors of the Crimean Tatars. Let us remember that in 1571 Khan Devlet Giray burned Moscow.

In the 18th - early 20th centuries, the Tsar Cannon was called a shotgun in all official documents. And only the Bolsheviks in the 1930s decided to increase its rank for propaganda purposes and began to call it a cannon.

The secret of the Tsar Cannon was revealed only in 1980, when a large truck crane removed it from its carriage and placed it on a huge trailer. Then the powerful KrAZ transported the Tsar Cannon to Serpukhov, where the cannon was repaired at the military unit No. 42708 plant. At the same time, a number of specialists from the Artillery Academy named after. Dzerzhinsky examined and measured it. For some reason the report was not published, but from the surviving draft materials it becomes clear that the Tsar Cannon... was not a cannon!

The highlight of the gun is its channel. At a distance of 3190 mm, it has the shape of a cone, the initial diameter of which is 900 mm and the final diameter is 825 mm. Then comes the charging chamber with a reverse taper - with an initial diameter of 447 mm and a final diameter (at the breech) of 467 mm. The length of the chamber is 1730 mm, and the bottom is flat.

So this is a classic bombard!

Bombards first appeared at the end of the 14th century. The name "bombarda" comes from the Latin words bombus (thunderous sound) and arder (to burn). The first bombards were made of iron and had screw-mounted chambers. For example, in 1382, in the city of Ghent (Belgium), the “Mad Margaret” bombard was made, named in memory of the Countess of Flanders Margaret the Cruel. The caliber of the bombard is 559 mm, the barrel length is 7.75 calibers (klb), and the bore length is 5 klb. The weight of the gun is 11 tons. “Mad Margarita” fired stone cannonballs weighing 320 kg. The bombarda consists of two layers: the inner one, consisting of longitudinal strips welded together, and the outer one, made of 41 iron hoops welded together and with the inner layer. A separate screw chamber consists of one layer of disks welded together and is equipped with sockets into which a lever was inserted when screwing it in and out.

Loading and aiming large bombards took about a day. Therefore, during the siege of the city of Pisa in 1370, every time the besiegers prepared to fire a shot, the besieged went to the opposite end of the city. The besiegers, taking advantage of this, rushed to attack.

The bombard's charge was no more than 10% of the core's weight. There were no trunnions or carriages. The guns were laid on wooden blocks and frames, and piles were driven in behind or brick walls were erected for support. Initially, the elevation angle did not change. In the 15th century, primitive lifting mechanisms began to be used and bombards were cast from copper.

Please note that the Tsar Cannon does not have trunnions, with the help of which the gun is given an elevation angle. In addition, it has an absolutely smooth rear section of the breech, with which it, like other bombards, rested against a stone wall or frame.

Defender of the Dardanelles

By the middle of the 15th century, the most powerful siege artillery was... the Turkish Sultan. Thus, during the siege of Constantinople in 1453, the Hungarian foundry maker Urban cast the Turks a copper bombard with a caliber of 24 inches (610 mm), which fired stone cannonballs weighing about 20 pounds (328 kg). It took 60 bulls and 100 people to transport it to the position. To eliminate the rollback, the Turks built a stone wall behind the gun. The rate of fire of this bombard was 4 shots per day. By the way, the rate of fire of large-caliber Western European bombards was approximately the same. Just before the capture of Constantinople, a 24-inch bombard exploded. At the same time, its designer Urban himself died. The Turks appreciated large-caliber bombards. Already in 1480, during the battles on the island of Rhodes, they used 24-35-inch caliber (610-890 mm) bombards. The casting of such giant bombards required, as indicated in ancient documents, 18 days.

It is curious that bombards of the 15th-16th centuries in Turkey were in service until the middle of the 19th century. Thus, on March 1, 1807, during the crossing of the Dardanelles by the English squadron of Admiral Duckworth, a marble core of 25 inches (635 mm) caliber weighing 800 pounds (244 kg) hit the lower deck of the ship Windsor Castle and ignited several caps with gunpowder, as a result there was a terrible explosion. 46 people were killed and wounded. In addition, many sailors jumped overboard in fright and drowned. The Aktiv ship was hit by the same cannonball and punched a huge hole in the side above the waterline. Several people could stick their heads through this hole.

