TRP Solovky ENPRO

The Solovetsky Islands, located in the Onega Bay of the White Sea, 160 kilometres from the Arctic Circle, have been the setting of the famous Russian Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery complex. It was the greatest citadel of Christianity in the Russian North before being turned into a special Soviet prison and labor camp (1921–1939), which served as a prototype for the GULAG system. Then the buildings were transformed into a naval base.

The Orthodox Church reestablished the monastery in 1992, the year when the ensemble was included into UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

The Solovetsky Islands are now a place of memory and of prayer, they could become a fashionable tourist resort rather than a centre renowned for its profound spiritual dimension.