25 kilometers from Arkhangelsk, on the steep right bank of the Northern Dvina, there are Malye Korely - a unique open-air museum, which contains more than 100 different wooden buildings from different regions of the Russian North.

At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, the rural population of the Arkhangelsk region was much more numerous than in our time. In the XX century, due to a number of reasons and events in our country, an active outflow of residents to cities began, many distant villages became either completely abandoned, or the number of inhabitants in them decreased significantly. But these distant corners of the Russian North have preserved many unique monuments of antiquity, everyday life and traditional Russian culture - the exposition of the Museum of Wooden Architecture Small Korely is divided into four sectors according to the places where the buildings were transported from: "Kargopol-Onega", "Dvinskoy", "Mezensky" and Pinezhsky. Peasant and merchant huts, barns, windmills, wooden churches, before being moved here, were sorted out by logs and reassembled already on the territory of the museum-reserve. The museum was founded in 1964, but its expositions continue to be updated - for example, the "Pomorsky" and "Vazhsky" sectors are currently being created.

1. For starters - a few general photographs of Small Korel from the side.

5. Let's start with the Kargopol-Onega sector and windmills.

8. House-yard I.E. Kirillov was transported to Malye Korely from the village of Kiselevo, Kargopol district, and is a typical example of a house with a two-row connection between the economic and residential parts. The residential part of the house is a two-story four-walled building under a gable roof, on the ground floor of which there is a winter hut and a cellar for food storage. On the second floor there are two summer huts connected by a passage room. The entrance to the utility yard is located on the first and second floors of the house. A covered transport leads to the story. This is a typical design of village houses in the Russian North.

9. On the main site of the Kargopol-Onega sector there is a bell tower and the Ascension five-domed church of 1669 from the ancient village of Kushereka, Onega district. Kushereka was a very large village, the center of the volost of the same name - by 1905 its population was 1679 people, in 1920 it was 1286, and now it is 11 ... Unfortunately, many villages of the North suffered the same fate in the 20th century.

13. The hipped bell tower from the village of Kuliga Drakovanov is one of the most ancient tower-type bell towers on seventeen pillars. Perhaps the prototype of this type of bell towers was the watchtowers that stood in the old days on the outskirts of cities and villages.

14. We cross a swampy hollow along the bridges and find ourselves in the Dvina sector.

15. St. George's hipped-roof church dates back to the 17th century and was transferred to the museum from the village of Vershino, Verkhnetoemsky district.

16. House-yard of A.V. Shchegolev, built in 1826, was transported to Malye Korely from the village of Irta, Yarensky district, Vologda province. In the residential part of the house there are two living quarters: summer and winter huts. Above the huts, right under the roof, there is a light room (summer living quarters). The windows are decorated with architraves in the form of scallops, and the porch is installed from the main facade and is arranged on a massive pillar, decorated with ornate, three-dimensional carvings.

19. Another residential building of the XIX century - from the village of Semushinskaya, Krasnoborsky district.

20. Let's examine the interior.

21. Entrance-entrance to the economic part, traditionally for the villages of the Russian North, located under the same roof with residential buildings.

22. At the end of the walk through the Dvina sector, we will see the forge.

23. In the neighborhood of Dvina, there are the Pinezhsky and Mezensky sectors of the Small Korel - village huts, windmills, chapels, and various outbuildings are also represented here.

25. The Trinity Chapel dates back to the beginning of the 18th century and was located in the village of Valtevo, Pinezhsky district.

26. Let's move to the Mezen sector and have a little rest... :)

27. From a steep cliff, a wonderful view of the surrounding forests and meadows opens up, in the distance one can see the wide ribbon of the Northern Dvina, behind which one can see the industry of Novodvinsk.

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Even those who have little idea of ​​the location of the Russian North know about Small Korela in Russia. This is indeed the main local attraction. Was not in Korela - was not in Arkhangelsk!

The territories that are part of the current Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions have always been the center of the traditions of wooden architecture in Russia. But the reality is that more and more villages in the local demuchy forests are losing their last inhabitants, and wooden monuments are dilapidated, decrepit and left unattended. The most interesting of them, who have so far been lucky enough not to burn or rot, are disassembled and transported to Malye Korely.

Of course, through such transportation, temples and huts are "torn off the roots" and become dull museum exhibits. After all, the lion's share of their beauty and charm is not the building itself, but its environment, the way it fits into the landscape. Move the same temples or to a museum and they will lose all their extraordinary charm.

