Most of the Solovetsky Islands are covered with Scots Pine and Norway Spruce forests, which are partially swampy.

By the end of the 16th century, the abbey had emerged as one of the wealthiest landowners and most influential religious centres in Russia.

The existing stronghold and its major churches were erected in stone during the early reign of Ivan the Terrible at the behest of St. Philip of Moscow.

In 1974, the Solovetsky Islands were designated a historical and architectural museum and a natural reserve of the Soviet Union.

In 1992, they were inscribed on the World Heritage List "as an outstanding example of a monastic settlement in the inhospitable environment of northern Europe which admirably illustrates the faith, tenacity, and enterprise of later medieval religious communities".

[citation needed] After the October Revolution, the islands attained notoriety as the site of the first Soviet prison camp (gulag).