On the beautiful shore of Severskiy Donets river, among chalk mountains and dense forest, the ancient monastery is standing in silence. One of the legends of its origin says it was founded by monks from Byzantium in VIII-IX centuries, when Byzantium faced iconoclastic heresy. Archaeologists prove this legend, as many orthodox things that can be dated by VIII-IX centuries were found during the excavations and exploration of the caves of a monastery.

First notes about Svyatogorsk monastery can be found in Moscow chronicles of XV-XVI centuries, where it was described as a cave monastery with guard functions, as it used to be the most South point of Russia near Tatar territory, so it had military garrison with 4 cannons. In 1624 first cathedrals were built, and monks move from the caves to the river shore. In 1787 monastery was closed by Catherine the Great edict, and was presented to Grigoriy Potemkin in 1790.

In spite of that, in 1844 monastery was renewed by Potemkin successors, who also built a lot of additional buildings – hotels for travelers, bursa and hostel for monks, refectory, forge, locksmith, apiary, candle factory, tailor workshop and many others. With archimandrite German efforts, Svyatogorsk was turned to a big monastery, where many thousands of pilgrims from Russia came.

Revolution of 1917 totally changed the life of a monastery, and in 1918 all the property was confiscated and monks were killed. In 1922 there were no monks left and the monastery was closed, but the new rest house was built for laborers and the monument to Artem was built on the near mountain in 1927. Most of the cathedrals were deconstructed and used to build rest houses for labors. Even more destructions were waiting for monastery during World War II and after it…

But in 70 years after 1922 – in 1992, the prophecy of Svyatogorsk old monks came true: the monastery was reopened, and its renewal continues till today – old cathedrals, hostel for monks and hotel for travelers and many other buildings are already rebuilt, but some other buildings are still under construction. But the main thing – monastery`s spiritual life is already recovered, and this fact attracts many tourists.