The monastery has been stand­ing here, among the north­ern land­scapes of the White Sea, since the 15th cen­tu­ry, and the his­to­ry of the con­struc­tion of the Solovet­sky Krem­lin is a mys­tery to this day. The weight of some boul­ders from which the walls are laid out exceeds 8 tons, and the age of the lichen grow­ing on them is 2000–3000 years! When, by whom and how con­struc­tion was start­ed, even his­to­ri­ans do not know. Anoth­er one and a half kilo­me­ters of tun­nels pass under the monastery: the monks used them both as a sew­er and as a back door. The Solovet­sky Monastery is a real fortress, impreg­nable and for­ti­fied. Dur­ing the Crimean War, the Eng­lish fleet tried to bom­bard the monastery with can­nons. The result of nine hours of inces­sant fire was only a lined seag­ull and a dam­aged icon.