This will be a separate story about the history of the Holy Ascension Skete in the 1920s and early 1930s. True, now we will call this place Sekirka, as it was called in the first years of the Solovetsky power, because in the days of the ELEPHANT there was a male punishment cell.
For illustration purposes, I use most of the photos from the previous post - the skete with the upper and lower temples and the cell building and the boulder bath are the same. The staircase is new.
Many memories have been preserved about Sekirk. Alexander Klinger himself was in the isolation ward (both in the upper and in the lower one. Yes, there is an isolation ward everywhere). NI Kiselev-Gromov was the guard of the ELEPHANT and was on business trips to Sekirka. But they escaped from Solovki and from Soviet Russia and published their memoirs in the West. By thickening the colors, I suppose. There are stories about a male punishment cell and M.Z. Nikonov-Smorodin, DS Likhachev and of course in the "Gulag Archipelago" by AI Solzhenitsyn. The memories of the ELEPHANT period are analyzed in some detail by M.M. Rozanov, also an emigrant and a Solovetsky prisoner.
I think it would be correct to quote the stories about Sekirka, and at the end to summarize.
Solzhenitsyn, A.I. "The GULAG Archipelago. 1918-1956: Experience in artistic research. T. 2. " M.: Sov. writer: New world, 1990.:
"And from other Solovites he learns and is more terrible than his eyes see. They pronounce him the disastrous word - Sekirka. This means - Sekirnaya Gora. There are punishment cells in the two-story cathedral."
"Before me, somewhat in the distance, high mountain.
The road rises in a straight track on it; the forest parted to the right and left and formed a gigantic alley, reaching the very top of the mountain, and there, at the extreme point, at an airy height, as if hanging in the azure of an inaccessible sky, the Sekir Skete shines, ending in a light, unusually beautiful outline of the bell tower - all this so ghostly, it all seems to float in space: it seems that the wind will blow and at once take away this charming vision.
What is most striking is the unexpectedness of such artistic moments. You walk, not expecting anything, and suddenly such a picture will spread before you that at the first minute you will not realize where you are, what is wrong with you; Isn't it a mirage this majestic, airy silhouette of the monastery, hanging in the height of the blue sky? "
How can we not recall Maxim Gorky, who visited the punishment cell on Sekirka, but left only a description of nature and species: “ You can see the whole island especially well from Mount Sekirnaya - a huge layer of dense greenery, and bluish mirrors of small lakes are inserted into it; There are several hundred such mirrors, in their calmly frozen, transparent water trees are reflected with their tops down, and around the gray sea stretches and breathes. In its bleak desert, the earth has won a place for itself and is continuously doing its great work - producing "living things."
Excerpt from the book: Gorky, Maxim. "Volume 17. Stories, Essays, Memoirs 1924-1936." State Publishing House of Fiction, 1949.)
Lower punishment cell:
And this is the preserved peephole of the warden:
Description of the punishment cell:
A. Klinger. "Notes of the Escaped.":
« The 4th department of the camp is located on Sekirova Gora - "penalty". All prisoners "guilty" before the GPU get here for torture, and often death. Below I will give a detailed picture of the “penalty” section, well known to me and experienced personally. "
“Once there was a skete on Sekirova Mountain. The monks built a church, two houses and household services on the mountain. Now here is the "punishment cell".
The church on Sekirka is two-tiered. The so-called "strict isolation ward" is located in its upper floor, the lower one is reserved for "isolation ward No. 2". The church is connected by a covered gallery with the house (former cells), in which now live "guards on duty" (5 people), the commandant of the "isolation ward" and the office is located. To the north of the church and the apartments of the Sekirka authorities there is another house occupied by the company of the "Solovetsky Special Purpose Regiment" guarding Sekirka.
All buildings are the work of monks. Soviet "construction" is limited to only three sentry booths around the church, as if one could escape from a tightly closed church.
Each tier is divided into three sections: a common cell, a row of cells for single prisoners and special cells for privileged "sekirchan". The fact is that even in a "punishment cell" you can ease your situation for a bribe; there were even cases when speculators, sent from the Kremlin to the "punishment cell", settled for money in the rooms of warders. "
“Both tiers are completely unheated. All windows are covered with special shields. The cells are completely dark and icy cold. Upon arrival of a prisoner at Sekirka, all things, tobacco, bread are immediately taken away from him. Convicts in the "strict isolation ward" are stripped and pushed into the cell in the same underwear.
In the cells of both tiers there are no beds or any kind of bedding (if anyone brought a pillow or blanket with him, it is immediately taken away). People sleep in their underwear on the frosty stone floor of the church.
