St.Petersburg

Moscow

Feel yourself Russian

Photos

Cities / Other cities and places of interest / Valaam

Valaam

Rightly titled 'The pearl of the Russian North', the picturesque Valaam Island (about 30 km large) is renowned as location of the Russia's oldest monastery. As it is considered, Apostle Andrew the First Called visited the island while enlightening Scythians and Slavs as far back as the 1st century. He demolished the shrines of the pagans and raised a stone Cross on the cliff.

The Valaam miracle-workers Sergius and Herman were the first monks 'from the Eastern countries' who settled on the rocky island when Rus (the name of the medieval Russia) was not yet baptized! Their prayers mark the beginning of the future Monastery of the Transfiguration.

The island is wholly covered with forests (the soil for planting the trees on the rocky island was brought by the monks of the monastery by barges!) and known for its unique microclimate. Intense spiritual life and the austere beauty of services celebrated in the monastery made Valaam a pilgrimage place for both common believers, the members of the Royal family and prominent Russian artists, writers and composers.

After the revolution of 1917, when the former Finland Principality of the Russian Empire got its independence, the island became a part of the new state of Finland. Thanks to this fact the monastery, unlike the most monasteries closed by Bolsheviks, kept on functioning until the Soviet-Finnish war of 1940. Closed after island's restitution to the Soviet Union in February of 1940, the monastery resumed functioning under the Russian Orthodox Church in 1990.

Last update: 10.04.2005