The Metaphysics of the North

Realms of the Dead

Sandarmokh: The Karelian Execution Ground

In the spring of 2020, while you, the reader, were gathering dust in your apartment under the grip of quasi-quarantine, Northern Metaphysics visited the Karelian forest clearing with the strangely jaunty name of Sandar...

Sandarmokh: The Karelian Execution Ground

Sandarmokh: The Karelian Execution Ground

Funerary stones: The Threshold Between Worlds

Ленинградской области ижоры водь финны-ингерманландцы Фольклорные верования похоронные обычаи поминки Russian folklore sacred landscapes Coffin Stones Funeral Traditions Ancestral Rituals Mystery Travel Northwest Russia

Funerary stones: The Threshold Between Worlds

The Castle of Red Death: The Mortuary of Volzhsky

When the Bolsheviks came to power, they faced the monumental task of reshaping not only Russia’s socio-economic order but also completely reformatting the very paradigm of social consciousness, including the inner, spi...

The Castle of Red Death: The Mortuary of Volzhsky

кладбище руины Memento Mori большевики коммунизм abandoned places Soviet architecture Castle of Red Death Temple of Sorrow Soviet history Funeral rites Necropolis USSR heritage Dark tourism Funeral architecture Cemetery art Russian history Soviet monument Mystical Russia

The Castle of Red Death: The Mortuary of Volzhsky

The Widow’s Lament for Her Husband

архангельская область фольклор осень кладбище погост Russian North Cemetery autumn

The Widow’s Lament for Her Husband

Gimoretsky pogost — the town of the dead of the Russian North

On a mountain, atop a high hill, behind sturdy gates and oak walls, far from human dwellings, on the border of forest and field, there has stood for nearly four centuries a town of the dead — the Gimoretsky churchyard....

Gimoretsky pogost — the town of the dead of the Russian North

кладбище гимрека гиморецкий погост колокольня деревянная церковь graveyard wooden church

Gimoretsky pogost — the town of the dead of the Russian North

Dumino Sacred Grove: A Cemetery Shrine of the Russian North

язычество кладбище святыня архангельская погост роща поминальная реликтовые деревья Антропоморфные Abandoned graveyard forgotten north gravestones sacred landscapes

Dumino Sacred Grove: A Cemetery Shrine of the Russian North

A Visitor from Beyond: Ghost Stories from Russian Folklore

"My husband wanted to go to the mill on Easter, and I told him: ‘Wait, don’t go on a holy day.’ At first he listened, but then he changed his mind. Came back and said, ‘I must be the only man left who obeys his wife,’ ...