1.
Russian icons
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The use and making of icons entered Kievan Rus following its conversion to Orthodox Christianity in AD988. As a general rule, these icons strictly followed models and formulas hallowed by Byzantine art, as time passed, the Russians widened the vocabulary of types and styles far beyond anything found elsewhere in the Orthodox world. In the mid-17th-century changes in liturgy and practice instituted by Patriarch Nikon resulted in a split in the Russian Orthodox Church, the traditionalists, the persecuted Old Ritualists or Old Believers, continued the traditional stylization of icons, while the State Church modified its practice. These types of icons, while found in Russian Orthodox churches, are sometimes found in various sui juris rites of the Catholic Church. Russian icons are typically paintings on wood, often small, though some in churches and monasteries may be much larger, some Russian icons were made of copper. Many religious homes in Russia have icons hanging on the wall in the krasny ugol, there is a rich history and elaborate religious symbolism associated with icons. In Russian churches, the nave is separated from the sanctuary by an iconostasis, or icon-screen. Russians sometimes speak of an icon as having written, because in the Russian language the same word means both to paint and to write. Icons are considered to be the Gospel in paint, and therefore careful attention is paid to ensure that the Gospel is faithfully and accurately conveyed, Icons considered miraculous were said to appear. The appearance of an icon is its supposedly miraculous discovery, a true icon is one that has appeared, a gift from above, one opening the way to the Prototype and able to perform miracles. The preeminent Russian icon painter was Andrei Rublev, who was glorified by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1988 and his most famous work is The Old Testament Trinity. Russians often commissioned icons for private use, adding figures of saints for whom they or members of their family were named gathered around the icons central figure. Pairs of icons of Jesus and Mary were given as wedding presents to newly married couples, icon painting was and is a conservative art, in many cases considered a craft, in which the painter is essentially merely a tool for replication. The painter did not seek individual glory but considered himself a servant of God. Even today large numbers of icons are purchased by Orthodox rather than more expensive painted panels. As the painter did not intend to glorify himself, it was not deemed necessary to sign an icon, later icons were often the work of many hands, not of a single artisan. Nonetheless some later icons are signed with name of the painter, as well as the date and this transition from religious to secular subjects gave rise, in the mid-1920, to Russian lacquer art on papier-mâché. Most distinguished within this new art form are the intricate Palekh miniature paintings on a black lacquer background
2.
Iconostasis
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In Eastern Christianity an iconostasis is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church. Iconostasis also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere within a church, the iconostasis evolved from the Byzantine templon, a process complete by the fifteenth century. A direct comparison for the function of the iconostasis can be made to the layout of the great Temple in Jerusalem. That Temple was designed with three parts, the holiest and inner-most portion was that where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. This portion, the Holy of Holies, was separated from the larger part of the buildings interior by a curtain. Only the High Priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, the third part was the entrance court. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition only men can enter the altar portion behind the iconostasis, the word comes from the Greek εἰκονοστάσι, which means icon stand. The nave is the body of the church where most of the worshippers stand. The sanctuary is one to three steps higher than the nave. The Iconostasis does not sit directly on the edge of the sanctuary and this forms a walkway in front of the iconostasis for the clergy, called a soleas. In the very center of the soleas is an extension, often rounded, called the ambon, on which the deacon will stand to give litanies during the services, the iconostasis, though often tall, rarely touches the ceiling. Acoustically, this permits the ekphoneses of the clergy to be heard clearly by the faithful, in small, modern churches the iconostasis may be completely absent, in such cases it is replaced by a few small icons on analogia, forming a virtual divide. The iconostasis typically has three openings or sets of doors, the Beautiful Gates or Holy Doors in the center, and the North and South Doors to either side. The Beautiful Gates are sometimes called the Royal Doors, but that more properly belongs to the central doors connecting the narthex, or porch. They remain shut whenever a service is not being held, modern custom as to when they should be opened during services varies depending upon jurisdiction and local custom. The North and South Doors are often called Deacons Doors because the use them frequently. Icons of sainted deacons are often depicted on these doors, alternatively, they may be called Angels Doors, and the Archangels Michael and Gabriel are often depicted there. The South Door is typically the entrance door, and Michael is depicted there because he is the Defender, the North Door is the exit and these doors may also be casually referred to as the side doors
3.
Kizhi Island
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Kizhi is an island near the geometrical center of the Lake Onega in the Republic of Karelia, Russia. It is elongated north to south and is about 6 km long,1 km wide and is about 68 km away from the capital of Karelia. Settlements and churches on the island were known from at least the 15th century, the population was rural, but was forced by the government to assist development of the ore mining and iron plants in the area that resulted in a major Kizhi Uprising in 1769–1771. Most villages had disappeared from the island by the 1950s and now only a rural settlement remains. In the 18th century, two churches and a bell tower were built on the island, which are now known as Kizhi Pogost. In the 1950s, dozens of wooden buildings were moved to the island from various parts of Karelia for preservation purposes. Nowadays, the island and the nearby area form a national open-air museum with more than 80 historical wooden structures. The most famous is the Kizhi Pogost, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site, the name Kizhi is believed to originate from ancient Veps or Karelian word “kizhat” or kizhansuari. In Russian, it is pronounced with stress on the first syllable. Since at least the 14th century, the island was part of the route between Novgorod and White Sea. The numerous settlements on Kizhi and neighboring islands comprised an administrative entity called Spas-Kizhi Pogost, since the 13th and 14th century, the area acquired economical importance as a source of iron ores. Those plants required hard physical labor such as cutting forests for wood, coal burning, ground works, the labor was forced, the disobeyed were punished by public beating and fines that sparked local riots. Peasants disobeyed and boycotted the order and they were soon joined by up to 40,000 people from all over Karelia led by Kliment Sobolev, Andrei Salnikov and Semen Kostin. The revolt was based in the Kizhi Pogost that resulted in its name, the peasants sent petitioners to St. Petersburg, but those were arrested and punished, and a military corps was sent to suppress the uprising. They arrived to Kizhi by the end of June,1771, the leaders and 50–70 other peasants were publicly beaten and sent to exile in Siberia. Many others were forced into service, which was a form of punishment of the time. However, the recruitment of peasants for the construction of local plants, from the early times, the most important occupation of the islanders was farming. All available area, about half of the island was converted to fields, from the half, a quarter was rocky
4.