In 1868, over 20 huge bombards still stood on the forts defending the Dardanelles. There is information that during the Dardanelles operation of 1915, the English battleship Agamemnon was hit by a 400-kilogram stone core. Of course, it was unable to penetrate the armor and only amused the team.

Let's compare the Turkish 25-inch (630 mm) copper bombard, cast in 1464, which is currently kept in the museum in Woolwich (London), with our Tsar Cannon. The weight of the Turkish bombard is 19 tons, and the total length is 5232 mm. The outer diameter of the barrel is 894 mm. The length of the cylindrical part of the channel is 2819 mm. Chamber length - 2006 mm. The bottom of the chamber is rounded. The bombard fired stone cannonballs weighing 309 kg, the gunpowder charge weighed 22 kg.

Bombarda once defended the Dardanelles. As you can see, in appearance and in the design of the channel it is very similar to the Tsar Cannon. The main and fundamental difference is that the Turkish bombard has a screw-in breech. Apparently, the Tsar Cannon was made based on the model of such bombards.

Tsar Shotgun

So, the Tsar Cannon is a bombard designed to fire stone cannonballs. The weight of the stone core of the Tsar Cannon was about 50 pounds (819 kg), and a cast iron core of this caliber weighs 120 pounds (1.97 tons). As a shotgun, the Tsar Cannon was extremely ineffective. At the cost of the cost, instead, it was possible to produce 20 small shotguns, which would take much less time to load - not a day, but only 1-2 minutes. I note that in the official inventory “At the Moscow Arsenal of Artillery” # for 1730 there were 40 copper and 15 cast iron shotguns. Let's pay attention to their calibers: 1500 pounds - 1 (this is the Tsar Cannon), and then follow the calibers: 25 pounds - 2, 22 pounds - 1, 21 pounds - 3, etc. The largest number of shotguns, 11, are in the 2-pound gauge.

And yet she shot

Who and why wrote the Tsar Cannon into shotguns? The fact is that in Russia, all the old guns located in the fortresses, with the exception of mortars, over time were automatically transferred to shotguns, that is, in the event of a siege of the fortress, they had to shoot shot (stone), and later - cast iron grapeshot at the infantry marching for the assault. It was inappropriate to use old guns to fire cannonballs or bombs: what if the barrel would blow apart, and the new guns had much better ballistic data. So the Tsar Cannon was recorded as a shotgun; at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, the military forgot about the procedures in smooth-bore fortress artillery, and civilian historians did not know at all and, based on the name “shotgun,” decided that the Tsar Cannon was to be used exclusively as an anti-assault weapon guns for firing stone shot.

The dispute over whether the Tsar Cannon fired was settled in 1980 by experts from the Academy. Dzerzhinsky. They examined the bore of the gun and, based on a number of signs, including the presence of particles of burnt gunpowder, concluded that the Tsar Cannon had been fired at least once. After the Tsar Cannon was cast and finished at the Cannon Yard, it was dragged to the Spassky Bridge and laid on the ground next to the Peacock cannon.# To move the cannon, ropes were tied to eight brackets on its barrel, and 200 were harnessed to these ropes at the same time horses, and they rolled the cannon lying on huge logs - rollers.

Initially, the “Tsar” and “Peacock” guns lay on the ground near the bridge leading to the Spasskaya Tower, and the Kashpirov cannon lay near the Zemsky Prikaz, located where it is now Historical Museum. In 1626, they were lifted from the ground and installed on log frames tightly packed with earth. These platforms were called roskats. One of them, with the Tsar Cannon and the Peacock, was placed at the Execution Ground, the other, with the Kashpirova cannon, at the Nikolsky Gate. In 1636, the wooden rolls were replaced with stone ones, inside which warehouses and shops selling wine were built.

After the “Narva embarrassment”, when the tsar’s army lost the entire siege and regimental artillery, Peter I ordered new guns to be poured urgently. The king decided to obtain the copper necessary for this by melting down bells and old guns. According to the “nominal decree”, it was “ordered to pour the Peacock cannon into cannon and mortar casting, which is on the roskat in China near the Execution Ground; the Kashpirov cannon, which is near the new Money Dvor, where the Zemsky order was located; the Echidna cannon, near the village of Voskresensky; the Krechet cannon with a ten-pound cannonball; "Nightingale" cannon with a 6-pound cannonball, which is in China on the square."

