The Church Artist
Ivan Shishman is a church artist. Besides he is a father of seven and drinks sometimes.
This time he has got an order from Crimean church to make an artwork on the inside surface of its domes.
Day in Church
One day in Russian church…
The Soccer Icon
Now Orthodox church is making football (soccer) icons, probably its purpose is to make the team more successful, I don’t know really, but they look very serious about that!
Russian Barocco
What’s “Russian Barocco”? Obviously it’s an architectural style and it has been pretty popular among modern Russian riches.
They build real “palaces” made in a 19th century style. Hundreds of them built across the Russian river coasts.
Meet one of them. Called to be the pearl amongst of its kind. It’s even has a Russian orthodox church building embedded into the house, probably with a “court” priest living there.
It’s pretty hard to understand how they stay sane being in the interiors like this, but probably they got used.
The Fallen Church
Sometimes churches got tired of the lack of the faith around and prefer to collapse rather than to serve.
Bell-Ringing
Bell-ringing is a very old and beautiful tradition of Orthodox churches. Each religious holiday can’t be imagined without melodic ringing of small and huge bells on churches. This profession requires both physical strength and ear for music, and it was passed on from one generation to another up to the Soviet time, then there was a huge period of silence and now it is revived. Ringing is a real system of musical work, involving not only ability to read musical notes but plasticity and mathematical skills as well. This is a great cultural phenomenon, and to understand it you have to breath with it and fell it with every part of your soul. Or at least click more and see what a few moments of a bell-ringer’s day are like.
Russian Pope comes to Visit
Russian Orthodox church, revived after its oppression by the Communist power back to life by the successors of the Soviets now in big favor. Just a few shots of how Russian Pope comes with a visit.
Pseudo Goth Church
In Russia there are no Goth Cathedrals or Churches, just because Russian Orthodox church, the dominating confession are Russia is not a Goth style guys, neither now nor centuries before.
They preferred their original Russian architectural desings or sometimes copied from Eastern church - from Byzantium, modern Turkey, from where this church branch has originated.
But it’s not by chance they say that in Russia East and West meet. Sometimes Russian church architects of the past has built something reminding the goth cathedrals of Europe combined with traditional Russian design elements. Those were called pseudo-goth churches. Here is one of such.
Russian Orthodox Christian Priests
Russians have mixed feelings about the priests of Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Some consider them to be almost holly (well, really maybe just some), others are not glad with some money schemes the ROC was involved in during last years.
To comment a little, during 1990s the state couldn’t support church with any money but they wanted to (maybe they believed it would help them somehow, or their sins would be pardoned someway) so they passed to church some very honey business opportunities like importing cigarettes and tobaco products to Russia without any taxes, so in just months Russian Orthodox Church has become the main dealer of cigarettes in Russia pushing out from the market any other competitors who had to pay taxes and this lasted for years.
Other people say that they can’t trust modern day priests because during that same time - after the Soviet Union collapse - some people went to study for priests just with the thoughts that they would always have plenty of food and place to live if they join the church.
Well, nevertheless, for sure there should be some real believers and followers of Christ’s path, who are ready to fast for 40 days and then give out the last dime to the asking soul. Please submit some photos of such if you met one, I believe there should be!
Railway Car Churches
It can look bit crazy, but it seems that there is a widespread train in Russia to organize Orthodox-Christian churches in old railway cars.
It could seem like it’s a modern phenomena but bit retrospective digging reveals that some of them already appeared when the railroad itself appeared in Russia.
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