wonderful russian house

I can't stop thinking about the Russian wooden house in Archangel that I stumbled across when researching the chest. I really like itfor two reasons... first, because it feels like a rustic version of all those "icing cake" houses you see in places like Salzburg, you know, all painted in sugary colours. I've always loved those houses but I never even considered them as a possible influence for ours until seeing this picture as I'd thought it would be totally incongrous to have them in the Amherst setting. Seeing this picture makes me think that maybe I was wrong... Second reason is because it's so cute how it has the little third storey with the window, just seemed a fantastic idea for an attic area to let in light.


I've ordered a book that will hopefully have more of this kind of thing: "From the rustic simplicity of wooden cottages to the gaudy glitter of imperial palaces and estates, this intriguingly illustrated survey of Russian houses filters social
history through architecture. Timber cathedrals, manor houses (all nationalized after the 1917 revolution), Peter the Great's wartime cabin by the White Sea, eclectic villas of the 19th-century bourgeoisie and fisherfolks's clustered dwellings evoke a panorama of Russian life. The homes of famous people shown here duly reflect their
personalities. Words and photos invite us inside Lenin's monastic three-room apartment, the cozy corner flat of Dostoyevski's last years, painter Ilya Repi's hexagonal studio with skylights illuminating the interior, and dwellings of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gorky, Pasternak, Stanislavsky, Chekhov and Tchaikovsky