The Solovetsky Islands are rich in their history, which keeps many secrets. The six Solovetsky Islands make up a large archipelago located in the southern part of the White Sea at the entrance to Onega Bay.
Geologists have established that these islands rest on a solid foundation of gneiss-granite bedrocks. Due to their geographical position and special microclimate favorable for flora and fauna, the islands attract the attention of many people and scientists.
The relief of the area of the Big Solovetsky Island is peculiar. In its central part there is a hilly upland, which is surrounded by lowlands with 500 hollow lakes, which make up 15% of the total area of the island. The lake part, in turn, is surrounded by discontinuous ridges with a height of 20-50 meters, which stretch along the coast of the island.
Numerous boulders are scattered throughout the island. Such a relief of the island's terrain resembles the mantle circles of the Earth, and on the other hand, it is like a giant labyrinth, where boulders and lake bowls play the role of strong emitters of earthly energy. In addition, a network of underground passages and tunnels has been created on the island for many centuries and millennia, passing at different levels, including under the bottom of the shelf. They were intended for cult, economic and military purposes. This is a kind of Solovetsky underground labyrinths. Some of their sites can be open to tourists.
Here about three thousand years ago there were cult centers of ancient peoples, as evidenced by the discovered sites of people of the Stone Age with silicon tools, as well as mysterious labyrinths of prayed boulder stones measuring 20-30 cm. The total diameter of the labyrinths reaches 20-30 m. Their age more than 3 thousand years. At the same time, in the area of Mount Sekirnaya there were stone cult structures. Traces of them can be found in the hills to the south and west of the mountain. Legends say that inside Mount Sekirnaya there is a stone pyramid with a tomb and passages. There are other ancient burials to the west of the mountain. The mountain itself, like the hills, is covered with vegetation. At the top of the mountain there is an Orthodox church and a lighthouse. Until the 16th century. stone pagan religious buildings were located at Mount Sekirnaya and at about. Holy, including at its northwestern part.
On the map of Muscovy 1542-1555. cartographer Anthony Wood on Solovetsky Island depicts a complex of stone cult structures with a temple in miniature, which was similar to the legendary temple in Stonehenge (England). On the same map, a similar temple is depicted in Veliky Novgorod. They were destroyed in the 17th century. fanatics from Christianity in the fight against pagan polytheism.
In 1432 a Christian wooden monastery appeared on the island, which burned several times. In 1594, the construction of the Kremlin fortress was completed. With its construction, Solovki became the main outpost of Muscovy (Russia) in the north. It is built of huge stones weighing up to 11 tons. Its area is 20.6 hectares with the length of the walls with towers of 1084 m.
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Since the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the Solovetsky Monastery received large monetary and material resources from the tsars and nobility for the development and strengthening of the monastery. The monastery was assigned to the use of land with villages in different provinces of Russia. The monastery enjoyed great privileges in the trade in salt and other goods. Concentrating significant material and cultural values in their hands, the monastery was built, increasing the number of hermitages, fishing and other structures. Even before 1917, 72 lakes were connected on the island by canals, which ensured the creation of a water transport system. In the XIX century. the monastery worked: a water mill, a power plant, a sluice system with a dry dock for the construction and repair of small ships, a stone dam to the island of Bol. Muksalma and much more. Crafts, horticulture, and horticulture developed for the acute. Because of the short summer, pottery pipes were laid underground in the garden, through which the heat came from the stoves located aside. They were used after 1920 as well. The island is rich in berries, fish, marine vegetation.
The monastery had a unique heating system, in which it was enough to burn three birch logs in a furnace to keep the room warm for a week. After the liquidation of the monastery, all types of trees were burned in the furnace, which led to the destruction of the unique heating system.
In the first half of the XX century. a similar system existed in Baku, where the heating of the ancient bath was carried out from three candles. Unfortunately, both the stone masonry and the stove have been lost.
For more than 400 years, the Solovetsky Kremlin has become a major spiritual and cultural center. The most valuable historical materials were kept in the monastery vestries: letters of honor from Veliky Novgorod, Ivan the Terrible and other tsars, patriarchs, and metropolitans. The richest collection of books was created here. In 1835, there were 4608 volumes in the monastery library, among which were ancient early printed editions not only theological, but also in grammar, cosmography, chronographs, alphabet books, medical books, herbalists, singing manuscripts. There was also rich archival material here.
