The village school

The Sardayal village is located in the Mari region, which is about 1.000 km east of Moscow. The school was founded in 1884, it may be the oldest school in the district. Everything looks original here, seems like nothing has changed for over the 50 years. After you walk through the school gates, you feel yourself like a pilot of a time machine who has found himself on the set of the Soviet film, naive and beautiful. You are in a country that you do not remember, in a country that does not exist. No detail or piece of furniture is standing out of the general scale: color of the walls, door carving , creaking floorboards, the smell of wood, large windows with wooden frames which show you the rural landscape, the smell of the dining room, the stove which is needed for school heating, linen aprons and hats for the labor lesson — everything is harmonious. All of these combine into a surprisingly heartwarming image of something disappearing and truly wonderful.