Description of the attraction
The church of Zosima and Savvaty, built in 1819, belongs to the late architectural monuments of Kargopol. It was erected on the site of the Gorskaya Church, once one of the richest in these lands. The temple of Zosima and Savvaty, at one time stood outside the city line on a hill and now, despite the fact that Kargopol was greatly upset, and the city line has expanded significantly, it stands separately from other buildings.
The building of the temple is inherent in the neoclassical style. The structure is an elongated rectangle, which seems to consist of two parts: the refectory and the temple. The church is crowned with a massive round drum covered with a dome and supported by a colonnade. The facades of the temple from the north and south are decorated with porticoes, which are made according to the canons of the Tuscan order and have pediments. The eastern side is notable for the adjoining apses, forming a semicircle. The refectory has two floors, which are separated by an intermediate cornice. The refectory is very well lit thanks to the large number of rectangular light openings.
Although folk craftsmen strictly adhered to the canons and requirements of order architecture during the construction, the influence of local traditions can be noticed in the temple. The roof of the refectory is crowned with a small bell tower, such belfries were installed on wooden chapels that have stood in these parts since time immemorial. The space under the dome is a hall of amazing beauty; it is very reminiscent of the halls in the Russian manor houses of those times. Unfortunately, the appearance of the hall was somewhat distorted during the restoration work.
Currently, in the temple of Zosima and Savvaty there is a branch of the city museum of local lore, an exhibition hall has been opened in it. The excellent acoustic properties of this room make it possible to host concerts of folklore ensembles. A decent size - to organize thematic exhibitions dedicated to the art of the Russian North.
The Russian North, less than other regions of Russia, at all times suffered from invaders and was devastated by invasions of all kinds of enemies, less than other regions it was subjected to ruin. In the Russian North, a unique and untransferable originality of Russian culture was formed. In the exhibition halls of the temple of Zosima and Savvaty, only a small part of the cultural heritage left behind by famous and unknown icon painters and carvers is presented. But even this small fraction of their art, which has survived to this day, tells us about the traditions and peculiarities of culture in Kargopol. One of the features is the woodcarving that adorns the icons. With the help of this carving, one can judge the difference between folklore and professional trends in the icon painting of the Russian North.
The exhibition hall consists of three parts. At the beginning of the exposition - carving and plastic. Icons are exhibited in the central part. Most of them are already familiar to visitors to the exposition, but ten icons, recently restored and opened by restorers, are on display for the first time, so far they have not been known to the general public. In the third part, works with relief carving and volumetric sculpture are exhibited.
Looking through the exposition of icons, one can trace how the formation of the northern icon painting school took place. The icons of the sixteenth century are influenced by the Rostov-Suzdal icon painters. The icons of the seventeenth century have already been written in accordance with their own traditions, which had developed in Kargopol by that time. The exposition also includes icons from Onega masters, representatives of the icon-painting artel, headed by the famous icon painter Ivan Ivanovich Bogdanov-Karbatovsky.