But before most of the Korel exhibits, the choice was simple: either complete destruction, or a museum. So thanks for that too.

Museum Small Korely

The entire exposition of the museum is divided into three parts: Kargopol-Onega, Dvina, Pinega and Mezen. These regions of the Russian North differed in traditions and way of life, respectively, and the architecture in them was different.

Let's start with the Kargopol-Onega sector, as the most familiar to us from the current and past trips. Even from Onega, the weather rolled downhill and turned into a real northern autumn with icy rain and clouds touching the ground towards Korely. But what to do, we had one single day allocated for Korela.

Kargopol-Onega sector

At the entrance we are greeted by a traditional Russian hedge of slanting branches, and behind it a museum employee is mowing nothing but flax, one of the main northern agricultural crops, with a lawn mower.

On the edge of the hill stands a massive tower with a dome absurdly slapped right on the tent. This is one of the oldest wooden bell towers preserved in Russia, built in the 16th century. The "ancestors" of such archaic bell towers were wooden guard towers of forts and fortresses.

This bell tower was transported from the village with the wonderful name of Kuliga-Drakovanovo: the head of the Serpent Gorynych will peek out from behind the ancient logs.

Move on. A traditional northern chapel with a gallery hid in a grove. In a non-museum state, such chapels usually stand without any galleries and bell towers and look like a simple log house in an open field. There are still many of them throughout the Russian North.

Next to the chapel in a clearing stands the hut of a simple Kargopol peasant Poluyanov from the village of Gar. Kargopol Land has always been the poorest part of the Russian North, the peasants here could barely make ends meet.

Only the front frame for one room is habitable here, and the entire rear part of the house is a covered utility yard. To preserve heat, livestock and utility yards in the north are attached directly to a residential hut so that the transition between them is under a roof. The harsher the climate, the larger the yard: cattle live there, hay is stored, all chores are done.

A wooden pipe sticks out of the roof of the hut, because it is not a pipe at all, but a kind of ventilation. This hut is a smokehouse, that is, it was heated in a black way, without a chimney.

To prevent smoke from walking throughout the hut, special shelves were made at the level of human growth. The photo clearly shows that the walls above them are smoked, and below them they are clean.

Poluyanov was rather poor, so that his utensils were simple.

The center of the Kargopol-Onega exposition is the cube-shaped Church of the Ascension of the Lord of 1669 from the seaside village of Kushereka. Once Kushereka lived by harvesting salmon, navaga, whitefish, at the beginning of the 20th century there were almost 2,000 inhabitants in it. By 2010, there were 7 left.

On the porch of the church stands one of the museum's curators. These keepers do not just sit in every hut and temple, but also talk with pleasure about the history of the museum and the “sponsored” exhibit. Very good!

Next to the temple is Pukhov's massive house from the village of Bolshoy Khaluy, in Oshevensk. This is the house of a wealthy peasant, consisting of two log cabins.

But that's not all: an equally impressive courtyard hides behind the house. Pukhov's farm was large, there were a lot of cattle, so the yard needed an appropriate one.

Pukhov was an Old Believer, like many of his fellow villagers who fled north after the split. The house has a separate prayer room.

Dvina sector

We cross the bridge across the ravine from the Kargopol part to the Dvinskaya part. There are buildings brought from the villages of the Northern Dvina and the Vologda region.

In the center is St. George's Church built in 1672 from Solvychegodsk district. At the heart of the temple is the same archaic octagonal frame, but the light gallery encircling it changes the whole picture. In general, many tent churches used to have such galleries, but almost all of them were removed during the last restorations of the 19th century, when the fashion for stone churches forced the villagers to sheathe their churches with boards and whitewash them.

A very beautiful temple.

Behind the church begins the Dvina village. The architecture here is completely different: the huts become two-story "six-walls", summer luminaires crawl under the roof and acquire coquettish balconies, and the porches leading immediately to the second floor stand on massive "legs". At the same time, house-yards are getting bigger and bigger.

On the left, in the far half - a summer hut, on the right, with small windows - a winter hut. In winter, even the owners of such large houses with the whole family lived in one room.

A very interesting building in the Dvina part is the house of the peasant merchant Tropin. This is a huge two-story domina, where Tropin was placed with his family and household, and on the ground floor he kept a tavern. The house was heated by a calorific system from a Russian stove and Dutch stoves.

