Sumsky Posad

Sumsky Posad stands on both banks of the Suma, a short distance above its mouth on the White Sea. Its position made it a centre for the fisheries and salt works of the Pomor coast, as well as a mainland possession of the monastery across the water on the Solovetsky Islands.

In the fifteenth century Marfa Boretskaya granted the Suma district to the Solovetsky Monastery. The monks built a fortified settlement here, one of the outposts protecting their coastal holdings against attacks from the west. Salt production and fishing tied the settlement to the monastery's wider economy, while boats carried people and goods between the mainland and the islands. The monastery's authority over the district continued until its estates were secularized in the eighteenth century.