Connecticut western news., 1886-12-15
MOSCOW'S CHURCHES.
A Russian City of Spires,
 Dones and Minarets.
Beauties of Their Architectural Con. struction Wonders of tie Kremlin.

Beauties of Their Architectural Con.
 struction-Wonders of tie Kremlin.
 am informed, writes Demas Barnes in the Brooklyn Eagle, that there arc in Moscow about 1000 Greek churches. They are composit of Catholic, Moham- medan, and Oriental architecture, and probably the most beautiful churches in tho world. When the ornate and wonderful St. Basil church was com Ncted the architec. was asked by his master, Ivan the Terrible, if that effort was his very best; if, under any cir cumstances or for any consideration with any amount of money he could construct a more beautiful edifice. The reply was that he could not-to make a moro beautiful structure would be impossible. Thereupon the architects eyes were put out that even he should not copy this sublimely beautiful creation. I think that not one of those thousand churches has less than three minarets and domes. Most of them have five, some have 25- always an odd number--for grand cen tra effect-and some have in the neigh borhood of fifty to one hundred. They are colored white, green, red or blue, or arc covered with silver or gold. Most of them have chimes of bells, and pre- sume there are in the city of Moscow eight thousand bells. It was but yes tcrday that stood on the eminence- about six miles west of the city-where Napoleon stood that eventful day when he first beheld those five thousand mlna- rets, spires and domcs and the Kremlin's 8 golden roofs glistening in the sun, and whence he surveyed the treasures which be thought would soon be at his disposal. traversed the same road which he took when he marched his 500, 900 men to an expected victory, that proved to be the most melancholy defeat recorded on the pages of history. The immense treas ures of the museum in the Kremlin had been removed and the sullen Muscovites applied the torch to their own devoted homes. The sequel is we'll known. Moscow has been rebuilt and it's trcas- ures and relics have been returned, sup plemented by the emperor's cannon and flags and numerous trophies taken from the fleeing invaders.
 To enumerate the wonders of those Kren,lin museums is impossible. To describe any of them is to select one jeweled crown out of many, one diamond out of millions. Silver and gold, mala chite, lapislazuii, jasper, rubies, dia- monds and sapphlres arc not only worked into crowns, thrones and vest ments in almost endless profusion, but they are even formed into furniture and make fircplaces walls and ceilings. Just there is the tocsin bell which sounded the signal for plying the torch to the city. Here are the red stairs upon which Napoleon ascendcd to the throne of the Romeloff kings. There is the sword with which the Terrible Ivan beheaded his own sons. Here are the furs which once inveloped the form of Catherine the Noble. And here, again, are the tools with which Peter the Great worked when he builded ships and en- pires-for it was his knowledge of the wants of his people that gave them the mighty impulse which yet jars two | continents.
 Then we were shown through the great throne-room, the silver rooms, the gold rooms, the pink rooms, the white rooms, the blue rooms, the jasper rooms, and tho crystal rooms, and then we wound up intricate stair-cases, to tho I secret trial room-still higher to tho dungeon and execution rooms, where voices were stit1ed without remorse and where cries could not be heard by sympathizing friends.
 The far-famed bell exceeded m, school-boy expectation as to size, and no to mislead in speaking of it tried my measuring-tape around it. It at frs hung-if ever, it was hung on a low wooden frame within the Kremlir walls. The frame was accidentl, burned, and when the bell fell to th' ground piece seven feet high wa broken from its disk. I was not there when the event occurred, but venture the assertion that the bell, with down
 ward orifice of twenty-six feet diametc
 was not buried in the ground, as histo rians record was the case. The bel measures seventy-eigh feet in circum ference and is, I think, about twent, feet high. am aware that cyclopedist
 give the measurement as sixty feet il
 diameter and nineteen feet three inchc
 as tho height. Against this
 simply set my own measurement. The iron clapper is about nine feet long, ane
 is said to weigh 40 poods, or 1896
 pounds. l did not lift it. The state
 ment is, I think, quite correct.