Just a huge house - the width reduces everything, but in fact it is the size of half a five-story building.

Nearby there is a house, unlike anything smaller - Shestakov's house-yard from the village of Tsivozero. It is interesting for the architraves of an ancient form above the window. It's called "ochelie".

We pass along the forest path to the Pinezhsky sector. There are buildings from villages on the Pinega River.

Pinega sector

We are met by a row of grain barns. Barns in Russia were built at a distance from houses and the whole village, so that in the event of a fire the most important wealth, the seed grain, would not burn out.

Barns were placed on legs to protect grain from moisture and all sorts of mice. It seems to me that this is where the “hut on chicken legs” came from.

The huts of the Pinega sector are all closed and somehow abandoned. We walk past barns and mowing huts: if the peasant mowing was far from the village, then they built separate housing there and moved there for the entire time of mowing.

In the North, everything is wooden, even a well bucket:

Mezen sector

On the very edge of the ravine, as on the seashore, there are huge houses-ships of the Mezen part. These are the largest and most prosperous farms of the Russian North. The Pomors who once lived in them were engaged in fishing, hunting sea animals and were the richest northerners.

As you can see in the photo below, the Mezen courtyards were even larger than rather big houses. This was explained by the harsh climate and the fact that Pomeranian boats, karbasy, were built in these yards in winter.

Karbas is not some kind of boat, but a full-fledged sailing vessel, on which the Pomors went far into the sea.

Wealthy Mezen people decorated their houses whenever possible: we have already seen the same painting on the slopes on residential houses in the village so far.

It starts to rain again - we go back.

At the exit from the museum is a “collection” of windmills. They are no longer left in the "wildlife" and therefore they look somehow fake.

We have one more point planned for today - the oldest of the remaining hipped temples in Russia.

St. Nicholas Church in the village of Lyavlya

The village of Lyavlya on the river of the same name is just a couple of minutes drive from Malye Korel. Here, on the high Lyavlensky Hill, as usual, a wooden hipped temple, built in 1581, stands picturesquely.

It is the same archaic "tower" form that underlies all hipped churches. Just an octagonal tower crowned with a tent - "an octagon from the seam."

In the middle of the 19th century, the temple fell into disrepair, so that it even stopped holding services. But here an amazing incident helped: the wife of the Arkhangelsk military governor, Marquis de Traverse, had a vision that her sick son would recover if the governor restored the Lavlensky church.

The governor restored the temple, but the work was done, what can I say, rather carelessly. The rotten lower crowns, along with the gallery that encircled the temple, were simply thrown out, and the temple lost almost a third of its original 40-meter height. That's why he looks so disproportionately overweight now. And it was, one must understand, very similar to the piercingly beautiful temple in Piyala.

Now the church is closed to visitors, but we were lucky: just some kind of caretaker came and let us in: the inside is completely empty (nothing from the decoration of the temple has been preserved), only the original cupola of the 16th century, removed during restoration, stands.

It can be seen that in order to facilitate the construction, the cupola is chopped through one log. The tent is also chopped.

The place on the Lyavoensky Hill is magical - once upon a time there was a large monastery here, on the high bank of the Northern Dvina.

And now the chimneys of Novodvinsk are only smoking on the other side, and the peasants are setting up nets on the river for salmon.

On this, I ask you to consider our current journey through the North over, the next day we were waiting for the M8 highway to Moscow, which surprised us from nowhere.

All previous episodes of our northern journey, as well as a detailed itinerary, can be found here.

Photo: Museum of Wooden Architecture "Malye Korely"

| Arkhangelsk Museum of Wooden Architecture Malye Korely

Arkhangelsk Museum of Wooden Architecture Malye Korely

Museum "Small Korely" is a unique collection of monuments of wooden architecture. Here, 25 km from Arkhangelsk, on an area of ​​about 140 hectares, there are 120 most diverse buildings - churches, chapels, bell towers, peasant estates, mills, barns built in the 16th - early 20th centuries.

Museum "Small Korely" is not just a museum. This is a unique synthesis of landscape, architectural monuments and folk art. The area here is picturesque and has a variety of landscapes. From the high hills, the floods of the Northern Dvina open for many kilometers, where water reaches alternate with vast islands, and the emerald green of flood meadows is bordered by golden stripes of sandy beaches. In some places along the coasts and islands one can see the huts of ancient Pomeranian villages. The length of the museum from west to east is about 1.5 km, from north to south - 1 km. The relief of the territory is wavy, crossed by the valley of the Korelka River and adjoining ravines. The slopes are quite steep, but stable, overgrown with forest.

