Welcome to Kizhi island, to the open-air museum of architecture and cultural history. The museum occupies the whole area of Kizhi Island and includes some old villages situated on the mainland to the west and on the surrounding islands. The museum was founded in 1966 because of the beautiful nature of this area and the monuments of wooden architecture, applied arts, and icons, which have existed here since old times.

      The people who lived in this area in the 18th and 19th centuries created wonderful churches, huge log houses, charming village chapels; they also made furniture, sleds, household utensils, wove fine linen, made fantastic headdresses and ornaments of pearls. Those generations have gone but the things created by them still keep the warmth of their hands.

      Kizhi Island is 4 miles long and one mile in its widest part. It stretches from south to north. In the southernmost part of the island the most interesting and impressive exposition of the museum is located.

     You will see the masterpiece of Russian wooden architecture – the Kizhi Architectural Ensemble built by a team of local carpenters in the 18th century on the island. You will visit a traditional Zaonezhie village of the end of the 19th- the beginning of the 20th century. Zaonezhie is the name of the region.

     The Orthodox churches on the Island of Kizhi were first mentioned in Moscow chronicles of the 16th century. According to the historical documents the previous Kizhi Ensemble was struck by lightning and burnt down in the end of the 17th century. In the 1714 the team of local carpenters began to build the church of the Transfiguration, which several years later shook the people of the area with its magnificence and beauty.

     In 1764 the more modest winter church of the intercession was built, evidently by another generation of local carpenters. But they managed to create the unique ensemble of the two churches. In the 19th century the Ensemble was completed with the Bell Tower. The original  wall surrounding the Kizhi Ensemble has not been preserved and we see the model of the wall designed in 1949 according to old pictures.

     So this is Ensemble of the Kizhi Pogost of Our Saviour. The Russian word “pogost” has several meanings. The first meaning is an “administrative center of the area”. In the 16th century the Kizhi Pogost united 130 villages situated on the peninsula and the surrounding islands. Parishioners came here by boats in summer and by sleds pulled by horses in winter not only to pray, but also  to participate in the meetings of peasants’ community, to pay taxes and to celebrate holidays.

     The next meaning is “a place, surrounded by a wall, comprised of 3 structures: a summer church, a winter church and a bell-tower’. Thanks to the location of the structures in the form of a triangle, they do not overshadow each other, and one can observe wonderful changes of their silhouettes as one works around the Pogost.

      And the last and the most recent meaning of the word is “cemetery”. An old graveyard is near the walls of the churches. The peasants from Kizhi Island and neighbouring area were buried here. The priests and the most respected people were buried closer to the altar. The grave of a famous singer of Old Russian epic songs, Trophim Ryabinin, is in this cemetery. Thanks to his talent and that of many local singers who preserved the ancient Russian epic songs, Zaonezhie is called “the Treasury of Russian folklore”.