Image: The Monastery of St. Nil on Stolobnyi Island in Lake Seliger in Tver Province (Gorskii 03973)

Description: Early color photograph from Russia, created by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii as part of his work to document the Russian Empire from 1909 to 1915. The Monastery of St. Nil on Stolobnyi Island in Lake Seliger in Tver Province. Full caption from The Library of Congress exhibition "The Empire That Was Russia: View of the Nilova Monastery. The Monastery of St. Nil' on Stolobnyi Island in Lake Seliger in Tver' Province, northwest of Moscow, illustrates the fate of church institutions during the course of Russian history. St. Nil (d. 1554) established a small monastic settlement on the island around 1528. In the early 1600s his disciples built what was to become one of the largest, wealthiest, monasteries in the Russian Empire. The monastery was closed by the Soviet regime in 1927, and the structure was used for various secular purposes, including a concentration camp and orphanage. In 1990 the property was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church and is now a functioning monastic community once more.
Title: The Monastery of St. Nil on Stolobnyi Island in Lake Seliger in Tver Province (Gorskii 03973)
Credit: This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ppmsc.03973. This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing.
Author: Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii
Permission: There are no known restrictions on photographs taken by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No