Bolshoi Solovetsky, Russia

A Celebration of the Russian Autumn of Life


Babylon by Solovetsky
Stone spiral that emulates the many, from Neolithic times, that survive on the neighboring island of Bolshoi Zayatski.
Solovki Chapels
Two small chapels precede Solovki's huge temple.
soviet houses
Colorful houses scattered around the Orthodox monastery of Solovki.
In Memory of Solovki's Victims
Orthodox cross erected on top of Sekirnaya hill.
Multipurpose clothesline
An unusual corner of the open home of Solovetsky Island.
Outhouses
Cats are waiting for an opportunity to return to the comfort of home.
Poises Outside II
Long message illustrates the events that took place in Bolshoi Solovetsky, during the Soviet era and Gulag.
A Historic Slab
Long message illustrates the events that took place in Bolshoi Solovetsky, during the Soviet era and Gulag.
Autumn of Taiga
Shades of fire color the boreal forest of Solovetsky Island.
Autumn Shades
Autumn leaves begin to fill Solovetsky's boreal soil.
Dinner with Andrey and Alexeys
Andrey Ignatiev, Alexey Sidnev and Alexey Kravchenko during a dinner hosted by the first two.
White sea in dark tone
Winter sky darkens the vast White Sea
Dima's recital
Dima plays sarangi under the eyes of his friend Yaroslav.
Autumnal Solovki
Pre-winter tones adorn Solovki monastery.
farewell to the sun
Visitors to Solovetsky praise an unexpected appearance of the sun.
House to double
Solovetsky's grand mansion reflected in the smoothness of the White Sea.
UAZ on the Autumn Route
Solovki's reflex
Solovki Orthodox monastery reflected in an arm of the White Sea.
little vodka
A reinforcement at Dima's table, among condensed milk, butter, bread, vegetables and other snacks
Church of the Ascension
The Orthodox temple erected on a height where prisoners from the first Gulag camp were once murdered.
At the edge of the Arctic Ocean, in mid-September, the boreal foliage glows golden. Welcomed by generous cicerones, we praise the new human times of Bolshoi Solovetsky, famous for having hosted the first of the Soviet Gulag prison camps.

In the morning, we had spent most of it on the neighboring island of Bolshoi Zayatski, among “babylons”, mystical spirals believed to have been bequeathed by Neolithic inhabitants.

Returned to Bolshoi Solovetsky, we found them again.

We were walking towards the White Sea when we crossed as a young Dima, coming from somewhere else, pedaling on his bicycle.

Dima and our Russian guide, Alexey Kravchenko, exchange a few words. Dima dismounts from the tricycle. The walk passes to four.

A few minutes later, we come to the west of the sea, smooth as a lake, darkened and pressed by a vast, dense roof of clouds. A new and unexpected “babylon” preceded it, emulated from those of the central nucleus of Zayatski.

Solovetsky Islands, Archipelago, Russia, Babylon

The “Babylons” and Solovetsky's Phenomenal Sunset

The four of us examined her. We take the trouble to traverse it, from the edge to the core, in that case, like a mound. The moment we touch it, like a cosmic miracle, a golden light sprouts from just above the horizon.

Before long, the sun occupies an entire grazing strip that the clouds had forgotten to cover.

Its reflection forms an oblique marine ray, a kind of natural indicator that, for some intriguing reason, points us and the “babylon”.

Solovetsky, Islands, Archipelago, Russia, Autumn, farewell to the Sun

We admire the phenomenon in a communion of amazement and friendship, intensified by the presence of Dima, owner of an aura and an intimacy of treatment, rare among Russians.

The sun disappears. First behind the cloud threshold. Then down to the White Sea and the horizon.

It showed its last hints when a neighbor in a camouflage jacket appears out of nowhere and starts a conversation with Alexey and Dima, after all, an intense and drawn-out monologue that the duo listens patiently and that Alexey translates to us in a whisper: “he's saying that the whole people who come here end up designing their own labyrinth. By the way of speaking, I think he has a delay”.

If so, at the same time, there was a lot of philosophy in the words of the interlocutor who insists on illustrating them.

He kneels on a grassy area on the bank, next to a pile of lost babylon stones. Inspired by the attention we were paying him, the boy got to work.

Solovetsky Islands, Archipelago, Russia, Babylon

Instead of a “babylon”, he draws what looks like a smiling cat, but which could be a mere person's face, as crude as the raw material allowed.

Even in boreal slow motion mode, it gets dark. As it darkens, it cools.

