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Wooden church 15th century drawing. The construction of wooden churches and chapels is a matter of life. Main types of wooden church architecture

Wood is a characteristic part of the Russian architectural heritage, especially in the historic villages of northern Russia. For over a thousand years, up to the 18th century, everything was built from wood, including houses, sheds, mills, princely palaces and, of course, hundreds of churches. Starting from simple domed structures, wooden Rus' has achieved such a wonderful development that some of these religious complexes became representatives of splendor on Earth. Carpenters, who worked without hammers and nails, built such strange structures as the Church of the Intercession Holy Mother of God(Vytegorsky pogost) with 25 chapters (built in 1708, burned down in 1963) and an eight-tiered church of the Transfiguration on the island of Kizhi (built in 1714), which still exist.

None of the early wooden churches have survived to this day, but some of the striking cathedrals built in the early 18th century have gone through a lot of turmoil, from harsh winters to church persecution during Soviet communism. For nearly a century, magnificent churches have been burned, rotted, or plundered. The rest remain in poor condition and oblivion.

When a famous artist and illustrator of Russians folk tales Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin traveled to the north of Russia, he came across wooden churches and immediately fell in love with them. Thanks to the photographs taken by Bilibin, many people learned about the terrible state of the wooden churches, and with the help of joint efforts and money raised from the sale of postcards, several 300-year-old churches were restored.

A hundred years later, another photographer, Richard Davies, recreated Bilibin's path through northern Russia and created another series of magnificent photographs of these beautiful churches.

The Church of St. Basil the Blessed in the village of Chukhcherma (Arkhangelsk region) is a former Orthodox church, built in 1824, a wooden architectural monument. The church was part of the ensemble-tee of the Chukhchem-Ilyinsky churchyard, along with the bell tower (1783) and the nine-domed Ilyinsky church (1657) that has not survived. Located between the villages of Tarasovo and Potashevskaya, Kholmogorsk district.

The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in 1531. It was brought to the Vitroslavlitsy open-air museum from the village of Peredki, Borovichi district.

Church of St. Elisha destroyed in the north of Russia

Church of the Transfiguration in the Perm Territory

The Kizhi churchyard (i.e. the Kizhi corps) is located on one of the many islands in Lake Onega, in Karelia. It includes two beautiful wooden churches from the 18th century and an octagonal bell tower, also made of wood, which was built in 1862.

The Church of St. George from the village of Vershiny, Verkhnyaya Toimy district in 1672, moved to Malye Korely of the State Museum of Wooden Architecture.

Church of St. Nicholas in Veliky Novgorod

Church of Our Lady

The Church of All Saints who shone on the first Siberian in Surgut was restored in 2002 according to all the canons of Orthodox architecture - a wooden structure without a single nail. And they collected it at the very place where the Cossacks founded the city and built the first church.

Church of the Resurrection from the village of Potakino rebuilt in Suzdal. This church was created in 1776 and is particularly worth a visit to see the bell tower that is included in the church itself, as well as the frames of piled magazines — the old traditional way of protecting the wall from rain.

Church of the Resurrection of Christ

Church in Suzdal
Suzdal, a city and administrative center of the Suzdal District of the Vladimir Region, is home to no less than 4 spectacular wooden churches built between the 13th century and the 18th century.

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Original taken from d_popovskiy in 25 ancient wooden buildings of the world

I already wrote about the surviving wooden buildings in Manhattan... Today I propose to look at old wooden buildings from different parts of the world. Many of them have already been mentioned by me on Facebook. I did not have a special method of selecting buildings for the post, everything that accidentally fell into the field during Internet surfing and seemed interesting to me was immediately sent to my wall. The only limitation is that the buildings had to be built no later than 1700, that is, the end of the 17th century. Thus, the post contains 25 buildings representing 10 centuries of wooden architecture. Not being able to actively travel the world and photograph all these objects myself, I had to resort to the help of Wikipedia and Flickr.

VII CENTURY

1. Pagoda and condo in Horyu-ji
Ikaruga, Nara, Japan

The temple was founded by Prince Shotoku in 607. In 670, due to a lightning strike, the complex was completely burned down and was rebuilt by 700. The temple was repaired and rebuilt several times. Work took place at the beginning of the XII century, in 1374 and 1603. Regardless, it is believed that 15-20% of Kondo's buildings retained the original temple materials during renovation. This makes Horyu-ji (pagoda and condo) the oldest surviving wooden buildings in the world.

XI CENTURY

2. Kirkjubøargarður
Faroe islands

Kirkjubøargarður is one of the oldest inhabited wooden houses in the world, dating from around the 11th century. In 1100, the bishop's residence and seminary were located here. After the Reformation in the Faroe Islands in 1538, the entire property of the Catholic Church was seized by the king of Denmark. Today this land is owned by the Government of the Faroe Islands. The Patursson family has been renting land since 1550. The house is a museum, but the 17th generation of Patursson still lives in it.

3. Grinstead Church (St Andrew's Church)
Grinstead, Essex, UK

Grinstead Church is the oldest surviving wooden church in the world and one of the oldest wooden buildings in Europe. Initially, it was believed that the church was built in 845, but the latest dendrochronological research has rejuvenated the building for two hundred years. The brick extension dates back to the 1500s, and the white tower dates back to the 17th century.

