I went on an expedition to the Lukostrov island in Onega lake

26.06.2022

I went from June 17 to June 25 on an expedition to restore the temple of the late XIX century of the Prophet of God Elijah and three saints - Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom on Lukostrov in Onega lake to work for my papa. The expedition with the "Common Cause" is a movement to preserve and restore the monuments of wooden architecture of the Russian North.

My spirit, as always, was strong, it turned out that I can cook on a campfire for 20 hungry people and discovered another bunch of culinary talents in myself. ) My, one might say, obedience was on duty in the kitchen every other day (I get up to the campfire at 7 and finish at 20), and cleaning the temple grounds around - to rake the mowed grass, sort out the rubble, saw something small with a saw. Our men were engaged in construction work: they fused wood (boards and logs) from the shore of Konoi Bay to Lukostrov (about 7 km, made a raft from logs and planks and towed it to the island); the lower quadrangle was strengthened on the bell tower, the walls were pulled together with linings made of logs, struts and diagonal stops were installed, a monitoring pendulum was installed; scaffolding was installed inside the bell tower; the octagon was covered with a conservation roof made of technonicol at the belfry level; reconnaissance was carried out on the tent poles, safety jumpers were mounted; the logs were cleaned of bark and the remaining ones were stacked for storage; on both sides of the temple power scaffolding with struts was installed to prevent the log house from falling; a conservation roof was started over the altar, beams and rafters were installed, a crate was made, and the roofing was partially laid. In addition, they made a camp so that subsequent expeditions could be immediately accommodated. Women cleaned the walls of the temple from moss and dust, the lower walls of the bell tower were soaked with antiseptic after cleaning from moss.

Here is the video with our church and our work - https://youtu.be/02GM59DORk8 and the beauty of Kareliya - https://youtu.be/rv6PsZQTi08 .

And I still managed to make 4 sketches, 4 in total. I wrote two at once on the shore while I was waiting for everyone to be transported to the island. I managed to write one by getting up at 3.30 to walk to the other end of the island by 5, write a sketch and then have time to go back to the kitchen duty, it's a sunrise sketch. And I managed to write the fourth sunset sketch at sunset, when our church was gilded by the sun. Of course, I collected a lot of photographic material and memories for further creative work. I hope to return there again to work hard - the church of Elijah the Prophet in the Smolensk region was also the parish of my great-grandfather Archpriest Stefan, and my papa left us this year on the day of three saints.