Interview with the founder of the virtual Museum of Window Surrounds, Ivan Khafizov

The subject of our interview is the writer, photographer and founder of the virtual Museum of Window Surrounds – Ivan Khafizov. We talked about the history of the origin of window surrounds, the process of searching for and documenting wooden architecture, and creative plans for the future.

Ivan, your project to preserve window surrounds is a unique initiative. Tell us, how did your interest begin?

In 2007 I was sent on a business trip to the city of Engels in the Saratov region by an IT company that was implementing software products. I worked at a technical factory that manufactured meteorological equipment, training the staff. The factory operated the first shift, so after lunch I was free and went walking around the town. I wandered and photographed everything I came across, including colorful little windows. I shot a lot of window surrounds and made a collage from these bright photos. Then I had a business trip to the Nizhny Novgorod region, to the town of Navashino. In Navashino I showed my collage and was told that they have the village of Dedovo and offered to take me there. I photographed there and in Navashino, compared the photos and began to notice differences: in the Saratov region there were shutters, but in Nizhny Novgorod there weren't. Later I visited Vladimir and Yaroslavl regions, went through Rostov Veliky, Myshkin and the settlement of Borisoglebsky. I saw that the carving there was completely different – white window surrounds without shutters, a different form of wooden ornaments and overall different house architecture. I began to photograph everything to compare the window surrounds. At that time I published in LiveJournal, and three years later I made a website and began publishing the photos there. It became clear that the window surrounds needed to be systematized somehow, to understand exactly what their differences were. There is no specialized literature that covers these issues, so even then I planned to make a catalog of window surrounds, which materialized as a book only in 2019, twelve years later.

Collage of window surrounds. Photo: Ivan Khafizov / nalichniki.com

Have window surrounds always existed in Russia? Or is this an architectural inheritance?

Window surrounds have not always existed in Russia. Contrary to popular belief, this is not the oldest architectural feature of Russian houses and, in general, it is not a feature only of Russian houses. Until the 17th century, windows in Russian wooden houses were small; they were cut out of two adjacent logs: the upper log had its lower part cut out and the lower log had its upper part cut out. The result was a window opening in the shape of a rectangle with a height equal to the height of the log. Glassing windows began only in the 17th century; before that, the wealthier used mica instead of glass, the less wealthy used ox or fish bladder. Poor peasants used blocks of ice in winter, and in summer they sometimes did not put anything in the openings, since the main function of such openings was lighting. If we go into details, there were two different types of window openings: some were for letting in light (they had mica or bladders inserted), and others were for letting smoke out. If an izba was smoke-filled, the smoke had to exit directly to the street. Nothing was inserted into such openings; they were simply closed with a wooden shutter after use. These types of window openings existed side by side for many centuries. The production of window glass began under Peter I. The appearance of glass allowed the height of window openings to gradually increase. Window frames began to be inserted into the openings and they gradually began to be decorated with carving. Up until the 17th century, there are no mentions of carving around windows in engravings, sketches or contemporaries' memoirs. Window surrounds appeared and began to spread during the wave when Peter I became interested in Dutch architecture, which at that time was being built following the example of Italian architects. We can trace an actual continuity from antiquity – from Italy, from Italy to the Netherlands, from the Netherlands to St. Petersburg, and from St. Petersburg throughout Russia. At each stage everything changed, local features were added, so the surrounds that initially came to us and those that spread across Russia by the 19th century were fairly simple. The idea of decorating the window came from Classicist architecture, and proto-window-surrounds appear on the Ivan the Great bell tower, which were erected by Bon Fryazin and Fyodor Kon, and on the Church of the Ascension in Kolomenskoye, built by the Italian architect Pietro Francesco Anibale. In Russia the window surrounds transformed and people began to carve, for example, half-sun motifs. After the first half of the 19th century, window surrounds began to change regionally and led to the diversity we see today.

What does the process of searching for and documenting window surrounds look like?