Drinking tea at Dima de Solovetsky's house

Dima invites us to tea. We gladly accept, knowing that when a Russian invites someone to tea, it is hardly just tea.

We followed him to the house where he was staying, he explains to us, by a friend's parents. A messy and run-down home that hadn't seen cleanliness for a long time, none of the disturbing facts, or even harmful, to the coexistence we expected from it.

Dima heats water and, in fact, pours us tea. In the process of doing so, with the help of Alexey and Yaroslav – another friend from the island who, in the meantime, he had invited – they set up a traditional (or not so) Russian table, enriched with bread, cheese and butter, cans of condensed milk, pickles , chives and, of course, vodka.

A bottle and a half, in case one doesn't arrive.

In a mere two or three glasses, the chatter and the party liven up.

Dima will get an old man sarangi who had ordered it on the Net, for 600 dollars. It adorns the night with chords that make it an oriental soundtrack.

Solovetsky, Islands, Archipelago, Russia, Autumn, Host Dima

Probably thanks to the hyperlipidic strategy that Russians resort to when they drink vodka, despite drinking and toasting often counts, we never reach the always dreaded state of coffin to grave.

Pleased to see us happy, Dima insists on confirming it. "We have a nice table here, don't we?" Alexey, confirm it immediately, with the challenge of another toast.

It explains to us the meaning that the Russians give to the expression. When it does, it generates in us effusive approvals and, to the harm of our sins, a new commemorative toast.

Yaroslav, in turn, speaks little or nothing of English. He just commented, in Russian, here and there, enervated by the alcoholic rampage of the binge.

Dima and Yaroslav: Unexpected Russian Autumn Get-togethers

Dima was born in the northern outskirts of Archangelsk. At the time, lived in St. Petersburg by Fyodor Dostoyevsky e alexander pushkin. He returned to his region whenever he could.

Dima was at odds with the prejudices we are used to seeing Russians. I paid for it. Conscientious Objector russian military service, was prohibited from using a passport and, as such, cannot leave the country.

In spite of his meager English, we also unravel a little from Yaroslav.

Named after the Grand Prince of Kiev, between the ages of 40 and 50, Dima's friend had lived in Solovetsky for almost four years. Part of that time, he dedicated it to building a wooden boat that we had already repaired in the village's port.

Yaroslav completed his military service. “The first year, I hated it. The second was quite different. I traveled all over Russia and always with the government to pay. I couldn't complain.”

Solovetsky, Islands, Archipelago, Russia, Autumn, vodka

Yaroslav dedicated one of the inaugural toasts “to Iberia and Siberia”.

We've been wandering over to the second for a long time. Welcomed and entertained by souls like these, we remembered little or nothing from home.

Alexey Kravcheko, for his part. He forgot the one we had rented in the village and the neighbors Andrey Ignatiev and Alexey Sidnev who had invited us to dinner.

Even still stunned from lunch, we couldn't refuse.

From Snack to Dinner. All Watered with Vodka

Half an hour later, we find ourselves once more at the table of the duo of geologists, delighted with the snacks that Andrey had prepared. Delivered to more vodka goodies.

Solovetsky, Islands, Archipelago, Russia, Autumn, at the table

At that time, we were completely fascinated by Solovetsky, shared, incidentally, by Alexey Kravchenko, who had long been fascinated by the archipelago and who had taken us there.

So much so that the guide agreed to try to change the boat tickets to Kem for a few days later.

The plan proved impossible. Moved by our disappointment, Alexey and Andrey offer to lead us through the best of the island. The only downside: first thing in the morning. By that time, we doubted we would survive that overwhelming passion for northern Russia.

We slept more there than here. We woke up at 8:10 am with Alexey Sidnev knocking on the door, already fresh as lettuce. How did you get it after so much vodka?

How did most of the Russians do? It surpassed us. In any case, the urgency was to drag ourselves out of bed, and to secure the same prodigy as Alexey Kravchenko.

With much suffering, about nine, we were ready to leave.

Lush Autumn around Solovetsky

We followed the duo of geologists to the UAZ van – Ulyanovskyi Avtomobilnyi Zavod – troop-green in which they moved. Andrey gets us installed on the side seats with a dramatic warning:

“Hold on tight with your hands on the ceiling. This carripan has one of the toughest suspensions you will ever experience. The Russians call it a goat, because of the kick it gives. Believe it or not, we've had passengers injured."

Solovetsky, Islands, Archipelago, Russia, Autumn, UAZ, Autumn road

Andrey and Alexey make sure we're protecting ourselves. Then, depart in the direction of Sekirnaya.