The church is an example of the traditional Saxon construction method.

4. Shakyamuni Pagoda at Fogong Temple
Shanxi, China

Shakyamuni Pagoda at Fogong Temple is the oldest wooden pagoda in China. It was built in 1056-1195. Over its 900-year history, the pagoda is said to have survived at least 7 major earthquakes, and one of them almost completely destroyed the main temple complex. Until the twentieth century, the building underwent 10 minor repairs.

XII CENTURY

5. Headquarters in Urnes
Urnes, Luster, Norway

Stavkirka is the most common type of wooden medieval temples in Scandinavia. From the XI to the XVI centuries. in Norway, about 1,700 stadiums were built. Most of the buildings were demolished in the 17th century. In 1800, there were 95 such temples, and only 28 buildings have survived to this day. In Norway, the attitude of the people towards the stave and the replication of their image is twofold. On the one hand, the government is pursuing an active protectionist policy in relation to cultural heritage, the majority of the population reveres them as shrines. On the other hand, militant representatives of youth subcultures, pagans and Satanists methodically destroy these ancient architectural monuments. The only thing the Norwegian government can do to prevent arson is to install expensive tracking and fire extinguishing systems.

The headquarters in Urnes is the oldest surviving headquarters in Norway, built around 1130, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ornament on one of the walls of the Urnes Stavrka:

6. Hopperstad betting
Vikøyri, Norway

The headquarters was built in 1140.

Interior:

XIII CENTURY

7. Headquarters in Heddal
Heddal, Notodden, Telemark, Norway

Headquarters in Heddal is the largest surviving frame church. The exact year of construction is unknown, the building dates back to the beginning of the 13th century. The church was rebuilt and reconstructed many times.

The last major reconstruction, carried out in the 1950s, returned the look to the stavirka as close as possible to the original one. The church building still contains about a third of the timber used in construction in the 13th century.

XIV CENTURY

8. Kapellbrücke Bridge
Lucerne, Switzerland

The Kapellbrücke Bridge was built in 1365 and is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe. 111 triangular paintings are placed under the ridge of the roof along the entire bridge, telling about the most important points in the history of Switzerland. In 1993, Kapellbrücke was badly damaged in a fire that is believed to have been caused by an unextinguished cigarette. 78 of 111 paintings were destroyed. The bridge and some of the paintings have been restored according to the surviving inventory list.

9. Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Archangel Michael in Khachuva
Khachuv, Poland

The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Michael the Archangel is a Gothic wooden church in the village of Khachuv, together with other wooden churches in southern Malopolska and Subcarpathia, included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The church was built in the XIV century, presumably in 1388. In 2006, work began on updating the shingle. The cost of the work is over 100 thousand euros.

The interior of the church is also valuable, including: the Baroque main altar of the end of the 17th century, vessels of the 17th-18th centuries, Gothic sculptures of the 15th century, a stone font of the 16th century, Gothic portals. In addition, the interior is decorated with a unique polychrome from 1494. This is probably the oldest polychromy of this type in Europe.

10. Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus
Kizhi, Russia

The exact date of the construction of the church is unknown, but it is believed that it was built earlier than 1391. The building was erected by the Monk Lazar, who lived for 105 years and died in 1391. The church became the first building of the future Murom monastery. After the revolution, on the site of the Murom Holy Dormition Monastery, the authorities organized an agricultural commune named after A. Trotsky, after 1945 it was a home for the disabled, and in the 1960s the place was desolate. In 1959, the Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus was dismantled and transported to Kizhi, where it was restored in 1960.

The church has preserved an iconostasis consisting of 17 icons of the 16th-18th centuries, which is the oldest type of two-tier iconostasis.

XV CENTURY

11. Het Houten Huys
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Apart from the suburbs that entered the city boundaries later, two wooden buildings have survived in Amsterdam. The oldest of these is Het Houten Huys, built in 1425.

12. Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Kolodnoye
Kolodnoe, Transcarpathia, Ukraine

The church was built in 1470. This is the oldest wooden church in Ukraine and one of the oldest monuments of wooden architecture in Europe. In 2007-2008, restoration work was carried out, as a result of which the roof was replaced, the arcade on the bell tower was closed with a bird netting, the doors were repaired, and all the holes and cracks in the log cabins were plugged with wooden stakes.

13. Church of the Deposition of the Robe from the village of Borodava
Kirillov, Russia

The Church of the Deposition of the Robe is the oldest accurately dated preserved monument of wooden architecture in Russia. The building was built in 1485 in the village of Borodava, located not far from the famous Feropontov monastery. In 1957 the church was moved to the city of Kirillov. Currently, it is located on the territory of the New Town of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.

14. Rothenburgerhaus
Lucerne, Switzerland

Rothenburgerhaus was built around 1500 and is the oldest residential wooden building in Switzerland.

15. Huis van Jan Brouckaerd (House of Jan Brouckaerd)
Ghent, the Netherlands

The Netherlands has preserved medieval houses with wooden facades. One of them is Huis van Jan Brouckaerd, built in the 16th century.

16. De Waag and De Steur
Mechelen, Belgium

The De Waag and De Steur buildings were built on the Salt Wharf in the first half of the 16th century. They can be seen on an old postcard in the center of the frame.

