Initially, the Voskresensky Monastery for Women was supposed to be built on the site of the Smolny Yard on the Neva.

October 30 (November 10), 1748, by decree of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the Smolny maiden monastery was founded.

The nuns were placed on Vasilyevsky Island in the former house of the abolished Greek Uniate Theological College.

The construction of the complex was carried out according to the project of the architect N. E. Efimov, with the participation of K. I. Reimers, L. L. Bonshtedt and N. A. Sychev.

After the foundation, various workshops operated at the monastery: icon painting, drawing, chasing, gold embroidery, carpet, shoe, prosphora, a cookery, a kvass factory, farms, vegetable gardens, orchards, a bee-keeper appeared.

An orphanage, an almshouse and the parochial Prince Vladimir school began to operate at the monastery.

In January 1883, the Novodevichy Convent was donated 6.5 acres of forest in the village of Vokhonovo, Tsarskoye Selo District, to build a skete.

Parishioners of the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior donated to the monastery an image of the Reigning Icon of the Mother of God.

The ensemble of the Resurrection Novodevichy Convent again began to amaze the eye of the observer with its magnificence.

Against the backdrop of high-rise buildings with elite expensive housing under construction since 2007 near the monastery, the Voskresensky Novodevichy Convent in St. Petersburg has lost its majesty even more.

In this regard, many kilometers of queues began to appear at the entrance to the monastery[3] along Moskovsky Prospekt and Kievskaya Street, access to the Kazan Church was around the clock.

Many famous people are buried there: poets N. A. Nekrasov, F. I. Tyutchev, A. N. Maikov, artists M. A. Vrubel and A.