MOSCOW, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Russian oil billionaire Viktor Vekselberg has agreed to pay for replicas of 18 historic monastery bells to swap for the originals owned by Harvard University.
The bells from the 14th century St. Daniels's Monastery in Moscow were slated for destruction by the Soviet government in 1929 when American plumbing tycoon Charles Crane asked to buy them. He donated them to Harvard for installation in the bell tower of Lowell House the following year.
The Art Newspaper says the monastery, seat of the Russian Orthodox patriarch, had agreed to pay the cost of replicating the bells for Harvard in 2003 in return for the original carillon and has been searching since for someone to finance the exchange.
The Orthodox Church has been keen on their recovery because only four other full sets of pre-revolutionary bells survived the Communist campaign to wipe out religion in Russia.
Vekselberg estimated that his sponsorship of the project will save the monastery several million dollars.
Last year Vekselberg bought the entire collection of Faberge treasures amassed by American publisher Malcolm Forbes for $100 million on the eve of their dispersal at auction. They are currently on loan exhibition at the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg.
