MOSCOW. Aug 7 (Interfax) - A project in which Harvard University in the United States is returning to Moscow's Svyato-Danilov Monastery 18 bells that crossed the Atlantic in the 1930s moved one stage ahead on Tuesday as the first of the 18 replica bells left for Harvard to replace an original bell.

The bells were rescued by Harvard University professor Thomas Whittemore, who was a member of a U.S. charitable mission to Moscow in the 1030s and persuaded American philanthropist Charles Richard Crane, who was interested in Russia, to buy them.

Several buildings on the Harvard University campus were adjusted to have the bells installed on them.

The first few attempts to bring the bells back to Russia were made in the 1980s.

They were followed by an agreement under which Harvard is to return the bells while Russia is to make replica bells and send them to the university.

The two-tonne replica that was sent off to the United States on Tuesday is to be brought to the Harvard campus by Wednesday evening, the Svyaz Vremyon cultural and historical foundation told Interfax.

The bell on the tower of the Harvard Business School that it will replace is expected to return to Moscow by mid-October 2007, said Svyaz Vremyon chief executive Vladimir Voronchenko.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II, blessed all the replicas late last month.