Alexander Grigoriev (bellfounder)

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Alexander Grigoriev, born around 1634 and the son of Lykov, was a Russian cannon and bellfounder active in the mid-17th century. In 1651 he joined the Moscow Cannon Yard as a “bell person,” chosen on the recommendation of master Yemelyan Danilov and other Moscow master-craftsmen. He soon had seven apprentices and worked on recasting the Annunciation Bell for the Church of Saint Antipius in Moscow, as well as making six spare alarm bells for fortresses.

In 1654–55 Grigoriev and Feodor Motorin were sent to Novgorod to cast a huge 16-ton bell for the Saint Sophia Cathedral. Their trip helped them avoid the bubonic plague that struck the city that year.

Returning to Moscow in 1655, Grigoriev succeeded Danilov and began planning the country’s great bell, the Big Assumption Bell (around 160 tons). Casting took place in the Moscow Kremlin from spring to autumn, with many apprentices taking part. The bell was hung in a wooden belltower in 1668. It was destroyed in a Kremlin fire in 1701, and its metal was later used for the Tsar Bell. Among his apprentices were future famous bellmakers such as Khariton Ivanov, Pyotr Stepanov, and Fyodor Dmitriyev.

That same year he founded an alarm bell for the Spasskaya (Frolovskaya) Tower of the Kremlin, about three tons, using the remnants of a shattered bell and increasing its weight.

In 1656 Grigoriev and Motorin went to the Iversky Monastery in Valdai to cast an 11.5-ton bell for Patriarch Nikon. The bell did not survive, but a legend says Grigoriev gave the remaining bronze to local helpers, helping start the tradition of Valday little bells.

In 1657 he cast a 0.75-ton bell for the Kotelnyy Ryad in Moscow. In 1665 he cast a 5-ton bell for the Simonov Monastery, the inscription on which called him “cannon and bell master of the state” for the first time.

In 1668 he produced his finest bell, the Big Annunciation Bell, for the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery near Zvenigorod. It was praised for its sonorous sound and casting took about 130 days. Tsar Alexis I rewarded him with cloth, money, and bread, and the bell’s fame was such that Feodor Chaliapin is said to have admired its tone.

The Big Annunciation Bell was shattered in 1941 during the war when authorities sought to lower it amid the approaching German army. Grigoriev is last mentioned in 1676, when ten of his apprentices helped Khariton Ivanov cast ten harquebuses at the Cannon Yard. He had at least 21 known apprentices, and his work suggests he ran a school of casting. After his death his nephew Grigory Yekimov inherited his Pushkarskaya Sloboda household, which was later sold to Feodor Motorin.