[Bell Historians] Whitechapel bells in Russia

[Carl S Zimmerman]

Chris Pickford wrote:
>I was looking at an illustrated book about St.Petersburg only the
>other day - a very beautiful city with many buildings of this period.

Appearances can be deceiving.  My wife and I visited St.Petersburg 
two years ago, and learned that it had been largely bombed out in WW 
II.  It has subsequently been reconstructed, and buildings along the 
main thoroughfares have restored "period" facades, but those are 
mostly plaster and paint.

On the other hand, some ancient buildings did survive.  The 
Petropavlovskaya Krepost, containing the Cathedral of St.Peter & 
St.Paul, is one such area.  The Cathedral tower still contains most 
of the Dutch-made bells of the carillon of 1720, though nowadays they 
are played automatically.  The same tower also houses a Russian-made 
zvon and a modern Dutch-made carillon with manual clavier.

So there is still some hope that the Whitechapel bells of 1747 could 
have survived, if indeed St.Petersburg was where they went.

Carl