Decay

The monastery of the Holy Trinity and St Nicholas is the only Orthodox monastery in the whole Primorsky region of Far-Eastern Russia. At present, the monastery owns only a minor part of the enormous area of land that used to belong to it. The majority of the monastery buildings are now occupied by an Army health spa. Two out of four monastery churches were burnt during the Civil war. The third church was turned into a cinema, and its dome and cross were removed.

The only church to be used for services is the church of Transfiguration of the Saviour, which was originally built using the merchant I. Chistyakov's donation as a chapel to commemorate the soldiers killed in the war of 1812. However, the building of the church started in 1917, just before the Russian revolution, and the church was not completed nor blessed. For several decades it was a part of the Army spa.

The monastery complex, which used to include a printing press, a hospital, a school, a candle factory and a brick factory, etc., lost EVERYTHING by 1995. Also all the church objects and icons were lost and had to be collected later one by one.

The present-day monastery is essentially based on the place of the old monastery stables. During the Soviet times, these were transformed, misused and badly planned, which led to decaying walls and partly destroyed buildings.

The monastery now includes two buildings. The first one is the administrative section, consisting of the room of blessed Abbot of the monastery Bishop Veniamin, prior Igumen Feofan's room, offices and the house church. In the second building one can find the rooms of the brethren and workers.