Holy Rus' Log Blog

The Final Hour

In the Afterword to the recently published book ‘Wooden Churches’ Mikhail Milchik writes about the state of wooden architecture in Russia – he gives many reasons for its demise then says ‘finally, and possibly the most important reason, is the almost total indifference towards the fate of the national cultural heritage, that reigns in Russian society, from top to bottom.’

Looking through a book of Russian Revolutionary posters I came across a wonderful image by Viktor Deni from 1920 which I asked my friend Peter Brookes, the political cartoonist on The Times newspaper to reinterpret.

In Deni’s image the victim is Capitalism, the hour hand threat is Communism - Capitalism has they say survived for the moment. In Peter’s cartoon the victim is wooden architecture, the threat indifference. Let us hope that the message of Peter’s cartoon will be as wrong as Deni’s and that we will not be the last generation to experience these unique buildings as Mikhail has dolefully predicted….

Russian BookWorld – 11th March 2012

http://english.ruvr.ru/radio_broadcast/28742746/68239105.html

((( >  < )))

http://kizhi.karelia.ru/gallery/unesco_transfiguration_2011

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These fragile, desecrated structures retain a spiritual presence that commands respect even in the absence of their gilded icons. They are nearing the end of their days. It is extraordinary that a country as rich and powerful as Russia, with a cultural legacy beyond compare, should let these wonderful, life-enhancing treasures slip through its fingers.

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White Sea Publishing, London, December 2011
(Hardcover 256 pages / dimensions 260 x 305 mm)
ISBN 978 0 9570456 0 6

The book is available at amazon.co.uk from the seller white sea – the book is stocked by Daunt Books at their Marylebone, Chelsea, Hampstead and Holland Park branches. It is also held at Waterstones, at their Piccadilly branch and at Pushkin House, 5A Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2TA

Alternatively please email whitesea@richarddavies.co.uk to buy directly from the publishers.

The book is priced at £50.00

1902. kuni 1904. aasta suvekuudel rändas kuulus Vene graafik, muinasjuttude illustraator ja lavakujundaja Ivan Jakovlevitš Bilibin (1876–1942) ringi Põhja-Venemaal. Kohaliku rahvakultuuri kogumise ja uurimise kõrvalt tegeles ta puitarhitektuuri jäädvus- tamisega nii joonistustes kui ka fotodel.
Mitmed reisidel tehtud piltidest leidsid kasutust tema 1904. aastal välja antud artiklis„Põhja-Venemaa rahvakunst”, mis avaldati ajakirjas „Mir Isskustva” (vene k ‘kunstimaailm’). Kirjutis juhtis tähele- panu puitkirikute seisukorrale: „kirikute seisund on äärmiselt kahetsusväärne. Harimatute inimeste kätes neid kas lõhutakse kuni hävimiseni või taastatakse tundmatuseni”. 1911. aastal avaldas Püha Jevgeni Kogukonna Ühing oma heategevuse rahastamiseks kümnest Bilibini fotost tehtud postkaardikogumiku.
Puitkirikuid kujutavate kaunite postkaartide nägemine andis inspiratsiooni rändamaks Põhja-Venemaale aastal 2002 – 100 aastat peale Bilibinit, et saada teada, millised kirikud on tänaseni veel säilinud. Sellele järgnesid mitu iga-aastast reisi.
Hävinud kirikuid on palju. Mõned neist on jäetud mädanema, mõned on saanud välgutabamuse, lugematu arv kannatab aga teadmatuse ja hoolimatuse all. 2007. aasta veebruaris külastasin Vologda oblastis asuvat Ristija Johannese kirikut Totma lähedal Predtetšas. Selle seisukord oli avariiline. 2009. aastal leidsin ta varemeis – endisest kirikust oli saanud hunnik puitu.
Siiski leidub veel nii mõndagi, mida hoida. Selle puidust maailma arhitektuuris ja maastikus väljenduv terviklikkus hämmastab meid tänaseni samavõrd kui Bilibinit. Palkmaja ehituse lihtsus ja sellega kohakuti asetatud fantaasiaküllus on jahmatavapanev.
Säilinud kirikute seisukord on väga erinev ja nii mõnigi neist on minetanud oma taastamisvõimaluse. Vaatamata hüljatusele ja rüüstatud siseruumidele on nende ebaharilike ehitiste juures säilinud siiski teatud austust nõudev pühalikkus, isegi kui puudu on kunagised kullatud ikoonid.
Hoolimata paljude pühendunud spetsialistide ja entusiastide püüdlustest on praegusel hetkel väga tõenäoline selle traditsioo- nilise ehitusvormi hääbumine. Vene kultuuriloos on traditsiooniline puitarhitektuur alati olnud kesksel kohal, mistõttu oleks see kahtlemata üks traagiline ja häbiväärne kaotus.