The buildings were restored in 1927.

17. Church of St. Catherine
Ostrava, Czech Republic

The building was the oldest wooden church in Central Europe. The original church was built in 1543. However, in 2002, a misfortune happened - from short circuit in the electrical wiring, the church caught fire and burned down in a few minutes. This is how Ostrava lost one of its oldest buildings.

The inhabitants of the Ostrava region are considered to be indifferent to religion. Nevertheless, more than two million Czech crowns were collected for the restoration of the church. There were also donations from entrepreneurs, parishioners from other cities of the country and even from Polish believers. Abbot Jiri Strniste says that an old woman from Ivano-Frankivsk came to him, who came to visit her daughter, who works at a construction site in Ostrava, and donated two hundred crowns for the restoration of the church.

The construction took about two years. During the restoration of the church, an ancient tree that survived the fire was used so that the Church of St. Catherine was not deleted from the list of architectural monuments. According to the abbot, they had to "literally on sticks, pieces of wood and planks, almost crawling on their knees, to collect pieces of unburned wood." The temple was rebuilt using traditional wooden building methods. The grand opening took place on October 30, 2004.

18. De Duiveltjes
Mechelen, Belgium

The house was built in 1545-1550 and restored in 1867.

The building has a unique wooden facade, decorated with carved monsters - satyrs and devils, which gave the name to the house.

19. Oude Huis
Amsterdam, Netherlands

As mentioned above, only two wooden buildings have survived in Amsterdam. One of them is Het Houten Huys, and the second is Oude Huis, located at Zeedijk 1. The building was built in the 1550s.

XVII CENTURY

20. Pitstone Windmill
Pitstone, Buckinghamshire, UK

The mill was built presumably in 1627 and is considered the oldest windmill England. In 1902, the building was severely damaged by a monstrous storm. In 1922, the destroyed mill was bought by a farmer whose land was located nearby. In 1937 he donated the building to the National Trust, but it wasn't until 1963 that renovations began. And they were carried out by volunteers at their own expense. The mill is currently open to the public on Sundays during the summer.

Flickr

Over the centuries, the house has been rebuilt, central part the building is the oldest.

24. Wurleser House
Staten Island, New York, USA

The Dutch word "voorlezer" (reader) was used among the Dutch colonists in relation to active people taking on semi-formal responsibilities associated with active participation in local law, education and religious life. After the British captured the Dutch colonies, the Wurlesers continued to keep business records and documentation. The last person to be awarded this title retired in 1789. His successor already held the title of clerk.
The building, located on Staten Island, was built around 1695 and is the oldest wooden school building in the United States. On the ground floor there was a living room and a large hall for church services. The second floor was occupied by a bedroom and another large hall, which, it is believed, was intended for school activities.

25. Spaso-Zashiverskaya Church
Baryshevsky village council, Novosibirsk region, Russia

Churches are so much like rockets.
Resting domes against the sky,
As if they roam in the Universe somewhere,
Together with the firmament
making a turn.
Filling up on earth
warmth and light
Temples, as at the start, tensed,
To break loose in an instant
to those planets
On which we were all born.

