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The Solovetsky State History, Architecture and Nature Preserve Museum

It is the first museum of this sort in Russia; its concept envisaged the creation of the whole complex of thematically arranged expositions, local open-air museums, and special ecological routes on the Archipelago. The Museum collections list has about 56 thousand entries, some objects belong to the pre-historic island culture dating back to the III-I millennium B.C., some reflect the history of the Solovetsky Monastery and its domains. Under the Museum’s authority there are about 800 archeological monuments, as well as 189 monuments of history and architecture.

The Spaso-Preobrazhensky (Transfiguration) Monastery and its numerous hermitages are situated on the islands of the Solovetsky Archipelago in the White Sea. The first monks to inhabit this place were the Reverend Gherman and Savvaty, who came here in 1429. Their cause was continued by the Reverend Zosima who was the first to settle in the place of the monastery to be. The Solovki Cloister soon became the centre of missionary work and the stronghold of the Russian Orthodox Church in the northern lands, as well as the stronghold of the Russian State being a mighty fortress in the way of Swedish, Finnish and other foreign conquerors.