Home Additional information on Provence, links. Solovki is a wonder of the world in Russia. Purity, holiness, magic landscapes - the north stronghold of Orthodoxy. The place for one looking for calm. The brightest impression of my childhood and my first color photographs.
Mstera Tunguska
After having been closed for 70 years, reopened in 1990, Solovetsky monastery is a magic scene. It's easy to take good pictures of the Kremlin even for a kid. Photo's taken in 1974 - historical document.
Having been started in 1967, restoration of the cloister (Kremlin) was moving forward very slow under soviet power, mainly with a help of students and enthusiasts.
Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral (started 1558-1566) is the main cathedral in the monastery and the center of the Kremlin composition. Take note, there were no domes on it!
The bell tower was constructed in 1777. Since 1923, when comrades threw monks away, and till 1939, there was the most feared gulag in the Soviet Union. They raised a star on the top.
Blagoveshenskaya Church (1596-1600) was built on the main entrance to the Kremlin - Holy Gates.
Nikolskaya Tower is about 30 meters height. Walls and 8 towers of the Kremlin had been erecting during 12 years since 1582. They were built of giant wild boulders and reach up to 6 meters thick.
Another view at Nikolskaya Tower. Towers overflow fortress walls far off, so to protect avenue of approach to the more than a kilometer of them by the fire from tower's embrasures.
The building with the unusual for Russian monasteries gallery is a mill. It adjoins adjacent a drying building and the White Tower. The mill was built in 1552 and had a unique mechanism moved by water stream from the Holy Lake.
This Uspenskaya church was erected between 1552 and 1557.
There are five chapels before the monastery. This is Constantinovskaya chapel (now restored), built in 1844 in the name of St. Constantine.
It is hard to travel around Solovetsky Islands with no maritime transport. On the right is our Dora - typical White Sea vehicle of the last century, and there is me on the left. Dlinnaya (Long) Bay.
That's my father with me. We had a boat, so we were quite flexible moving by the sea and colleting starfish from the bottom for tourists. The wonderful voyage and the brightest memories!
Such a sunset at sea, between Anzer and the Greater Solovetsky Island is not an unusual phenomenon in September.
The Golgotha Crucifixion Skete (hermitage) on Anzer was founded in 1712 by the Solovetsky monk Iov, a confessor to Peter the Great. The Church of Crucifixion was built on its place.
That's me at the ruins of The Church of Crucifixion (1830), on the top of the Golgotha-Hill - the central part of the Anzer Island and the highest point of the Solovki archipelago.
This is the view from the top of the Golgotha-Hill at Anzer (Anzersky Island) on Lake Golgotha, which is southeast of the Temple of the Holy Crucifixion.

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