Nikolai Ignatievich Kiselev-Gromov. "Death camps in the USSR." Book publishing N.P. Malinovsky, 1936 .:
“A prisoner gets to Sekirka mainly for frequent failure to follow lessons, for attempts to escape, protest and other misconduct. Those who get there are greeted with forty-story swearing by specially selected warders “Aaaa! Arrived! Well, good, very good! ... Here we will teach you to eat proletarian bread! ... Here we will beat the Kaer nonsense out of you! ”Then the prisoner is stripped to his underwear. Many do not even have to undress: clothes, if they are government-owned, are removed from the prisoner when he is sent to Solovki.
About perches
In Solzhenitsyn we find: “There are punishment cells in the two-story cathedral. They keep them in a punishment cell like this: from wall to wall, hand-thick poles are reinforced and the punished prisoners are ordered to sit on these poles all day. (They lie on the floor at night, but on top of each other, overflowing.) The height of the pole is such that you can't reach the ground with your feet. It is not so easy to maintain balance, all day long the prisoner is struggling to keep himself, as it were. If he falls down, the guards jump up and beat him. Or: they lead outside to a staircase of 365 steep steps (from the cathedral to the lake, the monks built); they tie a person along its length to a balan (log) for gravity - and push them along (the steps are so steep that a log with a person does not linger on them, and on two small platforms too).»
Now there are 294 steps.
At Zaitsev:
« Right and left along the walls tall buildingand in the middle, on bare wooden planks, the prisoners of Sekirka sit tightly one to the other. They are all barefoot, almost half-naked, pale, some like skeletons; all dirty, with disheveled hair ... "
M.Z. Nikonov-Smorodina:
"- Here you are primarily struck by the dead silence. No talking is allowed. All sit on the benches completely motionless with their hands on their knees. Insects are darkness, but you cannot make a movement so that - not only scratch, but at least shake off my bend.
Complete immobility is required. The security officer on duty looks after order. The slightest movement, at least some stronger sigh, and the guilty person is put on his feet "at the brink", for more serious violations in the punishment cell "under the lighthouse." This lighthouse is placed under the dome of the cathedral, and under the lighthouse there is such a cold chamber, all in the cracks. Staying in it, - in winter, at least for a few hours, - a half-naked man in a sack robe almost always leads to pneumonia. "
« In extreme cold, some of the attendants allowed to form groups for warming up. Let me explain: four people, sitting on bunks, pressed their backs tightly to one another, and the outer parts were warmed by slapping their hands on them, often on command, like group gymnastics, and it worked out well ... And at night, most half-naked punks, without their belongings, made up "warming groups", that is, they slept in a heap of intertwined bodies. " (Or, as other chroniclers call it, “stacks”. M.R.)"(Excerpt from the book: Mikhail Mikhailovich Rozanov." Solovetsky concentration camp in a monastery. 1922-1939. Facts - speculations - "bugs". Review of the memoirs of Solovki residents. "Publisher of the author, 1979)
About penalty box clothes and food:
"In the lower tier, a "penalty ration" is issued; 1/2 pound of bread a day and once a day a millet broth (the millet from this "soup" is carefully fished out by the guards). Prisoners in the "strict isolation ward" (above) are doomed to slow hunger torture: they receive about half a pound of bread a day and a mug of hot water every other day. This is the whole ration. It should be emphasized that such a ration is carried out according to the bloody books of Sekirka; taking into account the general theft of the Solovetsky administration, in reality it is even smaller. In addition, it is in the power of every guard of the "Penal Detention Center" not to give anything out to any "malicious counter-revolutionary" at all.
What kind of results is provided by "food", it is evident at least from the fact that no one from the Sekirka administration dares to appear in the cells of the "strict isolation ward": prisoners dying of hunger are already [...]»
M.Z. Nikonov-Smorodina:
"- You know, I had to endure and endure a lot, but everything that was was nothing in comparison with the Sekirny prison. The whole big cathedral is occupied by him. The upper floor has the most severe regime, the lower one is easier. They even let them go to work from the lower floor. So, they let us go to you. As a matter of fact, I am already serving my sentence: the second month is running out. A newcomer sentenced to isolation is first stripped naked. Clothes are tied under the prisoner's personal number. Then, as the only clothing, a hoodie, sewn from a bag, is given and in this form is placed in an insulator.
Kiselev-Gromov:
« Naked prisoners must sit in a huge and cold room for 12 hours a day, sit on a bench in a row next to one another, stretching out their hands on their knees and silently looking in front of them. They dare not talk to each other, look around, or move. If the prisoner moves, scratches the body or drives a fly from his nose, the overseer who is constantly observing all the time silently approaches this prisoner, silently hits him on the back with the butt of a rifle and silently walks away. Those who do not have their own clothes sleep right on the bare cement floor, those who have them get one thing out of it for the night - a pea coat, a quilted jacket, a pillow, but one thing.
