Travel & Places - The wooden churches of Karielia

The Church of the Transfiguration was built by the deeply spiritual residents of Karelia 300 years ago, built of wood without using nails.

The pogost of Kizhi is located on one of the many islands in Lake Onega, in Karelia. Two 18th-century wooden churches, and an octagonal clock tower, also in wood and built in 1862, can be seen there.

These unusual constructions, in which carpenters created a bold visionary architecture, perpetuate an ancient model of parish space and are in harmony with the surrounding landscape. Earlier it was called “subcapital Siberia”, a reference to this region of peaceful birds, blue lakes, bubbling rivers and innumerable islands overgrown with woods.

And it’s well worth taking a sleeper train from St Petersburg to get to see it, if it is winter, you can cross the frozen lake by snowmobile. Let's go.