valaam is an island in the northern part of europe's largest lake, the ladoga lake, in russia's province karelia, north of st. petersburg. it is crowded with religious buildings.
how to get there? if coming from st. petersburg, one can use trains or buses, plus a ship trip. however, i had decided to visit valaam when i was i finland, including joensu. i then used a special offer, which was a bus from joensu to sortavala, which crossed the finnish-russian border, and then a russian passenger ship from sortavala to valaam.
a big ship, like these her coming to valaam? no. a hydrofoil (common in russia)? no. a very ordinary small passenger boat? yes. and it landed at the slim pier near the monastery.
the map below shows the location of all the religious places, including the "cathedral of transfiguration"
historians do not agree about the "birthday" of the valaam monastery, but the most likely date is 1390, steered by the archiepiscoptate of novgorod in russia. however, the island soon got under swedish control, of which finland was a dominion. the swedish-russian wars were also religious ones: lutheran-versus-orthodox.
in 1809, after the 'finnish war", finland became a grand duchy of the russian empire. thus valaam became defacto russian, until 1917.
1919 finland eventually became an independent republic, and its area included western karelia, and thereby valaam. yet after ww-2, finland lost large areas to the soviet union, including west-karelia and valaam.
valaam was several times abandoned, e.g., 1611-1715, yet from 1760 onwards many of its churches were rebuilt. in 1941 it became a soviet military basis.
since 1989 the russian orthodox church has fully taken over the valaam monastey, and patriarch alexy-2 of moscow takes care. even putin visited! meanwhile all buildings have been thoroughly repaired.
the pic below of a high priest includes images of churches on valaam.
this is the - by far - largest and most important institution on valaam, and it needs considerable time to see it all. (i need to mention that photography is restricted, and more or less forbidden inside, so i was careful, and never used flash. some pic's are scanned from a book which i bought there).
this is the best overall view i could capture. the deatails follow, including the many towers.
above are images of christ. three apostles are also presented, in very impressive mosaic style.
images covering christian motives are about everywhere.
the central part of the cathedral is highly elaborated and almost overwhelming.
one special feature is the choir singing - done with incredible intensity. it is based on the history of orthox chants.
this compact building is mostly made with bricks. "skete" is a russian label for small yet fully-fledged religious facilities.
the inside, especially the wall behind the altar, is highly decorated and contains many high-class paintings of religious life.
this beautiful skete is wooden building, designed in a coherent and impressive style.
here are two mini-chapels.
rather not "mini" is the gorgeous nikolsky skete, which sits on a little island, and is very visible for arriving or leaving ships.
even the small commercial harbour has a little chapel.
at the end of this gallery about a so remote and hard-to-reach yet so unique island are three landscape views - - two photographies and one painting by a local artist.
