Most of the territory of Solovki is planned to be allocated for monasteries

The Deputy Governor of the Arkhangelsk Region reported on plans to reduce settlements in the Solovetsky archipelago and providing most of the territory for a national park and hermitages.

On July 22, 2014, it became known that the authorities of the Arkhangelsk regions intend to reduce the number of settlements and to allocate more part of the archipelago under the hermitages.

“We have decided that all secular activities on the territory of the Solovetsky archipelago should be limited to the village of Solovetsky. The islands have a large number of settlements that exist only on paper, we reduce them. We believe that the entire territory of Solovki, except village, should be for nature protection, for pilgrims and for a full-fledged the functioning of those sketes that were historically here on Solovki " , - said Deputy Governor Roman Balashov.

According to him, the authorities see their task in “maximizing to restore that unique way of monastic life that Solovki made Solovki" .

Organizational and legal form of a specially protected area currently being discussed with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation: perhaps a national park or federal reserve will be organized.

Sources

• Secular activity on Solovki should be limited to the village, the rest of the territory should be assigned to the reserve and sketes - authorities // Interfax-religion. 2014. July 22.