Sunday, December 23, 2012

Abandoned Russian Churches

Preserved: This intricately designed church stands alone and forgotten under the wide blue sky


There are some beautiful images of abandoned wooden churches of north west Russia in todays Daily Mail


The project has revealed the beautiful, but abandoned, wooden churches


These fragile, desecrated structures are on the verge of extinction, as no one has acted to care for them


Ramshackle: This church teeters on the brink of collapse, its foundations appearing to sink into the earth

The churches were constructed from the time of Prince Vladimir, who, on his conversion to Christianity in 988, commanded they should be built

Some of the treasured artwork remains unscathed, despite years of neglect
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3 comments:

Paddy said...

haunting ...

23/12/12 10:52 pm
Ben Whitworth said...

Russia - especially rural Russia - is depopulating at a tremendous rate. There are literally thousands of villages that have been abandoned in the last 50 years. There is an interesting article on the Russian demographic crisis in a recent issue of the London Review of Books.

23/12/12 11:15 pm
Crux Fidelis said...

It makes me so sad to see those churches stripped of their icons. I am a Customs officer and on a couple of occasions (more than ten years ago) I have come across what I have reckoned to be pillaged icons only to be overruled by my superiors

23/12/12 11:31 pm

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