Old postcards Kizhi

Kizhi Pogost, on Kizhi island in Lake Onega, is a group of two wooden churches and a bell tower inside a single fence. The 22-domed Church of the Transfiguration was begun in June 1714 and the 9-domed Church of the Intercession was rebuilt in 1764; both dates are printed in the captions of the 1968 cards. The ensemble was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1990.

These vintage postcards of Kizhi come mainly from two releases, 1968 and 1970 (plus a single 1969 card), and catch the moment when the open-air museum had just taken shape. After restoration in 1949–1966, a museum-reserve was founded on 1 January 1966, although chapels, houses and farm buildings had been brought to the island from Zaonezhye and other parts of Karelia since the early 1950s. That is how the Oshevnev house arrived: it was moved in 1951 from a village on Bolshoy Klimetsky island, and it appears in both sets.

The 1968 set looks at the pogost from several angles, including a view from Lake Onega, and adds the Church of the Raising of Lazarus from the Murom Monastery, which the caption dates to about 1391. The 1970 set goes further: close-ups of the domes of both churches, the windmill from Volkostrov, the Peter and Paul chapel on the same island, a chapel from Kavgory and one in Vorobyi, the Elizarov house, and details of the icons “Zosima and Savvaty with scenes from their lives” and “Florus and Laurus”.

More sights
Views of Crimea · Petrodvorets · St Sophia of Kyiv · Solovetsky Islands

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