Optina Pustyn ? Probably Kaluga Oblast's most famous tourist destination, this monastic community was a major center of 19th century Russian Orthodoxy, renowned for its startsy (monastic elders who were popularly considered wisemen/healers, many of whom have recently been canonized as saints). The hermitage has impressive literary connections, as it was visited by Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, and Lev Tolstoy (among others). One of its elders (Saint Amvrosy), moreover, is widely considered to be the model for Dostoevsky's Father Zosima of The Brothers Karamazov. Following the Russian Revolution, the startsy were driven from the hermitage and the monastery was converted into a gulag and several of its many historic structures were destroyed. Many of the Polish officers massacred at Katyn were first held here at a temporary POW camp within the monastery. The monastery recaptured nationwide attention on Easter 1993 when a satanist entered the monastery and stabbed three monks, including the "abbot," to death, leading the Russian Orthodox Church to declare the monks martyrs. There is much mystic lore surrounding this wild story, amidst claims that the monks demonstrated that they knew of their deaths beforehand.
Tikhonova Pustyn ? a 15th century monastery just west of Kaluga, famous for its curative spring water
Ugra National Park ? a beautiful woodland area containing Shamordino Monastery and dotted with rural villages
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Kaluga Oblast
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Kaluga Oblast - updated Apr 2024
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Kaluga Oblast Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
