Historic Churches 2015

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BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON HISTORIC CHURCHES 22ND ANNUAL EDITION 5
sitting neglected in the woods for many
years but has now been dismantled
and transferred to Popov’s workshop
in Kirrillov. Another example is the
17th-century Church of St George.
Also abandoned in the woods, it was
discovered beside the Northern Dvina
River in the Archangel region in 1997
by the artist Ivan Glasunov. The church
has now been professionally restored
and re-erected at the Kolomenskoe
Museum of Architecture in Moscow.
The Church of the Transfiguration
(1781) at Turchasovo was in the process
of restoration during Soviet times but
that came to a stop with the break-up
of the USSR. I first visited the church in
March 2006, when the snow was thick on
the ground. The church and its bell tower
stood magnificently above the frozen
sweep of the Onega River. Svetlana the
churchwarden opened the church for us,
warning ‘Don’t stand under the dome,
the birds will drop something revolting
on you’. The windows were shuttered
and it was dark inside as Svetlana told
us about Alexei Sioutine, who works in
Norway but whose mother was born in
the village. He is trying to raise funds to
finish the restoration and to hang bells
once more in the bell tower.
When I visit again in 2010 the timber
window shutters have been replaced with
plastic sheeting and our need for care is
clear to see. Svetlana is saying prayers in
the church every day, others sometimes
join her and she is encouraging the
children to take an interest in and to
respect their church. By 2012 the guano
has been replaced by a plastic sheet, the
church has been cleaned with the help
of the children and the restorer, Sergei
Golovchenko, and others are working
on the roof, cutting out the rotten wood
where possible and laying down new
timbers to keep out the wet. There is
much to do and the village women have
set up a canteen in a building donated by
the community to keep the workers fed
and tea’d.
In 2013, with Alexei Sioutine, we climb
up through the mass of church timbers
and out onto the roof to meet local
carpenters Alexei Malofeev and Mihail
Mahnov, who are continuing the work
to make the church watertight. We look
down on the bell tower, which still needs a
set of bells, and over the great curve of the
Onega River.
Alexei tells us that the work he is
doing is illegal – the church belongs to the
state, but the state is doing nothing, so if
not him, then who? He can’t stand by and
see it collapse before his eyes – another
Grandpa Sasha. If I remember right the
ageing sign stating that the church is
under the protection of the state was still
attached by a rusting nail or two.
I plan to visit Turchasovo again this
summer, the bells have been cast and
they will ring out again over the Onega
River for the first time in over 80 years.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge the
help of Matilda Moreton (co-author of
Wooden Churches), Daryl Ann Hardman
(co-founder with Richard Davies and
Cathy Giangrande of the charity Wooden
Architecture at Risk) and Alexander
Moshaev (co-author of Russian Types ) in
the preparation of this article.
RICHARD DAVIES is a photographer and the
author and publisher of Wooden Churches:
Travelling in the Russian North (2011, below) and
Russian Types & Scenes (2014). He has travelled
extensively in northern Russia since 2002.
Local carpenters Alexei Malofeev and Mihail Mahnov at the Church of the Transfiguration, Turchasovo
New bells being founded for Turchasovo at the
Shuvalov Bell Foundry, Tutaev, Yaroslavl region in
April 2015
Restorer Sergei Golovchenko, Turchasovo