Peter, due to his lack of education, did not spare the most ancient Moscow casting tools and made an exception only for the largest tools. Among them, naturally, was the Tsar Cannon, as well as two mortars cast by Andrei Chokhov, which are currently in the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg.

The famous Tsar Cannon in the Kremlin, one of the most visited attractions in the Moscow Kremlin, can be seen today on the western side of Ivanovskaya Square. Each of the tourists arriving in Moscow must include in their visit an inspection of the grandiose weapon of the 16th century. A brief history of the Tsar Cannon for both children and adults is given in our article.

Cast in gigantic sizes made of high-quality bronze, the gun is even listed in the Guinness World Records. And this is not without reason. Here are just its most basic parameters:

• length - more than 5 m.,
• the outer diameter of the trunk reaches 134 cm,
• caliber - 890 mm,
• the product weighs about 40 tons.

When and why was it created?

Photo 1. The Tsar Cannon is one of the main attractions of the Kremlin

History and little-known facts about the Tsar Cannon in the Kremlin

In 1586, an alarming message was brought to the city of Moscow: the Crimean Khan with his large army was marching on the capital. To repel the invasion, by decree of the then reigning Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, in the Moscow Cannon Yard, Russian foundry worker Andrei Chokhov cast a huge artillery gun, which was intended to fire stone grapeshot.

Since the gun was originally intended for the defense of the Kremlin, it was installed on a hill above the bank of the Moscow River - on Red Square, not far from the famous Lobnoye Mesto and the Spasskaya Tower.

However, the Crimean Khan never approached the walls of the Mother See of the Capital, and therefore Muscovites were never able to find out how powerfully this weapon, nicknamed the Tsar Cannon for its size, fired.

Later, during the reign of Peter I, the gun was moved to the Kremlin territory with the help of special rollers: first to the courtyard of the Arsenal under construction, and then to its main gate. There it was mounted on a wooden carriage, which, along with the carriages of other guns, burned down in a fire in 1812.

In 1835, at the Berda shipyard in St. Petersburg, according to the drawings of the military engineer Witte (some sources mention Academician Alexander Pavlovich Bryulov as the author of the sketch), a more durable cast-iron carriage for the grandiose gun was made.

In 1843, the Tsar Cannon was removed from the Arsenal gates, where it had been located all this time, and installed next to the old building of the Armory Chamber. There it stood until 1960, when, as part of the construction of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, the gun was again moved, this time to Ivanovskaya Square, where it remains to this day.

So, we have briefly described the history of the cannon, and now we will continue our story for more curious children and adults.

Description of the legendary Tsar Cannon

As mentioned above, the gun carriage is made using cast iron and performs purely decorative functions. The body of the gun itself is cast from bronze. Next to the carriage there are cast iron cores, which are also a decorative element.

On the right side of the gun there is an image of the autocrat Fyodor Ivanovich sitting on a war horse. The prince's head is crowned with a royal crown, and in his hands is one of the symbols Russian authorities- scepter An inscription explaining the image is poured nearby.

One of the hypotheses for the appearance of the name “Tsar Cannon” is precisely the image of the king who ruled at the time of the creation of this formidable artillery weapon, who is immortalized on the plane of the cannon. True, there is another name found in Russian documents from different eras - this is “Russian shotgun”. The fact is that this was the designation for guns intended for firing shotguns (in other words, buckshot).

The left side of the gun is decorated with an inscription immortalizing its creator and which reads “litz Ondrej Czokhov.”

The plane of the barrel itself, among other things, is decorated with an original ornament.

Separately, I would like to highlight the carriage itself, which is decorated in such a way as to clearly highlight the high status of the artillery piece. Its main component is the image of a lion - a formidable and strong king of animals. The symbolic representation of a lion fighting a mythical serpent can also be seen in the intricacy of ornamental plants on the plane of the carriage.

I would like to add that to move the cannon located in the Moscow Kremlin, 200 draft horses were simultaneously harnessed.

Despite the impressiveness of the gun, some experts agree that it was not made for shooting, but solely to intimidate the enemy, in this particular case, the troops of the Crimean Khan advancing on the capital. The technical side of the gun will be discussed further, from which we will find out whether it is a prop or a truly formidable artillery weapon.

