Friends of Kondopoga

The Friends of Kondopoga is an international support group with a special interest in the socially active parish of the Assumption in Kondopoga, Karelia (North West Russia). Many members have even visited Kondopoga and seen the work there for themselves.

Kondopoga is around 400 miles north of St Petersburg. This area was sparsely inhabited until Stalin's Gulag system was established, so the inhabitants of Kondopoga are mostly descendants either of prison guards, or of people who were relocated to work on the various labour schemes. The last priest in Kondopoga was shot in the 1930's when religion was declared eradicated from Karelia. In 1991 twenty locals succeeded in their petitions for a priest and were sent Father Lev Bolshakov and his wife Mother Julia. Since then an extraordinary community has been created in this rootless and deprived town. With support from St Gregory's Foundation and the Order of St Lazarus, the parish has built up:

• a thriving youth programme with activities ranging from carpentry to archaeology
• a soup kitchen which serves up to a hundred people every day including destitute adults and street children
• a farm to help supply vegetables, fresh milk and meat for the soup kitchen
• a sawmill, carpentry workshop, icon workshop and sewing workshop, which provide employment
• expertise in rehabilitation for ex-prisoners, recovering alcoholics and others in need of social support
• service making disabled living aids and furniture in the carpentry workshop, which is supplied to kindergartens and schools for the disabled at low prices