Lavra or Laura originally meant a cluster of cells or caves for hermits, with a church and sometimes a refectory at the center. Later a big orthodox male monastery.
The Lavras I've seen are very beautiful. I was in Kiew -open this page to see this really splendid photo- and in Sankt-Petersburg in Alexandr Nevsky Lavra(Photo on the left). I was in similar constructions here in Italy too. Not far from us (about 100 km) we have a Certosa di Padula (52.000 mq!) where we, our archeological group, were guides in a modern artists exhibition. By the way, those artists were closed as monks in that ex-monastery with a task to born works of art in one month.
In any case, working or not, these monasteries have very great histories. And are very interesting to visit and to study.
Only in Russia or in the Ukrain or Belarus you can see so much white snow. I can't remember seeing so much nice snow last 20 years.
ReplyDelete:-))) I don't remember to see snow at all...
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