Tsar Cannon (Angle View)

The impressive bronze Tsar Cannon is one of the largest canons ever made and was cast in 1586 by the foundryman Andrei Chokhov. The canon is 5.34 meters long, weighs an impressive 40 tons and has an incredible caliber of 890 mm. It was originally created with the purpose of defending the Kremlin's Savior Gate, which leads to Red Square, but the canon was never actually fired and has remained on display in the Kremlin as a fine example of Russian workmanship ever since. Its bronze barrel bears a relief of Ivan the Terrible's son, Fyodor, and its enormous gun carriage, which was cast over 250 years later in 1835, is decorated with a lion and snake fighting on either side and a lion's head behind the barrel. The cannonballs lying in front of the canon were cast at the same time as the gun carriage, but are merely decorative as the canon was always intended to firestone case-shot.

Photo #027 taken on September 19, 2004