Kizhi Island · Built Without a Single Nail

On Kizhi Island in Lake Onega stand two wooden churches: the Church of the Transfiguration has twenty-two domes, all built of spruce, and the story is that the carpenter used only an axe and not one nail.

It was built in 1714, and the wooden structure has held up for three hundred years in the cold, damp northern climate; restoration began in the twentieth century, and services are no longer held inside. The Church of the Intercession next to it can be entered, its walls covered with a painted iconostasis.

The saying on the island is this: as long as the wood is there, it has to be repaired.

Historical Mysteries / Karelia · Russia / 1714