Everyone gets 300 grams of bread a day and hot water three times a week in which millet was boiled. If the prisoner does not violate such a regime within two weeks, he is sent to work and daily 400 grams of bread and hot food are given. If he completes his lesson at work, he is sent from Sekirka to a penalty trip. There, for a week, he has to do lessons on three hundred grams of bread and hot food, given twice a day. If he can, with such a diet, complete his lesson entirely, he is transferred to 1000 grams of bread. During work, the poleaxe is dressed in bags that the ELEPHANT gives him and which he himself adapts for dressing.
Not a single prisoner who ends up at Sekirka and from there on a penalty trip survives for more than two months. The pole-ax is also a place of execution. There, 125 prisoners were shot, writing letters with an appeal for help on the boards of timber exported abroad. There, prisoners are shot all the time, on whom the OGPU finds new accusatory material after they have already received a certain term of imprisonment. All prisoners trying to escape are shot at Sekirka. In the summer of 1929, 58 intellectuals were shot at Sekirka, allegedly for attempting to escape. In fact, they were shot because the OGPU found new accusatory material on them and, in absentia, when they were already in the SLON, sentenced them to death.
On the number of victims of the punishment cell:
N. Kiselev-Gromov:
... While working in the ISO, I was interested in the number of those executed on Sekirnaya Gora. According to ISO documents, 6,736 people were shot on Sekirnaya Gora in 1926-1929.»
« Four times as many people were shot in his Sekirka in four years than in the entire Soviet Union "according to official data, in six years from 1922 to 1927 - 1,500 people." To make both figures closer to the truth, the Kiselevskaya would have to be reduced five times, and the "official" one, from Menzhinsky, would have to be increased twenty to thirty times"(Excerpt from the book: Mikhail Mikhailovich Rozanov." The Solovetsky concentration camp in the monastery. 1922-1939. Facts - speculation - "bugs". Review of the memoirs of the Solovites by the Solovites. "Published by the author, 1979.)
For which they sent to Sekirka:
Klinger:
« The main percentage of prisoners at Sekirka are those who refuse to work. And since such a refusal is always caused by a painful condition, then both the upper and lower tier of the church are filled with clearly sick people.
The results are not long in coming. Every day on Sekirka, one of the prisoners dies of hunger or simply freezes in a cell. It is not for nothing that every autumn near Sekirka there are countless graves, prepared for the winter, when the death rate in the "punishment cell" is especially high (the graves are dug by prisoners).
Appointed to the lower tier for "disobeying the legal authorities", I was mistakenly sent to the "strict isolation ward", in which, before the case was clarified, I had been only 2 days, and then during this time I managed to get sick with acute pneumonia. What can a person, sent to a "strict isolation ward" for a month, expect? "
At Mikhail Mikhailovich Rozanov. “Solovetsky concentration camp in the monastery. 1922-1939. Facts - conjectures - "bugs". Review of the memoirs of the Solovki people. " Ed. the author, 1979. there are a couple of such verses from the Solovetsky camp songs:
«
and the eighth verst is Sekir-mountain,
And under the mountain there are dead bodies.
The wind walks there alone,
My own mother does not know
Where the son is buried (or shot) lies. "
“Mosquitoes are good in spring,
The view from the Sekirnaya Mountain is wonderful,
Where from any percussion (or: unnecessary) work
Cheerful people are resting "
Gorky on Sekirka.
In the memoirs of Maxim Gorky about his stay on Sekirnaya Gora, there is no story about his visit to the punishment cell. But Likhachev and Solzhenitsyn have about this event:
"GULAG Archipelago":
“Surrounded by the commanding staff of the GPU, Gorky walked with quick long strides along the corridors of several hostels. All the doors of the rooms were open, but he hardly entered them. In the medical unit he was lined up in two lines in fresh coats of doctors and nurses, he did not even look, left. Then the security officers of the USLON fearlessly took him to Sekirka. And what then? - there was no overcrowding in the punishment cells and, most importantly, there were no perches! Thieves were sitting on the benches (there were already a lot of them in Solovki) and everyone ... read the newspapers! None of them dared to stand up and complain, but they came up with: keep the newspapers upside down! And Gorky went up to one and silently wrapped the newspaper as it should. I noticed! I guessed it! So it will not leave! Protect "
D.S. Likhachev:
“Then Gorky was at Sekirka. There the punishment cell was transformed: the perches were taken out, a table was put in the middle and newspapers were put. The prisoners who remained in the punishment cell (those who had a more or less healthy appearance) were put to read. Gorky went up to the punishment cell and, going up to one of the "reading", turned over the newspaper (he demonstratively held it "upside down"). After that, Gorky quickly left. " (Excerpt from the book: Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev. "Memories." Logos, 1995.).
Again, everything said above is not supported by documents. Everything is at the level of rumors, agitation about bloody security officers and hearsay retellings. I have not yet found figures for the victims of Sekirka. The figure of Kiselev-Gromov is 6,736 people, with a link to some data ISO ELEPHANT was not confirmed. Quite possibly I was looking badly.
