French Students Visited the Cave Monastery
French students taking a summer Russian language course at BSTU had an excursion trip to the Holy Trinity Holkovsky cave monastery as part of their cultural program. The event organizers not accidentally included visits to such places into the program. Anyone who has visited the monastery at least once, will keep unforgettable memories forever. When familiarizing with the cave monastery the foreigners provide insight into the power of the spirit of Russian people, their unbending will and unswerving faith. All these qualities have helped people not to dissolve, to preserve their identity, survive in trouble times of the nomads invasion.
The younger generation of France are watching the life of modern Russia with interest, seek to understand the "mystery" of the Russian soul. For this purpose the Monastery in Holki with its dramatic history represents the best place. According to local ethnographers, it was right here, in the castle, located on the border with the Polovtsians, where Prince Igor and Vsevolod had met in 1185, before they went fighting against the Polovtsians, which was later described in “The Story of the Expedition of Igor”.
Visiting the monastery, communication with the Father Superior, who told about the history of the monument of spiritual culture, has made an indelible impression on the visitors. The French went down to the cave temple, which the monks had made in the chalky underground layer. It was a dive into the history both literally and the figurative sense. The length of the caves with cells is about 125 meters.
All the year round the underground temperature is as low as 8 degrees centigrade, multiplied by high humidity. The Father Superior lead the group through a maze of caves, showed cells, where the monks were praying, an underground iconostasis. Then, already above, all the group climbed the hill, at the very top of which there is a temple of the Holy Prince Vladimir. At the same time it started raining heavily, which was quite unexpected. But as someone, who accompanied a group of priests explained, to get wet in the rain at the monastery is a good sign.
Georgi Alexandrov