The collection of the Primorye Arts and Crafts Museum includes several works by the artist Vladimir Treshchev. One of them is the study ‘Kiy Island’. On a small sheet of cardboard, the author created an oil landscape painting of a forest in cold gray, blue and green colors.
Every summer Vladimir Treshchev went on a trip to the Arkhangelsk region and painted a lot from nature. In his studies, there are often types of local natural attractions, such as Kiy Island, Solovki, Kenozero. Nowadays, many Russian and foreign museums, as well as private collections around the world house the artist’s works.
The island of Kiy, featured in the picture, is located in the Onega Bay of the White Sea, 15 kilometers from the city of Onega. It is small — about three kilometers long, and from 100 to 500 meters wide. Together with several other small islands, Kiy Island forms the Kiy archipelago, and a thin strip of land — the so-called Pereima — connects it with the neighboring Faresov Island. During high tides, Pereima is frequently flooded. Kiy was formed mainly of granite rocks, there are some sandy beaches on the island.
In 1639, the hieromonk Nikon (the future Russian patriarch who initiated reforms that divided the Russian Orthodox Church) visited the island. He had escaped from the Solovetsky monastery and had almost died during a storm, but took cover in the bay of Kiy Island. Nikon ordered that a worship cross should be erected on the rocky shore to commemorate this event. The cross was made of valuable cypress wood, decorated with gold and silver, and several Christian relics were placed inside. These were particles of the Lord’s Cross, His robe and the Virgin’s tomb, the relics of saints and stones from the places described in the Bible. Now the Kiy cross is considered one of the largest reliquaries — repositories for relics in the Russian Orthodox Church. It is kept in Moscow, in the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Krapivniki.
In 1656, Nikon ordered the founding of the Onega Cross Monastery on Kiy. The monastery existed for more than two centuries, and then gradually fell into decay. After the revolution it was finally closed.
Every summer Vladimir Treshchev went on a trip to the Arkhangelsk region and painted a lot from nature. In his studies, there are often types of local natural attractions, such as Kiy Island, Solovki, Kenozero. Nowadays, many Russian and foreign museums, as well as private collections around the world house the artist’s works.
The island of Kiy, featured in the picture, is located in the Onega Bay of the White Sea, 15 kilometers from the city of Onega. It is small — about three kilometers long, and from 100 to 500 meters wide. Together with several other small islands, Kiy Island forms the Kiy archipelago, and a thin strip of land — the so-called Pereima — connects it with the neighboring Faresov Island. During high tides, Pereima is frequently flooded. Kiy was formed mainly of granite rocks, there are some sandy beaches on the island.
In 1639, the hieromonk Nikon (the future Russian patriarch who initiated reforms that divided the Russian Orthodox Church) visited the island. He had escaped from the Solovetsky monastery and had almost died during a storm, but took cover in the bay of Kiy Island. Nikon ordered that a worship cross should be erected on the rocky shore to commemorate this event. The cross was made of valuable cypress wood, decorated with gold and silver, and several Christian relics were placed inside. These were particles of the Lord’s Cross, His robe and the Virgin’s tomb, the relics of saints and stones from the places described in the Bible. Now the Kiy cross is considered one of the largest reliquaries — repositories for relics in the Russian Orthodox Church. It is kept in Moscow, in the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Krapivniki.
In 1656, Nikon ordered the founding of the Onega Cross Monastery on Kiy. The monastery existed for more than two centuries, and then gradually fell into decay. After the revolution it was finally closed.