But it is absolutely certain that the punishment cell on Sekirnaya Gora has existed since the winter of 1923, and in the summer of the 29th there was Maxim Gorky.
And here's another thing. Halfway up the ascent to the skete there is a turn to the left and there is a worship cross.
On many islands of the Solovetsky archipelago, there are hills of various heights. Sekirnaya mountain - the highest mountain on Bolshoy Solovetsky Island, its height is about 80 meters. Sekirnaya Mount was named so in memory of the angels who whipped the fisherman's wife. According to legend, in ancient times, when the Monks Savvaty and Herman lived on the island, fishermen with their families lived at the foot of the mountain in summer.
The fishermen insulted the monks in every possible way and wanted to expel them from the Solovetsky Island. But a miracle happened - angels appeared in the form of young men, they whipped the fisherman's wife with rods and drove her from the mountain, saying that the island was intended for monks. After this incident, the fishermen left the island and began to treat the monks with respect.
In the 19th century, a large stone was erected at the foot of the Sekirnaya Hill with an inscription telling about this story. The Holy Ascension Monastery Skete was built on the mountain. The center of the skete was a stone church, the construction of which was completed in 1862. The temple was consecrated in honor of the Ascension of the Lord. In the upper tier of the church there is a bell tower, on the south side a small gallery connects the church with a wooden fraternal building, in which the internal layout and furnaces have been partially preserved.
The Svyato-Voznesensky skete on Sekirnaya Gora was fully equipped and inhabited, there were outbuildings next to the brother's cell building. A boulder bath on the mountainside and a well have survived to this day. Stone paths were laid on the slopes of the mountain, stairs were built, and vegetable gardens were cultivated.
The ascent to Sekirnaya Gora goes along a smoothly curving road, and on the western side there is a steep staircase. Climbing the mountain along the road, we see a temple gradually growing in front of us on the top of the mountain. Nearby, in the fraternal building, there is a woodworking workshop. There are wooden blanks, tools, carved frames and ready-made openwork flowers made of wood, it smells delicious with fresh shavings.
A lighthouse was erected over the bell tower of the Holy Ascension Church in 1862, the light of which helped all sailors, this is the only lighthouse church in Russia. The upper temple of the Ascension of the Lord is summer, unheated, so its walls were not painted. The lower temple was consecrated in memory of the miracle of the Archangel Michael in Khonekh, its paintings were restored in 2005-2006.
During the period of the Solovetsky special purpose camp, there was a punishment cell on Sekirnaya Gora, and mass executions of prisoners were carried out at the foot of the mountain. Sekirnaya Mountain became one of the scary places on Solovki, where people experienced immense suffering and accepted death. At the foot of the mountain, a Poklonnaya cross was erected in memory of the victims.
There is an observation deck in front of the temple, which offers a stunning view of the northwestern part of Bolshoi Solovetsky Island. The panorama of forests and lakes is mesmerizing. We descend from Sekirnaya Gora along a steep high wooden staircase of 294 steps, which has also been recently restored.
Maybe I am doing it wrong, but I almost never study in detail the history of the places I plan to visit in advance. I love to discover something new right there, wondering, admiring or flinching at stories, facts and legends. I like to leaf through the guidebook bought in the shop, not only recognizing what has already been seen in the photos, but also choosing new routes. Solovki in this respect is a real treasure. Here nature, history and human destinies are so closely intertwined that, going after one, you unexpectedly find another
"And what is there on Mount Sekirnaya?" we asked. "The Holy Ascension skete and the lighthouse church," they answered us. Well, the lighthouse is good. We reserved a Gazelle with Samara license plates and drove off. Of course, there was a thought to save money and take a walk on foot, but a dozen kilometers in one direction would tire us more than we could expect. Roads in Solovki are like roads in Saratov region, so it was not possible to ride a car with a breeze.
By the way, renting transport is not difficult at all - drivers' phones can be found in the village in almost all places where tourists gather. There is also a bike rental
Sekirnaya Mountain is one of the most high points Bolshoi Solovetsky Island (74 meters), and its name comes from the wife of a Karelian fisherman who once wanted to settle in these places. According to legend, the poor woman got it well: two "light-faced angels" carved her at the foot of the mountain. At the same time, she was told that this place was intended for the residence of monks and that “a dwelling of the monastic rank would be arranged here and many monks would gather in the name of God”. After that, the mountain was uninhabited for a long time, and a hermitage was founded on it only in the 19th century. Well, by the road there is now a stone slab with a text carved on it, telling about that long-standing event
By the way, the pump is not the only sign of modernity in these places. In front of the wooden cell building, we saw ... solar panels!
And at the very top of the mountain, at the head of the Church of the Ascension of the Lord, there is a real lighthouse 
The structure is in working order and its light is visible from a distance of up to 60 kilometers 
Co observation deck mountains the northern part of the island is clearly visible. This is where you think about why people are not given wings 
A very steep staircase of several hundred steps leads down from the mountain. In general, it is better to go up and not down, because it was believed that going up this ladder removes one sin from the soul for each step.
