The Solovetsky Islands (or Solovki) are a group of six islands located in the Onega Bay of the White Sea, with a population of only 861 inhabitants. They have been the setting of the Russian Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery complex, founded in the second quarter of the 15th century by two monks from the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. The existing stronghold and its major churches were erected in stone during the early reign of Ivan the Terrible at the behest of St. Philip of Moscow. By the end of the 16th century, the abbey had emerged as one of the wealthiest landowners and most influential religious centres in Russia. At the onset of the Schism of the Russian Church, the monks staunchly stuck to the faith of their fathers and expelled the tsar's representatives from the Solovki, precipitating the eight-year-long siege of the islands by the forces of Tsar Alexis. The Solovetsky complex was included between UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1992, as an outstanding example of a monastic settlement in the inhospitable environment of northern Europe, which admirably illustrates the faith, tenacity and enterprise of late medieval religious communities. On the other hand, unfortunatelly it was turned into a special Soviet prison and labor camp (1926–1939), which served as a prototype for the Gulag system.
The architectural ensemble of the Solovetsky Monastery is located on the shores of the Prosperity Bay on Solovetsky Island, and is surrounded by massive walls (height 8 to 11 m, thickness 4 to 6 m) with 7 gates and 8 towers (built in 1584-1594 by an architect named Trifon), made mainly of huge boulders up to 5 m in length. The heart of the complex is the monastery itself, in three parts: the central square with its complex of monumental buildings, and the northern and southern courtyards devoted to domestic and craft activities. The central square is flanked by the Church of the Assumption, in Novgorod style with its refectory and cellarage, the Saviour Transfiguration Cathedral, the Bell Tower (1776-77), the Church of St Nicholas (1831-33), and the Holy Trinity, Zosimus and Sabbath Cathedral (1859). The north courtyard complex includes high-quality craft buildings, including the icon workshop (1615), the tailors' and cobblers' workshops (1642), storerooms, the Father Superior's lodgings, and a 17th-century leather-dressing cellar. In the south courtyard area are a drying barn, a mill, a wash-house and a bath-house.
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