St. Petersburg, August 19, Interfax
"The future of Kizhi Island is our main concern, because it is the only memorial of wooden architecture in Russia and it is included in UNESCO's World Heritage list," Orfinsky told journalists Thursday in St. Petersburg.
Orfinsky said the restoration project involved lifting the layers and taking out beams which rest on the metal framework. He believes that most beams need treatment, but experts disagree on the methods of their restoration.
Most funds will be spent on the church lifting and its further dismantling by layers. "At that rate, we are sure to lose the monument very soon," Orfinsky said.
In his turn, Alexander Popov, a restorer of Old Russian wooden monuments, said there were other monument-friendly restoration projects, but the committee ignored all of them, and only one construction firm participated in the tender and now it is doing the project work.
Kizhi is an island on the Lake Onega in the Republic of Karelia where a world-famous Kizhi Pogost site is located. It includes two churches and a belfry of the 17th and 18th centuries.
A legend tells that the main builder used only one axe for the whole construction of the Church of Transfiguration, and he threw his axe into the lake upon completion.
