Russia is a massive country, which combined with a religious population has resulted in an odd sight – Вагон-храм – railway carriages converted into mobile chapels.
Photo via Журнал «Всемирная иллюстрация»
Chapel of St. Olga (1896)
Construction of the first chapel carriage in the Russian Empire commenced in 1895:
The head of the educational department of the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Empire, Yevgeny Volkov, in a report to the head of the Ministry of Railways, Prince Mikhail Khilkov, wrote that a mobile church carriage would best suited to serve railway employees working in sparsely populated areas. According to him, moving from place to place and stopping at the places where railway employees lived, such a church could gather both railway employees and inhabitants from nearby villages on holidays and fasting days. As a result, it was decided to transfer such experience to the Siberian Railway.
Built to commemorate the birth of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, construction commenced at the Putilov factory on 14 November 1895, the day of her christening. The carriage was completed eight months later, and was consecrated on 11 July 1896 in New Peterhof, in the presence of Grand Duchesses Olga Alexandrovna and Olga Nikolaevna.
Chapel in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Hodegetria”
Donated to the Russian Orthodox Church by workers from the Voitovich Moscow Carriage Repair Plant, the chapel consisted of two carriages – the first being the chapel; the second a refectory, a church library and two office compartments. The chapel was consecrated on 18 October 2000 at the Kievsky railway station in Moscow.
Chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker
Part of a special missionary train operated by the charity group «За духовное возрождение России» (“Spiritual Revival of Russia”) along the West Siberian Railway, the chapel was consecrated on 10 August 2001 by Archbishop Tikhon of Novosibirsk and Berdsk.
Chapel of St. Innocent
Operated by the Irkutsk diocese over the Eastern Siberian Railway, the chapel was consecrated in the name of St. Innocent of Irkutsk on 4 August 2005, to mark the 200th anniversary of finding the relics of this saint.
Photo via Журнал Московской Патриархии и Церковный вестник
Chapel of St. Olga (2009)
A second ‘Chapel of St. Olga’ carriage was consecrated on 2 October 2009 at the Krasnoyarsk railway station as part of the medical train “Saint Luke the Blessed Surgeon”. The carriage remained in service until December 2018, when it was retired to Kansk-Yeniseisky station of the Trans-Siberian Railway, where it is now a stationary church.
Further reading
- Вагон-храм at Wikipedia (Russian language)
- Temple of the Siberian Railways at Gudok.RU (Russian language)