There are places on the map of our country that every Russian is aware of. Solovki is undoubtedly one of them. Thousands of people visit this place annually to see the wonderful historical, architectural and hydrotechnical monuments, to be surrounded by the atmosphere of the past, to get under the spell of though not bright but touching nature. In 1967 a reserve-museum was created on the Solovetsk Islands. The reserve consists of about 170 archeological, historical and architectural monuments and memorable places. In 1989 Solovki was recognized as one of the places worth of joining the preliminary World Heritage of UNESCO list.
The Solovki Archipelago is situated in the Onego gulf of the White Sea, 150 km from the Arctic Circle. It consists of 6 large and a great number of tiny islands, the total area of which comes to about 300 square km.
Numerous hills and low sandy banks covered with large stones make the Islands' relief picturesque. Here different nature zones adjoin each other within a limited area: forest tundra neighbouring northern taiga and typical landscapes of Middle Russia. There are berries in abundance growing in the swamps and forests of the Islands: cloudberries, bilberries, cranberries, red bilberries. A lot of animals live here: squirrels, hares, foxes, deer, numerous water birds. Lakes, these "beautiful and clear eyes of the Earth", give the Solovki nature its peculiar enchantment. And there are 564 lakes on the Islands! Special microclimate is determined by the influence of the White Sea - here winter is long but mild, summer - cool and short.
Various writers, artists, travellers admired the Solovki nature. S.V. Maximov, a famous 19th century ethnographer, wrote: "The environs of the Solovetsk Islands make great contrast with all the neighbouring areas - the nature, emaciated in the tundras and marshes, seems to get vexed and, having gathered all its remaining strength, created a new and peculiar world on the island, where everything feels free and where an alien feels at home..."
Man mastered the Solovetsk Islands even in the ancient times. This fact is evidenced by the monuments of Neolithic culture of 2-1 millenium BC, remaining till the present day: temporary settlements and mysterious constructions - labyrinths. In the later times Solovki were visited by the Saams which is testified by the remainings of the graves dated back to 9-8 centuries.
The Pomors also knew Solovki - they hunted and fished on the shore, picked up berries and mushrooms on the Islands. But there were no permanent settlements here up to 15th century.
The first men to linger on the Islands were two hermits - Sabbatius and Herman who reached the shore in 1429. The hermits had to struggle to survive, bear severe cold and starvation, and after 6 years they both left Solovki. Sabbatius soon died on the Vyg river, but Herman returned to the Islands after a year with another hermit, Zosima. Thus, the year 1436 is now regarded as the year of the Monastery foundation.
On the bank of a deep comfortable bay which got the name of "The Bay of Prosperity" there was built a small wooden Church of Transfiguration and wooden cells. The first years of the monastery's existense were full of hardships and losses: the buildings were completely destroyed by fire, the monks had to fight not only the severe nature, but also the Korels who regarded the Islands as their own. The monks found food digging and planting, producing salt from seawater and swapping it for bread. But step by step the monastery strengthened its positions: it received a document in Novgorod which certified the "eternal ownership of the Solovetsk Islands", possessions on the continent also widened.
By the middle of the 16th century the Solovetsky Monastery became an important religious and political center of Russia, the owner of large lands along the White Sea coast. In the patrimony estates of the monastery salt was produced; mica, pearl, lime, iron extracted; fish and sea animals procured. The strengthening of the economical situation enabled to start obtaining well being on the Islands. It is connected with the activity of the Father-Superior called Phillip (secular name is Phiodor Stepanovich Kolychov). He came from a noble boyar family.
He arrived in Solovki in 1538, and after 10 years got the title of the Superior of the monastery. While he was holding this position, roads were built, marshes dried, beautiful artificial meadows created. Lapland deer and domestic animals were brought to the Islands, areas for fish breeding created. On the Zayatskii Island a stone bay was constructed. 52 lakes were connected to a single system and later 30 more lakes joined it. All these constructions remained till the present day.
At this same time a brick factory was built and the creating of the stone monastery began. It was held by Novgorod masters. The first to have been built was a tremendous refectory complex, which included Uspenskaya Church, a refectory and kelar chamber. The refectory of the Solovetskii Monastery was one of the largest one-pillar chambers in Russia, its area was 482 square metres.
A year after this grand building process had been finished, the building of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral - the main cathedral in the monastery - started (1558-1566). To build the cathedral Ivan the Terrible donated one thousand roubles, the amount that was considered quite a large sum then. The architectural plan of the cathedral is very interesting - it consists of three layers, six side altars and is two-pillar in interior, with complex covering. The whole number of peculiarities made Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral one of the most unique monuments of the ancient Russian architecture.
But Phillip had no chance of seeing the creation in its completed form. He was called to Moscow by Ivan the IV and made the metropolitan of the Church, but for his brave exposure of "oprichnina" he soon lost the title, sent to exile to the Twer Otroch Monastery and tortured there to death by Maluta Skuratov. The life of this prominent figure, which played a great role not only in the monastery's history but also in the history of the whole Russia, was thus over. In 1591 Phillip was canonized, and is worshipped in the monastery ever since.
After Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral there was built Nikolskaya Church (1577) and Blagoveshenskaya Church (1596-1600) and a number of living and household constructions, among which a three-level desiccator (the second half of the 17th century) and a water mill (the beginning of the 17th century) are notable. The mill was built instead of the old, of Phillipian times one and is a rare memorial of ancient Russian industrial architecture. There is no other construction of the same kind remained on the territory of our country.
By the end of the 17th century the architectural ensemble of the monastery was mostly constituted. It is characterized by the surprising unity and at the same time variety and novelty of the architectural images, and by high building mastery.
