Church of Saint Nicholas

Varzuga is located on the shore of the White Sea, at the mouth of the Varzuga River. On one side of the river, where the settlement is called Nicholskaya, there are two churches, one dedicated to Saint Nicholas and the other to the Apostles Peter and Paul. The opposite side of the river, known as Prechistenka, has the Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God, regarded as the finest wooden church in the Russian North. The Nicholas church, most likely built in the1700s, was the first church on the Kola Peninsula. Closed during the Soviet era, it was used as a collective farm shop with the entrance cut through the altar. It was also disfigured, losing its seven cupolas.