According to the sign installed here, the staircase is a monument of history and culture and was restored at the expense of the Directorate for cultural heritage Norway 
Going downstairs, you find yourself near the worship cross. It was installed in honor of the Solovetsky new martyrs.
Nearby there is another cross (red) in honor of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Solovetsky.
After all, Sekirnaya Mountain is also a place of commemoration
During the time of the Solovetsky special purpose camp (SLON, 1923-1937), which became the beginning of the GULAG, a punishment cell was set up in the Svyato-Voznesensky skete with a harsh prison regime. They were sent here for attempting to escape, refusing to work, performing religious rituals, violating the camp regime and other offenses. The inmates of the punishment cell were subjected to the most sophisticated tortures, and here the executions of prisoners were carried out according to the sentences of the Information and Investigation Department of the camp. The red cross is placed just at the beginning of the path that leads to the place of mass executions 
The first burials were discovered only in the middle of the two thousandth, then the Solovetsky Museum-Reserve organized an expedition, during whichone of the grave pits on the southwestern slope of Sekirnaya Gora was opened and examined. The remains of 26 people who had been shot were found in it. The inhabitants of the Ascension Skete served a panikhida for the slain servants of God, then the remains were buried 
Judging by the fenced pits, burials continue to be found and explored
Many buildings of the village, which you walk past every day, remind of these difficult pages of the history of Solovki. Here is a shop in a barrack from the USLON era, as the sign says. In another building, which was the barrack of the children's colony of the camp, where you could get from the age of 12, people now live 
In one of the historical barracks there is also an exposition "The history of the Solovetsky camps and prisons (1920-1939)". It contains not only the documents and belongings of the prisoners, including the unusually competently composed and almost calligraphic letters that shocked me. On the walls are the memories of prisoners, set out in a completely everyday way and therefore even more terrible. And also newsreels in non-stop mode. Obviously staged shooting about the educational and corrective benefits of labor. And a map of the USSR with camps marked on it, where Solovki is just a small dot, one of the islands of a large archipelago. But at the same time the main one, because the beginning was right here.
History
Sekirnaya Gora, one of the highest on the Solovetsky Islands, is located 11 kilometers from the monastery. Its name is associated with a miracle that happened here, according to legend, during the time of the Monks Savvaty and Herman. At the foot of the mountain, two "light-faced angels" whipped the wife of a Karelian fisherman who was going to settle on the island. At the same time, she was told that this place was intended for the residence of monks and that “a dwelling of a monastic rank would be arranged here and many monks would gather in the name of God” (a stone slab with a text carved on it telling about this event is located by the road on the side of a mountain) ...
For a long time the mountain was uninhabited, only in the troubled times of the 17th-18th centuries, when external enemies constantly threatened Pomorie, a guard post was set up here to watch the sea.
The skete on the mountain was founded in the 19th century. In 1860-1862, under the abbot of the monastery, Archimandrite Porfiry, a stone three-tiered one-domed church was erected here according to the project of the Arkhangelsk provincial architect Shahlarev, who worked a lot for the Solovetsky monastery. On the first tier of the temple there is a throne in honor of the miracle of the Archangel Michael in Khonekh, on the second - in honor of the Ascension of the Lord. On the third tier there was a bell tower with four bells.
An interesting feature of this temple is that there is a lighthouse on the crown of the temple. From August 15 to November 15, it was gently lit by the monks of the hermitage at night, showing the way to fishermen and sailors, who could see the lighthouse almost 100 miles away. The lighthouse is still in operation.
On the west side, the church is adjoined by a wooden two-story building for the residence of a small number of brothers and visiting guests. A boulder bath, a stable were built on the slope of the mountain, a well was dug, berry bushes were planted, and vegetable gardens were laid out. Under the mountain, in the very place where the angels whipped the "fisherman's wife", a stone chapel was built in honor of the miracle of the Archangel Michael in Khonekh. During the Soviet era, the chapel was destroyed.
In 1861, the skete received official status with its own charter. IN summer time up to six brethren lived here, for the winter two or three people remained who led the life of hermits.
In the summer, the skete was one of the favorite places for pilgrims. They came here to visit the place of a miracle that happened many centuries ago, to admire the unforgettable views of the island, which open from the observation deck of the mountain.
