Church of the Great Martyr Paraskeva in the village of Voymozero. Construction history and architectural features

Introduction. The object of the study is the only preserved example of a large wooden tent chapel in Nizhny Poonezhye. The architectural monument was built in the village of Voimozero in 1746 as a chapel. In 1864, the chapel was rebuilt into a church. The monument has preserved its authenticity well, which makes it valuable. The object is briefly presented in several publications, but there was no special historical and architectural research. The architectural features of the monument have not been studied in detail before, nor have they been compared with the characteristics of other temple structures of the territory along the banks in the lower reaches of the Onega River and the Russian North as a whole. This paper helps to fill in these gaps.

Materials and methods. The study of the architectural monument was based on a complex approach — special scientific restoration and general scientific methods. The basis of the research is historical archival documents, bibliographic sources, materials of a field survey. A comparative analysis of the research object with its analogues in the territory of the lower Poonezhye and the Russian North was also carried out to identify architectural features, as well as common traditions.

Results. New historical sources have been introduced into scientific circulation. Field surveys were conducted, a set of archival and bibliographic materials was identified. Based on these data, the construction periodization of the object of study of Church of the Great Martyr Paraskeva in the village of Voimozero was determined — its original appearance and the changes that took place over time. The significance of the architectural monument in the context of the construction of temple structures in the lower Poonezhye region of the XVII – early XX centuries is revealed. A graphic reconstruction of the object at the beginning of the XX century was performed — the period of the final formation of the monument’s appearance.

Conclusions. Church of the Great Martyr Paraskeva is an object of cultural heritage of regional significance. The information obtained as a result of the study can be useful both for expanding knowledge about the history of Russian architecture, and for practical application — in the work on the preservation of monuments of Russian wooden architecture, increasing tourist interest in the region.

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