46 thoughts on “Railway Car Churches”

    • OMG why oh why are Russians so spiritual and rich, if only more Americans went to church instead of eating McDonald’s and KFC! 🙁

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    • Looks like 3rrd world poor trash Russians cant even afford to build a decent Church. Maybe we should donate so that our fellow Xtians in Russia can worship in comfort and style like us in the west. 🙁

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      • Dear Miss India,

        Thanks for you donation offer, but we do not really need it. As a Russian I can surely say that you should’t make decisions based on a couple of photoes 🙂 Just google for “Russian churche” pictures and you’ll be surprised. These train-churches is something surprising for me as well. I used to live in several cities (in Siberia, central and southern parts of RF) and I travel a lot around my motherland and have never seen anything like that! But I have seen a lot of beautiful ancient and newely built churches and cathedrals.

        My dear american fellows, please, stop making opinions based on photoes and news articles, come to Russia to see it by your own eyes. And you will find the truth!
        I do wonder how distorted is your knowledge about my country. It seems that you know nothing about us, why is it so?

        As for blue colour. It’s neither good nor bad, neither beautiful nor ugly. It is just national specific. As cowboy hats and jeans for americans or beer and sausages for germans. Tastes differ, that’s all.

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        • Dear Phantom,
          Surpraised!
          Is there any Bible believing church in Russia?
          Are you a christian?
          ..looking to hearing from you.
          Bro.Yi
          Maynmar

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  1. I’m a bit curious about what it is with this light blue colour that is so common in Russia. Does it happen to have some historic significance or is it just a colour that people like in Russia?

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    • I have no idea, why do they blue. But I know that most of these long-distance cars are made in Germany and most of cars for local trains are from Riga. Ask them re. colors. Subway cars are made in Russia and they’re dark blue, local cargo railway cars are usually brown, local buses are mostly yellow and white.

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    • they are most often dark green. but the latest cars are blue. historically the colour mattered. blue was the colour of the first class, green – of the 2nd class and brown – of the 3rd class, if I am not mistaking. today colour means nothing but the railroad owners are somewhat conservative to paint the cars orange =)

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  2. Hey, the same thing happened in America – only with restaurants, where old dining cars naturally found use as “diners,” until even new and stationary construction became modeled after the same designs.

    Russians prefer to feed the soul before the body, I guess? Or to dine in more spacious quarters. 🙂

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  3. What always strikes me that the simple workers have to sit in improvised churches, often unheated even, but the top of the church [who are dealing almost exclusively with politics instead of God] are surrounded by luxury and money. But God strikes back:

    Archbishop Kirill of Yaroslavl, participating in the election of the next patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church had his luxury SUV stolen Tuesday morning [27-01] in central Moscow, city police said. Citing a law enforcement source, Interfax reported that the vehicle was a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, which has a retail price of around $60,000.

    Not to be overlooked : the average wages have been cut back in December to approx. 17,112 rubles [between 500-515 dollars, depending on exchange rate] while prices are going up.

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  4. I saw the old train photos many years ago. (Note that the icons in the new verse the old.)

    The head of the Russian Orthodox church functions at a near head of state level. His SU is not really private. It serves his needs as host to visitors and so on. He has management duties and the SU needs to handle those activities as he is traveling.

    If it had gold handles or was one a fleet of 12, I would be concerned. I am not saying the price in out of line with Russian average persons pay. I am saying a SU for a person doing his job is not out of line.

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  5. The Norwegians built wonderful churches to look like ships, a means to carry it’s worshipers to the great beyond.

    Hey – Where is Mahmoud?

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  6. Chrisitan church very weak in Russia. mosl leader seeks only political pleasures(typicallly former or not secret service informator) or material[girls, drugs, just name iut…]

    but in distant areas .. people also need faith. in fact.
    so, monks do as best as he can.

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    • Когда однажды я подошел к главному редактору популярного (не из самых одиозных, можно сказать даже – либерального) православного издания с предложением всерьез поднять тему детей-сирот, он мне ответил буквально следующее: «Задницы неграм мы вытирать не будем». Ответ этот меня, признаться, сильно отрезвил и ко многому заставил присмотреться.

      Full article is here: http://www.globalrus.ru/opinions/784519/

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  7. I found this page by a link from a page of Grohotailo’s photos of old trains rusting away. The short answer (without the 15-minute drum solo) is:

    “Waste not–want not.”

    There is probably a saying like that in every language. A train dissolving into a pile of rust is wasted. A manufactured thing, put back to work with no cutting-up and melting–causes the least waste. So why not make a rail-car into some kind of a building?

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  8. The concept of railway carriages as chirches or chapels is not unusual in many countries. In the USA 100 tears or before there were a number of missionary church/chaprl railway carriages to serve a widespread areas of the “old west”, as well as to bring the Christian message to Native American Indians. Unfortunately I do not have photos but I do know of such churches/chapels on wheels along railway lines. But most USA such church carriages are quite staid, none of the beautiful decorative icons and other ornaments as appear in these Russian photos. Also surprisingly, they are mostly quite modern railway carriages and even more surprising is that many are actually prmanently fixed into the landscape rather than the mobile chuech/chapel cars that once travelled around in the USA.

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  9. Lovely photos, what a good way to use old railway carriages. The Russians are lucky to have so many faithful people in their society. As to the question about the stone and whether God could pick it up, I suggest the questioner ask the chap himself.

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