The 11km course, surrounded by lakes, flanked by multicolored vegetation, leaves us entranced.

Countless jolts later, we reached the top of the elevation and, in the immediate vicinity, a panoramic platform that revealed the endless taiga, with its green already converted to the most distinct tones of autumnal fire.

Monumental, the vegetal scene condemns us to a photographic frenzy.

Solovetsky, Islands, Archipelago, Russia, Autumn in TaigaWe thank Andrey and Alexey as much as we can. “Leave it there. They answer us.

Seriously, it's a great pleasure to have you here. Let's go but take some pictures, otherwise we only have them indoors.”

Sekirnaya Hill and Solovetsky's Atrocious Past

We do so, blessed by the Church of the Ascension, built in one of the darkest places in Solovetsky.

Solovetsky, Islands, Archipelago, Russia, Church of the Ascension

During times of Soviet Gulag oppression, in and around the temple occupied area, countless tortures and executions were carried out.

And funerals, done in haste.

In common graves, never identified but where the Orthodox authorities have placed small crosses that indicate the number of bodies in each one.

Solovetsky, Islands, Archipelago, Russia, cross in memory of victims of Solovki Prison Camp

At the base of the stairs that lead to the church, there is another cross, this one huge.

The monks also built it in 1992, shortly after the collapse of the URSS, in memory of all the victims of the Gulag prison camp in Solovki.

Andrey and Alexey had to return to the monastery where they would begin their surveying tasks for the day. We planned to accompany a procession that the religious carried out on Sundays around the complex. In vain.

At the end of the summer pinnacle, with many monks absent, the ceremony had already been suspended.

Solovetsky, Islands, Archipelago, Russia, Autumn, Solovki Monastery

In mid-autumn, Alexey Kravchenko feared that bad weather would likely suspend the boat connections to Kem and we would find ourselves stranded on the island much longer than we wanted to.

That same evening, we said goodbye to Andrey and Alexey.

Already boarded, with the small ferry advancing back to the mainland of Kem and the Mother Russia, we whispered a convinced “see you” in Solovetsky's direction.

Solovetsky Islands, Russia

The Mother Island of the Gulag Archipelago

It hosted one of Russia's most powerful Orthodox religious domains, but Lenin and Stalin turned it into a gulag. With the fall of the USSR, Solovestky regains his peace and spirituality.
Bolshoi Zayatsky, Russia

Mysterious Russian Babylons

A set of prehistoric spiral labyrinths made of stones decorate Bolshoi Zayatsky Island, part of the Solovetsky archipelago. Devoid of explanations as to when they were erected or what it meant, the inhabitants of these northern reaches of Europe call them vavilons.
Saint Petersburg, Russia

On the track of "Crime and Punishment"

In St. Petersburg, we cannot resist investigating the inspiration for the base characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's most famous novel: his own pities and the miseries of certain fellow citizens.
Sheki, Azerbaijan

autumn in the caucasus

Lost among the snowy mountains that separate Europe from Asia, Sheki is one of Azerbaijan's most iconic towns. Its largely silky history includes periods of great harshness. When we visited it, autumn pastels added color to a peculiar post-Soviet and Muslim life.
Suzdal, Russia

The Suzdal Cucumber Celebrations

With summer and warm weather, the Russian city of Suzdal relaxes from its ancient religious orthodoxy. The old town is also famous for having the best cucumbers in the nation. When July arrives, it turns the newly harvested into a real festival.
Suzdal, Russia

Thousand Years of Old Fashioned Russia

It was a lavish capital when Moscow was just a rural hamlet. Along the way, it lost political relevance but accumulated the largest concentration of churches, monasteries and convents in the country of the tsars. Today, beneath its countless domes, Suzdal is as orthodox as it is monumental.
Saint Petersburg, Russia

When the Russian Navy Stations in Saint Petersburg

Russia dedicates the last Sunday of July to its naval forces. On that day, a crowd visits large boats moored on the Neva River as alcohol-drenched sailors seize the city.
Suzdal, Russia

Centuries of Devotion to a Devoted Monk

Euthymius was a fourteenth-century Russian ascetic who gave himself body and soul to God. His faith inspired Suzdal's religiosity. The city's believers worship him as the saint he has become.
Saint Petersburg e Mikhaylovkoe, Russia

The Writer Who Succumbed to His Own Plot

Alexander Pushkin is hailed by many as the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. But Pushkin also dictated an almost tragicomic epilogue to his prolific life.
Novgorod, Russia