Monastery
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A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone. A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may be a chapel, church or temple, a monastery complex typically comprises a number of buildings which include a church, dormitory, cloister, refectory, library, balneary and infirmary. These may include a hospice, a school and a range of agricultural and manufacturing such as a barn. In English usage, the monastery is generally used to denote the buildings of a community of monks. In modern usage, convent tends to be applied only to institutions of female monastics, historically, a convent denoted a house of friars, now more commonly called a friary. Various religions may apply these terms in specific ways. The earliest extant use of the term monastērion is by the 1st century AD Jewish philosopher Philo in On The Contemplative Life, in England the word monastery was also applied to the habitation of a bishop and the cathedral clergy who lived apart from the lay community. Most cathedrals were not monasteries, and were served by canons secular, however, some were run by monasteries orders, such as York Minster. Westminster Abbey was for a time a cathedral, and was a Benedictine monastery until the Reformation. They are also to be distinguished from collegiate churches, such as St Georges Chapel, in most of this article, the term monastery is used generically to refer to any of a number of types of religious community. In the Roman Catholic religion and to some extent in certain branches of Buddhism, there is a more specific definition of the term. Buddhist monasteries are generally called vihara, viharas may be occupied by males or females, and in keeping with common English usage, a vihara populated by females may often be called a nunnery or a convent. However, vihara can also refer to a temple, in Tibetan Buddhism, monasteries are often called gompa. In Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, a monastery is called a wat, in Burma, a monastery is called a kyaung. A Christian monastery may be an abbey, or a priory and it may be a community of men or of women. A charterhouse is any monastery belonging to the Carthusian order, in Eastern Christianity, a very small monastic community can be called a skete, and a very large or important monastery can be given the dignity of a lavra. The great communal life of a Christian monastery is called cenobitic, as opposed to the life of an anchorite. In Hinduism monasteries are called matha, mandir, koil, or most commonly an ashram, jains use the Buddhist term vihara
5.
Karelia
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Karelia, the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden. It is currently divided between the Russian Republic of Karelia, the Russian Leningrad Oblast, and Finland, various subdivisions may be called Karelia. Finnish Karelia was a province of Finland, and is now divided between Finland and Russia, often called just Karjala in Finnish. The eastern part of this chiefly Lutheran area was ceded to Russia after the Winter War of 1939–40 and this area is the Karelia of the Karelian question in Finnish politics. The Republic of Karelia is a Russian federal subject, including the so-called East Karelia with a chiefly Russian Orthodox population, Karelia stretches from the White Sea coast to the Gulf of Finland. It contains the two largest lakes in Europe, Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega, the Karelian Isthmus is located between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. In the North there were the nomadic Samis, but no natural border except for huge woods, in historical texts Karelia is sometimes divided into East Karelia and West Karelia, which are also called Russian Karelia and Finnish Karelia respectively. The area to the north of Lake Ladoga which belonged to Finland before World War II is called Ladoga Karelia, White Sea Karelia is the northern part of East Karelia and Olonets Karelia is the southern part. Tver Karelia denotes the villages in the Tver Oblast that are inhabited by Tver Karelians, the Treaty of Nöteborg in 1323 divided Karelia between the two. Viborg became the capital of the new Swedish province, in the Treaty of Stolbovo in 1617 large parts of Russian Karelia were ceded to Sweden. Conflicts between the new Swedish rulers and the population of these areas led to an exodus, thousands of Karelians, including the ancestors of the Tver Karelians. The Treaty of Nystad in 1721 between Imperial Russia and Sweden ceded most of Karelia to Russia, after Finland had been occupied by Russia in the Finnish War, parts of the ceded provinces were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1917, Finland became independent and the border was confirmed by the Treaty of Tartu in 1920, Finnish partisans were involved in attempts to overthrow the Bolshevists in Russian Karelia in 1918–20, such as in the failed Aunus expedition. They also wanted to incorporate the rest of Karelia into Finland and these mainly private expeditions ended after the peace treaty of Tartu. After the end of the Russian Civil War and the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, in 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland, thus starting the Winter War. The Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940 handed most of Finnish Karelia to the Soviet Union, about 400,000 people, virtually the whole population, had to be relocated within Finland. In 1941, Karelia was liberated for three years during the Continuation War of 1941 to 1944 when East Karelia was occupied by the Finns. As a consequence of the treaty, the Karelian ASSR was incorporated with the Karelo-Finnish SSR 1941–1956
6.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897). "Haggai". Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
