Month: March 2013

В пятницу разговорился по поводу деревянной резьбы в одном книжном магазине с девушкой-архитектором. Так она была немало удивлена, когда я сказал, что одни из самых красивых наличников у нас не в европейской части страны, а в Томске.

Специально для неё и для всех, кто по какой-то причине был в Томске — недавно восстановленная улочка деревянных домов.

Рассматривая наличники разных городов, каждый раз нахожу какую-нибудь интересную фотографию. Вот и в этот раз — нашел необычное резное слуховое окошко на втором этаже дома в посёлке Кугеси, неподалеку от Чебоксар.

Кстати полосатые фронтоны крыш Кугесей вполне уникальное зрелище: в других регионах такого не встретить. Так что если будете в Чебоксарах — съездите в Кугеси обязательно! :)

Every time I return to window frames of Engels, the very first place where I was lucky to take their photos (just in memory, in those early days), I wonder why their style seemed the same to me and I saw difference in their colors only.
Today, I just dote upon them: so diverse are their forms.
Was I blind? :)

Exploration of window frames attracts like a magnet: you can discern whatever you wish in them.

Someone sees their Russian Christian origin, someone finds deep heathen roofs, someone is enchanted by charming bizarrerie of lance-looking carving, someone reveals an unexpected rainbow of their colors or abundance of meanings in their symbols. Someone appreciates plainness and diversity, someone cherishes order and refinement.

Someone prefers elements of architectural styles, someone welcomes emotions triumphing over reason. Someone recognizes old Ryazan in this photo, for someone it is a deliberate eclectics, someone else would say it is a picture of genuine Russia.

But whatever else can be said , my firm opinion is that everybody cannot but admire this masterpiece of wooden architecture.

One phenomenon is as spread in Russia as carved window frames. I mean gas pipes in front of houses, like these ones, in Ryazan Oblast.

I can imagine the bliss of those whose houses were connected to gas mains in 1960s. Gas is very cheap, always available (unlike firewood) and far more convenient!

But pipes… They are my sorrow. I cannot count large and small houses I did not shoot just because no photo editor could save the photo

Any trip for ornate window frames is, to some extent, a trip to the past. And like in any other trip, good luck means a lot.

But I could never expect such a good luck! (see second photo )

Continue reading “Forward to the past”

Only once (in Navashino, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast) I happened to take a photo of an owner of the house with her grandchildren looking out of the window.

Since then (almost five years by now) I never have taken any such picture for purpose. And I think this is because sometimes the circumstances are so favorable that they just cannot be better.

As I wrote, double windows are a genuine rarity. Even more rare are double windows made of two parts of arch type. And truly unique are those close to the entrance door.

So, if you will happen to find them in Chita or any other place, know, you are lucky:)))

I know for sure, that Yakutia has houses with carved framed windows. But in November 2010, when I was there, the temperature was -40°C. I could not realize how could it be so bitterly cold in November, but locals said that autumn was abnormally warm for the area and were afraid of…frost to come!
This was how the houses looked like and no wonder that one could not have any idea of windows frames (if any).

I could not find any carved (or, at least, wooden) window frame in Saint-Petersburg, and this is understandable: from the very beginning, the city was built of stone.

Yet, some wooden houses have survived in Leningrad Oblast. Two of them, rather interesting, are in Peterhof, just opposite to the central entrance of its Upper Park.

And these are window frames at one of them