It successfully combines elements of the landscape inherent in the regions of the Arkhangelsk region. Open spaces occupy about a third of the area and are represented by meadows, glades and ponds. The rest is covered with mixed forests with a predominance of conifers. In hard-to-reach places, areas of untouched taiga with trees aged 200 years or more have survived. The composition of the vegetation is quite rich and includes at least 400 species, there are even rare plants listed in the Red Book of the Arkhangelsk region.

The animal world is diverse. Some birds in the summer can be found about 70 species. Squirrels, hares, foxes, ermines, beavers constantly live, wolves and elks can visit. Plants and animals are protected and guarded. In cold weather, feeding of birds and squirrels is organized, and artificial nests are hung in the spring. To preserve and breed endangered plants, the Apothecary Garden was created. In the sectors of the museum, tree species are planted that are characteristic of the areas of origin of architectural monuments. There are two exposition fields imitating peasant allotments, where traditional agricultural crops in the North are grown annually: rye, barley, oats, wheat, and flax. Hops, previously used for brewing, grow on two estates. Various reservoirs decorate and enliven the landscape: springs with beautiful water, streams, small lakes and the Korelka River.

Temple ensemble of the 18th - the first third of the 19th centuries. With. Nyonoksa, Primorsky district, Arkhangelsk region

The architectural fund of the museum "Malye Korely" includes an outstanding monument of Russian wooden architecture - a temple ensemble in the village of Nenoksa, Primorsky District. It includes: the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity (1727), the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (1762), the bell tower (1834).

In the past, Nenoksa is a large salt-industrial settlement on the coast of the White Sea, located near the mouth of the Northern Dvina. For the first time, the village was mentioned in letters of 1397, but salt was boiled in these places as early as the 11th century. The extensive preferential trade in salt contributed to the economic growth of the settlement and attracted enterprising people from all over Russia to Nyonoksa.

Over the six hundred years of the existence of the Nenok parish, its churches have repeatedly burned down and rebuilt by the townspeople, who, together with the monasteries, invested in the construction of churches and the maintenance of clergy.

The temple complex of the Nyonok parish is located in the center of the village, on a large area, limited around the perimeter by manor and public buildings of the 19th-20th centuries. Tall tents dominating the architectural appearance of the township cult center organically fit into the landscape of the village. The existing parish ensemble was revived in 1727-1763 on the "old church site" after a fire completely destroyed the ancient churches. The temples, loosely placed along the river, faced the village with their eastern facades.

The Church of the Life-Giving Trinity with the Assumption and Peter and Paul aisles is the main temple of the parish, located to the north of the bell tower. It was built in three years by a team of six Nyonok carpenters, led by Kargopol church master Vasily Korsakov. The consecration of the church took place in 1730.

The architecture of the Trinity Church is unique. The centric tiered temple has an octagonal base with four square cuts on the cardinal points. The upper tier is completed with a regular group of five tents topped with large onion domes.

In 1819, carved four-tiered iconostases were installed in the church, with a solid carpet, from salt to the painted ceiling of the “sky”, covering the eastern walls of the interior.

The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker is a wonderful example of a winter Pomeranian church of the 18th century. Its construction was completed in 1762. The longitudinal composition of the monument is formed by the volumes of the altar, the church and the refectory of different heights, combined in one frame. A frame porch with a porch adjoined the refectory. The main volume of the church is cut down by an octagon on a quadrangle and covered with a high rafter tent. The tent, its crowning head and the barrel of the altar are covered with a city plowshare.

Traces of the original black heating have been preserved in the refectory: smoked beams and upper logs, an opening for a chimney on the western wall.

A characteristic architectural element of the temple ensemble are kokoshniks of a very rare design, mounted on log cabins. They marked the stepped transitions between the tiers of quadruplets and octagons of both churches. Apparently, the same kokoshniks were on the parish bell tower, erected in 1726.

In 1834, this bell tower was replaced by a new one, built according to the approved “plan and facade”. It stands out in the church complex with its unusual dome finish, the coloring of the facades sheathed with hewn and painted architectural elements.

The complex scientific restoration of the temple complex, begun in 1990, continues today. It made it possible to examine and show the original appearance of the ensemble and its temples, and at the same time revealed the outstanding historical and architectural value of the monument.

