Svyatogorsk lavra & monastery

Yesterday, I went to a mountainside monastery with my friend and landlord Serge, his friend Sveta and her younger daughter Marina. The monastery is called Svyatogorsk, and it includes a lavra (a series of caves), though we didn't get to see that part. What we did see, however, was beautiful: various connected churches and meditation buildings along the Donest River, about a two-hour drive south of Kharkiv.



I couldn't find much online information in English about the monastery. But Serge sent me this link to a Russian-language Web site; and here's the Google translation.

Also in this area is a huge cubist statue dedicated to a 1917 revolutionary hero. (That might have been a not-so-subtle message from the Soviet government about religion: The statue is on a hill overlooking the monastery.)



I have more photos in a Picassa Web album.

The walk up the mountain to the monastery was pretty steep and long (I'm guessing about 5 km). That didn't dissuade a lot of Ukrainian women from wearing spiked heels.