Campos described Ogryzkov’s playing as “better than I ever could have hoped.”

“I’m on such a high,” he added.

“We’ve been experimenting with our style,” Campos said. “What we thought was modern was in fact the more traditional way of doing it.”

Ogryzkov noted that the Klappermeisters’ approach to bell music, which involves playing popular tunes, clashed with the traditional style.

“They were treated less as an instrument and more as an attribute of church service,” he said of the bells’ history. “In a way it doesn’t seem quite right that bells made for religious purposes are being used this way—but the fact that they are played...is better than them not being played at all.”

Though Lowell residents praised Ogryzkov’s bell-playing, they disagreed on the main question surrounding the visit—whether the bells should be returned to Moscow.

“I think that Lowell and Harvard have the right to [the bells],” said Mary C. Serdakowski ’06. “They define who Lowell House is.”

But Kaartiga Sivanesan ’06 was not convinced.

“It does mean more to the Russians than it does to us,” she said. “You don’t need to have the original Russian bells.”

“We should give the bells back as long as they give us replacement bells,” agreed Michelle T. Sonia ’06. “Russia’s older than Lowell...Their traditions go back longer than ours.”