File:Great Lavra Bell Tower with its four tiers (8600766827).jpg

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Original file(2,848 × 4,288 pixels, file size: 3.02 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Captions

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Summary

[edit]
Description

The Great Lavra Bell Tower or the Great Belfry is the main bell tower of the ancient cave monastery of Kiev Pechersk Lavra in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. It is one of the most notable buildings of the Kiev skyline.

The bell tower was the highest free-standing bell tower at the time of its construction in 1731–1745. It was designed by the architect Johann Gottfried Schädel. Its total height, with the Christian cross, is 96.5 meters (316 feet).

The Great Lavra Bell Tower is a Classical style construction with a total of four tiers, surmounted by a gilded dome. The diameter of the tower's lowest tier at its base is 28.8 meters (94 feet), and the thickness of the first tier walls is 8 meters (26 feet). The tower's foundation exceeds 7 meters (22 feet). The tower is decorated with many architectural columns: the second tier is decorated with 32 Dorian columns, the third tier is decorated with 16 Ionic columns, and the fourth with 8 Corinthian columns.

On the third tier, there were some hanging bells, but they were later removed. To this day, only three small 18th-century bells have been preserved: the Balyk, Voznesenskyi, and Bezymiannyi bells. The former main bell of the Great Lavra Bell Tower, the Uspenskyi, had a total weight of one ton and was cast in 1732 by Ivan Motorin, who was also responsible for the Moscow Kremlin Tsar Bell. There is also a viewing platform atop the third tier, which provides visitors with a bird's-eye view of the region around Kiev.

On the fourth tier there is a chiming clock, manufactured in 1903, which has a total weight of 4.5 tons. The current bell tower's clock, designed by the Moscow master A. Enodin and based on the Kremlin clock, replaced the older 18th-century clock of the master A. Levynskyi. The clock has stopped only once during its existence: it happened in September 1941 when the Dormition Cathedral of the Pechersk Lavra was blown up by army forces, during the Second World War.

The clock was repaired following the destruction of the nearby cathedral, which took a total of six years to complete. Since that time, the clock has never needed any repairs. The clock's mechanism is very accurate; up to within 10 seconds. However, it has been observed that its accuracy depends on the time of the year: in the Winter, the clock works somewhat slower than in the Summertime. The clock's mechanism has to be rewound once a week, and the clock's bells chime every quarter of the hour [Wikipedia.org]
Date
Source

Great Lavra Bell Tower with its four tiers

Author Jorge Láscar from Australia
Object location50° 26′ 05.35″ N, 30° 33′ 23.29″ E Kartographer map based on OpenStreetMap.View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMapinfo
Camera location50° 26′ 05.32″ N, 30° 33′ 19.84″ E Kartographer map based on OpenStreetMap.View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMapinfo

Licensing

[edit]
w:en:Creative Commons
attribution
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
You are free:
  • to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
  • attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
This image, originally posted to Flickr, was reviewed on 10 August 2013 by the administrator or reviewer File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske), who confirmed that it was available on Flickr under the stated license on that date.

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current14:37, 10 August 2013Thumbnail for version as of 14:37, 10 August 20132,848 × 4,288 (3.02 MB)File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) (talk | contribs)Transferred from Flickr by User:High Contrast

There are no pages that use this file.

Metadata