An American industrialist, Charles R. Crane, purchased the 18 bells from the St. Daniel Monastery at the start of the 1930s and presented them to Harvard University. The first attempts to return the unique set of bells to Russia were made in the 1980s, but it was only in 2007 that an agreement was reached to return the bells in exchange for an exact copy of the set. The first bell arrived in Moscow by plane in autumn 2007, and the other 17 came back by sea, retracing the route they followed when they were taken out of Russia.
All 18 bells will be mounted in the St. Daniel Monastery’s bell tower over the next three months, including the famous Tsar Bell, cast in 1682.