page_title: Kizhi Island
section_title: Geology, flora and fauna
hierarchical_section_title: Kizhi Island / Geography and nature / Geology, flora and fauna
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Охранная зона музея-заповедника "Кижи", Медвежьегорский район This image is related to the protected area of Russia number 1010088This template and pages using it are maintained by the Russian WLE team. Please read the guidelines before making any changes that can affect the database!
context_page_description: Kizhi is an island near the geometrical center of the Lake Onega in the Republic of Karelia, Russia. It is elongated from north to south and is about 6 km long, 1 km wide and is about 68 km away from the capital of Karelia, Petrozavodsk.
  Settlements and churches on the island were known from at least the 15th century. The population was rural, but was forced by the government to assist development of the ore mining and iron plants in the area that resulted in a major Kizhi Uprising in 1769–1771. Most villages had disappeared from the island by the 1950s and now only a small rural settlement remains. In the 18th century, two major churches and a bell tower were built on the island, which are now known as Kizhi Pogost. In the 1950s, dozens of historical wooden buildings were moved to the island from various parts of Karelia for preservation purposes. Nowadays, the entire island and the nearby area form a national open-air museum with more than 80 historical wooden structures. The most famous is the Kizhi Pogost, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
context_section_description: The area of Kizhi island differs from most of other parts of Onega Lake. It is characterized by numerous small islands, which reduce the water flow, and relatively shallow and uneven lake bottom. Whereas the average depth of the lake is 31 meters, the depth is about 2–3 meters in the Kizhi and only in some places reaches 16–20 meters. Because of the weak flows and shallow depth, water is relatively warm and quiet that promotes growth of aquatic vegetation. Fish types include roach, some gobies, crucian carp, sabre carp, perch, ruffe, pike, common dace, silver bream, ide, gudgeon, carp bream, spined loach, European smelt, char, pike-perch, rudd and burbot.
  Along the center of the island runs a narrow ridge, which is a remnant of the ice age. It has steep slopes in some parts and is up to 22 meters tall. There are no forests on the island, but only individual trees of elm, spruce, pine, birch, aspen and alder. The trees host about 28 species of polypores (tree mushrooms), and there are more than 100 species of moss. Most of the island is covered in meadows, which are quite varied and rich in colors and species, including rare and protected. A large part of them are of legume family. Common are cow parsley, various species centaurea, tansy and verbascum densiflorum.
  About 180 bird species from 15 families are known in the Kizhi area, and about 45 types of them were observed on the island. Most of them are migratory and stop on the island either for rest or nesting, such as swans, geese, ducks, lake seagulls, sterna, but there are also more stationary birds like house sparrow, Eurasian siskin, common chaffinch, skylark, jackdaw and crow. Among animals and amphibians, there are only newts (smooth newt and great crested newt), vipers, common lizard, frogs and toads (common frog, common toad and moor frog) and mice – the island is too small for larger animals which are abundant in the area.
caption: View of Kizhi island
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