The largest bell in Russia will be raised onto the bell tower in the Holy Trinity St Sergius Laura, near Moscow, on April 16, Friday.
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Alexis II is expected to sanctify the bell.
The bell weighs some 72 tons. It is 4.5 m high and is nearly 4.5 m in diameter. Its shape resembles that of the Kremlin's Tsar Bell.
In the early 20th century, there were as many as over 40 bells in the monastery's bell tower, which is the highest in Russia. The sound of one of the bells was particularly strong and deep. It was heard at a distance of tens of kilometers. That was the sound of the famous Tsar Bell.
At least 25 bells, the Tsar Bell among them, were thrown down from the belfry in January 1930, during the Stalin-era persecution of the church.
The bells named Pervenets (First-born) and Blagovestnik, the replicas of the Kornoukhy and Boris Godunov bells, which were destroyed in the 1930s, were cast and raised onto the bell tower last year.
The Tsar Bell was made at St Petersburg's Baltiisky plant and brought to the monastery on January 14 in a special trailer. The gates had to be extended so that the trailer with the bell could enter the monastery.
The giant is made of an alloy of tin and copper. It was cast according to the old traditions and the latest technology, which will preserve good sound in very low temperatures, up to minus 40 degrees Celsius.
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