TEST1 Architecture at the End of the Earth: Photographing the Russian North

by William Craft Brumfield

Overview

Carpeted in boreal forests, dotted with lakes, cut by rivers, and straddling the Arctic Circle, the region surrounding the White Sea, which is known as the Russian North, is sparsely populated and immensely isolated. It is also the home to architectural marvels, as many of the original wooden and brick churches and homes in the region's ancient villages and towns still stand. Featuring nearly two hundred full color photographs of these beautiful centuries-old structures, Architecture at the End of the Earth is the most recent addition to William Craft Brumfield's ongoing project to photographically document all aspects of Russian architecture.

The architectural masterpieces Brumfield photographed are diverse: they range from humble chapels to grand cathedrals, buildings that are either dilapidated or well cared for, and structures repurposed during the Soviet era. Included are onion-domed wooden churches such as the Church of the Dormition, built in 1674 in Varzuga; the massive walled Transfiguration Monastery on Great Solovetsky Island, which dates to the mid-1550s; the Ferapontov-Nativity Monastery's frescoes, painted in 1502 by Dionisy, one of Russia's greatest medieval painters; nineteenth-century log houses, both rustic and ornate; and the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Vologda, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in the 1560s. The text that introduces the photographs outlines the region's significance to Russian history and culture.

Brumfield is challenged by the immense difficulty of accessing the Russian North, and recounts traversing sketchy roads, crossing silt-clogged rivers on barges and ferries, improvising travel arrangements, being delayed by severe snowstorms, and seeing the region from the air aboard the small planes he needs to reach remote areas.

The buildings Brumfield photographed, some of which lie in near ruin, are at constant risk due to local indifference and vandalism, a lack of maintenance funds, clumsy restorations, or changes in local and national priorities. Brumfield is concerned with their futures and hopes that the region's beautiful and vulnerable achievements of master Russian carpenters will be preserved. Architecture at the End of the Earth is at once an art book, a travel guide, and a personal document about the discovery of this bleak but beautiful region of Russia that most readers will see here for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822375432
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	08/31/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	181 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

William Craft Brumfield is Professor of Slavic Studies at Tulane University. Brumfield, who began photographing Russia in 1970, is the foremost authority in the West on Russian architecture. He is the author, editor, and photographer of numerous books, including Lost Russia: Photographing the Ruins of Russian Architecture, also published by Duke University Press. Brumfield is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship and was a Fellow at the National Humanities Center. In 2002 he was elected to the State Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences, and in 2006 he was elected to the Russian Academy of Fine Arts. He is also the 2014 recipient of the D. S. Likhachev Prize for Outstanding Contributions to the Preservation of the Cultural Heritage of Russia. Brumfield's photographs of Russian architecture have been exhibited at numerous galleries and museums and are part of the Image Collections at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
 

Read an Excerpt

Architecture at the End of the Earth

Photographing the Russian North

---

By William Craft Brumfield

Duke University Press

Copyright © 2015 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-7543-2

---

CHAPTER 1

The Western Shore of the White Sea

VARZUGA ON THE KOLA PENINSULA

The historic Russian North — particularly the area around the White Sea — was for centuries dotted with settlements sustained by the northern forests and by the bounty of the sea. One of the most important is the large village of Varzuga in the southeastern part of the Kola Peninsula (Murmansk territory). The village — with its four wooden churches — is situated on both sides of the Varzuga River some twenty kilometers north of the point where it empties into the White Sea. Each side of the village is nestled in a backdrop of high sand dunes covered with juniper bushes. Farther inland from the dunes are small coniferous forests. The landscape is especially beautiful in the summer, when the long, dark winters are compensated by almost constant light.

Official sources state that the current population of Varzuga is approximately nine hundred, but this figure includes other villages in the area. The 2002 census gives Varzuga itself 351 residents. (By contrast the population in 1910 was approximately one thousand.) The village was first mentioned in written sources in 1466, when the area was still nominally under the control of the medieval trading city of Novgorod. By the end of the fifteenth century, the area had entered the domains of Muscovy.

Varzuga's prosperity was brutally interrupted in 1568, when the village was raided as part of a campaign by Ivan the Terrible to extort further revenues for his incessant military campaigns. From the sixteenth to the latter part of the eighteenth century, Varzuga was economically linked to various monastic institutions, in particular the powerful Transfiguration Monastery on the Solovetsky archipelago in the southwestern part of the White Sea.