Richard Davies
detsember 2011

A Norwegian, a man from Switzerland and an Englishman are off to Berlin to print a book entitled Wooden Churches: Travelling in the Russian North. The prospect is exciting and daunting. The Englishman has been taking the photographs for the book for the last 9 years – the man from Switzerland has been colour correcting the images for three months – the Norwegian one way or another has generously supported the project with his time over many years.

We arrive at the printers at 7:23 am on Tuesday morning – 23 minutes late. The first sheet is laid out ready for our inspection – it looks good – very crisp and sharp – our six eyes study it intently.  Flavio Milani, the man from Switzerland takes his eyeglass and checks the registration of the colours, the dot gain and overall sharpness. He checks the colour strip and the density of the black ink. We all stare at the images under the bright daylight balanced tubes murmuring quietly to ourselves and each other – is it too magenta? too cyan? too yellow? blue or green or red? too light? too dark? Adjustments are made and another sheet is printed – further tweaks are made and another sheet is printed. We are satisfied and retire to double-check the plotter proof for errors before the final plates are made.

Flavio Milani with his eyeglass

Over the last few weeks the text and type has been scoured by many for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, typographical errors etc – what more could possibly be found?  Within minutes Ståle Eriksen, the Norwegian has found a whopper – Peninsula spelt Peninsular three times – it’s from the title of a book we are quoting from, the cover of which Ståle has up on the computer screen within seconds  – Peninsula it is. It’s not long before we find more – an indent, a space too many and then I check my emails. Yale University Press has given us permission, gratis, to include an excerpt from Chukovsky’s diaries – it is a tiny, but wonderful piece. As I hadn’t heard I’d assumed that ‘fair usage’ would cover us – we rush to pre-press. The plates have not been made for the acknowledgements page so we are able  to add a  polite ‘By kind permission of Yale University Press’ which we hope will keep the lawyers at bay. Phew!

Meanwhile more sheets have rolled off the press, eyes concentrating we ask for adjustments here adjustments there and duly sign them off. On the way back to our holding bay Flavio is cornered and reprimanded by the Production Control Manager. She tells him that we are running behind schedule – in their grand plan we have been allocated 15 minutes to check the proofs and to make adjustments, we are seriously over the limit, on the first sheet we spent – 41 minutes, the second – 24 minutes, the third – 32 minutes. We promise her, fingers crossed behind our backs, that we will speed up but promise ourselves, fingers uncrossed, that we will not compromise the book.

Making adjustments is not straightforward – each of our six eyes seem finely tuned to judge colour balance and we quickly agree (although obviously not quickly enough) on all these decisions but how do you judge how the image will look after the ink has dried in two days time – we rely on Flavio and the Press minders long years of experience.

Flavio & Ståle Eriksen 'is it too magenta?'

We sign off the last sheet of the day at 22:10 tired and famished (we have been well supplied with drinks and snacks at the printers but have burnt it all off with energetic eye movements and nervous energy). Eleven sheets (x2000) have been printed in 14 hrs – the PCMs schedule is in tatters.

Our hunger is sated on the way back to the hotel by Mac Royals, fries and cokes.

Today we have a lie in – the printers will ring to tell us when the press is ready to print our job – we all meet for breakfast at 10:25 – 5 minutes before the schinken is removed for the day. We ring the printers who tell us that we are expected at 2pm although we might have to wait a bit – we wait until 17:50 to see the printed cover  – it looks good and we’ve fitted in a delicious Italian meal to build us up for the night shift and another dressing down from the PCM – Flavio, our only German speaker takes the full force of the onslaught – never in her ten years of experience has she ever come across a Flavio type person who needs more than 15 minutes to adjust a proof – what is he doing studying the control strip with an eyeglass? – by staying till ten last night we have upset the schedule for years to come – Flavio listens, ticking quietly like a finely made watch, shocked to hear that his ten or so years of experience go for nought.

Ståle and I wonder why she is arguing the toss when we should be downstairs printing. It seems the PCM has set Flavio mission impossible – we must print 15 sheets (x2000) over night – Flavio using his rule of thumb works out that we need to take minus 35 minutes to judge each proof thereby freeing up plus 35 minutes for the Heidelberg and it’s minder to do what has to be done.

Our hunger is sated by Mac Royals, fries and cokes.

We settle in for the short night having been given strict instructions by the PCM that nothing is to be printed after 5am as the Heidelberg has to be made ready for the day birds. 3 camp beds are produced together with a bottle of wine for kips and sips. By midnight we are on the home run – one cover and five pages printed. We now have 5 hours to print 10 sheets – it ain’t looking good – where the hell is Tom Cruise?

Then a miracle happens, we sign off a sheet with two small images (one B&W) in two minutes and 32 seconds! . . . It’s 5am, cut off time – one cover and only 9 sheets – we have failed to meet the PCMs expectations. Flavio will get it in the neck tomorrow. Still we have another nights printing tonight and a whole day in Berlin to sleep!

