Flying in over the lakes and forests of Solovki
Last month our boss took a group of us to the Solovetsky, or Solovki, Islands for a few days. These islands of great natural beauty with a long, important and diverse cultural, spiritual and historical heritage lie in the White Sea, one hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle, and a three hour boat trip from Archangel, Russia’s most northern seaport.
We flew in an old 30 seat, chartered plane, that did cause us to remark on all the recent plane crashes in Russia over the last few months, but we arrived safely and without any incident!
As we flew in over the sea, and then the flat, densely forested islands, with many sparkling lakes and inlets, I began to get excited. This was a side of Russia we had not yet seen, so we were discovering another, very remote part of this country we live in. We had been warned about the weather, that it would probably be very cold, gray and wet, and had been issued with a long list of what kind of clothing to bring. Luckily we had most of it already, from years of living, hiking and camping in rainy Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest. We did however need to buy some wellies, or rubber boots and I was able to get some very pretty black and white flowery patterned ones, as I am a great believer in practical things being beautiful!
We arrived to a clear blue sky and warm sun, in fact, Solihin actually got a little sunburned on the first day and there was no sunscreen on the islands as it is so rarely warm. The northern light was incredible, rich and saturated, and reminded me of Scotland and the San Juan islands; the deep blues, and rich reds, colors seem to have another dimension in that light.
We were picked up from the airfield by an old bus and driven the mile or so to our hotel, on dirt roads, there are no paved roads on the islands, and past a mixture of very old wooden buildings and houses, the incredible 15th century walled stone monastery, and a motley collection of Soviet era apartments. Our hotel was a lovely collection of traditional izbas, or log houses. Decorated very simply with painted beds, woven bedspreads and curtains, wood floors and a large bearskin rug, complete with head, in the hallway. The izbas were all set around a simple garden of rocks, wood pathways and a profusion of blooming flowers with lots of bumblebees and butterflies enjoying the warmth.
After unpacking Solihin and I could not wait to go out and explore, so took off for a couple of hours wandering around the village, the Holy Lake and the little port and taking photos. There were eight cows wandering around the village that apparently belong to the monastery, and a herd of goats living free range between the apartments and the local shop.
We were all divided into small groups to take a selection of prearranged tours. Our first one was to the Maritime museum, and we had a wonderful guide who really brought alive the whole history of seafaring that had been so vital to the islands in the past. In the middle of the museum they were building a replica of Peter the Great’s wooden boat, which was fascinating to see.
Our second day we went by boat, on a mirror calm sea, to Bolshoi Zayatsky island, a tiny place with just a simple cabin for the caretaker and the little wooden church of St Andrei, the patron saint of seamen, that Peter the Great had his men build in just one day! The other remarkable feature of this island is the presence of two stone labyrinths dating back to 2000 BC, 4000 years ago! There are a total of 40 labyrinths across all the islands, and the historians are still not entirely of their purpose, but know that they were considered sacred sites, and not where people lived. I found it very interesting that they have been found in so many different countries, and so long ago….
In the afternoon we were taken around the main monastery, when it rained for an hour or so, and then the sun came out again. This monastery is considered one of the most important in Russia and there are wonderful stories of the founders, their visions and miracles, layered with years of history, intrigue and challenges, the greatest of these being during Soviet times, when many monks and priests were killed and the churches and icons destroyed, and the monasteries used to house some of the worst and cruelest gulags during Stalin’s time.
In the evening we had a barbecue dinner at a long table set up by the seashore. The kids all went off to pick wild blueberries and we sat and enjoyed the extended sunset over the still ocean.
The next day we were due to all go together to Anzer Island, and woke to chilly thick fog. The boat took a long time making it’s way through the narrow channels between the islands. We walked the 10 kilometers across the island with many taking breaks to pick wild mushrooms and berries. We visited ruined churches in the process of restoration, and many places that had been hermitages for a single monk, with more stories of visions and dreadful gulags. On the way back the fog had cleared and the sea was quite flat and we spotted a few baluga whales, which was very exciting. During the day my camera suddenly stopped working, the sensor had gone, so from then on I had to see in a different way.
