Shlyamino
Shlyamino
Shlyamino
Shlyamino
Other names: Trofimovskaya
First mentioned in 1563.
Number of farmsteads: 1 (1563), 2 (1678), 3 (1707), 6 (1911).
It is a small village on the south of Volkostrov Island. Some features of traditional peasant housing of the late XIX century have been preserved there up to now. They are houses standing in a row, low buildings of saunas beside the water, and wooden jetties for mooring boats and water withdrawal. A large, two-storey house of farmers Simeonovs, built on the turn of the XIX – XX centuries and recently restored, stands out against all other houses.
Simeonovs is an old family known from the XVI century. They were among the richest and most successful residents of the Kizhi region. They approved themselves as entrepreneurs in St. Petersburg. In the middle of the XIX century Miron Simeonov as a young boy left for the capital. Later he became a merchant, possessed real estate and lived in his own house. By his order a bell for the Kizhi Pogost was casted in one of Yaroslavl factories. Leaving for St. Petersburg and settling there, farmers never lost touch with the homeland and supported their families, home folks and churches.
The village of Shlyamino is also known by the fact that legendary epic tales narrator Ilya Elustafiev lived there. He taught the art of epic singing to the people, most of which became later the famous Kizhi narrators.
Ilya Elustafiev did not live to see “the official opening” of the epic tradition of Zaonezhie. He did not see scientific expeditions rushed to the Kizhi region and full houses in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sofia, Belgrade, Vienna, and Prague listening to the singing of Kizhi narrators.
But their glory belongs to him as well, to a modest farmer whose memory has preserved the outstanding folklore heritage – the heroic epics. And images of ancient Russian warrior heroes have become a symbol of the Russian people.