September 1, 2008

Back, but Not to the U.S.S.R.

On the sweltering afternoon of July 8, more than 100 onlookers crowded Winthrop Street to watch the Lowell House bells descend...

From The September-October 2008 Issue

Photograph by Jon Chase / Harvard News Office

Photograph by Justin Ide / Harvard News Office

On the sweltering afternoon of July 8, more than 100 onlookers (cell-phone cameras at the ready) crowded Winthrop Street to watch the Lowell House bells descend. After arriving at Harvard 78 years ago as refugees from Stalin’s anti-clerical campaign, the bells were returning to Moscow’s Danilov Monastery. While monks conducted a service, the crowd also got a peek at Lowell’s new Russian bells, resting on a nearby truck bed, waiting their turn to ring out over Cambridge.

Published in the September-October 2008 print issue in the John Harvard's Journal section.

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