Nikolskaya Church in the village. Lyavlya, Primorsky District, Arkhangelsk Region

The hipped churches were the most widespread in the North. The oldest of them is St. Nicholas Church in the village of Lyavlya, Primorsky District. Since 2004, this monument of wooden architecture has been included in the architectural fund of the Malye Korely Museum.

The village of Lyavlya is located on the banks of the Northern Dvina, 29 km from Arkhangelsk. The majestic hipped silhouette of the Church of St. Nicholas, built in 1581-1584, like a lighthouse, attracts the eye from afar.

The St. Nicholas Church was built in the Lyavlensky Bogoroditsky Monastery, on the site of its predecessor, and was originally consecrated in honor of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The octahedral pillar-shaped volume of the church with the eastern and western piers is entirely, from the base to the cross, cut down from powerful logs up to half a meter thick. The frame under the overhangs of the roof gradually expands, forming troughs. The height of the temple, placed on the basement, reached forty-five meters. The cuts of the octagon ended with keel-shaped barrels, upholstered with a city plowshare. The same plowshare covered the tent, the drum and the head of the church. On three sides, the church was surrounded by a porch with porches.

In addition to the summer Assumption Church, the monastery ensemble included a winter church with a refectory dedicated to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Near them was a pillared bell tower. Both temples and the bell tower ended with tents.

The Bogoroditsky Monastery was founded in the last third of the 14th century by the peasants of the Knyazhestrovskaya volost "on the Ust River Lyavla, on the mountain, near their tithe forests, with the whole world, with their inhabitants."

For centuries the princes took care of their "worldly" monastery. They allocated land for the maintenance of clerks and elders, built temples, made contributions, paid taxes and various fees.

In 1633, despite the stubborn resistance of the princes, the Lyavlenskaya Bogoroditsky monastery was assigned to the privileged Anthony-Siysky monastery. Having become an ascribed desert, the Lyavlensky monastery lost its independence. In 1764, the hermitage was abolished, and its churches received the status of parishes.

In the 40s of the 19th century, during a major overhaul carried out at the expense of the Arkhangelsk military governor A.I. de Traverse, the monument was lowered onto several crowns and the circular porch with porches was dismantled. The walls of the church were boarded and painted. The renovated church was renamed from Assumption to Nikolskaya, since by that time the parish already had a stone Assumption Church, built in 1804 with the money of the Arkhangelsk merchant Andrey Kharitonov.

The modern appearance of St. Nicholas Church is far from the original. The huge monumental church-tower, having lost several crowns over the centuries, has become heavier. The ancient, windswept walls have sagged. During the restoration work of the late 60s of the 20th century, the plank sheathing of the 19th century was removed, the plowshare covering of the tent, head and barrels of the prirubs was recreated. Time has not preserved anything from the decoration of the interior of the monument. Now in the temple there is a unique chopped chapter of the 16th century, removed by restorers in 1967.

The Museum "Malye Korely" takes care of the monument, carries out the necessary conservation measures to prevent further destruction of the ancient temple.

Museum complex "Manor of M.T. Kunitsyna"

At the beginning of the 21st century, in the historical and protected area "Old Arkhangelsk", on Chumbarova-Luchinsky Avenue, the museum "Malye Korely" restored the old estate of M.T. Kunitsyna.

The estate at the beginning of the 20th century was relatively small and included a one-story multi-room wooden residential building with a corridor layout, a wooden one-story carriage house, a glacier and a small garden measuring 25 sazhens.

The history of the Kunitsyn family, owners of the estate, reflects the important demographic processes that took place in Arkhangelsk in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The development of capitalism was manifested in a sharp influx of people from the countryside into the city. Among these new settlers was Maria Timofeevna Kunitsyna (nee Trufanova), who came from a wealthy family of state peasants. Maria Timofeevna's father is a fisherman from the Pomeranian village of Shuya. The father gave money for the construction of a house in Arkhangelsk to his daughter for the wedding.

The husband of Maria Timofeevna, Ivan Alekseevich, is also a former villager, originally from the suburban village of Zaostrovye. Descended from state peasants, his father was a "wheel master". Ivan Alekseevich received his education at a rural school, for some time he studied the language in England. He began his working life at the age of 13 as a laborer at the sawmill "Partnership Rusanov and Sons" in Kovda in 1895-1898, later became a manager at the Fontaines sawmill in Maimaks. On February 19, 1938, Ivan Alekseevich was arrested and sentenced to death. In 1956, the case was dismissed for lack of corpus delicti.

