Month: November 2013

While I was taking photos of houses and their window frames throughout Russia, it had dawned on me that some of them, those on government duty, can form quite a curious collection. , had been already presented here.— Registry office in Rostov, post office in Alapayevsk,, and police station in Moscow.

This perfect sample of wooden architecture traditional in Ivanovo Oblast houses a Disinfection Department of Sanitary and Epidemiology Inspectorate of the town of Kineshma!

Sometimes (in one out of ten towns) one can discover a wooden house totally different of all the local ones! Just look at this nice and bright one waiting for me in Yuryev-Polsaky, Vladimir Oblast!

Life is much more cheerful here, I am sure!

It is widely known that window frames decorated with relief carving had been very popular before saw-through decoration came in use. The transition was slow and gradual: slit carving had been a kind of parent to saw-through one. It had rather modest looks, and, in addition, took much longer time to make, –  the reason why other types of carvings almost replaced it. But Alapayevsk (Sverdlovsk Oblast) has kept some window frames decorated in this technique.

I am not very sure this window had been made in early XIX century but its style seems to be of that  period.

Five or six years ago I took photos of window frames in Kovrov, the very first town of Vladimir Oblast I had included in my collection.

Now. when I had visited almost every corner of it, I realize this place is one of the richest in terms of window frames.

Vyazniki, a town very close to Kovrov and Suzdal, tourists’ favorite, just pale in comparison as they cannot offer neither the intricacy nor the number of window frames I had admired in Kovrov.

Many of you, and (to tell the truth) me, too, prefer the old window frames and, subconsciously, refuse modern ones in being entitled “traditional”. And yes, sad truth is that the majority of things done in wooden architecture during the last decades of the XXth century and in our days, is a far cry from the century’s old best samples, both in terms of quality and of that subtle and immeasurable described usually as just a beauty.

Yet when I was in Suzdal I had discovered we, too, have something to keep for our offsprings. We certainly should not be ashamed of window frames like this one!

The look of these window frames reminds me on the prisoner of the Château d’If and of Robinson Crusoe, as, when a boy, I thought that was how they were counting their days: five vertical strokes and one crossing them all. Sure this pattern has some other origination, but, no matter where it comes from, it is quite popular in Ivanovo Oblast

It is curious but every new expedition brings me not only photos of amazing wooden houses and their frames, but more new debts. Recenty, in Vladimir Oblast, this happened to the town on Aleksandrov, when  a problem with our car had prevented me from taking any photos. In Yaroslavl Oblast, I am indebted to Pereslavl-Zalessky, a place blacklisted due to some misunderstanding, allegedly because no window frames had survived there.

Since then , I travelled to Pereyaslavl, where I saw that not everything had been lost, but this town always reminds me that, as a rule, too rash conclusions have to be disproved. By the way, this striking three-windowed attic had been found there, in Pereslavl-Zalessky, Yaroslavl Oblast

Most of newly-carved window frames I have seen are usually deprived of any interesting patterns, and often, to my regret, do not follow local traditions. Yet, there is no rule without exception.

This modern window frame I found in Sudogda, Vladimir Oblast ,is an exception.

By the way, birds are quite usual for Sudogda window frames, so the author had paid respect to lo local traditions.

In a town of Vladimir Oblast, I had a talk with the descendants of a carver, who told me that he used to make window frames for old houses people had brought from villages.

Sometimes, he made them for a house previously built without window frames. Sometimes, he made them for a newly-built one. Window frame could follow similar patterns, as his customers has seen his works and commissioned something similar.

Is it of any importance?

It is. It proves that window frames, an element of the house carving, take their own course of development, independent of the houses. Which means they may be researched separately.

And this beautiful one is from Kostroma.

When travelling from place to place, it is very remarkable how many hundreds and thousands of houses are being re-constructed or are destroying.

Most of them are genuinely beautiful. With so many wooden details, that you name it…

And I just cannot describe  you  the anguish it causes me…