St. Michael’s Church
In 2013, 16 wooden churches in the Carpathian mountains were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Eight of them are located in Ukraine and another eight in Poland. According to some data, there are more than 2,500 wooden churches in Ukraine. There is no such number and variety of sacred folk architecture anywhere else in Europe. Still, each of these churches can be deemed truly unique, given that they were built in ancient times without precise measurements and were either deliberate or unintentional creative experiments.
Moreover, although wood is a fragile material, some of these churches challenge all the records of antiquity. For example, in the very western tip of Ukraine, the St. Nicholas Church in Kolodny. There is evidence that it was built back in 1470. Times were harsh – the building accordingly has some features characteristic of defensive structures.
And the real landmark among Zakarpattia's wooden churches is the St. Michael's Church in the village of Uzhok, which is included in the UNESCO list. It is located amid picturesque landscapes around the headwaters of the Uzh River. It was built from spruce beams in 1745. The bell tower is integral to the church and higher than the dome. The church is covered with an unusual, almost black shingle material, shaped plates used to cover roofs. This church is one of the most remarkable structures by the Boiky, an ethnic subgroup of Ukrainians living in the Carpathians.