The Kizhi State Open-Air Museum is an amazing place that has attracted travelers and pilgrims from around the world for centuries. The reserve is located on a small island in Lake Onega. The Kizhi pogost is an architectural ensemble of various wooden structures characteristic of the Russian North: ancient churches, chapels, and houses brought to the island from all over Karelia. In the 1920s the Kizhi pogost was granted the status of an architectural monument, and in 1990 the ensemble was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Also located here is a magnificent example of wooden architecture — the Kizhi Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
The Kizhi Church belongs to the type of wooden eight-sided tiered churches and is crowned with twenty-two domes. It was built in 1714 to replace a church that had burned down after being struck by lightning. Legend has it that the church was erected by the carpenter Nestor with a single axe and without a single nail. But that is not entirely true. Indeed, in the old church log structure there are no nails: the logs are tightly fitted and joined by grooves. However, in the famous domes of the Kizhi Church, covered with aspen shingles (wooden tiles), there are thousands of nails.
Over the centuries the church has undergone numerous restorations: the most recent lasted exactly ten years, from 2009 to 2019. During the work the church was raised on a special metal structure, and decayed logs of the log frame were replaced with new ones. Thanks to this technology, restorers managed to perform a miracle and preserve 70% of the original wood.
In total the Kizhi museum-reserve comprises seventy-six buildings, more than thirty thousand household items, and five hundred icons dating from the 16th–19th centuries. In addition to the Kizhi Church, on the island you can visit the Church of the Protection of the Mother of God, the peasant houses of Elizarov and Shchepin, the Museum of Wooden Architecture, a windmill, and a house-museum that recreates the traditional life of Karelian peasants.
Lively folk festivals, days celebrating traditional crafts, and engaging guided tours take place here. If you want to touch the history of medieval Russia, enjoy the beauty of the northern landscape, and see examples of wooden architecture with your own eyes, you should visit.