The construction of temples has always been associated with the presence of many factors, and not only of a religious or political nature. An important role was played by the state of society: the level of well-being of citizens, organization, moral and ethical foundations, relationships, the need for a "kind word" or participation ...
The first monuments of church buildings. Crafts and arts in ancient times... Carpentry. The first wooden churches in Russia in 945 and 882. Chronicle. Construction of wooden churches of the 15th and 17th centuries. Salaries and arrangement of churches. The first monuments of church buildings were wooden churches in Russia; later on, stone ones were already erected in their place, just as now we constantly meet the same custom since ancient times; in general, wooden church buildings were and are temporary. They explain about wooden structures and buildings as follows: When crafts and arts in ancient times were still at the lowest stage of development, then there were no special craftsmen for each separate branch of the arts. Each dexterous worker tried to do everything he could do himself. He built a house, hollowed out a tree for a boat, decorated seats with carvings, or sculpted some idols. Such an infant state of crafts and arts in Russia is not an unsubstantiated conclusion from simple considerations, but is fully confirmed by the absence in the language itself of special names for certain branches of art. The word carpentry was understood as a wide variety of works. So from the chronicle it is clear that the word "carpentry" meant not only the craft of a simple carpenter or builder of ships, but also embraced architecture, carving and even sculpture. Everything that was done with the help of wood was called carpentry, and the people who were engaged in such work were called, without distinction, carpenters or woodcutters. The numerous forests that covered ancient Russia eliminated any need to find other more convenient material for buildings in the bowels of the earth. Forests were everywhere, and sometimes in such quantity that it was necessary to cut them down in order to clear spacious places for settlements. The first inhabitants of Russia had to use exclusively only one tree for every business, and especially for buildings.
The two wooden churches in Russia, originally built according to the annals, built before the baptism of Vladimir, are indicated by evidence: the first dating back to 945, that at that time Kiev already had its own special church of St. Elijah: "And I drove the mainstream Russia to the company in the church of St. Elijah, there is even above the stream, the end of Pasynche's conversation and Kozar: be the team of the church, many beesha Varyazi khresteyani". The second news about the Christian church in Kiev was recorded in the chronicle under the year 882: "And killing Askold and Dir, carrying them to the mountain and cellar and on the mountain, he is now calling Ugorskoe, where now Ol'min dvor; on that grave he put the church of St. Nicholas on that grave, and Dirov's grave behind the holy Orino ". The word "set" refers to wooden structures; the chronicler constantly uses two different verbs to indicate whether buildings are made of stone or wood; for wooden buildings or churches, he always uses the word set, while for stone buildings he uses the verbs: create or lay. About the construction of wooden temples, we find an indication: although with the introduction of the Christian faith in Russia, Greek church architecture entered, which built stone temples, however in the structure of wooden churches and chapels, indigenous Russian architecture was retained. Adapted to worship, the religious character of the people and the locality, it expressed the life and movement of thought in various forms. On the same subject, it is mentioned: the transition from the construction of a dwelling house to the construction of a church was likened and easy; for the basis for the latter was the frame of the hut, to which the altar and the porch were cut; a neck with a head crowned with a cross was attached over the peaked roof. According to the promise, during some social disaster, such churches were built on this or that street of the city or village, and those consecrated on one day were called common.
Very few wooden church buildings, temples and chapels have survived to this day. They are everywhere replaced by stone, and small chapels completely cease to exist, and their location is leveled with earth; it was noted about this: “not a lot of old wooden churches remained in Russia, everywhere they were rebuilt to stone or wooden new architecture; but many of us still remember these small, dark village temples made of round blackwood or oak, with unfinished, gloomy walls and smoky images inside, sheathed on the outside with a half-rotten plank, with tiny, incorrectly positioned windows, a low, and sometimes warped from time to time, bell tower. Soon their primitive architecture will be preserved unless only in the drawings of some lover of antiquity. "
Moving on to the architecture of wooden churches of later times, I must say that the style of architecture of churches of this period has the character of the churches of the ancients, which is seen in the church of the same faith in the settlement of Mstera, built in the first half of this century, at which another stone temple was already built, and as it was mentioned above that the wooden structures of the temples were and are temporary, which is constantly and is confirmed, after the wooden original construction there follows a more durable stone temple building. And in general, it should be noted that, incidentally, it has been said repeatedly and not without complete and deep regret that wooden monuments of structures of more or less distant time are being destroyed everywhere, and very few ancient manuscripts have survived in rural settlements, sometimes revealing precious materials for researchers about this or that origin or event.

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Churches, chapels. history reference

In Russia since ancient times it was widespread construction of wooden churches and chapels... This was due to the fact that wood is a relatively affordable and inexpensive material. The temples were distinguished by such completeness of architectural forms that many elements were subsequently tried to be repeated in stone architecture.

In the early 90s, despite some chaos in the country, church life revived, the construction of small churches in small territories began, which were supposed to fit into the surrounding landscape, this is another reason why the construction of churches and chapels is in demand precisely from such material as tree.

The need for the construction of wooden churches is great. If before the revolution there were 65 thousand churches in Russia, now there are only 29 thousand of them, this counting Orthodox churches abroad. There are about 150 thousand settlements in Russia. That is, there is one temple for 5-7 settlements. Residents of many villages are forced to travel to services in cities. Over the past 20 years, about 19 thousand churches have been built in Russia. But this is not enough!

The main types of temple forms

Chapels and bell towers are small structures that were erected in various places. In the chapels there was an icon case with an icon, any traveler passing by could come up and pray. An indispensable attribute of the bell tower (as the name implies) was the bell. These small buildings do not have a priest performing services.

Kletskie temples - a simple wooden building, according to outward appearance resembling a hut, only a small dome is located on top or even just a cross. The dimensions of such a church are small, usually three log cabins connected into one structure.

Tent temples are tall buildings topped with a tent with a cross. The temple seems to be tending upward. Usually two or three log cabins were combined into one. The side log cabins are smaller than the central one, but they are made in the same style. This is a great example of Russian architecture. But Patriarch Nikon, under whom a huge reorganization of Russian Orthodoxy took place, did not allow the construction of hipped-roof churches, since traditionally the dome should be spherical.

Temples with a spherical dome - a wooden structure, a support was raised on the building - a cube, later a cylinder, a head was placed on it. Later they began to make a domed vaulted ceiling under the head.

The many-topped temples are an attempt to embody architectural forms inherent in stone in wood. These are temples with many spherical domes (three or more).

Multi-tiered temples are multi-topped temples, but the chapters are located on tiers. For example, in the four corners of the cube there are chapters on the lower tier, on the second - chapters to the cardinal points (usually of a smaller size), in the center on a small elevation - the central chapter.

Today the traditions of patronage are returning. Many people want to leave a memory of themselves in the place where they were born, raised, lived, and sometimes just in a small village where there is no religious building. Construction of wooden churches and chapels is cheaper than stone temples. Moreover, wooden buildings are so Russian.

Chapel, temple, church in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Russia

By building a temple or chapel:

• You will give people joy
• You will make the world kinder and more beautiful
• You will leave a good memory of yourself.

In the construction company "EL" you can order construction of wooden churches or chapels in St. Petersburg, Russia from design to turnkey commissioning. You can choose a ready-made project, you can make changes to the project according to your needs, or you can order the development of a unique project of the temple.