VI Nemirovich-Danchenko, who visited here, wrote: “The entire Solovetsky Island stretched far below with its forests, lakes, meadows, churches, hermitages, chapels and mountains. What gentle play of colors, what soft curves of lines. Here is dark green pine forest, there is an emerald expanse of floodplain meadows and everywhere there are silver shields of graceful lakes ... The Solovetsky Islands are a crown, and Sekirnaya and Golgotha \u200b\u200bare the adamants of this crown, - the monks told me about these areas. "
From here you can clearly see the Pine Bay, to the shore of which the Monks Savvaty and Herman landed in 1429. In 1627, in this lip, on a large pine tree, appeared miraculous icon Mother of God with Child. The icon was transferred to the monastery and installed in the Transfiguration Cathedral on the right pillar, and a chapel in honor of the Korsun Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos was built on the site of the icon's appearance. Until now, a worship cross, installed in 1812, has been preserved in Pine Bay.
In subsequent times, the skete was run by the military; the lighthouse keepers lived here.
At the time of the ELEPHANT, a punishment cell was set up in the Voznesensky skete, where prisoners endured painful torture and punishment. At the foot of the mountain, single and mass executions were carried out.
Modernity
On June 4, 1992, on the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, for the first time after a long break, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated at the Ascension Skete on Sekirnaya Hill.
And on August 20, at the foot of Mount Sekirnaya, where the punishment cell was located during the camp, a seven-meter worship cross was erected in honor of the Solovetsky new martyrs. His Holiness the Patriarch blessed the installation of the cross and directly supervised its erection.
In August 1993, the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve handed over to the monastery objects that had previously belonged to the Solovetsky Monastery, among which was the 19th century icon of the Miracle of the Archangel Michael in Khonekh, which is now in the temple of the Ascension Skete of the same name on Mount Sekirnaya.
On October 19, 2003, another worship cross was erected near the road at the entrance to Mount Sekirnaya.
On July 20, 2006, a search expedition organized by the Solovetsky Museum-Reserve uncovered and examined one of the grave pits on the southwestern slope of Sekirnaya Gora, where a punishment cell was located during the time of the Elephant. The remains of 26 shot were found in it - another evidence of a terrible page in Solovetsky history. The inhabitants of the Ascension Skete served a requiem for the slain servants of God, then the remains were buried. A cross was installed on the grave. By the decree of His Holiness the Patriarch, in 2003, monastic life was resumed in the Holy Ascension Skete on Sekirnaya Gora. Hieromonk Matthew (Romanchuk) was appointed head of the skete.
On November 21, 2007, on the feast of the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael and other disembodied Heavenly Forces, a chapel in honor of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia was consecrated on Mount Sekirnaya. The interior of the chapel is very simple - only an icon of the Cathedral of the New Martyrs of Russia and a cypress cross carved by one of the inhabitants of the skete.
On August 21, 2008, on the day of the feast of the transfer of the relics of the Monks Zosima, Savvaty and Herman, a six-meter worship cross (red) was erected on Sekirnaya Hill in honor of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Solovetsky. It is located at the beginning of the trail that leads to the place of mass executions of camp prisoners. It was consecrated by the acting abbot of the monastery, Archimandrite Methodius. After the erection of the cross, the funeral lithium was served.
In 2005, the restoration of the Holy Ascension Church began, the murals of the chapel in honor of the Miracle of the Archangel Michael in Khonekh were restored, and the restoration of the cell building began.
From 20 to 22 August 2009, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia paid a pastoral visit to Solovki. On this trip he was accompanied by six bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church and many guests of honor. Among them is the governor of the Arkhangelsk region I.F. Mikhalchuk, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Religious Organizations S.A. Popov, the widow of the writer A.I. Solzhenitsina N.D. Solzhenitsyn.
On the eve of the feast of the transfer of the relics of the monks Zosima, Savvaty and German, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church presided over the all-night vigil, and on the feast itself, the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. Divine services were held at the Transfiguration Cathedral. During the Liturgy, two ordinations were performed for the inhabitants of the monastery.
In the afternoon of August 21, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill visited the churches of the monastery and the expositions dedicated to the prisoners of the ELEPHANT, among whom was his grandfather, Priest Vasily Stepanovich Gundyaev. His Holiness the Patriarch visited one of the places of his confinement - on Sekirnaya Gora, where he prayed in the church of the Ascension Skete.
Holidays of the Holy Ascension Skete
Ascension of the Lord. In honor of the Ascension of the Lord, a throne was consecrated in the upper tier of the temple on Sekirnaya Gora.
On the day of the holiday, the Divine Liturgy is celebrated. The service ends with a fraternal funeral service.
September 6/19 - Remembrance of the Miracle of the Archangel Michael, who was in Khony. The chapel in honor of the miracle of the Archangel Michael in Khonekh is located in the lower tier of the church on Sekirnaya Gora.
Church services are held regularly .
Tatyana Petrovna dreamed of Solovki for a long time.
So she wanted to come here, to the north, to the White Sea, she wanted to see the Solovetsky Monastery, to attend the liturgy, to breathe this air and walk along this bitter and holy land at the end of the world.
