Stolbnyi Island
Stolbnyi Island is an island on
Lake Seliger in the
Tver Oblast of
Russia, about 10 km north of the town of
Ostashkov.
The island is the home of
Nilov Monastery, which was founded by Saint Nilus in
1594, and previously welcomed up to 40,000
pilgrims each year. Today the monastery complex remains as one of the most impressive ensembles of
Neoclassical architecture in Eastern Europe. Some of its churches date back to the
17th century, a graceful embankment was completed by
1812, and a large cathedral was built in 1821-25.
During
World War II, the monastery was the site of a
NKVD camp which held approximately 7,000 Polish
prisoners of war who had been taken captive by the Soviet Union as a result of the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Almost all of the prisoners were subsequently executed in April
1940 in
Kalinin (now Tver) and then buried in mass graves in
Mednoye, in an act of
mass murder which became known as the
Katyn Massacre. Amongst those killed were Polish officers, lawyers, policemen, teachers, doctors, and other members of the
intelligentsia.