Let us immediately note that the cast iron cores placed in a pyramid near the gun carriage are just decoration, hollow inside. If they are made real, then the stone core will weigh about 819 kilograms, and the cast iron core will weigh about 2 tons.

Further, according to experts, the carriage itself is not technically suitable for firing from such a powerful weapon, and the heavy cast-iron cannonballs themselves would not be physically suitable - the barrel of the Tsar Cannon would simply be torn apart during the shot. About him combat use facts are not attested in history.

But it cannot be that in those distant times, before the threat of an attack on Moscow, an artillery gun would have been created just to “show off.” Let's try to figure this out!

Let's start with the fact that until the 20th century, military experts and historians still designated the current “Tsar Cannon” as a shotgun, i.e. designed for shooting buckshot, which was replaced in those distant times by ordinary small stones. The current name was established only in 1930, when the authorities decided to improve the status of the weapon for propaganda purposes. Which ones? Probably based on the fact that great country, must be all the grandest things in the world. It’s like the joke from Soviet times that the USSR had “the largest radio components in the world.”

But let’s not slander and continue, especially since the veil of secrecy over the gun was nevertheless lifted, and this happened during the planned restoration work carried out in 1980.

The gun was removed from the carriage and sent to one of the military factories in the city of Serpukhov, where its restoration was carried out. Along with the usual work in this case, military specialists from the Moscow Artillery Academy carried out measurements of the Tsar Cannon, although the main report has not yet been made public. True, draft drawings have been preserved, which emphasize that this gun is not a gun at all in its actual designation.

So, in order. The diameter of the barrel bore, from which the cannon is loaded with cannonballs, is 90 centimeters, and towards the very end of the warhead it decreases to 82 centimeters. The depth of this cone is about 32 centimeters. Next comes the flat-bottomed charging chamber, 173 centimeters deep, with a diameter of 44.7 centimeters at the beginning, increasing to 46.7 centimeters at the end.

These data allow us to classify the weapon as a bombard, which means that it was quite possible to fire stone cannonballs from it. It is impossible to call this artillery installation a cannon, because... one of the main conditions is not met: the barrel length must be at least 40 calibers. Right we're talking about about four in total. As for using the weapon as a shotgun that fires buckshot, based on the existing characteristics, this would be very ineffective.

The bombards themselves belong to the class of battering guns designed to destroy fortress walls. In most cases, they didn’t even make a carriage for them, because... part of the trunk was simply buried in the ground. The gun crew was located in trenches built next to the bombardment, because barrels often burst when fired. The rate of fire left much to be desired and rarely reached 6 shots... per day.

At research work Particles of gunpowder were found in the Tsar Cannon canal. The only question is, was it a test shot or did they manage to use the weapon against the enemy? The latter is most likely impossible. This can also be confirmed by the fact that no longitudinal scratches were found on the walls of the barrel, which should have been left either by the cannonball or by stone shrapnel.

The myth of the weapon and the impostor Tsar False Dmitry

And yet she shot!? A myth that has survived to this day says that the only shot was fired by the ashes of the temporary Russian Tsar False Dmitry.

After exposure, he tried to escape from Moscow, but stumbled upon a combat patrol and was brutally killed. The body was interred twice, and twice it again appeared on the surface: first at the almshouse, then in the graveyard. Rumors spread that even the earth did not want to accept him, after which it was decided to cremate the body and fire the ashes from a cannon, turning the gun towards the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (present-day Poland), where he was from.

This is the story of the Tsar Cannon in brief - the largest weapon of its era.

Today, smaller copies of the Kremlin gun are installed in Donetsk, Perm and Yoshkar-Ola. However, neither in parameters nor in characteristics do they even come close to the Moscow giant.

History of the Tsar Cannon

The Tsar Cannon was created in 1586 by master Andrei Chokhov on the instructions of the son of Ivan the Terrible, Fyodor Ivanovich. The caliber of the gun is 890 mm, and the weight is about 40 tons; there is no gun in the world bigger size. After production, the cannon was installed at the Spassky Gate of the Kremlin, probably intending to use it for their defense. However, it was not necessary. The weapon drew the attention of Peter I, who created a storage facility for ancient and captured weapons, where the Tsar Cannon was placed. The giant cannon was placed on a pedestal in 1835, two years earlier than the Tsar Bell; it took its current location in the 1960s.