Mother Russia's Viking Grandmother

For most of the past century, the USSR authorities have omitted part of the origins of the Russian people. But history leaves no room for doubt. Long before the rise and supremacy of the tsars and the soviets, the first Scandinavian settlers founded their mighty nation in Novgorod.
Rostov Veliky, Russia

Under the Domes of the Russian Soul

It is one of the oldest and most important medieval cities, founded during the still pagan origins of the nation of the tsars. At the end of the XNUMXth century, incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Moscow, it became an imposing center of orthodox religiosity. Today, only the splendor of kremlin Muscovite trumps the citadel of tranquil and picturesque Rostov Veliky.
Okavango Delta, Not all rivers reach the sea, Mokoros
Safari
Okavango Delta, Botswana

Not all rivers reach the sea

Third longest river in southern Africa, the Okavango rises in the Angolan Bié plateau and runs 1600km to the southeast. It gets lost in the Kalahari Desert where it irrigates a dazzling wetland teeming with wildlife.
Thorong La, Annapurna Circuit, Nepal, photo for posterity
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 13th - High camp a Thorong La to Muktinath, Nepal

At the height of the Annapurnas Circuit

At 5416m of altitude, the Thorong La Gorge is the great challenge and the main cause of anxiety on the itinerary. After having killed 2014 climbers in October 29, crossing it safely generates a relief worthy of double celebration.
Bertie in jalopy, Napier, New Zealand
Architecture & Design
Napier, New Zealand

Back to the 30s

Devastated by an earthquake, Napier was rebuilt in an almost ground-floor Art Deco and lives pretending to stop in the Thirties. Its visitors surrender to the Great Gatsby atmosphere that the city enacts.
Adventure
Volcanoes

Mountains of Fire

More or less prominent ruptures in the earth's crust, volcanoes can prove to be as exuberant as they are capricious. Some of its eruptions are gentle, others prove annihilating.
drinks entre reis, cavalhadas de pirenopolis, crusades, brazil
Ceremonies and Festivities
Pirenópolis, Brazil

Brazilian Crusades

Christian armies expelled Muslim forces from the Iberian Peninsula in the XNUMXth century. XV but, in Pirenópolis, in the Brazilian state of Goiás, the South American subjects of Carlos Magno continue to triumph.
Saint George, Grenada, Antilles, houses
Cities
Saint George, Granada

A Caribbean History Detonation

The peculiar Saint George spreads along the slope of an inactive volcano and around a U-shaped cove. Its abundant and undulating houses attest to the wealth generated over the centuries on the island of Grenada, of which it is the capital.
Singapore Asian Capital Food, Basmati Bismi
Meal
Singapore

The Asian Food Capital

There were 4 ethnic groups in Singapore, each with its own culinary tradition. Added to this was the influence of thousands of immigrants and expatriates on an island with half the area of ​​London. It was the nation with the greatest gastronomic diversity in the Orient.
Tatooine on Earth
Culture
Matmata Tataouine:  Tunisia

Star Wars Earth Base

For security reasons, the planet Tatooine from "The Force Awakens" was filmed in Abu Dhabi. We step back into the cosmic calendar and revisit some of the Tunisian places with the most impact in the saga.  
combat arbiter, cockfighting, philippines
Sport
Philippines

When Only Cock Fights Wake Up the Philippines

Banned in much of the First World, cockfighting thrives in the Philippines where they move millions of people and pesos. Despite its eternal problems, it is the sabong that most stimulates the nation.
Traveling
Chefchouen to Merzouga, Morocco

Morocco from Top to Bottom

From the aniseed alleys of Chefchaouen to the first dunes of the Sahara, Morocco reveals the sharp contrasts of the first African lands, as Iberia has always seen in this vast Maghreb kingdom.
Lifou, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia, Mme Moline popinée
Ethnic
LifouLoyalty Islands

The Greatest of the Loyalties

Lifou is the island in the middle of the three that make up the semi-francophone archipelago off New Caledonia. In time, the Kanak natives will decide if they want their paradise independent of the distant metropolis.
Sunset, Avenue of Baobabs, Madagascar
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio

days like so many others

A Lost and Found City
History
Machu Picchu, Peru

The City Lost in the Mystery of the Incas

As we wander around Machu Picchu, we find meaning in the most accepted explanations for its foundation and abandonment. But whenever the complex is closed, the ruins are left to their enigmas.
At the end of the afternoon
Islands
Ilha de Mozambique, Mozambique  