The printed cover, with proof and mockup

We sleep well in Berlin, on comfortable beds and sofas, thanks to the hospitality of Christof of Chipperfield.

Back at the printers we learn that today’s day job is running late – a paper problem we are told by the press minder. The PCM can’t pin this onto Flavio so has left the office without delivering her daily dressing down. We have 3 hours before the Heidelberg will begin our job again. The Englishman spends his time trying to make sense of the situation – today’s Easyjet  flights were aborted, it looks like tomorrow’s Ryanair flights will go the same way, when will we make it back to Blighty? Will we have copies of the book for Christmas? How long is a piece of string? We all begin to ramble from our lack of sleep. The Norwegian is editing his iPhone film of events. The man from Switzerland stares at his MacBook Pro. We finish today’s Guardian crossword, cheating only once, before starting yesterdays.

At  21:00 as promised we see the first proof of the day – the end papers – they look good and with added density to Pantone 2767 they look even better. Then Ståle notices a pinhole and the plate has to be remade. Three hours and two proofs later it is time for supper.

Ståle inspects the end papers

Our hunger is sated by Mac Royals, fries and cokes.

Everything goes smoothly through the night – we kip on our camp beds between checking the sheets – coffee is brought at 7am – 4 more sheets to go!!

The final sheet is inspected around midday – a few minor adjustments and it’s sent to press – we send it off with a pathetic sleep deprived cheer and wander back to our holding bay through a print shop strewn with stacks of Wooden Churches.

In a couple of weeks or so 2000 books duly bound, embossed, fly leafed and shrink wrapped will turn up in England. It will be wonderful to see them with fresh eyes.

.. .. ..

Elena and Matilda, May 2011

We were shocked and very sad to hear of the death of Elena Alexandrovna Opolovnikova on the 23rd June this year. This was a tragedy for Russia, which has lost one of its most determined champions of traditional wooden architecture. It was also a great loss for all her friends and those who worked with her. For us it was a loss, not only because she was a great supporter of our efforts, but also because she was our friend. We liked her very much, she was generous and loving, full of life, passion and wit.

Elena spent her life carrying on the work of her father, Alexander Victorovich Opolovnikov, who was responsible for restoring and saving so many of the wooden churches in Russia, including the ensemble at Kizhi island, which he worked on for many years.

On our trips to Moscow over the last 5 years, we have often visited her in her flat on the Rostov embankment overlooking the river. Stepping across the threshold (as she insisted before we kissed her), was to enter another world – the world of Old Russia – the world she loved. The small space was crammed with folk art, books, photographs, drawings and paintings, telling the story of Russia and its treasures. These artefacts described the Russian landscape, wooden architecture, and her own family history – a portrait of her grandmother in oils, faithfully observed drawings and paintings by her father. The table was always set with the best china and resplendent with treats prepared for our visit, the samovar steaming.

Elena would speak at length and with passion on the subject of Russia’s wooden architecture under threat, of her father Alexander’s work and of her tireless research expeditions to the countryside with her husband and (as she put it) “comrade in arms” Valery Tsyganov. She would speak with fury about the neglect of her beloved churches. Her tirades would often take on a religious tone, as she struggled to explain to us and herself how this collapse of culture in Russia had come about. This desperation to preserve the best of Russian culture and loathing of the worst was all consuming.

I would provide a translation for Richard but Elena was unstoppable, and as her narrative gathered speed like a runaway train there were no pauses for translation. Richard would nod and smile and would stop us to say that he didn’t understand a word she was saying. She said that it didn’t matter, he did know what she was saying, he did understand, because we were all working together towards the same end.

In 2007 she opened our exhibition at the Shchusev Museum of Architecture, together with David Sarkisian. She gave an empassioned speech, and wrote an empassioned foreword to our catalogue, calling us “heroes of the world”. It was extraordinary to us that she, one of the most committed guardians of Russia’s heritage, gave us such support. There is no doubt that she is the hero.

She wrote of her hope that Richard’s photographs would be a “visual exhortation to the cultural bureaucrats entrusted with the care of our monuments, to the modest, wise beauty and the greatness of ancient Russian wooden architecture”.

Her work will surely stand beside that of her father in preserving and celebrating the great monuments of Russian wooden architecture. Her passing is an exhortation to those of us who care for Russia’s wooden architecture to redouble our own efforts.

Matilda Moreton
London July 2011

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3154956.stm

Trinity Church, King George Island, near Russian Bellinghausen Station in Antartica – flat pack church designed by architects P.I. Anisifirov, S.G.Rybak and A.B.Schmidt from Barnaul in Siberia – it is 15m high and can accomodate 30 worshippers – the church was opened in 2004 – the priest is Father Gregory – he lives permanently near his church serving the spiritual needs of the staff of the Bellinghausen Station and other nearby stations.

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http://www.pravoslavie.ru/smi/39238.htm
http://rusvera.mrezha.ru/619/main.htm

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