The process looks roughly like this. First I search for photos myself or use Yandex Panoramas for towns, small towns and villages. A typical query might be: 'wooden architecture city Orsk'. I find three and a half photos that don't show much, try to look for information on forums. If I can't find anything else, I go on a trip and figure it out on site. If I'm lucky and meet someone, I can get a list of settlements to visit. I also have a list of Russia's historical towns. It's not a very good database because the list was abolished back in 2002 and is no longer that significant, but you can still use it as a starting point. As a rule, if I write on my blog that I'm going somewhere, I immediately get feedback from subscribers with recommendations and names of towns, villages and hamlets. Sometimes subscribers discourage me from trips, arguing that the towns have been built up and there is practically no wooden architecture left. When I arrive in a settlement, I walk the streets, look for wooden houses, and then it all depends on how many there are. If there are few, I try to photograph everything; if there are many, I try to capture their typological features, architectural identity. I photograph not only window surrounds but also facades and corners of houses, decorative gables, entrance groups, small porches – everything that draws attention. I don't have a standard shooting scheme; everything depends on the object and the number of interesting architectural features. One house may take 25 shots, another 2, another 50, so the scheme is flexible. Even though I have already published a book about the window surrounds of Central Russia, I still receive names of towns, districts and villages where I have not been. Gathering materials for a book can go on forever; you just come to the understanding that either you publish a book now or you keep photographing for your whole life. As they say, 'you can't finish a renovation; you can only stop it.' It's the same with collecting materials for a book.

Photo from Ivan Khafizov's personal archive

You created the virtual Museum of Window Surrounds, published the book 'Window Surrounds. Central Russia', and produce wooden models. Do you consider your activity scientific?

This is a difficult question. It's not so much rhetorical as ethical. Initially I conceived the book as a catalog and the most important distinction that, in my view, makes the work scientific is its completeness. I should have been able to truthfully say that I photographed and cataloged everything, the book should have described all towns and villages and identified all types of window surrounds. I cannot say that. The book contains 480 window surrounds and roughly another 300 surrounds I identified did not make it into the book due to rarity of the type, poor condition, or because of standard carving. This is a book about beauty, not a PhD thesis, so such surrounds we group into one type with a note that there is this variability. In addition, it was important for me to put this information into circulation and now these types of surrounds are described. The book is 50% catalog and 50% artistic text, sketches of conversations with people I met on the road. I wanted the book to be readable, so it's made like a photo album with small texts you can open and read on any page. The book is not a scientific work, but it contains an element of scientific work because I made analogies in the carving of surrounds from neighboring and distant regions. As for the wooden models, they are made as copies of real ones; they have an analytical and engineering component and I know they are taken into museum collections, but that also cannot be classified as scientific work. Let's say my activity benefits window surrounds outside of academic institutes.

Ivan Khafizov's book 'Window Surrounds. Central Russia'

Do you think window surrounds need legal protection on par with cultural heritage sites?

Both yes and no. It would be good if such protection existed, but knowing how our laws are applied, I'm afraid it would cause more harm than good. I'll illustrate with an example. One residential house in Kimry was declared a cultural heritage object, and the owners found out about it completely by chance from an administration employee passing by when they were cutting a new window and doing external facade work. The employee said this was illegal; the owners were fined and given an order to remedy the violation. They ignored it. The next fine was much larger. Two pensioners were unable to pay the fines and were forced to move into an apartment. As a result they lost everything. The house became empty and is gradually falling into ruin – its roof is about to collapse, and nothing can be done – the administration has no money for restoration and no rights to intervene because the house is private. Even if you declare all window surrounds cultural heritage objects, there will be problems with implementation. A more nuanced approach and narrower practice are needed. I'll give the example of the Kenozersky Nature Reserve. The reserve is quite large and has inhabited settlements on its territory. The administration issued a handbook of bans and permissions for the area. For example, you cannot cover a house with vinyl siding, but you can cover it with wooden clapboard; you can't remove window surrounds or pour concrete over the earthen benches (zavalinki); you can't leave an iron stove pipe on the roof, but you can encase it in brick of a color characteristic to that locality. A more subtle approach is to offer alternatives. For example, it would be good if there were subsidized or grant-funded companies producing classic wooden windows with glazing beads and double-glazed units. Insulated wooden windows could preserve the appearance of a huge number of towns, but production is expensive, so they are hardly ever used.

What are your plans for the near future?

In the next two to three years I plan to finish a book about the window surrounds of the Volga region. It will include territories along the Volga and its tributary the Kama, including Tatarstan. I will keep photographing. Right now I just returned from a lecture on the left bank of the Volga, in the Orenburg region, and at the same time I photographed the local architecture. Here you can trace Samara influence, since Buzuluk used to be part of Samara province. Next on the plan are Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Volgograd and Astrakhan regions. There's still much un-photographed material in Nizhny Novgorod region, Udmurtia, and Mari El. After the Volga book I plan a book about the North – it will include territories from Leningrad to Kirov regions and the Komi Republic. Then – the Urals, Siberia, the Far East, but those are plans for years ahead. I hope the window surrounds will survive until then. Everything develops slowly, and besides, producing the assembly kit models of window surrounds that I started takes a lot of time and attention. Nevertheless, it is precisely thanks to this production and the sales of the models that I can freely travel and collect material for a new book.