On the following day, without my camera, I started to see mushrooms….and once I started seeing them, they were everywhere! The others in our group, like most Russians, have all grown up picking mushrooms and they told me which ones were paganka, inedible, or pagan! We ended up with a huge bag and I wanted to take some back to Moscow, so spread them out on a towel in our room and they dried out enough to take home. Later we had another bagful, which we gave to the guide, and the next day she presented us with a jar of our mushrooms in oil to take home with us, lovely!
That night there was a special service in the monastery for the assumption of the Virgin Mary. It started at 11pm, but our group was all doing confession with Father Andrei at the hotel and were not finished until 1am, so we all walked over to the church together. The service was in full flow and we joined in, standing with everyone else. Around 3.30 there was a procession of the entire congregation, lead by the priests carrying crosses and candles and singing, around the outside of the whole monastery, about a 1.5 km walk. Solihin and I walked home after the procession, but we heard the following day that the service had gone on until 6.30am! It was very beautiful, and I can appreciate the ritual and ceremony, but after a couple of hours I found myself thinking that this is not my way…and wondering how Christianity went from something that was originally so simple to something so elaborate and ritualized. Also from hearing these stories of simple monks and their faith, made me want to understand more about the roots of the Orthodox church.
On our last day I went for a walk down near the sea and to look for berries. I managed to pick a good cup of tiny wild blueberries, in the absolute quiet of the woods. I then found two labyrinths overlooking the sea, one of which seemed a more recently created one, which I walked.
Later we went on a trip to another monastery and heard deeply moving and horrendous stories of the “punishment camps” situated in that area. At one point I had a strong feeling of the horrors that the ground beneath us held. They are still discovering mass graves of unidentified victims. 20 million people living in the USSR were killed or disappeared during Stalin’s time, something that is rarely spoken of outside Russia, even though it is more than three times the number of victims in the Holocaust.
We were speaking to one of the guides, who used to be a physicist in Moscow and asking about life on the islands. She said that many of the people living there would not work and drank a lot – a common problem in much of Russia. They have to bring people in from the mainland who want to work, so it is not the rather idyllic place it might seem.
Our experience there showed us, yet again, the extremes of Russia; the sacred, with the stories of visions, miracles and faith, and the profane, the cruelty and inhumanity of Stalin’s gulags, all set in a place of incredible natural beauty, with a history and culture going back thousands of years.
On the last day we had the wild berries with kefir for breakfast, and then after arriving home in the evening, had a tasty supper of fried potatoes, onion and our own wild mushrooms – delicious!
A welcome drink as we arrived
Our lovely bedroom with painted headboard and woven bedspread
Worship of the bear - Solihin taking a photo of it!
Nearby lake
Solovki main street
Primary shopping center in SolovkiSolovki monastery on the holy lake
Monks riding bikes past berry pickers - note underground food storage buildings on left
some aging local housing, and transport
Some not so pretty Soviet housing
The local action outside the shop the center of town
Old barn
Solovki side street
Two ladies who had just been praying by the grave of a monk, passing free range goats
Note the "stitching" holding the boards of the boat together
Taking a boat out to Bolshoi Zayatsky island
No boat is complete without its icon (St Nicholas)
The original living quarters on the island, and remains of Russia's first stone harbor of the XVI century
Beautiful rocks and ground cover
St Andrews church on Bolshoi Zayatsky island built in 1702 by Peter the Great
One of the 40 stone labyrinths around the islands that date from 2000 BC
Courtyard inside the monastery
View through a window in monastery
A monk on his way to church
Main church in the monastery
Barbecue dinner by the White Sea
White Sea sunset
A cold, damp and foggy arrival on Anzersky Island
Picking wild blueberries, and eating them on the spot!
Part of our hike across the island
Church in process of much needed restoration - Anzer island
Bumble bees were everywhere
One of the biggest mushrooms picked that day!
Tiny little wooden church in the woods
Church on the highest point of the islands, often visible from afar, but not that day!
Lovely little old church, halfway up the hill
Message from Moscow 