Pilgrimage tours to Valaam are attractive for travelers due to the favorable location of the island in the water area of Lake Ladoga, its picturesque nature, rich cultural heritage and local shrines.
For pilgrims who wish to help churches with their work, weekly or 2-week tours are organized - such a trip can be set off from St. Petersburg on a comfortable and modern motor ship.
Valaam monastery
A new revival of the monastery took place on December 14, 1989 - this day, like a festive one, begins with a thanksgiving prayer service, the abbot says his pastor's word to the brethren.
You can visit the monastery as:
- a tourist (it is necessary to respect monastic customs and traditions);
- pilgrim: they worship shrines and take part in divine services. Pilgrims in the monastery are fed and given a place in a hotel, and during a long stay they may be assigned obedience;
- volunteer: they live and work for the benefit of the monastery separately from the brethren (they have their own routine);
- laborer: these people live in the monastery (they are provided with housing and food), observing the local order, and work for the benefit of the monastery for free. At any moment the worker can return to the “world” (he does not need to make any vows) - this is not a sin.
It is worth noting that any visitor to the monastery can leave notes (commemorations) here for the health or repose of Orthodox Christians. Important: those who wish can be accommodated in the Abbey Hotel with shared facilities on the floor, and for a separate donation they are provided with 3 meals a day (for this purpose the Guest and Working Refectory of the monastery are intended).
Pilgrims visit the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Lord (the main cathedral church is the repository of the ancient miraculous Image of the Savior), the Chapel of the Annunciation (built at the end of the 19th century), as well as the sketes of the Valaam monastery. Among them, the Resurrection Skete stands out (based on the place where, as legend says, St. Andrew the First-Called erected a cross made of stone; here is the grotto where the particle of the Holy Sepulcher was kept; in summer, pilgrims and tourists are invited here to concerts of spiritual singing), the Gethsemane Skete (his church consecrated in the name of the Dormition of the Theotokos; nearby there is a chapel where the icon "Prayer for the Cup" is located), St. Vladimir's skete (famous for its white stone carved iconostasis with mosaic inserts; there is a library and an icon-painting workshop), walls, as well as icons made by the brothers of the monastery in the Byzantine style) and others.
