Valaam Monastery

The monastery was left desolate between 1611 and 1715 after another attack by the Swedes, with buildings being burned to the ground and the Karelian border between Russia and Sweden being drawn through Lake Ladoga.

From 1941 to 1944, during the Continuation War, an attempt was made to restore the monastery buildings at Old Valaam, but later the island served as a Soviet military base.

Since the original Valaam Monastery was bequeathed back to the Orthodox Church in 1989, it has been enjoying the personal patronage of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow, who frequented the cloister as a child.

The monastery, whose buildings have been meticulously restored, has gained significant legal power over the island in a push to return to a state of spiritual seclusion.

[7] This relative simplicity became one of the reasons for the experimental introduction of Valaam chanting in various parishes across Russia by the end of 20th century.

The monastery has a professional five-strong male-voice choir which tours the world to raise money for the ongoing restoration of the buildings.

[8] On the morning of 1 May 2016, Pascha (Orthodox Easter Sunday), a blaze covering 800 square metres erupted on the monastery's property, inside the “Winter Hotel", a national heritage site constructed in the 1850s.