Qualla: Uleima Monastery

Uleima Monastery: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ludvig14, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sometime in the early 15th century, a monk from Rostov walked into the forests near Uglich carrying an icon of St. Nicholas that had traveled a remarkable distance. The icon came from Bari, the Italian port city where the relics of St. Nicholas himself are kept. The monk established a monastery on the banks of the Uleima River, a tributary of the Yukhot, and the icon became its founding treasure. Six centuries later, the Uleima Monastery of St. Nicholas still stands in those woods -- seldom visited, its walls scarred by war, its community transformed from monks to nuns. It is the only sizable monastery in Russia still controlled by the Old Believers.

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Image: Ludvig14 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Uleima Monastery: A Fortress on the Pilgrim Road

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wadim Babkin, CC BY-SA 3.0. The monastery's location was strategic as well as spiritual. It sat on the highway between Rostov and Uglich, making it both a pilgrim waystation and a military target. The ruling Princes of Uglich patronized the monastery, and it grew into a substantial fortified complex. During...

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Image: Wadim Babkin | CC BY-SA 3.0

Uleima Monastery: Rebuilding in Stone

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wadim Babkin, CC BY-SA 3.0. What stands today at Uleima is largely a product of the 17th and early 18th centuries -- the patient reconstruction that followed the devastation of the Time of Troubles. The five-domed katholikon was rebuilt in stages from the 1620s through the 1670s, its onion domes rising abov...

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Image: Wadim Babkin | CC BY-SA 3.0

Uleima Monastery: Silence and Survival

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Olga Vanag, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Soviet government closed the monastery in 1930. For the next six decades, the buildings that had withstood Polish armies and Lithuanian raiders were handed over to an underfunded local orphanage. Without maintenance, the structures began to crumble. Some restoration work was ...

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Image: Olga Vanag | CC BY-SA 3.0

Uleima Monastery: Lost in the Woods

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ludvig14, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Uleima Monastery is seldom visited. It lacks the fame of the Trinity Lavra in Sergiyev Posad or the dramatic setting of the Monastery of Sts Boris and Gleb near Rostov. Travelers who make the journey find a walled medieval compound in a forest clearing beside a quiet river, i...

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Image: Ludvig14 | CC BY-SA 3.0