Виртуальный музей резных наличников

When I posted window frames from Myshkin, I had mentioned Ivan Bilibin, and then it downed upon me that he certainly had painted nice wooden houses, towers built of oak, canted windows, painted shutters…
And I was right! Though, I could not find the title of the fairy-tale it illustrated
But what I know is that the picture was copied by a real house built in 1909 in Tsarskoye Selo, near Saint-Petersburg. Alas, it had been lost.

(For those interested: starting from 2012, 70 years since Ivan Bilibin’s death, his pictures have become a public cultural heritage and their free publishing is allowed )

If I was asked, which window frames are the best candidates to illustrate fairy tales I would certainly name those from Myshkin, Yaroslavl Oblast. If Ivan Bilibin (famous Russian-style painter of 20th century) would ever painted window frames, they most likely would look like this…

Last night, at 2.30 a.m. when I was about to go to bed, it had not even entered my head that neighbours’ calls would wake me up at 4 in the morning.

A car of a man living on some other floor was burning under my windows. Ours caught fire and blazed up, too.

The car to bring my wife to maternity hospital. The car to bring me to the expedition. The car with a child’s seat, the favorite of my little daughter. The car where I changed brake shoes only a day before, and was listening to the CD with the tracksfrom The Birds, which I had bought back in 2001 at the premiere.

This car was blazing like a torch.

Fire fighters arrived twenty minutes later, stated complete burning and extinguished with foam the skeletons remaining from two dear (for heart and purse) cars.

I could have parked it in some other place.

The first, not the fifth call could wake me up.

I could sit up and run out, release its hand brake and roll it away while it had not burned completely…

Yet, by midday I realized all that was of no importance at all…

Take care of you closed ones, friends. They are far more important than any piece of metal…

It is hardly known but window frames of ground and first floors are different almost everywhere.
In Irkutsk, for example, windows of the ground floor have shutters, while those of the first floor have not. In Samara, ground floors are mostly made of stone and windows there do not have frames, and windows of the first floor are framed very elegantly. In Rostov Veliky, even an art noveaux house utterly non-traditional for Yaroslavl Oblast has different window frames at its ground and first floors.
Now, look at these window frames from Izhevsk – those at the ground floor are absolutely different from the ones at the first floor! And it is like this almost throughout the city!

It is a long time since I had shown you anything from Irkutsk!
But why? Irkutsk window frames give me a reproachful look from my monitor, as though they are going to say “It’s no use for you to hide us. This doesn’t matter. We’ll breach at last”
And this seems to be true. How can I hide this one?

It is a long time since I had shown you anything from Irkutsk!

But why? Irkutsk window frames give me a reproachful look from my monitor, as though they are going to say “It’s no use for you to hide us. This doesn’t matter. We’ll breach at last”
And this seems to be true. How can I hide this one?

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