She decided to go to Solovki by motor ship, albeit more expensive than by train to Kem and then by ferry to the archipelago, but on waterway there will be lakes - Ladoga, Onega, huge as the sea, Rybinsk reservoir, there will be canals and especially the White Sea-Baltic Canal, also known as the White Sea Canal ... but what can I say, as in the famous song - "after all, steamships are not at all like trains" ...
The building of Moscow's Northern River Station, which looked like a large, white ship, remained farther and farther, cheerful music was broadcast on the radio, and cats scratched at Tatyana Petrovna's soul, she was sad and uneasy - how was Yurochka, her husband, after all, only two weeks had passed, how he was discharged from the hospital. The heart attack was small, small-focal, as the doctors said, and, thank God, everything worked out, but they were going to go to Solovki together and they bought tickets in advance, cheaper, and that's how it happened.
When, after a week of resuscitation, her husband was transferred to the department, Tatyana Petrovna calmed down a little, but realized that she would go to Solovki alone - the ship would go through huge bodies of water, past the forest shores, where for hundreds of kilometers there is no one, not a soul, and even cellular does not work, so she cannot risk her husband's health. And he, having learned her opinion, agreed.
Tatyana Petrovna offered a second voucher to her old school friend Lyubochka, and she seemed to promise to go, but at the last moment she refused, and her daughter and granddaughter also refused.
"The granddaughter is understandable, she has final exams at school, her daughter needs to look after her and her father, but Lyubasha could go, she could," Tatyana Petrovna sighed sadly from the fact that she had quarreled and did not make peace with her beloved friend before leaving, from the fact that she did not have time to go to church and light candles to Nikolai Ugodnik, the patron saint of all wandering and traveling, did not submit a note, did not pray at the liturgy ... but most importantly, she left her husband after a heart attack.
Her heart ached heavily, her heart sank, Tatyana Petrovna took out validol from her purse, put it under her tongue, stood, trying to breathe as her pretty doctor from the district clinic taught her, and, having calmed down a bit, went to the stern, where the wind was less, and where usually, loyal to the ship , seagulls fly, see off and fly.
And now behind the Moscow Canal, Volgo-Baltic Canal, Ladozhskoe, Onega lake, rivers, reservoirs and sluices, sluices, sluices, some of which were raised by a few meters, sometimes by seventeen, others were lowered into a dark, concrete abyss, the harsh White Sea Canal was left behind.
Before our eyes, the deciduous forests on the coast changed to coniferous, expressive glacial boulders, huge stones and "dancing" thin, stunted Karelian birches appeared, it got colder.
White nights came, so seemingly familiar from books, films, and so really unexpected - it was light as day, it was at one, and at three, and at five in the morning ... that is, the night was gone.
Finally, the coast of the island appeared and the well-known outlines of the Solovetsky Monastery, unique in their clear and austere beauty.
On the first day there was a detailed excursion around the monastery, picturesquely located between the Holy Lake and the Bay of Prosperity, and on the second day, on an early Sunday morning, Tatyana Petrovna went to the liturgy in the church, which ended with a procession of the Cross around the high, massive monastery walls, built of huge stones - boulders, the size of which reached five meters.
After resting a little, in the afternoon, Tatyana Petrovna went to the Sekirnaya Hill of the Holy Ascension Skete.
The bus, where Tatyana Petrovna and about twenty other tourists sat down, was small and old, it took about half an hour to go along a forest road.
The young driver was driving fast, there was no way to look through the windows, the shaking was so strong.
Tatyana Petrovna held on to the seat with both hands, however, she jumped up on bumps and bumps so that it seemed to her that now some vertebra would certainly jump out, breaking ligaments.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped off the bus.
In front of her, on a high mountain overgrown with coniferous forest, stood a white, stone temple, visible from everywhere.
The Holy Ascension Church is crowned by a tower with a large Cross on the roof, the highest lighthouse on the White Sea is installed in the tower, its light is visible from a distance of up to sixty kilometers, - Tatyana Petrovna heard the voice of a young guide, - the light coming from the Cross and showing wanderers the right way to Solovetsky monastery, acquired a special, symbolic meaning for them.
The tourists headed up the wide, unpaved, circular road, laid along the slope of Sekirnaya Mountain and leading to the top where the temple stood.
Tatyana Petrovna began to lag behind the group, probably, fatigue affected, nevertheless in the morning she defended the entire Sunday service and then went through the procession with the clergy and numerous parishioners.
She walked slowly, stopped, looked around, looked at the overgrown bushes of juniper, blueberry, lingonberry bushes blooming with delicate, tiny, pink inflorescences, moss between pines and spruce, occasionally there were fragile birches and aspens with greenish-gray trunks, and none, no flowers.
She went out onto the platform where a tall, wooden Cross was installed.
