Brothers-in-North
At the center of this story is a community of people who are not connected by blood, shared household, or religious beliefs. What unites them is a deep attraction to the archaic culture of the Russian North, a search for their roots, and a desire to be part of something greater.
Fifty kilometers from Moscow, along the Yaroslavl highway, in the village of Vozdvizhenskoye, restorers of wooden architecture have created a unique place — a living museum of northern Russian archaic culture and a craft center called Novoe Staroe (“New Old”). It all began with a 19th-century smoke sauna house. It was originally built in the Kargopol district of the Arkhangelsk region. In the mid-2000s, the house was about to be cut up for firewood, but the founder of the project, Dmitry Sokolov, bought it. By that time, only the living part of the structure had survived; the yard had been completely destroyed. Together with like-minded people, Sokolov transported it to the Moscow region and restored it.
Over the next ten years, several more structures were brought from the North (a small house and a granary), and others were built from scratch using traditional techniques (a forge, a chapel, a pottery workshop, and a traditional smoke sauna).
Over the years, a large group of professional restorers and volunteers has formed around the project. They are united by a shared commitment to preserving cultural heritage and to collective creation. In the summer, they travel to the Russian North for restoration work. From September to June, they work in Vozdvizhenskoye, developing it as a center for traditional crafts and northern rural life.
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