Our company has all the production facilities for the manufacture of a log house of any complexity, and modern equipment speeds up and reduces the cost of preparing a set for construction.

We offer for construction of wooden churches and chapels such a building material as a rounded log. The manufacture of a log house takes place on our own production base, then the material is brought to a prepared construction site, where the structure is assembled according to the contract.

Order the construction of temples in the construction company "EL"! In our

the state has qualified builders specialized in construction of wooden churches and chapels in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Russia... We are building all over Russia. Our company has experience in the construction of temples. We will be glad to cooperate with you!

The art of Russian wooden temples

The Church of the Deposition of the Robe from the village of Borodava is the oldest preserved wooden monument in Russia with an accurate date. Photo of May 2009. According to the latest research, there were no chapters of the Church of the Deposition of the Robe

Along with stone temple building, wooden temples were also erected in Russia from ancient times. Due to the availability of material, wooden temples were built everywhere. The construction of stone temples required special conditions, huge financial resources, and the involvement of experienced stone craftsmen.

The wooden church of St. Basil the Great in the village of Imochenitsy, Lodeynopolsky District, Leningrad Region. The temple was built by the artists Gretskiy.

At the same time, the need for temples was enormous, and wooden temple building, thanks to the skill of Slavic craftsmen, made up for it. The architectural forms and technical solutions of wooden churches were distinguished by such completeness and perfection that this soon began to have a significant impact on stone architecture.
Old Russian wooden churches created the impression of monumentality at a relatively small size. The high height of the wooden temples is designed exclusively for the perception from the outside, due to the fact that their interior had a relatively low height, since it was limited from above by a suspended ceiling ("sky").

The Church is right. Lazarus (end of the XIV century)

The oldest chronicle sources mention that long before the Baptism of Rus, wooden churches were already being built in it. Prince Igor's treaty with the Greeks mentions the church of St. Prophet Elijah (945). In the same source, two more churches are mentioned: “the goddess of St. Nicholas "on Askold's grave and the church" St. Orins ". Both of them were made of wood, as they are referred to as “felled” and it is said that they all burned down. The wooden church of the Transfiguration of the Lord is also mentioned in the chronicles of Novgorod. Sources do not mention ancient stone temples in a pagan environment.

Church of Lazar Murom, late 14th century
// Old Russian town planning of the X-XV centuries. - M., 1993 .-- S. 226.

For the construction of wooden churches were all the necessary conditions, for in our lands, mainly forest, they knew how to build from wood, and the craftsmen were good at building the craft. About what the ancient wooden church architecture was, sources have preserved few reports. One of the chronicles mentions the wooden church of St. Sofia in Novgorod. Its construction dates back to 989, and it was built with the blessing of the first Novgorod bishop. The temple was cut from an oak forest and had thirteen tops. It is safe to assume that it was a complex architectural structure that required a great experience of craftsmen and the ability to build temples. The chronicler mentions that the temple burned down in 1045. Written sources often mention the construction of "votive" churches. They were built quickly and were always erected from wood.

St. George's Church of the Potsky churchyard. 1700 Tarnogsky district
// Masters of the Russian North. Vologda land: Photo album / Photo by N. Alekseev et al. - M., 1987. - P. 41.

How simple and modest the wooden temples looked inside, strictly observing the accepted traditions, so fancifully and richly they were decorated outside. There were no ready-made forms in the wood, and the craftsmen had to take them from the stone temples. Of course, it was in many ways impossible to repeat them in a tree, but the rethinking of these canons was practiced widely and successfully. In 1290 in Veliky Ustyug the Church of the Assumption "about twenty walls" was erected. Apparently, it included a central octahedral pillar and four necks and altarpieces.

Church of the Ascension in the village of Kushereka. 17th century // Old Russian town planning of the X-XV centuries. - M., 1993 .-- S. 227.

The main material for construction, in the predominantly 507 majority, were logs (donkeys or slugs), 8 to 18 m long and about half a meter in diameter or more. Beams were cut from logs (a log hewn into four edges). For the construction of floors, logs were used, split into two parts (plates). Planks (tes) were obtained from the logs using wedges (split in length). A ploughshare (shingle) made of aspen wood was used for the roofing.

Church of the Intercession in Vytegra, 1708
// Old Russian town planning of the X-XV centuries. - M., 1993 .-- S. 227

During construction, two methods of fastening the logs were traditionally used: "in a flash" - by cutting down the corresponding grooves at the ends of the logs, and "in a paw" ("in a step") - in this case, there are no outlet ends, and the ends themselves were cut down so that they grabbed each other with the other teeth, or "paws". The rows of collected crowns were called log cabins, or feet.

Church of the village of Nelazskoe-Borisoglebskoe, Vologda region. 1694 g.

The roofs of temples and tents were covered with a plank, and the heads with a ploughshare. They were fitted with great accuracy and only in the upper part were attached to the base with special wooden "crutches". In the entire temple, from the base to the cross, no metal parts were used. This is due, first of all, not to the lack of metal parts, but to the skill of the craftsmen to do without them.

Assumption Cathedral in the city of Kem. Karelia. 1711-1717
// Russian wooden architecture. - M., 1966.

