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Yura: Engineer-Turned-Blacksmith

Yura: Engineer-Turned-Blacksmith

LAKE BAIKAL: Yura, 51, was surrounded by several machines as he studied sketchings of church crosses in a ‘blacksmith shop’ near Lake Baikal. He and his father-in-law are helping restore several churches in Irkutsk region, including one dating from 1691.

Yura, who loved repairing radios as a boy, said he prefers doing the metal work, while his father-in-law specializes more in the wood work. He showed several wooden icons waiting to be painted. The icons will eventually be sold in the church next to Lake Baikal that Yura and his father-in-law are also repairing.

That church, dating back to 1844, will take three to five years to fully repair, Yura said. They have recently put new wooden frames around two of the three windows.

Yura said he grew up in the Urals region, was a thermal power engineer for many years, including serving a brief stint in Mongolia. He then worked in Baikal’s hotel industry before turning full-time to metal and wood work.

“I was tired of the [hotel] work. My heart lies in this,” he said, pointing the sketchings that will eventually be turned into metal crosses.

I asked how he got into metal work considering his engineering background. “It probably came from my father,” he said, adding his dad studied metal work.

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