... and a short excursion into history and architecture.
This is the Smolensk Church in the village of Podolino, Moscow Region, Russia. I went here in the summer to shoot at dawn — such a small morning photo trip. Small because it takes about half an hour by car to get from my home to this church. It is quite convenient, I do not have to get up 3 hours before dawn, and at the same time it is far enough so that we have not got here in a year of living in these places. It's funny, but in a straight line the distance from me is 4 times less than on the road along which I have to make a big detour. Well, I'm not a bird to fly without a road :)
So. There are quite populated areas around the church on two sides — villages, townships, even modern high-rise buildings are visible on the horizon. Gradually, everything is built up and merges into a continuous area densely populated by people. On the other two sides of the church, fields begin, and behind them forests, not too large. The place is good, the atmosphere of village, suburban life is still preserved.
This stone church is quite new, built in 2000. I like its appearance, architecture — it is quite elegant, but at the same time laconic, simple, and a little unusual for these places, such churches (but wooden) are more typical for the northern part of Russia.
When I started looking for information about it, it turned out that this church was built on a place with a more old church history: at the end of the 17th century there was a wooden Smolensk church with a bell tower, which after a century was dismantled from its construction, and church relics were transferred to the neighboring the village of Serednikovo (information with excerpts from archival sources on the site of the church in Russian).
The appearance of the very first church has not survived (or I did not find it), but there are photographs of the second church, built on the same place after two long centuries by a private person — the new owner of this land. It was also made of wood, like the first one, but it burned down in 1999, having stood for only a few years. We can find it photos now.
Author of them is Andrey Agafonov, he registered permission for the free use of photos in his account on the site about cathedrals — the People's Catalog of Orthodox Architecture (an interesting site, by the way, as a source of information about churches and other examples of church architecture in Russia).
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So from these photographs it is clear that the current stone, third church was built very similar to the previous one, wooden. At the expense of the same private person — the owner of the land. I can only admire his generosity and perseverance.
Now the territory looks quite good and well-groomed, and there is even a night illumination — it's very nice. On the side of the road, however, there is a fence, it closes at night, so we did not look for other entrances to the territory of the church. There is a small cemetery next to it, in a grove, it can be seen quite well from a height, but we did not go there that time 1 maybe next time: there are nice places, forests, fields, ponds. It will be possible to visit here again and travel around the neighborhood in the early morning.
It's better to watch the photos in high resolution.
Camera: DJI Mavic 2 Pro
Exposure time: 1 sec
Aperture: F 11
Sensitivity: ISO 100
Focal length: 10.26 mm
35 mm equivalent: 28 mm
You can also see my photos in my blog LJ and in my profile on NatGeo