The Island of Ali Musa Bin Bique. Pardon... of Mozambique

With the arrival of Vasco da Gama in the extreme south-east of Africa, the Portuguese took over an island that had previously been ruled by an Arab emir, who ended up misrepresenting the name. The emir lost his territory and office. Mozambique - the molded name - remains on the resplendent island where it all began and also baptized the nation that Portuguese colonization ended up forming.
Oulu Finland, Passage of Time
Winter White
Oulu, Finland

Oulu: an Ode to Winter

Located high in the northeast of the Gulf of Bothnia, Oulu is one of Finland's oldest cities and its northern capital. A mere 220km from the Arctic Circle, even in the coldest months it offers a prodigious outdoor life.
Visitors to Ernest Hemingway's Home, Key West, Florida, United States
Literature
Key West, United States

Hemingway's Caribbean Playground

Effusive as ever, Ernest Hemingway called Key West "the best place I've ever been...". In the tropical depths of the contiguous US, he found evasion and crazy, drunken fun. And the inspiration to write with intensity to match.
Napali Coast and Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii Wrinkles
Nature
napali coast, Hawaii

Hawaii's Dazzling Wrinkles

Kauai is the greenest and rainiest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is also the oldest. As we explore its Napalo Coast by land, sea and air, we are amazed to see how the passage of millennia has only favored it.
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

A Capital between East and West

Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
Hell's Bend of Fish River Canyon, Namibia
Natural Parks
Fish River Canyon, Namíbia

The Namibian Guts of Africa

When nothing makes you foreseeable, a vast river ravine burrows the southern end of the Namíbia. At 160km long, 27km wide and, at intervals, 550 meters deep, the Fish River Canyon is the Grand Canyon of Africa. And one of the biggest canyons on the face of the Earth.
Hiroshima, city surrendered to peace, Japan
UNESCO World Heritage
Hiroshima, Japan

Hiroshima: a City Yielded to Peace

On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima succumbed to the explosion of the first atomic bomb used in war. 70 years later, the city fights for the memory of the tragedy and for nuclear weapons to be eradicated by 2020.
female and cub, grizzly footsteps, katmai national park, alaska
Characters
PN Katmai, Alaska

In the Footsteps of the Grizzly Man

Timothy Treadwell spent summers on end with the bears of Katmai. Traveling through Alaska, we followed some of its trails, but unlike the species' crazy protector, we never went too far.
Plane landing, Maho beach, Sint Maarten
Beaches
Maho Beach, Sint Maarten

The Jet-powered Caribbean Beach

At first glance, Princess Juliana International Airport appears to be just another one in the vast Caribbean. Successive landings skimming Maho beach that precedes its runway, jet take-offs that distort the faces of bathers and project them into the sea, make it a special case.
Balinese Hinduism, Lombok, Indonesia, Batu Bolong temple, Agung volcano in background
Religion
Lombok, Indonesia

Lombok: Balinese Hinduism on an Island of Islam

The foundation of Indonesia was based on the belief in one God. This ambiguous principle has always generated controversy between nationalists and Islamists, but in Lombok, the Balinese take freedom of worship to heart
Chepe Express, Chihuahua Al Pacifico Railway
On Rails
Creel to Los Mochis, Mexico

The Barrancas del Cobre & the CHEPE Iron Horse

The Sierra Madre Occidental's relief turned the dream into a construction nightmare that lasted six decades. In 1961, at last, the prodigious Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad was opened. Its 643km cross some of the most dramatic scenery in Mexico.
Society
Dali, China

Chinese Style Flash Mob

The time is set and the place is known. When the music starts playing, a crowd follows the choreography harmoniously until time runs out and everyone returns to their lives.
herd, foot-and-mouth disease, weak meat, colonia pellegrini, argentina
Daily life
Colónia Pellegrini, Argentina

When the Meat is Weak

The unmistakable flavor of Argentine beef is well known. But this wealth is more vulnerable than you think. The threat of foot-and-mouth disease, in particular, keeps authorities and growers afloat.
Fluvial coming and going
Wildlife
Iriomote, Japan

The Small Tropical Japanese Amazon of Iriomote

Impenetrable rainforests and mangroves fill Iriomote under a pressure cooker climate. Here, foreign visitors are as rare as the yamaneko, an elusive endemic lynx.
Full Dog Mushing
Scenic Flights
Seward, Alaska

The Alaskan Dog Mushing Summer

It's almost 30 degrees and the glaciers are melting. In Alaska, entrepreneurs have little time to get rich. Until the end of August, dog mushing cannot stop.