Excursion to the Holy Trinity Monastery in the village of Boldino, Dorogobuzhsky district, Smolensk region
Description:
The Boldin Monastery was founded in 1530 by the Monk Gerasim Boldinsky. By the end of the century it was a major center of cultural and spiritual life. The heyday came in the late 16th and early 17th centuries before the Polish War. At the same time, stone construction was widely developed. The monastery is called Boldinsky, because from the east the monastery is surrounded by a small forest, in past centuries it grew oaks, in Slavonic "bolds", from which the place was so named. According to legend, the Monk Gerasim, who led a hermit’s way of life, liked this place and stayed here overnight, finding a large oak tree in the hollow of which he could fit. I just stayed here. A few years later, when the locals learned about him, they began to come to him for advice, and some asked to leave them here to study wisdom. Having cut down a small wooden church Gerasim and founded a monastery, which became a place of special worship of local residents. It was decided to expand the monastery and replace wooden buildings with stone ones. In order to receive funds for construction, Gerasim walked to Moscow. The distance to Moscow is 350 km. The Emperor received Gerasim and awarded him certificates of protection and funds necessary for construction. Since then, the monastery has experienced both prosperity and decline. During the Polish war, the monastery was empty, after some time its buildings were transferred to the Smolensk Jesuit College. After the return of the lands in 1654, the monastery was revived, but it was never so rich. During the Napoleonic War, the monastery was again closed and turned into a prison for Russian soldiers.
During the Great Patriotic War, the monastery was blown up. After the war, the monastery came to complete desolation, the locals even began to dismantle it into bricks. And only 1964 architect P.D. Baranovsky took up the restoration of the monastery. He died in 1984, having restored only the refectory, but his pupil A.M. Ponomarev continued his work.
Now the monastery is completely restored from the ruins and is available to visit.