At first glance Varzuga appears isolated, with primitive service to the regional center of Umba over a largely unpaved coastal road. Conditions have improved over the past decade, however, and there is now an upgraded dirt road from Varzuga to Umba. And from Umba there is a paved road to the major rail station at Kandalaksha. Varzuga has also recently been connected to the regional power grid, which ensures a dependable power supply.

For centuries, the basic asset of Varzuga has been its fishery, which continues to exist under skillful local management in the post-Soviet era. This enterprise provides jobs and a measure of economic stability for local residents, some of whom have lived in the area for generations. In recent years Varzuga has gained another source of income based on its reputation as a prime location for salmon fishing. Sportsmen from Russia and abroad arrive for deluxe fishing packages that include ready access to the town (helicopter flights are an option) and well-stocked cabins farther up the Varzuga River. Sports tourism has become a boon to many residents of Varzuga and is closely related to the fishery.

With this dependence on fishing, agriculture has occupied a limited role in the life of Varzuga. In the summer the residents cut hay for the livestock that most households possess. And there are the essential vegetable gardens. The climate and location work against more extensive crops. The emphasis on fishing also affects the design of the village's traditional log houses, which are smaller than those of northern agricultural villages such as Kimzha (see chapter 5). Ironically, with their relatively favorable economic position, village residents often seem less willing to maintain traditional log houses built several decades ago. New houses — some of log construction and some of masonry — are increasingly preferred to traditional dwellings.

For all of its resources, what endows Varzuga with a distinctive cultural presence is the wooden Church of the Dormition of the Virgin, which rises thirty-four meters above the high right bank of the river. Remarkable for its construction logic as well as its beauty, the core log structure, from 1674, has withstood time and the elements in its exposed location. A number of modifications were made in the nineteenth century, and both exterior and interior were clad in plank siding. A restoration completed in 1973 returned the upper part of the church to its original appearance. On the interior the icon screen was dismantled for restoration, and work slowly continues on the main surviving icons, which date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The main place of worship for Varzuga is the adjacent nineteenth-century Church of St. Afanasy. It is called a "winter church," because its lower dimensions allowed it to be heated for year-round use. There are also two small churches on the left bank — the Church of St. Nicholas (probably the first church to be founded in the area) and the Church of Apostles Peter and Paul.

But within this bucolic setting, there are sharp controversies, such as the one that arose from the recent rebuilding of the bell tower near the Dormition Church. The original bell tower adhered to the octagonal form traditional in the North and exemplified at the village of Liadiny (see chapter 3). At Varzuga the new bell tower is in a very different, quadrilateral design, whose ungainly shape has outraged preservationists. The church's position is that the structure in its current form is needed to support a heavier weight of bells, but that is a questionable argument. Traditional design is not just a matter of aesthetics but also requires consideration of the historic environment within which these northern wooden churches have existed.

At the mouth of the Varzuga River on the White Sea is the small fishing village of Kuzomen. Although Kuzomen has no church, the sand dunes at its edge are marked by the startling apparition of weather-beaten wooden crosses at an abandoned cemetery. Eternal rest at the shifting line between land and sea.

KEM ON THE WHITE SEA

To the south of Kandalaksha, the White Sea coast is dotted with inlets, the occasional town, and picturesque, windswept villages such as Kovda and Virma. Among the most important settlements is Kem, a regional town known to most visitors as a major route to the Solovetsky archipelago and the great Monastery of the Transfiguration. Yet the town itself has a dramatic history, which, like that of the Solovetsky Islands, combines elements of ancient spiritual quest with modern tragedy.

The very setting of Kem is dramatic, with a rocky coastline bounded by a dense forest that reaches the west shore of the White Sea. The historic part of town is located primarily on an island known as Lepostrov (Läppäsaari in Karelian), flanked by the arms of the small Kem River near its confluence with the sea.

During the medieval period these northern lands were tenuously held by the commercial power of Novgorod, whose authority was already tested to the limit by Moscow's expansion. In 1450 Novgorod granted the settlement at the mouth of the Kem River to the Solovetsky Transfiguration Monastery, which had been formally established in 1436 on a group of islands in the southern White Sea. Through this grant the Solovetsky Monastery, protected on its sacred archipelago, acquired a land base and port some sixty kilometers over water to the west.

