O, amazing island of Valaam
The visit to the monastery of Father
Ignaty Bryanchaninov in 1846

hen the Liturgy is over, everybody go to the meal and eat there simple but healthy and satisfied: according to the church regulations fish on holidays, butter on ordinary days, and no fish and butter on the Lent, plants only. Deep silence is kept during the meal and ringing voice of a reader tells brothers about selflessness, virtues and feats of God's saints.

Supper is held after vesper: instructive reading takes place during supper. On the days of great holidays, an hour before the vesper, everybody drink tea in the meal, and the oldmen of Valaam call it consolation. It's moving to see the enfeebled oldmen with wooden cups in their hands as they rush towards this consolation; their freezing blood is craving to bring itself back to life with boiling water. There is a lot of simplicity and patriarchal in Valaam's traditions. These traditions pleasantly and touchingly find a response in the souls of Russian people. The clothes of the monks just like their food is simple but satisfying. The clothes and materials are kept in the pantry. The pantry is a number of rooms in which smooth woolen clothes, linen, threads, frocks, mantles, fur coats, everything in considerable quantity. A pantryman has a book and writes down what he has given to brothers. Worn out clothes comes back to the pantry and new clothes is given instead. When a man joins the monastery he gets necessary linen, clothes and shoes. Valaam's pantry can provide about one hundred people with all necessary things at any time. Such reserves are necessary in the monastery because of great number of brothers, because of remoteness of towns, and finally because in spring and in autumn when connection between the monastery and the shore becomes very difficult and even impossible for a long period of time. The lake between Serdobol and Valaam freezes but not earlier the middle of January; until that time countless ice blocks drift in various directions on water surface and a ship, which would determine to sail over the lake, would be absolutely surrounded and trapped by huge masses of ice.

The skete of the Valaam monastery lies three versts from the main cloister. One can go there by water or by the shore. One should walk down the granite ladder to the harbor. Then you go by cutter to the depths of the island, to the skete. The bay now narrows, now widens; on both sides you constantly see the landscapes changing in forms but keeping sullen look. Finally you came to the big oval, surrounded by gently sloping shores where many trees grow: birches, rowan trees, maple trees... The rocks are almost hidden from your sight, somewhere among spruces and pines there appears some stone. The waters are not gloomy here, and blue sky pleasantly reflects there. Green meadows are dotted with wild sweet-smelling flowers and caress the look. There is no that severe gusty wind which can be compared with the one that constantly blows on the upper ground, where the monastery stands. Everything is so hospitable and cordially here! You feel like you're having rest. And it becomes clear to you, that wild nature with its frightening pictures you have observed before has led your feelings in tension. You go up the gently sloping meadow along the winding path and come into the forest; you see the secluded skete there. In the middle of the skete there is a stone two-storey church according to the Byzantine style. Around the church there are separate stone cells and the stone fence. The skete is completely in the forest and unusual silence is kept in here. Entirely different feeling captures you when you go into the skete than the one that you feel coming inside the monastery. Everything is strict there and here is a sort of incomprehensible calmness, like the calmness of those, who died in a state of bliss. Religious service is conducted in the skete twice a week: on Sundays and on Saturdays; and on other days brothers keep silence in their cells - they pray, read or work; and one monk in the temple reads Psalter and prays for reposed brothers and philanthropists of the cloister. These readings and prayers are read permanently day and night, so brothers in the skete have to take turns. The food is offered in the common meal; it's far scantier than in the monastery - almost completely plant. On Easter and other holidays brothers of the skete come to the monastery, take part in ceremonial religious service together with brothers of the monastery, eat festive food in the meal. Fish soup, another fish dish, a piece of pie -that's the food of a great holiday in the Valaam's meal. There are up to twelve brothers in the skete or a bit more. The road from the skete to the monastery is extended along the shore of the bay, through groves, hills and mountains.