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Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Loginovka

Фото 1
In 1843, a temporary wooden Orthodox church was built by the efforts of parishioners, which was unheated. The building had a bell tower and one altar dedicated to the Kazan Mother of God. The clergy included a priest, a deacon, and a sexton, who had their own houses. By 1847, Loginovka had 179 households, 638 men, and 611 women. In 1857, a large wooden church was built, and two years later, a school was opened. According to the 1859 census, 795 men and 796 women lived in 235 households in Loginovka. A military road ran through the village from the border of the Astrakhan province to the Nikolayevsky tract, and administratively, Loginovka was part of the Krasnokutsk volost of the Novouzensk district of the Samara province.

The church parish school opened in 1892. By the end of the 19th century, Loginovka had a population of 2,190, of which 280 men and 21 women were literate. In 1896, a spacious stone building for the zemstvo school was constructed, and a year later, a library-reading room was opened in one of its rooms in honor of the coronation of Emperor Nicholas II. From 1898, the church school became mixed, and in 1904, it became a single-class women's school, moving to a new wooden building funded by state and public means.

In 1910, Loginovka had 1,435 men and 1,472 women, with a total of 526 households. There were 10,458 desyatins of arable land and 2,957 desyatins of non-arable land. Loginovka had a church, zemstvo and parish schools, six windmills, a brick factory, and the residence of the local official. An annual fair was held on September 20, where livestock, manufactured goods, and leather products were sold.

The church built in 1857 is gradually falling into disrepair and is popularly known as the Leaning Tower of the Saratov region. Initially, the wooden and unheated building had a wooden fence and one altar in the name of the Kazan Mother of God, consecrated on May 26, 1859. The clergy included a priest, a psalmist, and a deacon, who lived in communal houses. The church library had over 300 publications.

In the 1890s, the building was partially reconstructed under the guidance of architect T.S. Khilinsky, and it could accommodate up to a thousand worshippers. A new stone fence with wooden grilles was built instead of the old one. From 1909, the church began to be expanded and faced with bricks, but due to the onset of World War I, the plans were not fully realized, and the bell tower with domes remained wooden.

After the main works were completed, the church was solemnly consecrated on December 13, 1913. The celebrations lasted two days, during which a new chapel in honor of the Apostles Peter and Paul was also consecrated.

The reconstructed building was equipped with coal heating, terracotta tiled floors, an expensive iconostasis with glazed icons made by I.M. Dikarev's firm in Moscow. The walls and ceilings were decorated with paintings and ornaments. Choirs were arranged for the singers in the middle part of the building. The wooden watchman's lodge was also faced with bricks, and a new fence was made of stone with iron grilles and gates. The total cost of the works amounted to about 90,000 rubles. The church became a landmark where people came to get married from nearby villages and even from Novouzensk, despite the presence of their own churches there.

However, a few years later, the Bolsheviks looted the church. Services continued until the late 1920s and early 1930s, after which the Loginovka priest was repressed for organizing a counter-revolutionary cell, and the church was finally closed. The building was first used as barracks for cadets of the Krasnokutsk flight school, then as a warehouse. During World War II, German prisoners from Stalingrad lived in the former church. In the 1980s, there was a bakery there.

Today, the church, with its walls still bearing paintings of saints and biblical scenes, is abandoned and rapidly deteriorating.

Geo point

Церковь Казанской иконы Божией Матери в Логиновке

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