Authors

Discussion

Nowadays wooden churches of the Russian North are one of the most well-known features of this region. During the 20^th century the huge part of this architecture was lost or damaged. At Late-Soviet and Post-Soviet periods the increase of projects aimed to preserve wooden churches of the Russian North was observed.

Today volunteers in such programs are engaged in the process of heritage reconstruction, and, I confirm, recreation. During this process these buildings are gaining the new significancy. In  USSR the majority of churches were closed. In rural part of the country these buildings gained some new purposes. The new ideas about the usage of this architecture were conditioned as well by the new social organization of the Russian village and the newly made necessaries. Due to the appearance of kolkhoz – a form of collective farm - the buildings of the churches have been used as granaries, vegetable storages and etc. At that period of time the original form of social life of this architecture and social behavior towards it was ruptured. Nowadays volunteers are restoring this architecture with a foundation on it’s primary idea. In this situation the 20^th century history of this architecture is often considered as a disruption. Present report is aimed to analyze how social life of these buildings was changing through history of the last 110 years. 

The way volunteer’s work is organized nowadays give another example of rupture. The majority of this architecture is located in the remote areas of Russia, at the same time volunteers are often going to these restorations during vacations – that is why the majority of expeditions are held during summer. That is the reason winter became low season when all the work usually stops. How volunteers configure their annual work in such situation is another question to answer in my presentation.

 I assume that volunteer’s appearance in the villages has at least two consequences: it affects their behavior towards architecture and it creates new relations between several agents: volunteers , local residents and government institutions. How do the volunteer programs create the relations with the locals and how do these relations affect the restoration process is the last question I’m discussing in this presentation.

This research is based on the author’s fieldwork held from 2019 to 2024 in different villages of the region. During that period I took part both in ethnographic expeditions and in the expeditions of the volunteers of heritage.