Tourists stood, surrounding the guide:
On the north-western slope of the mountain on August 21, 1992, the monastery erected the Poklonniy Cross in honor of the New Martyrs of Solovetsky, consecrated by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, - the guide said. - At the time of the concentration camp, the IV department of the Elephant was located here - the Solovetsky special purpose camp - a punishment cell. In the 30s, there was a proverb: "All Russia is afraid of Solovki, and all Solovki are afraid of the Sekirnaya Mountain." They were sent here not to serve a sentence, but to die, and the methods were the most sophisticated.
The group turned to the right along a winding forest road to the top, to the temple, and on the left Tatyana Petrovna saw old, wooden steps descending somewhere.
"Why didn't you come here? Where are those steps leading?"
She came up, looked down, took a step, and began to carefully descend the wobbly steps, which were not so many.
Sunlight did not penetrate well here in the lowlands.
Pines, spruce, dark moss and deaf, almost absolute silence, and low wooden crosses, around which are oval, flowing depressions.
Tatyana Petrovna approached.
A plywood plaque was attached to each cross with the inscription:
"Nine people are buried here", "Five people are buried here", "One person is buried here" ...
“So that's why these depressions formed - the graves sank,” Tatyana Petrovna thought bitterly.
At the top of the mountain, she caught up with her group, the tourists left the Holy Ascension Church and stopped next to a wooden staircase steeply descending from the mountain.
Sekirnaya Gora, Svyato-Voznesensky Skete, - explained the guide, - at the top of the mountain there is a lighthouse temple. The temple is two-storied. On the first floor - in honor of the Miracle of the Archangel Michael in Khonekh. On the second floor - the Ascension of the Lord.
During the camp, a punishment cell for men was located here. They could not stand it for a long time - such inhuman, sophisticated torture and abuse were practiced. People were kicked out into the cold in the cold, in the summer they were exposed to mosquitoes and much more, which is even scary to talk about.
A staircase of three hundred steps leads to Sekirnaya Hill.
In the old days, pilgrims tried to climb these stairs without fail, believing that as many steps as you go, so many sins will be removed.
In the concentration camp, the staircase was invented, it was used as a method of a terrible execution - a person was tied to a log and thrown down.
We will go down, be careful.
- And you, - the guide turned to Tatyana Petrovna, - do not lag behind.
- I'll just go to the temple.
She looked at an incredibly steep and long wooden staircase with narrow steps and fragile railings, somewhere below a woman's figure flashed and disappeared.
"So I will be alone on the stairs," thought Tatyana Petrovna.
She descended carefully, holding onto the railing with both hands and putting her feet not across, but along the steps - as if she were skiing down the mountain.
"One, two, three ... seventy ... one hundred and nine ... one hundred and fifteen ..." - she didn't count anymore, she couldn't, she felt dizzy, it was scary to look up and down.
"They said that every step is a forgiven sin, what nonsense, if it were so ... if everything were so simple," she felt nausea and growing dizziness.
"Lord, just not to fall, probably the pressure. I can't take the pill - I have to take my hands off the railing, open the bag ... I can't."
She stood in the middle of the impossibly steep stairs, stood with her eyes closed and swaying slightly, her hands firmly holding onto the railing.
"I won't fall ... at home Yurochka after a heart attack ... he needs me so badly ... why did I be rude to Lyubasha ... the mountain won't let me go ... and didn't go to church before leaving ... how could I ... "
Her hands firmly grabbed the railing, it was difficult to breathe, nausea, weakness in the legs, in the whole body ... in the whole body ... and suddenly from somewhere breathed a bird cherry.
"It can't be, it's mid-June now, in early May our bird cherry has faded, although it's north here," she thought, with difficulty opening her eyes, and through her eyelashes she suddenly saw a thin tree of bird cherry with white, fragrant inflorescences near the stairs, which had just blossomed ...
Her hand involuntarily let go of the ladder and reached for the bird cherry:
"One small twig ... I'll pin it like a brooch."
And it became, it became so light and spacious, so free and joyful, she flew, flew, leaving clouds, rainbows, rains and snowfalls, autumn leaves, the first frost, and young Yurochka, smiling, walked towards.
She woke up on the site, on the slope of Sekirnaya Mountain, on one side of which a staircase of three hundred steps ended, and on the other began a gentle, wide, unpaved descent. In front of her stood a tall, wooden Bow Cross - not the one she saw when she was ascending not far from the graves, but completely different, at the base of which, on a pile of stones, stood the icon of Nicholas the Wonderworker.
“Let go,” Tatyana Petrovna breathed out and looked at the mountain.
She quickly went down the sloping slope and found herself on the carriageway - no one, you could go in any direction, but she, without hesitation, went to the right.
Near the bus, talking animatedly, tourists were standing, seeing her, they calmly, without asking about anything, as if she had not been there for two or three minutes, got on the bus.
Tatyana Petrovna took the same place, the bus moved off, and suddenly she felt that she had sat down on some object, got up, looked.
On the seat was a branch of blooming bird cherry.
