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 Island
Five kilometers south-east off the Blagopoluchiye (Bountiful) Bay there are a group of islands called Zayatskye (Hare’s) Islands covered mainly by tundra plants.
In this group the Bolshoi Zayatsky Island stands aside, though its area is not more than 1.5 sq. km. Here a pagan sanctuary, the biggest in the Russian European North, is situated, making a complex of cult and sepulchral structures dating back to the II-I millennium BC. It comprises 13 labyrinths and about 900 boulder structures (mounds, barrows and symbolic boulder groups). It is here that the world’s biggest stone labyrinth is situated; its diameter is more than 25 metres.
The archeological digging of the barrows resulted in finding the remains of burials (traces of funeral fires, burnt bones, and household artifacts made of stone). The Zayatsky Islands could possibly have been a sacred place where cult rituals had been performed of the proto-saami, the aboriginal people of the White Sea shores.
Other places of interest on the Bolshoi Zayatsky Island are the Monastery buildings of the 16-19th centuries. At the times of Hegumen Filipp (Kolychev), in the middle of the 16th century, a new harbour was made of stone with a dry dock for ship repairs. A stone chamber was built at one time with it. In 1702 during the second visit of Peter the Great to Solovki, the Church of St. Andrey, the «first-called» apostle, was built. Its appearance is not common for the Russian North, it reminds the «posad» (trading quarter) churches of mid-Russian area - a low quadrangle of its structure is covered with four sloping roofs crowned with a small cupola. On its eastern side there is a five-corner altar attached to it, on the western side - a small refectory.
Officially the settlement on the Bolshoi Zayatsky Island did not belong to the Monastery hermitages, but it is here that the Archimandrite’s chamber was situated, as well as a «House for Visiting Officials», a hotel, a cellar, a kitchen, a stable and other smaller household buildings. In the 18th century a «quarantine outpost» of the Monastery was placed here to prevent the smuggling of wines.
During the times of the Solovetsky concentration camps, the Bolshoi Zayatsky Island served as a penalty isolator for women with very severe regulations.
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Monastery
