The personality of the person whose name appears in the title of this book is quite mysterious, if not enigmatic. Even his name is to a large extent a convention. Andrey Chokhov - that’s what we used to call this master. However, if his name Andrei does not cause controversy, then Chokhov is not a surname, at least in the meaning that we use today. The wording “Andrei Chokhov’s son”, as usual in lifetime documents of the 16th – early 17th centuries. denoted this master, literally means that Andrei’s father’s name was Chokh. It is not known for certain when he was born, as well as when he died. In general, most of his personal biography is lost in the darkness of the difficult times in which he lived. The same circumstance also affected the fact that almost no archival documents have been preserved about the life and work of Andrei Chokhov. But his talent as a metallurgist and engineer is widely known, who played an important role in the development of domestic casting technologies, the manufacture of artillery guns and bells. A visible embodiment of his talent today is the well-known Tsar Cannon - one of the world's largest bronze all-metal gun barrels of its class, which is now located in the Kremlin. But she is not alone. The only surviving witnesses to the life of this famous Russian foundry worker were his other creations: cannons and bells. And the inscriptions on them still serve for us as the main tablets of his biography. This book makes an attempt to restore, through their prism, the main milestones in the biography of this remarkable master.