Kizhi: An Island of History

The forested landscape of northern Russia, between Lake Ladoga and the White Sea, was once dotted with great ensembles of log churches. Now only a few precious examples remain, of which the most remarkable are located on the small island of Kizhi, one of almost 1,400 in Karelia’s Lake Onega. The island has long been known as a sacred space, in part perhaps because of its unusually picturesque landscape within a length of only 6 kilometers.

Yet this beauty alone would not have saved the site from the decay and vandalism that destroyed so many other masterpieces of wooden architecture. For over a century, the efforts of some of Russia’s leading preservationists—such as the artists Ivan Bilibin and Igor Grabar—have focused attention on the unique cultural legacy of Kizhi.

In the late 1940s, the architect Alexander Opolovnikov began his tireless crusade to preserve Russian wooden architecture with substantial restoration work on the island. In 1951 the first of several historic log structures from other Karelian locations was brought to the island. Kizhi achieved the status of a national architecture and historic museum in 1966. This open-air museum now contains some of the oldest surviving examples of Russian log buildings, including one small church (The Resurrection of Lazarus) tentatively dated to the end of the fourteenth century.

The supreme example of the Russian wooden architecture is Kizhi’s Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior, built in 1714. The church was ostensibly built in honor of Peter the Great’s victories over the Swedes, although a Transfiguration Church had existed at Kizhi since at least the early 17th century. Located on open space in the southwest part of the island, the church formed the center of a pogost, a term which, by the 18th century, had come to mean an enclosed cemetery with a parish or district church.

As with St. Basil’s on Red Square in Moscow, the main Kizhi church, with its many domes, produces an impression of overwhelming profusion and complexity; yet the design derives from rigorous structural and aesthetic logic. Its soaring pyramidal silhouette (37 meters high) signifies consecrated ground from a great distance, and the design of the structure reinforces that symbolic purpose at every point.

The core of the Transfiguration Church is an octahedron, rising in three tiers and buttressed by extensions (“arms”) at the four compass points. These extensions are also stepped, thus providing platforms for additional cupolas: twenty on the structure, plus one at the top and another above the eastern apse.  This intricate pattern of cupolas and log structure is emphasized by the natural properties of the different woods: the dark walls of aged pine logs and the brilliant silver of the cupolas, covered with over 30,000 curved aspen shingles, tightly fitted over the cupola frame. Each of the shingles has a carved, stepped point fashioned with an axe.

The design of this elaborate superstructure provided an efficient system of ventilation to preserve the structure from rot. Yet, as was typical of tall wooden churches in the Russian north, the tower has not visible from the interior, which was capped at a low level by a ceiling painted with saints and archangels—known as a “sky” or nebo—over the central part of the church. This “sky” provided a culmination to the religious imagery of the icon screen in front of the altar (see Russian Life, Dec/Jan 1999). Unfortunately, this particular “sky” at Kizhi has not been preserved, and we know of its form only through black-and-white photographs.

The Church of the Transfiguration was intended for use only during major church holidays in the summer. It was not uncommon in Russia to have paired churches, for summer and winter. At the Kizhi pogost, the adjoining “winter” Church of the Intercession, built in 1764, provides an admirable visual complement to the ensemble. Whereas the Transfiguration Church soars, the Intercession accentuates the horizontal, with an extended vestibule that could be used for community meetings (another feature of many northern wooden churches). In contrast to the tower of the Transfiguration, the Intercession Church has a prominent altar apse with a large barrel gable and cupola—a further accent on the horizontal form of the structure. Although there is some evidence to suggest that the Intercession Church originally culminated in a “tent” tower, its crown of eight cupolas surrounding the main cupolas at the top of its octagonal core is a dramatic and satisfying resolution that enhances, rather than competes with, the form of the Transfiguration Church.

The final element of the original pogost ensemble at Kizhi is a free-standing bell tower with a tent roof between and in front of the two churches. Originally built in the late eighteenth century, it was rebuilt in 1874 and renovated most recently in the early 1990s. The pogost, with cemetery, is enclosed by a low wall of horizontal logs on a base of fieldstone, all protected by plank roofing. Access is provided through a stout wooden gate in front of the Church of the Intercession.

The original church ensemble at Kizhi is now surrounded by examples of late 19th-century houses from the Onega Lake district. At the same time, the island still contains some of its own villages with houses very similar to those reassembled at the museum. In the severe climate of the Far North, these houses provided living space as well as space for animals, supplies, and farm implements, all combined within a single, self-sufficient structure.

As the examples at Kizhi show, such houses varied in size and configuration. There are three basic types: a long rectangular structure with the living quarters on one side and the storage sheds and livestock on the other, larger side; a rectangular structure with the barn attached to the side and extending back at a right angle; and, the most complex, a 2-story structure with the living quarters in front and the barn in back under a greatly extended roof. Whether large or small, these log houses were traditionally decorated with elaborate window surrounds and carved (or sawn) decorative endboards for the roof.

Although Kizhi island is a national treasure, its greatest landmark, the Church of the Transfiguration, is threatened with decay and collapse. For over two decades, specialists (including some from UNESCO) have discussed the challenge of its preservation; but consensus has been difficult to achieve, and without such agreement, the necessary funds for restoration will not be forthcoming. At present, the exterior walls are braced with large vertical beams which disfigure the view. Despite Russia’s many economic problems, it is imperative that international as well as national attention remained focused on the preservation of this incomparable monument.