This is how the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord in the monastery looks today.
Today I want to tell you about one wonderful place in our city - this is the Holy Kazan Convent. Why about the monastery? Everything is very simple. I very often have to pass by this quiet monastery, and I also constantly go to the monastery to get water from them. Their water is supplied from a very deep well, it is clean and, moreover, holy. Since the chapel where the well is located is illuminated. I take a little water - for tea and coffee, so I visit the monastery every other day. In 1996, this temple was almost blown up as well - somehow, for some reason, did it interfere with the city authorities? Breaking is not building...
View of the monastery chapel, where the water well is located.
History, past and present. Today it is interesting to see, even from photographs, how the monastery used to be and how it is now. The Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord miraculously escaped the fate of the Kazan Church (in the old photo it is on the right). His fellow communists and Komsomol members took it apart brick by brick and built a club in the aviation technical school. It is understandable that religion is the opium for the people, and the club is enlightenment. Moreover, very often in this "temple of enlightenment" dances were held, and various parties, which sometimes ended in fights. Such a story developed near the club building, although it could not have been otherwise ... And then - the story.
View of the monastery churches before the 1917 coup. One is missing...
The Kazan women's monastery in the city of Troitsk began with a monastic women's community that was formed in the Chebarkulskaya fortress in the 30s of the 19th century. This community gave rise to the Kazan Convent in Troitsk in 1851. The 28 sisters first turned to Vladyka with a request to open the monastery and they received a blessing. The site for the construction of the Kazan women's monastery was chosen on the hill of the western outskirts of the city. Today the main temple of the monastery is the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Then the nuns turned to the Trinity City Duma to be given (allocated) land.
Today there is only one temple of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
The city community willingly agreed to their request and ceded the land. Troitsk was already famous for its spiritual life with the development of trade and the presence in it of a large number of people from many cities of Russia and other countries. At that time, there were already 8 Orthodox churches, 7 mosques and 1 synagogue in the city. At the beginning of the construction and arrangement of the first buildings of the monastery, the merchant of the 2nd guild, Pavel Bakakin, donated 3000 silver rubles. His condition was that the first temple of the monastery was named in the name of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. So it was in the future.
View of the Kazan Convent from the side of the old city.
Already in 1855, the monastery had one church and several residential and utility rooms. All the sisters and hired workers were engaged in trifling work, mastering agriculture - the Cossacks gave them a gift of land near the city. And also they already had a small mill, were engaged in needlework and began to master the sewing craft, they conceived to open an icon workshop. But mainly so far the community was supported by generous donations to the monastery of the townspeople. For example, merchants often donated money, and wheat and flour were brought in whole sacks.
View of the building of the Transfiguration Church of the monastery in winter.
In May 1856, 150 acres of land were allocated to the monastery from the governor-general himself from a military detachment. Including arable land - 112 dessiatines, hay land - 30 dessiatines and forest land - 8 dessiatines. The monastery developed, the number of workers increased. In 1861, the first abbess, the nun of the Ufa Annunciation Monastery, Magdalene, was appointed to the monastery. She ran the monastery until 1884. After she died, her sister Raphael was elected and ran the monastery for 10 years. Instead, Mother Superior Theophania was elected, who ruled the monastery until 1929, when the monastery was closed by comrades by order of the Central Government.
View of the restored Kazan Convent in the 90s.
What follows from the archive. In 1900, the monastery consisted of 270 sisters, including 40 manate nuns, 15 cassock and decree nuns, 200 people living in obedience and trial, 4 old age and 11 homeless orphans. adopted in 1891 for the upbringing of 20 girls-orphans. The monastery had 3 stone churches in the monastery and 1 wooden church on the monastery farm 20 kilometers from Troitsk and 2 chapels in the city, had many industries and craft workshops, including wool. There were 14 residential buildings in the monastery, of which 2 were two-story semi-stone, 2 were stone, and the rest were wooden, covered with iron. In one of the buildings there was a monastery hospital, and with it there was a small pharmacy, which was in charge of a paramedic from the monastery.
The parish school of the monastery, opened on September 21, 1897.
At the monastery in 1896 in memory of the coronation of Emperor Nicholas II at the expense of the merchant K.S. Syromyatnikov, a beautiful and spacious stone building of the parish school was built, which was named "Nikolaevskaya" in honor of Tsar Nicholas II, who visited Troitsk and the monastery in transit in 1891, while still the heir. The school was illuminated and opened on September 21, 1897. The trustee of the school was the wife of the Trinity merchant M.I. Syromyatnikov. In 1890, 60 female students studied at the school.
The modern view of the former parish school of the monastery.
There were 6 classrooms in the school building. The school also had a small garden, gold embroidery, art and craft workshops. The sisters of the monastery also painted icons, embroidered vestments for icons, quilted blankets, weaved linen, and sold a lot of finished wool. Before the coup of 1917, monasteries were not only spiritual centers, but also centers of education and culture. The Nikolaev monastery school became the same center. It was one of the first girls' schools in the city. This school lasted until 1930.
View of the Kazan Convent today (2021).
According to the data of 1900, the monastery already had 1,550 dessiatines of land at its disposal, the Cossacks gave the monastery another 350 dessiatines. Privately, land was also donated to the monastery, some 100 or 200 acres, and some all 400. There were cases when in 1868 Colonel Chirtz donated 1200 square fathoms of manor land within the city limits! One of the main sources for the maintenance of the monastery was the occupation of arable farming, cattle breeding, horticulture and production.
View of the monastery in winter from the side of the old city park.
In terms of land ownership, the Kazan Convent was the richest in the Orenburg diocese and province. But the familiar year 1917 broke out to all of us, and the fateful fate did not escape the monastery. Everything was taken away from the monastery, including the land. Troubled times came, the monastery was closed, and the buildings were handed over for "cultural and educational needs" to everyone there ... schismatics, living churchmen and renovationists, to whom the new government of the Bolsheviks was loyal. The nuns lived for some time in the monastery at their cells.
The monastery in summer and a view of the temple from the side of the monastery garden.
But at the very beginning of 1927, they were all expelled "outside the walls of the monastery" by the decision of the Central Government. Destruction and desolation has come. Many were sent to the camps, including Abbess Theophania. Two churches of the monastery in 1949 were dismantled into bricks and a club was built from them in the Troitsk Aviation Technical School (TATU), which subsequently occupied the entire territory of the monastery. Only the Transfiguration Church has survived, from which a gym was first made, and then a warehouse. Since then, many owners of the monastery buildings have changed until the buildings fell into disrepair.
A small plot of land of the monastery where they have greenhouses.
The monastery resumed its existence in 1991, when the temple was transferred from the balance sheet to the Trinity Aviation Technical School of Civil Aviation (TATU GA), and in 1996 the revival of the monastery began. On a small territory, where miraculously survived there is a church in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord and a one-story brick house (the former "Nikolaev" monastery school). 25 sisters now live, work and pray in the monastery. Written from the words of Mother Xenia (in the world of Nina Dmitrievna Kadomtseva). The first abbess who revived the St. Kazan Convent.
NEW PLANS AND PROJECTS OF THE MONASTERY RECONSTRUCTION.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
-original photo;
-first publication;
-camera Sony 16.2.
Photos posted by me are clickable. They can be viewed in large size by clicking on the photo.
Photos were taken with the size of 2592 x 1944 pixels.
For insertion into a post on Ecency and Hive, the size is reduced to 1280 x 960 points..
Photo taken - Sony 16.2 - 3x Zoom, Vario-Tessar lens.