Austria's 16th century bell foundry adds modern technology to keep the casting process alive

INNSBRUCK, Austria (AP) — Wearing protective gear to shield from the extreme heat of molten bronze, workers at one of the last bell foundries in Europe are casting bells weighing several tons.

One after another, the artisans carefully pour the molten metal into special-shaped molds held together with steel bands to create 12 bells for churches in Italy, Germany and Romania.

Founded in 1599, the Grassmayr Bell Foundry, in Innsbruck, western Austria, has survived wars, famines, epidemics and economic challenges.

These days, the family business is run by brothers Johannes and Peter Grassmayr. During the Renaissance in the late Middle Ages there were hundreds of bell makers in Europe, while today only a handful remain across the continent.

The Grassmayrs’ secret to success: tenacity combined with innovation such as 3D-printing, scanning, lasers and computer simulation apps.

“Certain things are just like they were 400 years ago. But we innovated a lot. Especially within the last 20 years, we've changed a lot,” Johannes Grassmayr told The Associated Press.

The production cycle for making a bell takes three to four months. In the past cleaning a freshly cast bell and polishing it made up 30% of total production time. Nowadays, with the help of modern tools, that process takes only a tenth of the time.

Grassmayr keeps some of its most innovative production steps a secret, such as a special chamber in which the bells are cleaned with a high-pressure sandblaster, not to mention the special apps used to calculate the sound of each particular bells.

Even with modern technology, the process of designing and forming the molds for a large bell can take up to six months.

“The important thing is that you have calculate, form and then cast the bell as a musical instrument.” Johannes said, adding that the biggest difficulty during the creation of the bell is the possibility that the pressure of the molten metal destroys the mold.

When the workers cast a large bell weighing several tons, the liquid bronze creates up to 125 metric tons (137 tons) of pressure inside the molds, he said. To ensure the integrity of the mold, only high-quality clay is used, which is then encased in steel sleeves designed to withstand extreme pressures.

But it's not only the difficulty of the production, that has Grassmayr worried. The modern bell-making industry is under pressure as fewer churches are being built, which means the demand for bells is changing. Rising energy costs due to the war in Ukraine are not helping, and labor costs have risen 30% since the pandemic in 2020.

But the main cost factor of a newly cast bell is still the price of materials. The best bells require high-quality bronze, which is 80 parts copper to 20 parts tin. A few years ago the price of bronze was 8 euros ($9.23) per kilogram compared with 23 euros ($26.17) today, Johannes said.

“That’s why I can’t even say how much a bell is going to cost in a year. I just hope the metal price is going to come down again,” he added.

To keep the business going, the family has increasingly turned to restoring old bells, often with the help of modern technologies. Hundreds of defective bells from 12 European countries have been restored at the Grassmayr bell foundry, according to the company.

Bells made by Grassmayr can be found in over 100 countries, ranging from Japan to the United States.

One of the largest the brothers have cast was for Romania's National Cathedral in Bucharest. Cast in 2016, it is 3.3 meters (10.8 feet) tall and weighs more than 25 metric tons (27.5 tons). Another creation, weighing 15 metric tons (16.5 tons), hangs in a church on Mount Tabor in Israel.

Johannes showed the AP several recently cast bells that were being left to cool down for a week before being removed from their molds. He pointed to the precise negative imprint still visible in the clay form.

“This bell is for the church in Zethau, in Germany,” he said. “I’m very happy with the casting. I’m especially happy that the innovations of the past decades helped a lot to make the bells ever more beautiful and better.”

An employee inspects a bell at the 400-year-old family-owned bell foundry Grassmayr in Innsbruck, Austria, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Mathias Rentzsch secures a bracket on a bell at the 400-year-old family-owned bell foundry Grassmayr in Innsbruck, Austria, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Employees use a melting furnace at the 400-year-old family-owned bell foundry Grassmayr in Innsbruck, Austria, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

An employee works on the inside of a bell at the 400-year-old family-owned bell foundry Grassmayr in Innsbruck, Austria, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Workers cast bronze bells at the 400-year-old, family-owned Grassmayr bell foundry in Innsbruck, Austria, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Russia’s main domestic security agency said Wednesday that Pavel Durov, founder of the messaging app Telegram, has been charged with aiding terrorism and put on an international wanted list.

The charges against Durov, who was born and began his career in Russia but later moved abroad, came as the Russian authorities restrict Telegram, one of the most popular messaging apps in the country. It is part of a long-term effort to bring the internet under the Kremlin’s full control that has intensified since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Federal Security Service, also known as the FSB, accused Telegram’s administration in a statement of failing to remove “numerous channels, chats and bots” that are “actively used by Ukrainian intelligence agencies, terrorist, and extremist organizations to prepare and coordinate acts of sabotage and terrorism, mass murder, and cyberfraud" in Russia, which resulted in “numerous human casualties.”

The agency accused Ukrainian security services of using a popular dating chat bot on Telegram to lure and recruit Russians for “sabotage and terrorist activities,” and said 46 users of the chat bot, from 12 to 22 years old, have been detained across Russia since July 2025.

Durov earlier this year announced that the Russian authorities opened a criminal investigation against him and accused them of fabricating pretexts to restrict access to Telegram as part of an attempt to “suppress the right to privacy and free speech.”

If convicted, Durov could face up to life in prison in Russia.

Under President Vladimir Putin, Russian authorities have engaged in multipronged efforts to rein in the internet. They have adopted restrictive laws and banned websites and platforms that don’t comply and focused on improving technology to monitor and manipulate online traffic.

Multiple popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and X, have been banned in Russia; YouTube has been throttled; popular messaging apps, such as Signal and Viber, have been blocked, and the most popular ones — WhatsApp and Telegram — have been restricted.

While it’s still possible to circumvent some of the restrictions by using virtual private network services, many of them are routinely blocked, too.

At the same time, Russia actively promotes the “national” messaging app known as MAX, which critics say could be used for surveillance. The platform is touted by developers and officials as a one-stop shop for messaging, online government services, making payments and more. It openly declares it will share user data with authorities upon request, and experts also say it doesn’t use end-to-end encryption.

Durov has faced criminal investigations elsewhere. In 2024, he was arrested in Paris over allegations that his platform was being used for illicit activity, including drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse images.

This story has been corrected to show the potential penalty is life in prison, not 15 years.

FILE - Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov appears at an event on Aug. 1, 2017 in Jakarta, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File)