Russia is a land of contrasts. In the Solovetsky Islands, six islands in the forbidding waters of the White Sea, just 100 miles from the Arctic Circle, the Solovetsky Monastery was founded in the 15th century as one of Russia’s most famous and holy monasteries and became a major pilgrimage destination. Conversely, in the 20th century, the same place was used as a brutal Soviet prison camp at which over a million prisoners died.
I visited the botanical garden, one of the northernmost in the world, to see just what grows in this climate, and found, to my surprise, many plants that I have had in my own garden, but theirs were planted by monks and prisoners in the 18th century…hostas, snowball viburnum, bergenia, shrub roses, cedar trees. Along with these typically more southern zoned plants, we were pestered by flies and bees that somehow thrive here.
We walked up a hill to the peaceful 2-story former summer residence of the monastery abbot, with a rustic wooden church a few steps away, overlooking a blooming perennial garden below. We even encountered other groups of visitors in this remote place, including a group of Russian babushka women led by an Orthodox priest in black robes and hat, testament to it’s attraction as a pilgrimage. A rickety bus finally took us back to the tiny town on the old 18th century rutted, dirt road, dotted along the way with small white orthodox chapels, little roadside sanctuaries for the local people.
On Zayatsky Island, only accessible with a guide, we walked along a wooden-plank path that took us among the boulders, gnarled bushes, and low vegetation, passing along the way some intricate stone labyrinths and rock mounds. All of theses structures were built at least 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic Period, but their purpose and creators are unknown. Peter the Great was intrigued by these islands, and when he returned for a second time in 1702, he ordered a wooden church to be built honoring St. Andrew. As there were no trees on the islands for construction, the church was built on the mainland, disassembled, and then shipped to Zayatsky for reassembly.
Even the most detailed research cannot prepare you for Russia’s unique culture. It is a land that still seems undiscovered and somehow inhospitable, undecided between piety and brutality, resignation or revolution.