Summer school students assay silver in lake on Solovetsky Islands

ARKHANGELSK, August 24. /TASS/. Students of the summer school on the Solovetsky (Solovki) Islands, which is organized by the Northern Arctic Federal University, assay silver in Lake Svyatoye on the Bolshoi Solovetsky Island and in the archipelago’s other water reservoirs, the project’s leader Svetlana Tyukina told TASS. The school organizers had to change the usual format due to the pandemic: at first students had online lectures, and later on they participate in classes on the Solovki, she added. "This year, the school’s format has changed. We have organized the lectures online. And on the Solovki we shall be on Monday. Today, the group is tested for the coronavirus infection. We all hope, we shall pass the tests and will take a train to head for the Solovki. <…> This year, we focus on water tests. Among other studies, we shall check last years’ views that lakes on the Solovki, including Lake Svyatoye, have high concentrations of silver," she said. In 2019, the school’s students found in Lake Svyatoye, which is not far from the Kremlin, a probable waste water discharge. "Last year, our students found the waste water discharge into the lake and reported worse water conditions there," she said. "This year, we shall analyze Lake Svyatoye’s biotic community, we shall take samples water, which will be analyzed in Arkhangelsk later on." The researchers will present test results to the foundation for development of the Solovki Monastery. "They want to work on project solutions to cut the man-made impact," she continued. "That is, not just to register the impact, the problems with the biotic community, but also to suggest what could be done to cut the harmful impact." The studies will feature 35 participants. In addition to studying water, the school’s research will be in other directions. The participants represent specialists in history, physics, IT technologies, social and cultural studies. Presently, they listen to lectures. The organizers have delivered lectures about how the Solovki are represented in the Russian literature - which works have been written on the archipelago or about it, and about the Solovki’s symbolic importance. Another package is devoted to the archipelago’s history, to how it is represented in a new book on the Arkhangelsk North’s history. On August 22, the students had classes on biotechnologies on the Solovetsky Islands. Another lecture would focus on applied physics - it will be about the archipelago’s engineering facilities. Such facilities are a few, and the school students will continue to study them on the islands in order to give recommendations to the local museum regarding organization of exposition objects, like, for example, in the dry dock. Motivating classes Some lakes on the Bolshoy Solovetsky Island are connected with canals. In 1801, a dry water-filled dock was built on the Solovki. It was one of the first dry docks in Russia. The dock was used to repair the monastery’s ships and the ships that called on the Solovki for commercial purposes. The Solovetsky Monastery had its own hydroelectric power plant on the canal between Lake Svyatoye and the dry dock. It was made in 1911. "This year, at the request from the museum, the students will focus on the dry dock. They will make 3D models and prepare a historical description," the project’s leader said. "They will offer how to include the dry dock into the exposition, demonstrating also the power plant, and additionally children will be invited there to have classes in physics with a focus on the local history." Historians will invite the museum’s representatives and local residents to take part in a quest. The quest’s authors are teachers of history Vasily Kuznetsov from Moscow and Mikhail Kopitsa from Arkhangelsk. The game is on the so-called Solovetsky sitting in 1668-1676. This was the armed resistance of the monks, fugitive peasants, townspeople, archers, and soldiers against Patriarch Nikon’s church reforms. The monastery rejected the reforms and the government ordered to confiscate its estates and property. In 1668, the tsar’s regiments began to siege the monastery. The fighting continued for a few years and finished in 1676, when the monastery gave in. "In the game we shall have a few plots and a few groups of participants," the project’s leader said. "I believe, the game will be interesting." The participants will make up their own game, which later on the museum on the archipelago and the University’s museum in Arkhangelsk will offer to visiting school students. This year’s cultural topic is music. The summer school’s students will continue to study the Solovki’s musical tradition. They will work on music for the archipelago’s museum. "Clearly, there are no recordings of, for example, concerts at the camp, but we know music of that time," she said. The IT group will continue working on a virtual tour of the exhibition, devoted to the Solovki’s sea cadets. "The tour is on the website, and it is available, and our students are very proud their work has been of demand, especially this year," she added. Cultural program Social studies’ students normally would survey the locals. This year, they will present results of their earlier studies. "Normally, from here we bring the data: surveys, monitoring," she said. "But this year, the students will present what they have done and they expect to see the feedback." Due to the pandemic, any sightseeing is allowed in the open air only. The summer school students will visit the Muksalma Island, connected with the Bolshoi Solovetsky Island by a 19th-century boulder dam, which is more than one kilometer long, and Cape Pechak. It is a very picturesque part of the tundra some eight kilometers from the Solovki Kremlin. Students will take part in master classes in local crafts and in creating intellectual games. The summer school will continue to August 30. This term coincides with the days, on which Russia pays tribute to victims of political repressions. This year, the islands will host the 6th international conference, dubbed "The country’s history in lives of the Solovki camps’ prisoners." The event has been rescheduled from July. "We plan to listen to at least a few experts, since those will be very interesting speakers from different regions," she said. On the days of the summer school, the archipelago will be a venue for the "DA" studio’s musical-poetic laboratory. The studio’s participants from Moscow and St. Petersburg "will work with our students: musical instruments, poems, songs," the organizer said. "Every day, we plan, we will have a creative fragment, stringing together the feelings of place, world and ourselves.". Read more