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Just before sunset, a large, modern bus stopped in the quiet village of Saminsky Pogost. About three dozen women (along with a nun and several men) stepped out onto the dusty, sandy road.
This was not a group of pilgrims. They looked a bit more like tourists and were traveling from Vologda to the shores of the White Sea to visit the Solovetsky Islands. This small village on the border of Vologda Oblast and the Republic of Karelia simply happened to be the approximate halfway point of their thousand-kilometer journey, and they had decided to make a short stop to see the ancient wooden Church of the Prophet Elijah.
Built at the end of the seventeenth century, and currently in a semi-catastrophic state of repair, the church is similar to the famous Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin in Kondopoga, which was destroyed by arson in August 2018.
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