Tsar Cannon and Tsar Bell

The Tsar Cannon always follows closely in people’s minds: as soon as you mention one thing, you immediately remember another. And they are located nearby, on the territory of the Kremlin. The cannon is between the Ivan the Great Bell Tower and the Church of the Twelve Apostles, the bell is opposite the bell tower. However, the cannon is older and, unlike the bell, could properly perform its functions, although it never took part in battles. For a long time it was believed that the cannon had never fired, but studies of the cannon bore revealed traces of burnt gunpowder - this means that the cannon did fire at least once.

Where is it and how to get there

The Tsar Cannon is located in, between the bell tower of Ivan the Great and the Church of the Twelve Apostles. The most convenient way to approach the ticket office and the entrance to the Kremlin is from the Aleksandrovsky Sad and Lenin Library metro stations.

Opening hours: entrance to the Kremlin territory is from 10:00 to 17:00, closed on Thursdays. Ticket prices: minors are admitted free, an adult ticket costs 350 rubles, discounted tickets depending on the exhibition visited - 250-300 rubles. Website:

At first the cannon was aimed at the walls, but then it was moved to Red Square to Lobnoye Mesto. And by decree of Peter I, the cannon went into the courtyard. Now the giant weapon is located on. Each movement required the strength of at least 200 horses, which were tied to special brackets on the sides of the gun.

The Tsar Cannon is called so not only because of its size - it also has a portrait of Tsar Fyodor, the son of Ivan IV, engraved on it. The lion on the carriage (a stand under the barrel for aiming at the target and accurate shooting) emphasizes the high status of the gun. The carriage itself was cast only in 1835 at the Berda factory in St. Petersburg.

Many people ask, did the Tsar Cannon fire? Scientists say that she did fire one test shot for sighting purposes.

Therefore, inside the barrel there is a mark of the creator: then the master’s personal stamp was placed only after testing the weapon in practice. Therefore, we can safely say that the Tsar Cannon fired.

But such massive weapons were intended for aimed shooting on the walls of fortresses with heavy cannonballs. But the four cores at the foot of the monument are decorative and hollow inside. Real cannonballs of this size would weigh at least a ton each and would require a special mechanism to load them. Therefore, small stone cannonballs were used to charge the Tsar Cannon. And the real name of the gun is “Russian Shotgun”, or mortar (in military terminology), that is, it should stand with the muzzle up.

There is also a version that the design of the Tsar Cannon is a bombard. Cannons include guns with a barrel length of 40 calibers and above, and the Tsar Cannon has a length of only 4 calibers, like a bombard. These battering guns were huge enough to destroy a fortress wall and did not have a carriage. The barrel was dug into the ground, and two more trenches were made nearby for the artillery crew, since the guns were often torn apart. The rate of fire of bombards was from 1 to 6 shots per day.

The Tsar Cannon monument has several copies.

In the spring of 2001, by order of the Moscow government, the Udmurt enterprise Izhstal manufactured a copy of the Tsar Cannon from cast iron. The remake weighs 42 tons (each wheel weighs 1.5 tons, trunk diameter is 89 cm). Moscow donated a copy to Donetsk, where it was installed in front of the city hall.

In 2007, in Yoshkar-Ola, on Obolensky-Nogotkov Square at the entrance to the National Art Gallery, a copy of the Tsar Cannon, cast at the Butyakovsky Shipyard, was installed.

And in Perm there is the world's largest 20-inch cast iron cannon. This is definitely a military weapon. It was manufactured in 1868 by order of the Maritime Ministry at the Motovilikha Iron Cannon Factory. During testing of the Perm Tsar Cannon, 314 shots of cannonballs and bombs were fired different systems.

A life-size model of the Permian cannon was exhibited in front of the Russian pavilion at the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873. She had to go to Kronstadt to protect St. Petersburg from the sea. A carriage had already been prepared there, but the giant returned to Perm. By that time, engineer-inventor Pavel Obukhov from Zlatoust had developed a technology for the production of high-strength cannon steel and opened a plant in St. Petersburg, where lighter guns were cast. So the Perm Tsar Cannon became technically obsolete and became a monument.

What do you know about the history of the Tsar Cannon of the Moscow Kremlin?