A huge monastery and a huge mystery in a very far away place

Saturday – 29 June 2013 – Solovetsky Archipelago, Russia

At 65 degrees north latitude, Solovetski Island is a bit south of the Arctic Circle and thus actually will have a sunset tonight. My Garmin GPS/pedometer calculates only 21½ hours of "daylight", but of course there will be no darkness. There just isn't enough time for twilight to end. My Forerunner 305 says that sunrise is at 2:50am and sunset is at 12:31am. 

This is one of the most isolated places I've ever been but increasingly popular as a Russian tourist site, judging from the over packed local tour boats we passed later in the day. We never could figure out where these boats came from as Solovetski is far from any population center. The six large and a borscht of small islands lies in the northern part of the Gulf of Onega in the White Sea, itself a large indentation off the Barents Sea of the Arctic. Silver Cloud's stops today in the archipelago were to accommodate two half day tours, each on one of two of the islands.

We opted for this morning's "Solovetsky Monastery Tour" on the main island and were not disappointed. The monastery was founded in the early 1400s and grew to essentially a city state. It had as many as 1000 monks living here at one time. These guys built an extensive system of canals (the guide with her thick Russian accent called them, "camels", intriguing me more than I can explain), had the first electric generating plant in Russia in 1910, a huge mill, a big tailor shop, and a gigantic dining hall. At least if you can call one meal a day consisting of mushroom soup, raw mushrooms, and a bunch of salt cod a meal. For a treat, they ate dried barley imported "from the south", she told us.

There were prisons, "lesser monasteries" on the other islands, an extensive heating plant, a bathhouse, and a number of chapels including a "cathedral" for the monks and a smaller but no less ornate "prayer room" for the Father Superior so that he could "venerate the icons" in solitude. He probably meditated on violating the Commandment about idols, but the guide also told us about the splitting of the Russian Orthodox Church when it was ordered that members of the religion were to cross themselves with three fingers rather than the former method of two fingers. She said that a separate sect was formed by the "old followers" who objected to this change. See, I learned a lot about religious disputes.

The Monastery was fortified by Peter the Great when the monk lookouts saw the Swedes sail in and then out of the area, and the site was used as a gulag prison and also a naval training school (but not at the same time) by the Soviets. Most of the original icons—there are a bunch—were moved to a museum in Moscow, but identical copies have been made in the extensive icon copying shop (!) within the complex and reinstalled in the original locations.

All in all, this was a very worthwhile stop in a very unusual place. The photography opportunities—both for artsy and documentary snaps—abounded. Barbara and I agreed that this is one destination truly worthy of the World Heritage Site designation. Fortunately, the babushka docents will no doubt not allow the press of tourists to do any damage.

Upon returning to the ship for lunch (not consisting of mushrooms and dried barley I can assure you), the ship weighed anchor and sailed for about 20 minutes as the two tenders chased us. I was only a little alarmed about going to sea without our two big lifeboats, but I suppose I was not nearly as alarmed as the helmsmen of the tenders when they saw Silver Cloud leaving them in its wake.

The transit between islands was to make another stop in the Archipelago, at the much smaller Zayatsky Island, a wildlife and archaeological site. The big attractions, besides the "lesser monastery" there, are the 300 preserved Neolithic stone labyrinth structures scattered throughout the island. The printed tour description for the "Mysteries of Zayatsky Island" excursion said that the local tour guide will explain that "science does not know" what purpose of the labyrinths, stone serpents, and larger stone structures served nor for whom. We chose to wait for the afternoon tour's participants to return to the ship this evening and enlighten us since most of our fellow passengers are not scientists and might know.

Sail later today for Archangel, our last stop on this trip in Russia, and then begin our long return over the top of Europe. We will be making two additional port calls along the way in prosperous Norway before arriving in Copenhagen for the flights back to real summer and dark nights.