Description of the attraction
The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, located in the village of Kovda, which is located in the Murmansk region, is one of the remarkable monuments of wooden architecture in the Russian North. The temple complex, which is located in the Pomor village, besides the church, includes a bell tower, built in 1705, as well as a wooden fence, arranged on a log base. The exact date of the construction of the church is unknown. From the written documents, you can find out that it was rebuilt on the site where the ancient St. Nicholas Church used to be, which was first mentioned in the 15th century.
The building of the church was cut down in the form of a rectangular frame - a cage covered with a gable roof, and includes several parts of different times. The small quadrangle of the temple part and the altar sidewalk were supposedly built at the beginning of the 18th century (1705). It is not known when the extensive refectory with carved pillars was built. There is a high probability that it was built earlier than the rest of the log cabins. It is even possible that it belonged to another building, and was transported here. The western vestibule, given its constructive solution, can date back to the 19th century. However, throughout the 19th century, various repairs were carried out: the church was sheathed inside and out with planks, the altar was "repaired", the sacristy and sexton was added, and a new porch was built. A raised quadrangle, completed by a voluminous chapter, arranged on a massive drum, gives a special architectural expressiveness to this monument. The quad is covered with a gable two-tiered roof. Inside the temple was a three-tiered iconostasis. Today, icons from this iconostasis are kept in museums in Murmansk, St. Petersburg and Petrozavodsk.
In the 1960s, the temple was closed, and it almost suffered the fate of many temples, that is, complete destruction. And if people spared the shrine, then the time was inexorable to it. The process of dilapidation accelerated every year.
In the early 1990s, in order to prepare for the restoration, surveys and measurements of the church were carried out. At the same time, the plank sheathing of the temple was removed, which greatly spoiled its condition. A little later, a complete restoration of the bell tower was carried out. The bell tower was completely rebuilt, unfortunately, its original appearance was not preserved, which triggered conflicting responses in the scientific community.
The restoration of the temple was undertaken by the masters of the Pomeranian carpentry school. The first step was to strengthen the walls. At the next stage, the ceilings, domes, drum and plank roof were restored. A spacious 19th century porch has also been restored. The restoration progressed at a slow pace due to lack of funding. However, the restoration of the temple is close to completion, almost 70% of the natural material has been preserved, which is quite enough for a construction with such an impressive age.
During the preparatory and restoration work, restorers have more than once encountered amazing and mysterious phenomena. Culturologists and anthropologists pondered over the secret of St. Nicholas Church. In 2004, an ancient burial was discovered in the basement of the temple part. In the deepening of 17 wooden decks were children's remains, which were neatly wrapped in birch bark "shrouds". There is no unequivocal answer to the question of how such a burial appeared in the center of the village under the church. Scientists have put forward two versions: either this is an Old Believer burial, or an attempt was made to stop the epidemic, which claimed many children's lives.
Today the population of Kovda is small, but everyone is looking forward to the restoration of the temple, the revival of the shrine.
