Frescoes of the Flooded Monastery

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In 2007, Liza Likhacheva, director of Russia’s State Museum of Architecture, chanced upon a group of 17th-century frescoes in a museum storeroom. The frescos, which illustrate the biblical tale of the Apocalypse, had been part of a series gifted by the tsar to the Kalyazin Monastery. In 1937, upon Stalin’s order, the monastery was demolished and flooded to make way for a hydroelectric dam on the Volga River. But what happened to the frescoes? Documentary filmmaker Eleonora Tukhareli follows Liza in her search to locate, restore and exhibit these iconic Russian artworks – a search that involves Liza’s skills as a detective, political maneuvering, and underwater archaeologists. Part documentary, part imaginative melodrama, Tukhareli’s feature film makes timely comparisons between the 17th-century frescos and 21st-century environmental collapse.