http://englishrussia.com/?p=1808
"Some other masterpieces of Russian medieval wooden architecture were found abandoned. Some of them look like they are just left - even some furniture stays on its places. The reason they are so undisturbed - it stays deep inside the Russian forests."
Wow! [cool]
Quite a hobby that guy has. gal?
That would definitely make Bob Vila loose the rest of his hair.
Very cool houses.
Fascinating site...some very strange art...powerful photos...
For more of that style google "Khizi", there should be links to the russian open air museum, with some neat old architecture.
Thank You Don! I find Russian art and especially architecture so fascinating! The abandoned medieval structures in the forests with all that detail. Some of the more modern abandoned buildings...a bit creepy I must say.
I hope to make a journey there one day to explore.
Thanks again for sharing!
There's not much commentary with them from what I remember of that site, what they were doing on many of those old houses... covering up very fine scribe fit log construction with various methods of decorative weatherboarding. One thing to notice is their fretwork on alot of trim details, the period for those is probably the same early industrial age of our gingerbread victorians. Our mail order wood sweatshops turned out western gingerbread, theirs turned out eastern style bric-a-brac.
I've got a nice coffee table book "the wooden architecture of Russia" Opolovnikov & Opolovinikova that might be worth checking out if you can find it through interlibrary loan. He was the architect that did much of the restoration work and documentation at the open air museum at Khizi.
Those remind me of a grand old plantation house we stumbled upon down along a riverside in South Carolina while tree planting years ago. I've restored rude log cabins from the same era and here was a turretted, curved windowed work of art we would be very sorely pressed to duplicate being swallowed by the forest, going back to the dust it sprang from.