According to relatives and acquaintances, the furnishings of the Kunitsyn family's home included fine wood furniture, soft sofas and armchairs, a piano, paintings, and expensive crockery. Despite the innovations in the interior of the city dwelling, in it, as in the village hut, the sacral zone continued to be preserved - the corner with icons. He was not always present in the front rooms - the hall and the living room, but always in all living rooms and the kitchen.

The rooms were lit by suspended kerosene lamps or electric chandeliers, sconces, and table lamps. Electricity was installed in the house in 1914. There were Dutch stoves in the estate, heated from the corridor and heating 2 rooms at once.

The ceilings of all living quarters and part of the corridor in the Kunitsyns' house were plastered, the walls were covered with wallpaper.

Along the front facade of the house, immediately after the hallway, there was the hall of the Kunitsyn family, the largest and brightest room in the house. The central place here was occupied by a large table, at which a large friendly family usually gathered. It is now a museum hall.

From the living room you can go to the owner's office, where the interior of the office of the beginning of the 20th century, typical for Arkhangelsk middle-class houses, is recreated.

Today the museum complex "Manor M.T. Kunitsyna" is intended for the organization of educational, exhibition, enlightenment and information activities of the museum "Small Korely".

How to get there

Museum "Small Korely" is located 25 km from the city of Arkhangelsk in the village of Malye Karely. You can get to it by buses:
No. 104u - pl. Terekhin (Solombala) - d.Malye Karely - pl. Terekhin
No. 104t - railway station - village Malye Karely - railway station
No. 108 - bus station - village Bobrovo - bus station
No. 111 - bus station - v. Lyavlya - bus station

Ticket price

Foreign citizens: weekdays 200, weekends 250
Russian citizens: weekdays 70, weekends 110
Preferential categories of citizens of Russia: Pensioners weekdays 45, weekends 70. Students (day departments): weekdays 45, weekends 70. Schoolchildren and preschoolers (from 6 years old): weekdays 20, weekends 30.

Museum Hours

from 1 June to 30 September daily from 10.00 to 19.00*
from October 1 to May 31 daily from 10.00 to 17.00*
*Visitors have the right to be on the territory of the museum for an hour after the specified closing time

Arkhangelsk Museum of Wooden Architecture "Small Korely" - the largest open-air museum in Europe

For some time now, the Arkhangelsk Museum of Wooden Architecture "Small Korely" has become a center of pilgrimage for researchers of anomalous phenomena. Psychics became interested in this unique historical exposition immediately after the people's telegraph informed them that in one of the huts of a wealthy peasant, located here, traces of barbs and brownies were found.

According to the museum staff, the eighty-year-old caretaker of this hut, grandmother Praskovya, entered into contact with them. According to her, she never felt better than in the household entrusted to her: “When I am on duty in the hut, I have the feeling that her former owners, who lived here many centuries ago, take every I spent my time like I was at home. It's like I'm throwing away six decades. Honestly, in my Khrushchev I feel like a deep old woman. This wooden hut, as well as other buildings registered in Malye Korely, has a living soul, caretaker Praskovya is sure.

This year, in honor of the Arkhangelsk Museum "Small Korely", the Bank of Russia issued a collector's silver coin with a face value of 25 rubles. And two years ago, the National-Cultural Autonomy of the Pomors appealed to journalists to observe the correct spelling of the names of historical settlements and objects on the territory of the Arkhangelsk region. Especially often, according to the observations of Pavel Esipov, the head of the NCA of the Pomors, distortions are allowed in the materials devoted to the Maly Korely.

The Arkhangelsk State Museum of Wooden Architecture and Folk Art of the Northern Regions of Russia "Small Korely" got its name from the name of the nearby ancient Pomor village of the same name. "Korel" here from time immemorial was called one of the Finno-Ugric tribes that lived on the territory of Pomorie and subsequently merged into Pomeranians. The word "Korela" is written through "o", as well as the local names associated with it: the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery, the village of Korela and, accordingly, the open-air museum "Small Korely". All these words appeared hundreds of years earlier than the name of the Soviet Republic of Karelia, so the voluntary guardians of the historical purity of the Russian language urge you to treat them very carefully.