Because of its strategic location, Kem gained the attention of hostile neighbors in the late sixteenth century. Ivan the Terrible was at that time mired in a protracted conflict known as the Livonian War (1558–83), which in its latter phase involved a struggle with Sweden for control of the eastern Baltic region. In 1589 Kem was raided by Finnic forces, and in 1590 the region was attacked by the Swedes. The following year Moscow reaffirmed Solovetsky Monastery's title to the Kem territory. The power of the monastery allowed it to function as a surrogate for an exhausted Muscovy, and during the next century Kem was defended and fortified under the monastery's direction.

Kem was briefly returned to state control from 1704 to 1711 during the early phase of Peter the Great's struggle with Sweden known as the Great Northern War (1700–1721). With Peter's victory over King Charles XII at Poltava (July 1709), pressure on Russia's White Sea territory diminished.

To symbolize Russian power in the area, the Cathedral of the Dormition was erected in Kem in 1711–14. That this extraordinary log structure should be designated a cathedral is indicative of the distinctive culture of northern Russia. Its three tent towers, which signify the presence of three altars, soar above an elevated location on Lepostrov. Although partially obscured by trees, the Dormition Cathedral is still the town's dominant landmark.

Despite wooden scaffolding from an ongoing restoration, the west (front) facade of the Dormition Cathedral is largely visible. A decorated porch leads to a wide one-story structure with low pitched roofs. The ascending levels of three roofs provide a harmonious pedestal for the central tower, which rises from a square base to an octagon that supports an eight-sided "tent" tower. Some thirty-six meters high, the tower is crowned with a wooden cupola and cross. It is flanked by two smaller towers over chapels attached to the north and south of the main structure.

The church interior begins with a spacious vestibule (or refectory), whose trimmed log walls are lined with benches. In the center are massive painted log columns that support key elements of the roof. A portal leads from the vestibule to the main worship space, whose icon screen on the east wall has been partly preserved and is being restored. Behind the screen is the primary altar, dedicated to the Dormition. The octagonal upper space culminates in a ceiling of planks arranged in a chevron pattern. The west wall supports a small wooden choir gallery.

To the right of the main space is a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas. To the left is the north chapel, with an altar dedicated to Saints Zosima and Savvaty, founders of the Solovetsky Monastery. The north chapel has a separate entrance from the outside. More easily heated than the main space, this chapel is used for winter worship. The territory of the Dormition Cathedral also has a separate chapel built around 1710 and dedicated to the Trinity. Square in shape, the interior of this small structure contains a remarkable carved votive cross associated with Peter the Great.

Despite clumsy modifications in the nineteenth century, the preservation of the Dormition Cathedral after three centuries of turbulent history is a miracle, particularly in view of the destructive antireligion campaigns of the Soviet period. Yet the slow pace of its restoration gives cause for concern.

Kem remained under the control of the Solovetsky Monastery until 1764, when Catherine the Great initiated reforms that curtailed monastery holdings. At that point the town became a part of various administrative divisions in the White Sea area. During the nineteenth century, the town existed primarily on the basis of fishing. The rocky soil could only support subsistence farming for its some two thousand inhabitants. In 1903 Kem gained a large masonry church, the Cathedral of the Annunciation. Severely damaged during the Soviet era, the church is now being restored as part of the recently established Monastery of the New Russian Martyrs and Confessors.

Kem's growth was stimulated during the First World War with the construction in 1915–17 of a strategic railroad through the town to the new port of Murmansk. Following the Bolshevik revolution, Kem was occupied in 1918 and 1919 by White troops and briefly by an Anglo-American force. With the return of Soviet power, Kem rapidly became a part of the system of supply and administration for a penal camp established by the Cheka (the Soviet political police) in 1919 on the territory of the former Solovetsky Monastery. In 1921 this prison was named the Solovetsky Camp of Special Designation (abbreviation: SLON), described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his Gulag Archipelago. The camp was closed in 1939, yet the Gulag system continued to expand. A large wooden votive cross now stands on a rocky elevation near the harbor to commemorate the fate of those who embarked from Kem to this sinister destination.

