On 8th of June 2018 in Kiev opened Kiev Brick Plinfa Mini Sculpture - wide and flat baked slab-like bricks that were used in construction of St Sophia Cathedral.

Kiev Brick Plinfa Mini Sculpture is a bronze model of part of an ancient wall with plinfa bricks.

The installation of the mini sculpture is a part of tourist project "Search" created by travel guide Yulia Bevzenko.

Author of Kiev Brick Plinfa Mini Sculpture is Sergey Rekster and sculptor is Sergei Galenko in cooperation with Galenko Gallery.

This moment there are other main symbols of Kiev that are presented in mini-sculptures around Kiev city center - Chicken Kiev, Kiev Chestnut, Kiev Cake, Kiev Tram and Kiev First Car Benz Velo.

Kiev Brick Plinfa History

Plinfa was used in ancient Kievan Rus temple architecture of X century - the beginning of XIII century on examples of architectural construction of Byzantine Empire.

Monuments of Kiev that brought historical character of building of plinfa walls: St Sophia Cathedral (1018) and Church of Savior at Berestove (1113-1125), Assumption Cathedral of Kiev-Pechersk Lavra (1078) and St. Cyril Church (1171). The rest of monuments in Kiev made of plinfa were destroyed or rebuilt.
 
The size of historical plinfa is different - for example in construction of St Sophia Cathedral were used plinfa with dimensions 27 x 31 x 3.5 cm.

Plinfa is composed of kaolin clay with inclusion of fine sand, transparent and opaque spar, siltstone clay, sometimes with very high content of organic inclusions of straw and poles.

Plinfa was made in special wooden forms and then dried for 10 - 14 days then it was calcined in the oven. Many plinfa blicks were found with brand names that are considered branded by manufacturers.

Quenched lime and cemented solutions were used for masonry. The bonding material of these solutions was quenched lime which was added to cemented stone - chopped ceramics. At the end of XI century the filler in solutions was crushed plinfa bricks made of kaolin clay with the addition of sand.

They were built using a thick layer of the solution often equal to thickness of plinfa itself. Sometimes a few rows of plinths combines with a number of natural stones. It is believed that use of plinfa helped to increase seismic resistance of buildings.

Organizers of Kiev Brick Plinfa Mini Sculpture

Team of Project "Search"
House, Dehtiarna St, 6
Kiev, Ukraine

Pavel Korsun
Tour Guide
Ukraine tours and Kiev tours

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