Solovetsky

Rising from the White Sea, the Solovetsky Islands became home to one of the great monasteries of the Russian North. Its massive walls surround churches, a refectory and the buildings needed to sustain a community in a demanding island landscape. Beyond the monastery, lakes, woods and the sea shaped the life of monks and fishermen alike.

The hermits Savvatiy and Herman came to the main island in 1429; Zosima later joined Herman and established the monastery. In the sixteenth century it grew into a wealthy landholder and a centre of settlement around the White Sea. Under Abbot Philip, its great stone churches were built, and the monastery developed fisheries and salt works on the mainland as well as farms and workshops on the islands. Its fortified walls also made it a stronghold on the northern approaches to Russia.

The monastery became a focus of resistance to Patriarch Nikon's reforms of worship. Government forces besieged the defenders from 1668 until 1676, when betrayal allowed them to enter. The revolt ended in executions, but the monastery survived and remained a prominent religious centre of the north. Its isolation had never meant complete separation from the mainland: ships carried supplies, pilgrims and the produce of its estates across the White Sea, binding the island community to the settlements along its shores.