For the construction of temples, those types of wood that grew in abundance in the area were widely used; in the north they often built from oak, pine, spruce, larch, in the south - from oak and hornbeam. Aspen was used to make a ploughshare. Such roofs made of aspen plowshares are practical and attractive, they not only from a distance, but even from a close distance, give the impression of a silvered roof.

General view of the Yegoryevskaya church of the Minetsky churchyard. Reconstruction
// Milchik MI, Ushakov Yu. S. Wooden architecture of the Russian North: pages of history. - Leningrad, 1981 .-- P. 61.

An important feature of ancient architecture was the fact that in the few carpentry tools there were no saws (longitudinal and transverse), which, it would seem, were so necessary. Until the time of Peter the Great, carpenters did not know the word "build"; they did not build their huts, mansions, churches and cities, but "cut down", which is why the carpenters were sometimes called "cutters".

The wooden Church of the Life-Giving Trinity from the Rekon Hermitage in Lyubytinsky District, built in 1672-1676.

In the North of Russia, saws in the construction business came into wide use only in the middle of the 19th century, so all the beams, boards, jambs were hewn out by the old masters with one ax. Churches were cut in the truest sense of the word. In the North, in contrast to the southern Russian regions, temples in ancient times were almost always placed directly on the ground ("sewage") without a foundation. The talent and skill of the architects made it possible to build temples up to 60 m in height, and the height of 40 m was common. The harsh school of life was reflected in the external decoration of the churches, gradually leading to the creation of works that were striking in their simplicity and, at the same time, unique solemnity and harmony.

Chapels, bell towers

Before proceeding to the description of the main types of wooden church building, it is necessary to mention the simpler forms of wooden church architecture. Such structures include chapels and bell towers.

Tsyvozero village Arkhangelsk region Bell tower
// Opolovnikov A.V. Treasures of the Russian North. - M., 1989

Chapels, worship crosses, or icons in icon cases were indispensable companions of the Russian people in antiquity. They were erected in great numbers all over the Russian land. Wooden chapels were erected in places where icons were found, burnt down or destroyed and dismantled churches, in places of battles, in places of sudden death of Christians from lightning or illness, at the entrance to a bridge, at crossroads, where they thought it necessary for some reason to cross themselves ...

The village of Kuliga Drakovanova. Bell tower
// Opolovnikov A.V. Treasures of the Russian North. - M., 1989.

The simplest of the chapels were the usual low pillars, on which icons were installed under a small roof. The more complex ones were tiny buildings (cage type) with low doorways that could not be entered without bending over. The most widespread in ancient times were chapels in the form of huts with a small head or just a cross, in the chronicles such chapels are referred to as "kletskie". The most attractive of the surviving chapel of the Assumption of the Virgin in the village of Vasilyevo (XVII-XVIII centuries), with a small refectory and a hipped roof. Later, a canopy and a hipped bell tower were added to it. The Chapel of the Three Saints from the village of Kavgora (XVIII-XIX centuries) is more complex in shape, such buildings are much less common. All chapels were always kept in proper order, repaired in a timely manner and decorated for the holidays by residents of nearby villages

Vezha, altar cut, head, kokoshnik, onion

The appearance of bell towers in wooden architecture, as independent structures, can be attributed to the time of their widespread use in stone architecture. Probably the most ancient were belfries, like those preserved in the stone architecture of Pskov. The annals also mention wooden "goats" on which small bells were hung. The most ancient bell towers known to us were square structures, consisting of four pillars with a slight inward slope; at the top, a roof with a dome was arranged and bells were suspended. The appearance of such bell towers can be attributed to the XVI-XVII centuries. A more complex structure usually stood on five pillars, but the base was made up of four pillars, on which the hipped roof and the head were reinforced. Bell towers and "about nine pillars" are known.

Suspension, police officer, pediment belt, tent

Bell towers, which consisted of log cabins of various shapes (tetrahedral and octahedral), can be attributed to a more complex type. They were cut high enough and more often ended with a tent, which was crowned with a small head. In the North of Russia, bell towers were often chopped "with a remnant", in central Russia they preferred to cut them "in the paw."

Refectory, portal, quadruple, neck, tier, top, cube

The most common type in the North was combined buildings. For greater stability, the bottom of the bell tower was cut with a square, on which an octagonal frame was placed, crowned with a tent. This is how the most widespread type in the North developed. In the bell towers, there were differences only in proportions and decoration. The main difference was the different heights (for example, the bell tower of the early 17th century in the village of Kuliga Drakovanova).

Khutynsky Spasov Monastery
// Adam Olearius. Description of the journey to Muscovy and through Muscovy to Persia and back. - SPb., 1906 .-- P. 24

In the south-west of Russia, bell towers (zenitsi or dzvonitsi) had a slightly different appearance and finally, as architectural forms, were formed by the end of the 17th century. The most common are bell towers with a square plan, consisting of two tiers. The lower part of them is cut from beams with corners "in the paw". At the bottom, plank ebb tides were arranged, and at the top, the console-beams that supported the roof passed into the fences of the upper tier of the bell tower (i.e., its ringing). The belfry itself was an open space with bells under a low hipped roof. In buildings complex type both the upper and lower tiers were in the shape of an octagon. Bell towers with three tiers were often built.

