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Island of wooden wonders

Island of wooden wonders

Kizhi Museum 

In the last days of June, I want to recall the June trip to Lake Onega. The main purpose of the trip was to explore the island of Kizhi, which houses a large museum of wooden architecture of the Russian north.

In addition, on this island is one of the most striking examples of wooden construction - the many-headed wooden church of the Transfiguration Church.

The temple was built without a single nail 17 meters high. 22 domes adorn this magnificent temple.

I have seen this miracle so many times in photographs and on TV that I really wanted to see all this in reality.

Thus, the purpose of the trip was very clear.

I already wrote about how I got to Lake Onega. How I visited ancient Russian monasteries. This is the Kirilov-Belozersky monastery and Ferapontov monastery. Then there was a big, big move, and here I am already on Lake Onega.

We settled in a small village called the Great Guba. They immediately found a boatman who agreed to transport us to Kizhi island.

And so, the next morning we went by motor boat to the island-museum. By the way, at first I thought that you can just take a boat and come to the island. But it turned out that this is not so. Our boatman informed the island in advance that he would bring tourists, and we were told to go to the ticket office of the museum and inform us that we arrived by boat when I buy a ticket.

We learned about all this at the box office of the museum. Since we did not know exactly where the ticket office is located, we just walked around the island from exhibit to exhibit, and at one fine moment a man came up to us and asked if we had arrived by boat?

We were quite surprised by this, but the man explained everything. He showed us where the ticket office was and told us that everything was under control on the island.

Kizhi island is not very big. The name of the island from the Karelian language (and the locals were mainly Karelian) is translated as a game.

In ancient times, various rites and games were performed on this island. Naturally, these are pagan traditions. But the choice of a place for pagan rites was not accidental. Orthodox Christian churches arose later in these places.

Now on the island of Kizhi there is a museum where a large number of wooden structures from all over Zaonezhie were brought.

In Russia, several cities have similar museums. In my hometown of Kostroma there is a similar museum. There is such a museum in the city of Vologda, there is in Arkhangelsk, in Suzdal and probably a lot where else.

I have listed the museums I have visited.

But the museum on the island of Kizhi is a special museum.

We can say that people have always admired wooden temples on the island of Kizhi, starting from the moment the Temple of the Transfiguration of God was built.

Scientists began to deal with the wooden architecture of the Russian north in the 19th century.

In the early 20th century, it became very popular with the capital's cultural intelligentsia. Artists and poets rushed to Valaam, Kizhi, and generally to the territory of Zaonezhie, who created works that popularized the Russian north.

So in 1911, the painting by the artist Schlugleit with the image of the Kizhi Pogost was purchased by Emperor Nicholas II.

Already during the period of Soviet Russia in 1920, Kizhi acquired the status of a monument of history and culture.

After World War II, the island began work on the restoration and preservation of the Kizhi Pogost. And year after year, from just a museum in the form of two temples and a bell tower in a graveyard, the museum expanded to the entire Kizhi island and the surrounding wooden churches on the shores of the lake. It was already a big real museum. This museum was founded in 1966. And since 1969, the museum was reorganized into the State Historical, Architectural and Ethnographic Museum-Reserve. Within a decade, houses and temples from Zaonezhie began to be brought to the island. The museum began to grow and grow stronger.

Now the catalog of the museum contains more than 1000 items.

Thus, when I stepped from the boat onto the solid soil of the island, I ended up in a place that for almost 100 years has been a place of pilgrimage for tourists and those who want to see the miracles of craftsmanship of Russian carpenters, who created amazingly beautiful and comfortable dwellings and temples without nails.

People come from all over the world, and I myself have finally ended up here. Now you can see and be inspired by these wonders of Russian architectural culture.


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