Lake Onega and Kizhi

---

Wanderer

Our way goes further. Now already on the island in Lake Onega. Its name is Kizhi ( Russian Kiži – cyrillic, Karelian Kiži). Kizhi is near the geometrical center of Lake Onega and one of almost 1,400 islands situated in lake. By far not the biggest – about 5 km2 (1.9 sq mi). But very beutiful and valuable. Now it’s rather a kind of museum – the whole island. And even the traditional rural life is a part of this status. But there is no theatre: everything is true, genuine. Look at this young woman – she is working like her ancestors centuries ago. Photo Oleg Semenenko
The marvellous wooden buildings – a part of them – really are collected in Karelia in order to keep them 'alive'. But per se they are also real, true, genuine. The most admired is the wooden Church of the Transfiguration of Our Saviour (Cerkov’ Preobraženija Gospodnja – cyrillic) in Kizhi Pogost. It’s built right there – with 22 doms and without a single nail. Only an ax, axes and masters. Great anonym masters. There follows a set of images, nearly all of them by Oleg Semenenko (I’m not quite shure about the first one; you can find his albums of Kizhi as well, we’ll return to them in future, I hope).

---