In the 16-17th centuries the Solovetskii Monastery was a defender of the northern borders of the country. Great treasures of the monastery drew the attention of the Western neighbours. The patrimony estates of the monastery were often raided and destroyed by Swedes, "Kayan Germans", or Finns. In 1571 Swedish ships appeared in the open sea near the monastery and this made people living there take up steps to defend themselves. In 1578 the first wooden burg round the monastery was constructed and in 1582 the building of the stone fortress started.
As Moscow State was interested in the fortification of its northern borders, it helped the monastery with various privileges and donations. Within 12 years due to peasants, monastery workers, hired workers and monks under the guidance of the monk Triphon (Kologrivov, from the peasants of a pomor village Nenox), an impregnable fortress was built. It was made of giant stones and was regarded as one of the best fortresses in ancient Russia and as a wonderful monument in the monastery ensemble.
At the same time the monastery is fortifying the pomor settlements - Sumsky Ostrog, Keret, Kola, Soroka, Kem and creates the unified defense system in Belomorie. The monastery marksmen not only successfully defended their own lands, but also raided the neighbouring ones. The evidence of it is the "captured" kayan bell (1417), which is now kept in the reserve-museum.
The brightest page in the war history of the monastery is the famous Solovetskii Revolt (1668-1676), which is the greatest event in the history of Russian schism.
The Solovki monks refused to accept the reforms of Nikon for a number of reasons. Long negotiations with the monastery didn't result in anything, and in 1668 the Czar Alexei Michailovich sends to Solovki a troop of marksmen. The monastery held the defense for seven years till January, 1676, when it was seized because of the monk Pheoktist's treason. A lot of monks were killed, the monastery plundered. Though till the end of its existence it remained one of the richest, the monastery's economy never fully recovered from these events.
Though the Solovetskii Monastery could not take direct part in the Northern War of 1700-1721, it helped with considerable loans. Peter I twice visited Solovki. It was from here that his march along the "sovereign road" from Nuhcha to Povenets began. There is a memorial of the presence of Peter I on the Solovetsk Islands - a small wooden Andrew Pervozvannyi Church, which was erected on the Zayatskii Island by the soldiers under the guidance of his charterer Stephanov, while the ships in the Phillipian Bay waited for the foul weather to be over.
After the secularization of the monastery lands held by Catherine II (1764), the Solovetskii Monastery gradually loses it's significance as a fortress, and in 1814 it lost this status forever. However, during the Crimea War in 1854 it had to go through one more trial. In July of this year the English troops that came to the monastery demanded the surrender of the garrison. When the archimandrite Alexander refused to give in, the enemy opened a nine-hour fire. But the fortress built in the 16th century didn't lose its amazing defensive qualities... After the year 1854 the monastery never again took part in war actions.
From the middle of the 19th century Solovki become the place of exile of many notable political and religious figures. A lot of famous people were exiled to Solovki: Avraamii Palitsin (secular name is Averkii), an outstanding publicist and politician, "the nestlings of Peter's nest" Peter Tolstoi and Vasilii Dolgorukov, the last commander of Zaporozhskaya Sech Peter Kalnishevsky, the uncle of A.S. Pushkin Pavel Gannibal, a Decembrist Alexandr Gorozhansky and many others.
As it has been said before, the secularization of the lands brought great changes into the monastery life. Having lost its possessions on the continent, the Solovetskii Monastery begins to energetically develop its economy on the Islands: new buildings and fisheries are appearing, the technologies of trades are being improved.
In the 19th century the monastery had about forty industries. Thousands of workers in the summer time came to work for the monastery free of charge, and many of them remained on the island for the winter. The treasures of the monastery grew larger: the butter made on Solovki was estimated on the market as high as that made in Finland or Vologda; the famous Solovki herring was delivered to the Czar; the products made of sea animals' skins were highly estimated even on the international exhibitions.
The Islands also continued to be developed. In the middle of the 19th century the islands Bolshoi Solovetskii and Bolshaya Muksalma were joined together by a stone dum bridge. A dry monastery dock was built, and it was so comfortably made that just in two hours it could be filled with water or emptied. The quay of the Saint Lake was strengthened, a stone bay near the monastery built. At the beginning of the 20th century a navigable channel system, that connected eight lakes, was constructed. In 1910 one of the first hydroelectric power stations in Russia was built on Solovki. Nothing holds the candle to the Solovki complex of hydrotechnical engineer constructions, and it is still waiting for its explorers.
The Solovetskii Monastery was the greatest cultural and religious center of Russia till its very abolition. Books were collected here for centuries, the library of the monastery was considered one of the best. The book sign of this library (the beginning of the 15th century) is the first Russian exlibris. Of greatest value were icons, church utencils, embroidery. Thousands of pilgrims from every part of the country came to Solovki annually to see one of the mostly worshipped monasteries with their own eyes, to pay deference to famous Russian saints, to keep the image of the harmony of man and nature in their souls for a long time.
In 1920 the Solovetskii Monastery was closed and till 1923 a state farm "Solovetskii" was situated here.
In the twenties of our century tragic pages were written in the history of Solovki. There on the Islands the Solovetskii Concentration Camp of Special Designation (SLON, which means "elephant" in Russian) was situated (1923-1939).
The punitive mechanism was started and the many thousand stream of "enemies" gushed forth to the Islands. The lists of the repressed (kulaks, "spies", "terrorists", ordinary members of the Party and its leaders) were constantly replenished by new victims.
The exact figure of those murdered in the Concentration Camp is still not found out. These facts were regarded as not having exsisted in our history for a long time. The monstrous truth was revealed to us for the first time only when Solzhenitsin's "GULAG Archipelago" was published. It made our society shudder. Today, reconstructing the historical truth, we ought to remember this page in the history of Solovki.
http://belomorsk.karelia.ru/eng/solovki/