During the Second World War, Kem served as an important station on the critical rail route for allied lend-lease deliveries through the port of Murmansk. Although much of southwestern Karelia (including Petrozavodsk) was occupied by Finnish forces until the summer of 1944, the railway continued to deliver vital supplies via a link around the south shore of the White Sea to the Arkhangelsk–Vologda main line.

After years of declining numbers, the population of Kem has stabilized at around twelve thousand. Easily accessible on the major rail line from Petrozavodsk, the town is sustained in part by the revived Solovetsky Transfiguration Monastery, which attracts an increasing number of visitors.

THE SOLOVETSKY TRANSFIGURATION MONASTERY

No site in the Russian North carries more historical weight than the Solovetsky Transfiguration Monastery, located on Great Solovetsky Island, part of an archipelago in the southern part of the White Sea. The islands form one of the most curious natural environments in Russia. Although buffeted by northern winds and sea currents, the same currents also moderate the northern climate and produce a rich ecological diversity.

The origins of the settlement on the Solovetsky archipelago can be dated to 1429. At that time the monk Savvaty, who had been tonsured at the St. Cyril-Belozersk Monastery, joined forces with Herman, an illiterate hermit who had periodically visited Solovetsky Island. The elderly Savvaty died in 1435, but the following year another monk, Zosima, returned to the island and founded a monastery dedicated to the Transfiguration of the Savior. Despite many hardships, the monastery took root under the direction of Zosima, who died in 1478. During this early period the monastery belonged to the domains of the Russian city-state of Novgorod, but after Novgorod's subjugation to Moscow in 1478 the Muscovite grand princes reaffirmed the strategic importance of this remote monastic outpost.

A new era began with the arrival of Philip Kolychev, a Moscovite monk of noble origins who left his privileged existence in 1537, joined the Solovetsky monastic community, and in 1547 became its spiritual leader (hegumen). During the next eighteen years Philip guided an ambitious program of construction that transformed the monastery and created monumental buildings of stone and brick such as the great Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior (1558–66) and the Refectory Church of the Dormition (1552–57), among the most impressive manifestations of late medieval Russian architecture. He also initiated a series of projects, including canals that improved the position of the monastery as a self-sustaining community. In the summer of 1566 he was called back to Moscow by Ivan the Terrible, who supported Philip's appointment as metropolitan (head) of the Russian Church. Philip's resistance to Ivan's misrule led to his exile and execution in 1569.

Nonetheless, construction at the monastery continued after Philip's death. Other late sixteenth-century churches in the monastery include the Church of St. Nicholas (1577; razed and rebuilt in 1830–34); and the Gate Church of the Annunciation, built in 1596–1601 over the west gate and still standing, although much modified in the nineteenth century. Between 1582 and 1594 monks and hired labor manhandled thousands of granite boulders into place as the great walls and round towers of the monastery arose from the marshy ground.

Despite the conflicts of the seventeenth century, the Solovetsky Monastery remained one of Muscovy's most prestigious monasteries and one of the privileged religious centers, closely connected to the court. It received many donations, the churches were repaired, and other buildings were added in the eighteenth century. During the nineteenth century, the monastery became a major pilgrimage site, with its own steamship and hotel.

After the end of the Russian civil war in 1921, the Bolsheviks expropriated the monastery. Two years later, a fire of mysterious origins spread throughout the central stone churches and reduced their interiors to ashes. It was here, in 1923, that the Soviet regime established the first concentration camp. Superseded by larger camps, the Solovetsky camp closed in 1939, and the territory became a military base. Modest attempts to restore the monumental Transfiguration Monastery began in the 1960s, and in 1992 Patriarch Aleksy reconsecrated the relics of the monastery's founders with solemn ceremony.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Architecture at the End of the Earth by William Craft Brumfield. Copyright © 2015 Duke University Press. Excerpted by permission of Duke University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction. Exploring the Russian North 1

Into the Forest. A Note on the Architectural History of the Russian North 21

1. The Western Shore of the White Sea 29

2. From the Vytegra Region to the Mologa River 73

3. Kargopol and Its Surrounding Villages 115

4. From Vologda to Veliky Ustiug 151

5. Along the Northern Dvina and Beyond to the Arctic Circle 207

Postscript. What Will Remain of the Heritage of the Russian North? 243