Kizhi Museum
Federal State Budget Institution “Kizhi State Open Air Museum of History, Architecture and Ethnography”

The State “Kizhi” Museum is located on the Island of Kizhi in Lake Onega, in 68 km. distance from Petrozavodsk, the capital of the Republic of Karelia. The Museum has been researching, preserving and popularizing culture of the native peoples of Karelia for more than 40 years.

The collection of the Open-Air “Kizhi” Museum includes 83 monuments of wooden architecture: old chapels and houses, windmills and granaries, threshing barns and racks for drying crops…The gem of this collection is the 22 domed Church of the Transfiguration of Our Savior, 37 meters height. The Church of the Intercession of Holy Mary and the Bell-Tower located nearby emphasize the harmony and magnificence of the main Church.

The guests of the museum can visit the Church of the Intercession of Holy Mary and peasant homesteads. Traditional crafts are demonstrated in peasant houses; wind flows bell-ringing over the island. Wonderful performance of the Museum folk ensemble supplements the impressions of the traditional peasant culture. The visitors whose stay on the island concurs with one of the Museum festivals will have the most lasting impressions.

The Kizhi Pogost Ensemble was enlisted into the World Heritage List of UNESCO in 1990. In 1993 by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation the Kizhi Museum collection was included into the State Code of Cultural Heritage Sites of Special Value of the Russian Federation.

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The international organization devotes much attention to the Kizhi Architectural Ensemble enlisted into the World Heritage List of UNESCO and to preparation for the restoration of the Church of the Transfiguration of Our Savior. The World Heritage List of UNESCO aims at protecting and popularizing unique objects of historical and cultural heritage.

The Status of the World Heritage Site offers the following advantages:

• Extra guarantees of preservation and integrity of unique natural complexes;
• Enhancing the prestige of the areas under protection and managing organizations;
• Popularizing the heritage property placed on the List, and using alternative ways of nature management (first of all ecotourism);
• Priority in financing objects of historical and cultural heritage first of all by the means of the World Heritage Fund;
• Assistance in organizing the monitoring of preservation of natural sites.