Solovetsky Islands
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How it came to be
The Solovetsky Islands, six islands in the western White Sea 290 km from Arkhangelsk, show traces of people from the 5th millennium BC and have been inhabited since the 5th century BC. In the 15th century the monks Herman and Savvatiy from the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery settled here, and Zosima founded the monastery and became its first abbot.
In 1584-1594 the architect Trifon built a wall of island boulders 8 to 11 metres high, with 7 gates and 8 towers. In the 17th century about 350 monks and 600 to 700 workers lived here, and in the 1660s the monastery owned 54 saltworks. In 1668-1676 it rose against Patriarch Nikon's church reforms.
After the Russian Revolution the Soviet state closed the monastery, and from the 1920s to 1939 the islands held a prison camp, Solovki, a prototype for the Gulag. Monastic life returned in the 1990s, and the islands were inscribed in 1992.
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