In the XIX-XX centuries. a significant part of the treasures was taken to St. Petersburg, Moscow and other monasteries in Russia. Only a brief inventory of items of art value exported to Moscow takes 72 pages. Their total weight was: 3.74 kg of gold, 1360 kg of silver, 1988 precious stones. Until 1993, these items were in the country's museums.
Considering that the monastery was repeatedly exposed to various dangers (military attacks, uprisings, expropriations), it could not help but have hidden caches in which the most valuable of what was available was hidden.
There is reason to hope that in the ancient dungeons of the island there are ancient written and other historical materials of past centuries and millennia.
It is known that all large monasteries played the role of fortresses, where there were always underground passages. There is no secret that on the Solovetsky Islands there are multi-tiered rectilinear and ring-shaped underground passages. Some of them remain unexplored and undiscovered.
From official sources it is known that in 1924 an underground passage in the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Kremlin was discovered and then walled up. Earlier underground passages left the Kremlin area in several directions, including towards Mount Sekirnaya and towards Bolshoy Zayatsky Island. During the Great Patriotic War, a cabin boy Valentin Pikul (the future writer) walked around the Solovetsky undergrounds. He even wrote a manuscript of a book about the Solovetsky dungeons.
In the past, underground passages played an important role. During the Solovetsky events (1668-1676), the rebels, stationed in the Kremlin and practically being in a blockade, received help from outside along an underground passage even from the Onega Peninsula. The underground passages worked properly at any time of the day or year. At the beginning of the XVII century. in a similar way, the Trinity-Sergievsky Monastery (near Moscow) was supplied with everything necessary in the dungeons, being blocked by Polish troops.
The history of the Solovetsky Islands is inextricably linked with Veliky Novgorod, which in 1478 became part of Muscovy. For some unknown reason, in 1570 Ivan the Terrible, with the hands of the guardsmen, plundered and drowned ancient Novgorod and its environs in blood, including monasteries. After that, raids by foreign armed detachments on Pomorie became more frequent. The Moscow authorities, worried about what was happening, put in the 17th century. Solovetsky Monastery 90 guns. Along with the archers, monks (former peasants) were also assigned to the combat posts.
Solovki with its Kremlin has repeatedly experienced war years. So, for example, in the winter of 1611, 1613-1615. in the monastery the Pomor population found protection from the Polish-Lithuanian invaders, and in 1658 - from the attack of the Swedes. In the years 1668-1676. the walls of the monastic Kremlin withstood the many years of siege by the tsarist troops during the famous Solovetsky uprising, which broke out due to Nikon's reforms.
Solovki were repeatedly put on alert during military conflicts with Sweden (1788-1790), with England (V-1801, VII-1854). During the Great Patriotic War, these islands housed a naval school for boys and other military units. Here to this day you can see the remains of trenches and dugouts. Nowadays, the island continues to train young sailors at the school for young sailors, who are fascinated by the romance of the sea. Next to the school there is a monument to her pupils, who died during the Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
During the period of its history, the monastery had to fulfill other tasks.
Since the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the Solovetsky monastery became famous for its dungeons, in which at different times there were religious free-thinkers, political opponents and rivals, whom the tsarist government called thieves, robbers, rebels, traitors, heretics. Here metropolitan Philip, princes Efim Meshchersky and Vasily Dolgoruky, Count Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy, officers, supporters of Stepan Razin and many others languished. The last ataman of the Zaporizhzhya Sich Pyotr Kalnishevsky, who was buried at the age of 112, was also imprisoned here.
In 1923, at the direction of V. I. Lenin on the island, the Solovetsky special purpose camp (SLON) was organized. At the same time, a lot of work is being done on the islands to create nurseries for breeding animals, birds, fish, flowers, gardens, etc.
Currently, the island and the Kremlin are visited by numerous tourists. In the past, Peter I, Stepan Razin, writers Gorky, Prishvin and many others have been here. There is a rich museum on the island, which conducts scientific and excursion work.
The islands keep many more historical secrets and mysteries.
