Today was an early start – up – brekkie – off the boat ready
to start the tour of Kizhi by 8am. It is
a small island 1km wide – and 6km long.
It is just one of 1650 islands in this area. The Finns invaded this area too during the 2nd
World War and the inhabitants were put into concentration camps or killed and
all the village homes and churches on the island burned down. One of these churches was originally built
in the 17th century. The
carpenters of this island were renowned crafts men and had been paid to build
this style of church in many other regions and decided to build one of their
own. Metal nails had to be made
individually and were therefore very expensive – 70 nails equalled 1 cow. So these carpenters had devised a method of
building without nails. This island is
now a National Museum and the Pogost is a UNESCO World Heritage site since
1990. It was very interesting to see how
these people lived in very difficult conditions. Often 22 people would share one house. The very young and the very old would sleep
on top of the large oven/heater at night.
The men and women on the floor and the boys who would become fathers
sleep in the beds. They had many pagan
beliefs. They spun wool and also
flax. At 16 years old the girls would be
sent to live on another island in the hope of finding a husband. The girl was allowed to choose who they
married.
We were back on board and started moving off again by
11am. Entertainment was painting a martryoshka
doll. This was great fun. After lunch we attempted to make some cloth
dolls in the old Russian method – without much success. The fact that we didn’t have any needle and
thread didn’t help, but we were trying to make them the authentic peasant Russian
way.
An ice-cream party was next.
It was a bit of fun. The rest of
the day was taken up with a talk on “All you wanted to know about Russia” and
after dinner a concert by an opera singer Natalia Kraevsky
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