Museum of Wooden Architecture “Kostroma Sloboda”

Kostroma Sloboda is an architectural, ethnographic and landscape museum-preserve spread out today on dozens of hectares on the arrow of the Volga and Kostroma rivers in the city of Kostroma near the walls of the ancient Ipatiev Monastery.

Kostroma Sloboda is an open-air museum. Museum of wooden architecture.

The history of the Kostroma museum is closely connected with the man-made expansion of the Volga water area in connection with the construction of the dam of the Gorky hydroelectric station and the creation of the Gorky reservoir. Since the end of the 1940s, several expeditions of the Academy of Architecture of the USSR studied the territory of the Kostroma region, including those that fell into the zone of the upcoming flooding. It was for the purpose of rescue from flooding that several first monuments of wooden architecture were transferred to a safe city line.

The first monument transported to Kostroma from the flooded Kostroma lowland was the church from the village of Spas-Vezhi - the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior (built in 1713). The church was transported and installed in the area of ??the Kostroma Ipatiev Monastery in 1954-57. It is this moment that can be taken as the starting point of the history of the Kostroma Museum of Wooden Architecture.

But one transported monument was not yet a real museum.

In 1958, specialists from the Kostroma special research, production and restoration workshop began to survey the entire Kostroma region in order to study the monuments of wooden architecture. They surveyed the northeastern regions of the region in the upper reaches of the Vetluga River and along its tributaries. Material was collected indicating that in the outback, at that time, interesting religious, residential, economic and industrial buildings remained. According to the results of the expedition, several wooden buildings were recommended for export to the planned museum, among them the Tsipeleva house from the village of Aristiha and the chapel from the village of Pritykino of the Sharyinsky district.

Expeditions of the Kostroma Specialized Scientific and Restoration Production Workshop at the turn of the 1950s – 60s revealed structures that later became exhibits of the museum and at the same time showed that a significant part of the monuments known in the beginning and in the middle of the 20th century was already lost. In a dilapidated state were unique churches. All this required the adoption of urgent measures to preserve the remaining samples of folk architecture.

“Restoration of monuments directly on the ground did not seem appropriate, since there they were left unattended and were inaccessible for viewing,” noted Kostroma restorer Kaleria Gustavovna Torop, architect of the Kostroma museum of wooden architecture, in an explanatory note in the 1950s to the planned task of drafting the Kostroma museum of wooden architecture. - A considerable difficulty was also the organization of the production of works far from the base of the restoration workshop. Considering these circumstances, the decision to preserve the monuments of folk architecture in an open-air museum was the only possible and correct one, despite the fact that the monuments lose contact with the usual natural environment and ethnographic environment. ”

According to the results of scientific expeditions, the oldest monument of wooden architecture was the church from the village of Kholm, Galich region. It was the transportation of this church and its installation near the walls of the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma that became the point from which one can speak about the birth of the present Museum of Wooden Architecture in the city of Kostroma.

On May 3, 1960, a decision was issued by the Kostroma Oblast Executive Committee on the creation of a named museum in Kostroma. The allotment of land for the museum was issued by the decision of the Kostroma City Executive Committee of Workers' Deputies on May 16, 1960.

The Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior from the village of Spas-Vezhi (1713), transported and installed in 1954-1957. and the Church of the Virgin Cathedral from the village of Kholm (1552), transported and installed in 1960-1962. and became the first stars of the ensemble of wooden architecture monuments created in Kostroma.

In 1967-1969 The Church of the Savior from the village of Fominsky, Kostroma district, a monument dating back to 1712, was transported to the territory near the Ipatiev Monastery.

A year later, in 1970, the Church of Elijah the Prophet (built approximately from the 18th century) was transported from under Soligalich (the village of Verkhniy Berezovets).

Residential buildings - authentic old peasant houses, as well as authentic buildings for household purposes: barns, barns, mills, gathered around these monuments of religious purpose.

Formed de jure in 1960, the Kostroma Museum of Wooden Architecture became part of the large United Kostroma State Historic.

The premises of the Ipatiev Monastery were transferred to the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. The museum vacated the premises of the monastery. The departments of the joint museum-reserve to replace the vacated monastic premises received new buildings in the central part of the city of Kostroma.

However, the monuments of wooden architecture were impractical to transport to the central part of the city or anywhere else, and they remained at the walls of the monastery. And the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior - the first exhibit of the museum - remained in its place inside the monastery. In 2002, this unique exhibit was lost in a fire. It became clear that without constant supervision of specialists, all the historical objects of wooden architecture gathered around the Ipatiev Monastery could be lost.

Kostroma Architectural-Ethnographic and Landscape Museum-Reserve “Kostroma Sloboda” was created by a decree of the Kostroma Region Governor “On the reorganization of the state cultural institution“ Kostroma State Historical-Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve ”dated February 21, 2006. As an independent legal entity, Kostroma Sloboda has been operating since July 2006.

Kostroma Sloboda is one of the few open-air museums that specializes in the display of monuments of wooden architecture and has the status of a separate legal entity today.

The territory of the museum-reserve is also a platform for mass folk festivals in the traditions of pre-revolutionary Kostroma, a venue for folklore festivals, a center for promoting and supporting folk art crafts.

Kostroma is one of the centers for collecting, storing and displaying monuments of Russian wooden architecture. This is a living history of Russia. History in the open.

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