Church bell ringer John Cox told me four years ago that he’d love to melt the Fremont Lenin statue into a giant bronze bell.
Today I’m happy to report that Cox got the Russian-made artifact he wanted withouth having to torch Lenin, and Fremont can breathe easy.
Cox’s congregation at St. Spiridon Orthodox Cathedral has imported an 1,800-pound bronze bell from the Vera foundry in Voronezh, a city the size of Seattle in Southern Russia that has become one of the world’s leading manufacturers of bronze bells.
The new bell means a lot for the cathedral, as it fills a spot that has been empty for more than a decade.
As I watched two men and a giant forklift install the bell , I appreciated that St. Spiridon’s Russian domes and bells serve as a reminder of what the Cascade neighborhood once was: a working class community of Russian and Greek immigrants employed by sawmills and boat yards around Lake Union.
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