You can find all information about St. Kirill Belozersky on one website now

The project of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve aimed at the creation of the Internet encyclopedia “Saint Kirill Belozersky” became one of the winners of the International Contest “Orthodox Initiative” on March 29, 2016. Both cultural organizations of the Vologda region (the Vologda State Museum-Preserve for History, Architecture and Art, the Cherepovets Museum Association, the Belozersk Regional Local History Museum, the Vologda Regional Universal Scientific Library named after I.V. Babushkin) and museums and libraries of some other regions of our country (the State Hermitage, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Historical Museum, the State Russian Museum, the Central Andrey Rublev Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art, the State Museum of History of Religion, the Russian National Library, the State Vladimir and Suzdal Museum-Preserve, the Yaroslavl Art Museum) participated in the project along with the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve. One picture for the website was given by the British Museum. Besides, several photos come from the private collections, including foreign ones.

27 persons worked on the project during 10 months. They prepared texts about the monastery, the museum, the monuments and holy places, found and gathered information about the images of St. Kirill in the collections of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve, the Museum of Dionisy’s Frescoes, museums and libraries of the region and Russia in general. The head of the Department of Information Technologies in the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve was in charge of the project. Museum employees L.V. Terebova, L.I. Glysina, E.G. Shchurina, S.N. Smirnova, I.V. Savina, N.A. Baklanova, A.A. Borodulina, A.V. Smirnova, N.V. Krasilnikova and D.V. Klubkov made a large contribution to it.

The employees of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve digitalized all icons, church articles and books connected with the image of St. Kirill Belozersky; took 3D pictures of the saint’s personal belongings, reconstructed the chapel and the places of original settlement of St. Kirill Belozersky on the shore of Lake Siverskoye. It gives a chance to show immensity of the monastery founded by him. The website about the personality and deeds of St. Kirill Belozersky contains various multimedia information: photos, virtual panoramas, 3D models, animation, video, and audio. The peculiarity of the project is the section “Images of St. Kirill” where you can already see 89 icons, frescoes, engravings, and sculptures. In all, more than 100 pictures of the saint (if we count miniatures separately) have been already gathered on the website. A number of articles are being prepared for download now. Therefore we can say that this resource is the fullest collection of the saint’s images at present. Besides, it will be possible to replenish it. The whole section tells about the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery founded by St. Kirill in 1397. Albums of the copyrighted photos taken by Alexey Nitetsky and Vadim Gordeev are presented there. The place of original settlement of Saints Kirill and Ferapont in the late 14th century was reconstructed according to the materials of archeological excavations.

You can also visit the monastery thanks to the virtual tour or find detailed information about the architectural monuments going to the museum website where they are described. There are separate sections about the economy of the monastery, preservation and restoration of the monastery monuments, revival of the monastic life in the cloister. The section about the churches of St. Kirill Belozersky is really interesting. The designers of the project have already managed to find information about 60 churches. The website contains pictures from the museum archive and modern photos. Besides, you have a chance to compare two pictures taken in different years and even centuries

There are books about St. Kirill Belozersky himself and his monastery in the section “Literature”. Some of them were digitalized especially for the project in the museum and some of them – in the Russian National Library and the Vologda Regional Library. The video section includes animated cartoons and films about St. Kirill, the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery and the museum. A separate section of the website is a page of the project aimed at the restoration of the chapel on Maura Hill destroyed by fire on September 17, 2014.

The website was elaborated applying the tile technology. It gives a chance to post high-resolution pictures. This project is multi-platform and can be adjusted for different devices, including smart phones and tablet computers. Its designers have posted all gathered data on the website, but left open the possibility of further content of the project. You can send your requests or additional information to the creative team filling a special form in the section “Feedback”. Your materials can be posted on the pages of the Internet encyclopedia after preliminary check.

According to the materials of the district newspaper “Novaya Zhizn”

The website of the project: http://кириллбелозерский.рф/