This year, the wooden pearl of Russia, the Transfiguration Church of Kizhei, celebrates its 300th anniversary. One of the most recognizable symbols of Russia, this ancient church has gathered around itself many of the most amazing legends for three centuries.
FINGER OF GOD
The most popular legend is related to the place where the temple was erected in 1714. Ironically, at this time, Peter I was chopping off his famous window to Europe in the immediate vicinity of Kizhi. The Russian fleet won a major victory at Cape Gangut, thereby pushing the front line of the Northern War to Swedish territory. In honor of this event, the Church of the Transfiguration was allegedly consecrated. The plan for its construction, according to legend, was drawn by Peter I.
Before the battle at Gangut, the Kizhi churchyard was repeatedly ravaged by the Swedes. The raids of 1580-1581 were especially devastating. More or less, life there got better only in 1617, after the conclusion of the Stolbovsky peace with Sweden. However, the passage of the state border near Kizhi forced the local population to create on the island around the churchyard fortified walls with powerful watchtowers that have not survived to this day.
Legend claims that the place for the 22-head Church of the Transfiguration was determined by the Higher powers. Three times rafts with a forest for its construction were floated on the water, and three times they pushed to the same place. A wooden church was soon laid there.
However, there is little truth in the beautiful tradition. Because today it is known for sure that the Transfiguration Church was built on the site of the old one, which burned down from a lightning strike at the end of the 17th-18th centuries. It was built according to the same project as the 18-domed Church of the Intercession of the Virgin in the village of Ankhimovo, located relatively nearby, which was founded six years earlier, in 1708.
Promotional video:
NAIL CARPENTER INTERFERENCE
In ancient Russian annals and legends, one can often find the statement that this or that building was created with the help of only one ax, without a single nail. Today such words look fantastic, but a few centuries ago, wooden houses, towers or churches were really built without the use of nails. The Transfiguration Church of Kizhi is just a vivid example of such a building. The temple is built according to the classical Russian tradition of eight-tiered churches.
It is based on an octahedral cube - an octagon, to which four two-stage cuts are attached on four sides. According to legend, it was erected by the only master Nestor without using nails with the help of one ax and chisel. After the completion of the construction, the talented carpenter looked at his creation with satisfaction and said: "It was not, is not and will not be like this." Having said this, he swung and threw his ax into the water with all his might as a sign that no one could ever create such beauty again.
In fact, this legend is only half reliable. Indeed, the Transfiguration Church was built without a single nail! However, the wooden "scales" on the plowshares of the domes were fastened with the use of iron pins - the prototypes of modern nails.
In addition, of course, there was never really any talk of any lonely ingenious carpenter. In that distant time, as a rule, whole artels of carpenters worked on the construction of temples, including up to several dozen people. Most likely, the Church of the Transfiguration was created by the same artel that a few years earlier built the Intercession Church in Ankhimov. The researchers were prompted to this conclusion by a single style of buildings, although it should be noted that the church in Kizhi is an order of magnitude more perfect and more beautiful than the Intercession Church.
Unfortunately, history has not preserved the names of the architects of either church. Archival records both in Ankhimov and Kizhi only state: "It was built by private methods", "by the diligence of parishioners and various benefactors."
The Transfiguration Church is a summer one. In winter, services are not held there. Now the temple is under restoration. The previous major renovation lasted ten years and ended exactly 55 years ago, in 1959.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Talking about the wooden architecture of the Russian North, one cannot fail to mention the origin of the name of the island - Kizhi. It turns out that the location of the Kizhi churchyard has attracted people associated with religious or even magical practices since ancient times. The word "Kizhi" in modern Russian is translated as "games". Some ethnographers are sure that before the construction of Orthodox churches in these parts, ancient pagan sanctuaries existed here. Only in 1496 the island became the center of the Spassky churchyard, which controlled more than 130 villages.
According to another interpretation, "kiiji" means "water moss". It grows in large numbers in a swamp located in the center of the island, and since ancient times has been used by peasants to insulate their homes.
Relatively modern legends also exist around the Church of the Transfiguration, one of which unexpectedly turned out to be true. For decades, from year to year, the guides told the legend that during the Great Patriotic War the Finnish pilot refused to bomb Kizhi. The beauty of the Transfiguration Church amazed the ace so much that, contrary to the order, he turned the plane, dropped bombs into Lake Onega and flew away.
On Kizhi this pilot was called the Kizhi angel. For many years, this story was considered only a beautiful legend, until in 1999 Kizhi was visited by the 84-year-old Finn Laus Day Saxel. During the excursion, the elderly man admitted that he was the very pilot who refused to bomb the Transfiguration Church. When the incognito of the Kizhi Angel was revealed, many articles were written about him by both Russian and Finnish media, and the TV channels of both countries were filmed based on a documentary film about the pilot's feat.
LOST LIBRARY
A famous Karelian ethnographer, writer and traveler Aleksey Popov told an unusual legend, also associated with the war years. In 1917, after the revolution, Finland gained independence, and the Valaam monastery located not far from Kizhi ended up on Finnish territory. The location of the monastery actually on the border of two states played a cruel joke on it.
During the Soviet-Finnish war, more than 70 Soviet planes zealously bombed the Finnish fortifications located in the immediate vicinity of the monastery. However, thanks to divine providence, most of the shells that fell on the monastery's territory did not explode, and the spiritual abode did not suffer much. The main thing is that the unique library, consisting of 29,000 ancient books, survived. The next day, most of the inhabitants of the monastery were evacuated deep into Finland. Only a few monks remained in the monastery: to look after the property.
In March 1940, a peace treaty was signed between Finland and the USSR, according to which the territory of Karelia went to our country. The monks were given only two days to take out the property of the monastery, which was supposed to become the school of boatswains of the USSR Navy. As a result, the monks in full force moved to Finland in the former Papinniemi manor. A monastery was founded on its territory - New Valaam. Officially, it is believed that the unique monastery library was taken to the territory of Finland in New Valaam, but its traces have been lost.
At the same time, a number of researchers believe that the library was taken to Kizhi and hidden in a cave near the Transfiguration Church. Alexey Popov repeatedly in the 80s of the last century communicated with residents of local villages. Those people who remembered the war years confirmed to him that around the time the monks of the Valaam Monastery were taking their property to Finland, several ships moored to the island.
A serious cordon was set up around them, and a column of trucks drove into the depths of the island. What was in them is unknown, but it is likely that the missing library of ancient books of Balaam. It is possible that a unique collection of ancient manuscripts is still waiting in the wings in a monastic cache somewhere on Kizhi.
Dmitry SOKOLOV