Andrey Chokhov - Chokhov As Cannon Maker

Chokhov As Cannon Maker

Andrey Chokhov began his career at the Cannon yard in Moscow during the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the 1550s as an apprentice to a German (?) caster Kashpir Ganusov (russified name). In the 1570s, Chokhov became one of the leading Muscovite casters and supervised production of heavy battering weapons, such as siege arquebus Лисица (Vixen) and battering ram Собака (Dog) (both made in 1575), big cannon Волк (Wolf; 1576-1577), and a colossal arquebus Инрог (Unicorn), which would become the largest cannon of the Russian siege artillery (1577; weight - 7,134 kg; displayed in St. Petersburg). In 1586, Andrey Chokhov founded his famous Tsar Cannon (Царь-пушка), a masterpiece of the casting art of the second half of the 16th century. In 1587, he cast a fire arquebus Егуп (Yegup), in 1588 - a 100-barrel cannon, in 1590 - battering rams Троил (Troilus), Аспид (Viper), Лев (Lion), Скоропея (Witch), and Соловей (Nightingale). Chokhov's last major works were big battering arquebuses called Кречет (Gyrfalcon) and Волк (Wolf), the production of which he supervised in 1627.