shermetev estate in a high village in the smolensk region, the work of one world-famous master, nikolai benoise almost 160 years old; in recent decades, cultural heritage sites have gradually turned into ruins. in the early eighties, tatyana stepanova came here, a teacher-historian ended up in the smolensk outback on assignment after college, fell in love with the village at first sight and stayed here forever. i remember this day and i was simply amazed that such a number of buildings was unusual for a village. stone buildings, most of them were in good condition at that time, a technical school where many young people plunged headlong into local history, studied archival information about local cultural heritage sites, for 40 years now the teacher has been passing on his knowledge to the younger generation, including the importance of preserving history, i couldn’t calmly watch monuments being destroyed in high places, of course my soul ached and i wanted to and... it was discussed many times between us, what would it be, how good it would be if it were possible to restore both the monuments

history keepers say, this is also a design feature that was included in the project by architect nikolai benois, and now the restorers have a difficult task - to preserve these acoustic properties. work miracles. father sergei, rector of the temple for more than 20 years. services are currently only taking place in the lower part of the building in the basement. this is how you have to keep warm firewood, but over all these years the faith that the temple would someday be restored did not leave, the priest admits. of course, this is the despair of the entire people, here, the residents of the village of vysokoye, and, of course, the priests. whenever you see a ruined temple, they are twofold. feeling, that is, it is delight, splendor from the architecture, and, of course, bitterness from the loss of these monuments of their neglect. large-scale work will begin very soon in the building of the former agricultural technical school, this is also part of the ensemble of the noble estate. in that 54 agronomists and mechanics will graduate here this year, and in september students will begin their st