Khizi Island

I got off the overnight train in Kem at 04.22 a.m. and was met by my guide. We went to the Frigate Hotel where I crashed until 9a.m. when it was time to set out on the next leg of the journey.

Khizi Island is a UNESCO designated site in Europe's second largest lake, Lake Onega. It takes one and a half hours by hydrofoil from Petrozavodsk to get to the island. A view of one of the sister hydrofoils that I would be travelling on shortly.

It is a huge wooden structure but abide going extensive repairs. The current structure was built in the seventeenth century and the walls were built using only wood and not a single nail.

But over time, the structure g=has suffered from the severe winters and the effects of drying wind and rain. I had seen the building before they tarted work on it so I knew what it should look like and I was going to visit the restoration workshops...just my local guide Victoria and myself.

Replacement timbers have to be left to dry out for at least two years before they can be used.

The original structure has been divided into several sections and each section is removed and the timbers washed and inspected. As much of the original timbers are preserved but some areas need to be replace, as seen with the lighter coloured wood of these roof supports.

The entrance to the workshop.

Some of the joints are only roughly cut by axe but that is all that is required.

These are the roof shingles,brown where they have been covered by another shingle to protect them from the sun and silver or grey where they have been exposed to sun and rain.

A reproduction of a bane, a Russian sauna, being built within the workshop.

A much as possible, traditional methods are used.

N nails, just joints and wedges...

or pins such as this one to hold the tie beam onto the frame with a wedge hammered through a slot on the underside.

A selection of axes and hand drills used for the work.

Three pieces of timber under going a strength test. The top piece is original. the middle piece has a light coloured replacement piece own the top left and the lower timber is new. The new wood has to be matched with the old. Recent climate warming means that trees grow faster so there are fewer tree rings per foot of timber than the original piece of timber. Therefore they will flex at different rates. A similarly old piece of timber needs to be found with the same number of tree rings to ensure that both flex at the same rate.

This is how the original building should look like in reality with twenty two domes.

This is how it looks now. The top sections rest on a metal frame to support the weight of the structure and the fourth and fifth sections have been removed and are in the workshops, together with several of the domes.

Another view of the current structure.

A close up of the repair work.

One of the ornate roofs with replacement shingles, some still light wood coloured and others have already been weathered to silver.

The large structure i=is the summer church. In contrast the smaller of the two churches is the winter church, smaller so that it is easier t heat in the winter. The domes of the winter church.

There are lots of other buildings preserved on the island such as this wealthy farers extensive building in Vailiev's Village...

and a side view of the same building.

The barns were attacked to the residential area so that the farmer did not have to go outside in the winter. The hay was stored in a barn and the animals where in another area, but both connected to the house.

A detail of a porch.

Another large farmers house...

and the side view.

The sense of originality was preserved by hayracks in the fields with traditional fencing around them.

Yet another farmhouse with the residential quarters t the left and the hayloft in the centre and the animal barn to the right.

Most of the transport on the island is traditional, by horse.

I had lunch on the island of goulash and kalitka, a traditional Karelian pie plus a glass of local cider.

My hydrofoil in the small port plus a river cruise liner behind it.

Then it was the hour and a half hydrofoil journey back to the main land to dock at Petrozavodsk.

I wasn't going to be staying in Petrozavodsk but in a traditional Karelian village 100 kilometres west of the regional capital at a village called Kimerna. It is just ne of a total of twenty villages in the western Russia region that have the designation of Best Historical Villages. and part of the BTV organisation.

This was where I was going to stay...just like the historical buildings on Khizi Island on both the outside and the inside.

The large stone stove in the kitchen...

...the kitchen area...

...the dining area...

...another view of the dining area, with my room through the blue doorway...

...another view of the stone stove...

...my room...

...with its own stone stove...

...a view of the hall with the kitchen through the blue door and stairs to the upper levels through the door in the back ground.

The banya at the bottom of the garden. This is a traditional black bane...meaning that there is no chimney, the fire is lit and the smoke fills the room. When it is hot enough to use, the door is eased open to let some of the smoke to escape and then it is ready to use. And everything inside is black from the smoke, hence the name, a black banya.

The changing area of the banya.

Inside the black banya with its sole electric light.

The fire with stones surrounding it on the right.

Despite it being a black banya, it is still very effective and surprising it is not dirty soot covered. It is so effective that it was still hot in the morning.