Russian women mourn their dead
// Adam Olearius. Description of the journey to Muscovy and through Muscovy to Persia and back. - SPb., 1906 .-- S. 8.

In the South of Russia, bell towers were built mainly according to the same principles. Characteristic feature is that they were not chopped, but folded from the logs one on top of the other, the ends of which were reinforced in vertical pillars.

Kletsky temple

Museum of Folk Wooden Architecture Vitoslavlitsy Trinity Church of Kletskaya (1672-1676)

Church of the Transfiguration (1707) in the AEM "Khokhlovka"

Church of st. Vasily XVI century, Ivano-Frankivsk region, Rogatinsky district, village Cherche

Kletsky temple - one or more rectangular log cabins covered with gable roofs. The most ancient of them, which, in particular, includes the Church of the Deposition of the Robe from the village of Borodava (topmost picture), had a nailless roof slope structure and did not have domes. "Headless temples" in Russia existed until the 17th century ..

Until the 20th century, they were the most common. Their architecture had a lot in common with residential buildings. They were made up of several cages that were hacked together: an altar, a prayer hall, a refectory, side-altars, porches, porches and a bell tower. The number of log cabins along the East-West axis could have been large. Then the temples were called chopped "flock" (a church in the village of Skorodum). The main volumes of the temples were cut into a scrap with the remainder, the altars - in the paw.

CHURCH OF RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS - MUSEUM-RESERVE OF WOODEN ARCHITECTURE "KIZHI"

It was previously believed that the oldest surviving wooden monument on the territory of Russia is the Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus of Murom, now located in Kizhi, which dates from the end of the 14th century, but there is no exhaustive evidence of its age and modern experts date it to the 16th century.

The oldest surviving wooden monument on the territory of Russia with an accurate date is the Church of the Deposition of the Robe from the village of Borodava (1485), transferred to the city of Kirillov on the territory of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.

One of the oldest surviving temples is the Church of St. George in the village of Yuksovichi (Rodionovo village), dated 1493.

All three temples are of the cage type.

Church of the village of Spas-Vezhi (1628), transported in the 1930s to the Kostroma Museum of Wooden Architecture (burned down in 2002).

Church of the Transfiguration, 1707 from the village. Yanidor of the Cherdyn district of the Perm Territory - included in the architectural and ethnographic museum "Khokhlovka"

Church of St. Basil the Blessed in the village of Chukhcherma, 1824 Arkhangelsk region, Kholmogorsky district

Tent temple

Interior view of the temple tent of the XVI century

Hipped temples are a special architectural type that appeared and became widespread in Russian temple architecture. Instead of a dome, the building of a hip-roofed temple ends with a hipped roof. Hipped temples are made of wood and stone. Stone hipped temples appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 16th century and have no analogies in the architecture of other countries.

Trinity Church in Yuzhno-Kurilsk. 1999 year.

In Russian wooden architecture, a tent is a widespread, although far from the only, form of completion of wooden churches. Since from ancient times wooden construction was predominant in Russia, most Christian churches were also built of wood. The typology of church architecture was adopted Ancient Rus from Byzantium. However, in wood it is extremely difficult to convey the shape of the dome - a necessary element of the Byzantine type of temple. Probably, it was technical difficulties that caused the replacement of domes with hipped roofs in wooden churches.

Sretensky-Mikhailovskaya Church. Red Lag. 1655 year.

The structure of the wooden tent is simple, its construction does not cause serious difficulties. Although the earliest known wooden hipped-roof temples date back to the 16th century, there is reason to believe that the tent-shaped form was widespread in wooden architecture earlier.

Assumption Church in Kondopoga. Karelia. 1774 year.

There is an image of a church that has not survived in the village of Upa, Arkhangelsk region, clerical records of which date the construction of the temple to 1501. This already allows us to assert that the tent appeared in wooden architecture earlier than in stone.

Resurrection Church from the village of Potakino (Museum of Wooden Architecture in Suzdal). The year is 1776.

Researchers, on the basis of an analysis of Old Russian documents, believed that the tent-roofed wooden churches in Vyshgorod (1020-1026), Ustyug (late 13th century), Ledsky Pogost (1456) and Vologda (late 15th century) were tent-roofed. There are also early images of hipped-roof temples, for example, on the icon "The Introduction of the Virgin into the Temple" of the early XIV century from the village of Krivoye on Northern Dvina(Timing).

"Introduction to the Temple of the Most Holy Theotokos" Novgorod XIV century. From the Trinity Church of the village of Krivoye on the Northern Dvina

An important argument in favor of the early origin of the tent-roofed type of wooden church is the constancy of the typology of wooden architecture. For centuries, wooden construction, closely related to the folk environment, was carried out according to old, well-known patterns.

Epiphany Church. Pogost (Oshevenskoe). The year is 1787.

The builders adhered to several established types, so later buildings as a whole had to repeat those that preceded them. Often carpenters were required to build new temple modeled on the old one, which has fallen into disrepair. The conservatism of wooden architecture, the slowness of its development make it possible to think that its main forms have not undergone significant changes since their inception.

Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Vyritsa. 1914 year. Architects: M.V. Krasovsky and V.P. Apyshkov

Hip-roof temples largely determined the appearance of not only ancient Russian villages, but also cities. Stone churches were rare, but most of the temples in the cities were built of wood. The elongated silhouettes of the tents stood out well from the mass of the main building. There is a chronicle report about high "stands" in Moscow, under which wooden pillar-like churches crowned with tents were supposed. Later, in the 18th-19th centuries, when wooden churches left urban construction, they continued to be built in great numbers in the Russian north. Among the temples of Karelia and the Arkhangelsk region there are many examples of tent buildings.

Church of the Assumption from the village of Kuritsko (Vitoslavlitsa Museum) 1595

In the second half of the XIX - early XX century, in the buildings of the "Russian style" and Art Nouveau, an interest in ancient Russian architecture appeared. The revival of the traditions of Orthodox architecture was accompanied by an interest in wooden folk architecture. New professional projects of wooden churches have appeared. At the same time, the form of the tent was perceived as a characteristic element of the Russian temple. Wooden temples continue to be built in modern Russia, moreover, the hipped form of completion is very popular.

Nikolskaya Church in the village of Panilovo, Arkhangelsk Region. 1600 View from the southwest.

The design of a tent is usually very simple. Several (most often eight) logs are brought together at the top, forming the ribs of the tent. Outside, the tent is sheathed with planks and sometimes covered with a ploughshare. A small head with a cross is placed on top of it. An interesting fact is that in wooden churches the tent was made deaf, separating from the interior of the temple by the ceiling.

Western facade of the Assumption Church in the village of Varzuga, Tersk District, Murmansk Region.

This is due to the need to protect the interior of the temple from atmospheric precipitation, which penetrates through the covering of the tent in case of strong winds. At the same time, the space of the tent and the temple are effectively ventilated separately from each other.

The octahedral upper tier of the temple - the octagon (analogous to the drum for the dome) - most often serves as the base for the tent. This is where the "octagon on a quadruple" design comes from, which makes it possible to better make the transition from a square in terms of the base of the temple to an octahedral tent. But there are temples without the octagon. There are temples that do not have a quadrangle; they have an octahedral shape from the ground level. Temples with a large number of facets are rare. There are also multi-hipped temples. In addition to the central pavilion crowning the frame, small decorative tents were also erected on the porches adjoining the frame.

Church of the Nativity of the Virgin (1695) in the village of Gimreka in the Podporozhsky district of the Leningrad region
Tent temple options:

hip-roofed octagon with prirubes (“octagon from the ground”), which creates the image of a temple-tower,
octal on a cruciform base,
an octagon on a four, when a rectangular building above turns into an octagonal frame-octagon, covered with a tent,
the tent is crowned not with an octagon, but with a frame with six, less often ten sides.

Church in the village of Sogintsy (1696) of the Leningrad region,

church in the village of Puchuga (1698?), Arkhangelsk region,

church in the village of Saunino (1665), Arkhangelsk region,

Church in the village of Bolshaya Shalga (1745), Arkhangelsk region,

church in the village of Krasnaya Lyaga (1655), Arkhangelsk region,

church in the village of Pogost (1787), Arkhangelsk region,

Chapel in the village of Niz (XIX), Arkhangelsk region.

Multi-tent temple
The multi-hipped temple is a combination of pillars - octahedral and several eights on a quadrangle.

Examples: Trinity Church in the Nyonoksa churchyard (1727), Arkhangelsk region

Tiered temple

Museum of Folk Wooden Architecture of Vitoslavlitsy Tier Church of St. Nicholas in 1757 from the village of Vysoky Ostrov, Okulovsky District, Novgorod Region

A tiered temple is an increase in decreasing fours or eight.

Church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God (1653) (also known as the Old Ascension Church) in Torzhok, Tver Region,

the Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist (1697) of the Shirkov churchyard of the Tver region, where the height of the building, equal to almost 45 meters, is emphasized by the reduction of quadrangles and the sharpness of the wedge-shaped eight-slope roofs,

the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos (1731) from the village of Starye Klyuchischi, Kstovsky District, in the 1970s was transported to Nizhny Novgorod, to the Museum of Wooden Architecture on the Shchelokovsky farm,

the Church of Elijah the Prophet at the Tsypin churchyard (1755) in the Vologda region,

Peter and Paul Church (Ratonavolok) (1722). Arkhangelsk region, Kholmogorsk district.

Many-domed temple

A combination of many chapters.

Ensemble of the church and bell tower in Chukhcherm. Ilya church in Chukhcherm (1657), Arkhangelsk region (burned down in 1930).

Transfiguration Church in Kizhi (1714) - 22-main temple,

Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Vytegorsky pogost), Vologodskaya Oblast, recreated in the Nevsky forest park, Leningrad region(1708, burned down in 1963, recreated in 2008) - 25-head temple.

Finishing the pre-Easter week with this post, I want to congratulate everyone on the upcoming holiday of the bright Resurrection of Christ!

Let these first churches be a symbol of the Orthodox faith, the memory of our distant ancestors, masters, a symbol of faith in a bright future!

History of Russian art: in 3 volumes: Vol. 1: Art X - the first half of the XIX century. 3rd ed., Rev. and add. - M .: Image. art, 1991.