ARCHITECTURE
wooden architecture — research, maintenance and restoration

The basis of the design of the Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus is a combination of three different cribs, or log frameworks set in line. The cribs are almost square in plan; covered with gable roofs of different heights and slopes. The one in the middle is the church itself; it is the highest crib with the sharpest slope of the roof at the ridge of which there is an onion-dome covered with scale-like shingles, topped with a cross. The walls of the altar and the church are gradually widening to the top.

The western wall has dowel-joints made to the left and to the right to the doorway inside. Narthex is a frame construction with the framing composed of beams and a plank cladding. The ceiling is found in the church only. Floors and ceiling are fixed with scarf joints made in walls. A small two-step porch is by the entrance. The main entrance and the inside door to the church have no hinges.

The roof is two-ply; the roofing is composed of boards fixed with nails. The boards of the upper ply have lance-like ends. ‘Facial’ boards are plain with their edges cut wavily. The logs of exterior walls are notched at the corners according to the traditional method with the log ends protruding or extending beyond the corners of each wall (a notch joint called in Russian ‘v oblo’), the grooves are made on the upper part of the logs.

Small windows on the altar northern, eastern and southern walls admit light inside. On the southern wall of the church there is a standard window with the frame composed of three jambs; there is an original window on the northern wall. Narthex is lighted by three windows with rounded window-jambs and internal shutters constructed like doors i. e. without use of hinges.