Kremlin Clock

The clock face was labeled with the Cyrillic numerals and rotated in counter-clockwise sens.

The characters were about 71 centimetres (28 in) tall (one arshin), cast in brass and covered with gold leaf.

The Clock face of the drawing of the Spasskaya Tower on the right, is marking half past four.

In September 1624 some old wartime clocks were sold to the Yaroslavl' Jesus Transfiguration Monastery.

In 1668 the clocks underwent a refit to "play music" on the hour, at sunrise, and at sunset, using special mechanisms.

It was purchased by Peter the Great, in Holland, transported from Amsterdam to Moscow in 30 wagons, and installed by watchmaker Ekim Garnov.

The metal floors, stairs, and clock pedestal were made according to drawings by Russian architect Konstantin Thon, the designer of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

was proposed, but Tsar Nicholas I forbade it, stating that "the chimes can play any song except for the anthem".

At the direction of the new government, artist and musician Mikhail Cheremnykh was commissioned to compose new revolutionary music for the clock to play.

The clock simply struck the hours and quarter-hours, as a Special Commission recognized that the sound of the musical chimes had become unsatisfactory, because the chime mechanism was worn and seasonal frosts had severely distorted the sound.

In 1944, at the direction of Joseph Stalin, unsuccessful attempts were made to reset the clock to play the new National Anthem of the Soviet Union.

In 1991 the Plenum of the Central Committee decided to resume work on the Kremlin chimes, but it turned out that they were three bells short of what was needed for the Soviet national anthem.

In 1996, during the inauguration of Boris Yeltsin, the Kremlin clock played a tune once more, after 58 years of silence.

The Kremlin clock faces have a diameter of 6.12 metres (20.1 ft) and are placed on all four sides of the Spasskaya tower.

Prior to the adoption of State Anthem of the Russian Federation in 2000, the chimes played an excerpt of Patrioticheskaya Pesnya throughout the 1990s.

The clock of the Moscow Kremlin rings in 2012. The melody heard before the striking is played alone once on the first quarter-hour, twice on the half-hour, and three times on the third quarter-hour. The phrase is played four times on the full hour, followed by the strikes. After the strikes, sometimes an additional tune is played; usually a short phrase from the national anthem.