Doing your Russian Language Course in St. Petersburg, you have a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the tradition Russian wooden architecture. This will be possible, if you take a day off from your Russian language course and head to the island of Kizhi – a UNESCO World Heritage site.

In order to get to Kizhi you need to take a night train from St. Petersburg to the city of Petrozavodsk, and from there you take a 75 minutes boat trip from Onezhskoye lake directly to Kizhi island.

What is so special on this island? What is it famous for?
Well, you have probably heard, that traditionally, Russians build from wood. In medieval times, Russians could get along with an axe like true virtuosos. A boy was considered to be fit for marriage only after he could build a house with an axe alone. This tradition remained until today in some Russian religious communities, which split from the mainstream Orthodox Church a few centuries ago.

The island of Kizhi has a few churches built in that special way – with an axe alone. One of them, the Transfiguration church, has twenty two domes, all built from logs, using no tools, except an axe.
Apart from this church, there are some more smaller churches, as well as other traditional Russian buildings – bell-towers, windmills, granaries, peasants’ houses, bath-houses (traditional Russian «banya») and many more. All are wooden. Some of these buildings were brought here from other parts of Russia, so this is a truely national museum, which features this rather important part of Russian culture – its traditional architecture.

So, after learning your Russian language course in St. Petersburg, you may take a day off and head to quite different Russia, the traditional Russia, which belongs to the common Russian people.