So do not confuse the names and watch the spelling. Otherwise, going to the Arkhangelsk region, you may end up in the Republic of Karelia.

"Small Korely" is the largest open-air museum in Europe, it covers an area of ​​140 hectares. It is located 28 kilometers south of Arkhangelsk, on the right bank of the Northern Dvina at the confluence of the Korelka River. By the way, it is also the northernmost of all the "open" museums in Russia.

The Russian North is a taiga region. Since ancient times, people have cut here from pine and larch giant huts, baths, barns, mills, erected hipped temples. According to Russian tradition, there is not a single nail in the old wooden buildings. The "nailless" structures of the Arkhangelsk "left-handers", contrary to popular belief, were not at all the architectural "know-how" of the architects. Most likely, according to the museum guide Tatyana, the ancient Pomors refused this building material solely for reasons of economy. A kilogram of iron in those days in Russia cost many times more than a tree - about the same amount as logs would be required to build a spacious peasant hut.

The exposition includes more than 100 civil, public and religious buildings, the earliest of which date back to the 16th and 17th centuries. To be sent to the museum, the exhibits were rolled out on logs, and then reassembled already on the territory of the "Small Korel".

The museum was founded in 1964. In 1968, the first architectural monument was moved here - a mill from the village of Bor, Kholmogory district. Now all varieties of Russian windmills are collected on the territory - shatrovkas (Dutch women) and pillars, there is also a water mill. The largest windmill was brought from the possessions of the former Kozheozersky monastery; it greets visitors at the entrance to the museum.

By the way, the first visitor appeared here in June 1973. And today, more than 100 thousand Russian and foreign lovers of antiquity visit the museum every year.

The main task of the museum is to preserve for posterity the unique creations of folk architecture, to show the life and life of the Russian northern village of the past. The peculiarity of the "Small Korel" is that they were the first open-air museum in Russia, where the landscape-environment method became the main principle of building the exposition. That is, when creating it, the architectural, historical, cultural characteristics of the villages were taken into account, from which monuments of wooden architecture were exported.

The exposition is built according to the principle of sectors, each of which is a model of the most characteristic settlements for the Russian North with a traditional layout and a full range of residential and outbuildings. Each sector is a fragment of the village, where not only individual buildings are important, but also their mutual relationship with each other.

There are six sectors in total. In Kargopolsko-Onega, from which the exposition begins, the layout of the settlement is reproduced, when the estates are located around the square where the Ascension Church of 1669 and the bell tower from the village of Kushereka stand.

The Mezen sector represents the architecture of the north-east of the region. The villages were located here along the steep banks of the river. To strengthen them, retaining walls were cut, and wooden flooring was made on them. Barns, glaciers were placed on these "embankments", and baths closer to the water.

Between the Mezensky and Pinezhsky sectors there is a village of small huts, barns and a well-crane. This is a seasonal settlement of Hornemskoye from the upper reaches of the Pinega River. They lived in it in the summer, during haymaking or during logging. The Pinega sector reflects the architecture and life of the Pinega basin, the largest tributary of the Dvina. The huts here are placed facing the sun, in "order".

The largest and most diverse in terms of architecture is the Dvina sector. Here are monuments from the vast territory of the Podvinya. On the central square is St. George's Church of 1672 from the village of Vershina. The baroque iconostasis has been restored in the church.

The last two sectors - Pomorsky and Vazhsky - are at the stage of formation of the exposition.

In recent years, the museum has paid great attention to the creation of additional services for visitors. Newlyweds can order here a unique wedding ceremony in Pomeranian traditions, ride horses, play old folk games and amusements, archery, listen to bells.

In Russia, bell ringing has always been a part of people's life. The bells called to the temple for prayer, showed the way to the home of a lost traveler, and saved ships in bad weather. Notable guests were greeted with bells, major events were celebrated. Therefore, in the museum, any holiday begins with the ringing of bells. And for connoisseurs there is a unique exposition "Northern Ringing". In 1975, "Small Korely" was the first in the country to revive this ancient art.

On traditional Russian holidays, such as Maslenitsa or Christmas, folk festivals are organized on the territory of the museum. The annual festive cycle of calendar folk holidays and rituals has been revived here, folklore holidays are held.

Arkhangelsk residents, especially young people, also like to visit here. Only here you can see so many brides and grooms. It has already become a tradition - after laying flowers at the eternal fire in the center of Arkhangelsk, the newlyweds go to "Malye Korely".