Concluding Part
@kizhi
In the given report presented are the main measures for preparation of the Church of the Transfiguration for the complex restoration in 2007, which supplements the scheduled measures taken earlier and described in our reports for 2004–2006 in detail, also in Russian version of the report for 2007. This is why when preparing English version of this report, we found it possible to limit the descriptions to a brief survey of the measures taken in 2007 according to the present schedule which is hardly liable to change. If you need more specific or detailed information concerning separate paragraphs of the report, please address the reports for 2004–2006 that give full describtion of the measures taken.
The major work of the restoration and preservation of the monuments on Kizhi Pogost planned for 2007 has been performed by the museum. The Federal Agency of Culture and Cinematography provided full financing for the following items: designing — in concordance with the federal goal-oriented program ‘The Culture of Russia’, execution phase — in concordance with the operating budget of the Kizhi Museum.
Commission of experts from World Heritage Center and ICOMOS, UNESCO, that worked in the museum in April, went deep into the preservation of Kizhi Pogost monuments and preparation for the complex restoration of the Church of the Transfiguration; experts rated high what they had seen, and, in their final conclusion, they disaproved assigning the Church of the Transfiguration a category ‘Monument in danger’. The commission’s conclusions and recommendations were assumed as basis for the appropriate resolution during UNESCO session in New Zealand in June, 2007. Thus, the plans of the restoration of the Church of the Transfiguration has been acknowledged internationally.
We are glad to learn that the session’s recommendations addressed to the Government of the Russian Federation have been thoroughly scrutinized, and there have been issued a number of decrees by now, in which the appropriate governing agencies are instructed to intensify the work concerning preservation of Kizhi Pogost structures and the start of restoration of the Church of the Transfiguration without delay. Hopefully, the fulfillment of the administrative decisions taken by the Government of the Russian Federation will provide favorable conditions for successful implementation of the measures for a complex restoration of the Church of the Transfiguration, and will remove the bureaucratic barriers that existed up to now.
In spite of some evident difficulties connected with the fact that the site is located on the island, one of the chief tasks of the preliminary period has been solved — the restoration complex has been put in operation and equipped with all that is necessary for performing restoration work the year round. This fact made it possible to start restoring original floor boards of the Church of the Transfiguration (more than 1000 pieces) right now, and disassembling the porch of the Church of the Transfiguration (more than 300 elements).
Thus, there are good opportunities to proceed the restoration on a full scale in the coming 2008 combining efforts of Museum Office of Restoration of Kizhi monuments, designers and contracting agencies. The success of the following work depends only on the management, efforts involved in the project, desire of all the partakers to achieve success and, general understanding of the enormous difficulty of the task set.
