Sarov — a Nizhny Novgorod name that stands for a closed city in the south of the Region, an ancient monastery on the same site, the most venerated Russian saint of the nineteenth century, and an experimental submarine of the Northern Fleet.[1][2][3] The place is one and the same: the city grew up around the Sarov Hermitage, on the border of Nizhny Novgorod Region and Mordovia.
The City
The decision to locate the main enterprise of the Soviet atomic project here was made on 9 April 1946 — that was the beginning of the city where the first Soviet atomic bomb was built.[1] On 17 March 1954 the settlement was officially granted the status of a closed city and given the name Kremlyov; within the atomic project it was known as Arzamas-16, and the historic name Sarov was restored in 1995.[1]
The status of a closed administrative-territorial formation is established by federal law of 14 July 1992. The area of the CATF is 232 square kilometres, with around one hundred streets and a population of approximately ninety thousand people.[1] The city-forming enterprise is the Russian Federal Nuclear Center — the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics (RFNC-VNIIEF), which is part of the state corporation Rosatom.[1] For more detail, see city of Sarov.
The Monastery
The Sarov Hermitage was founded at the end of the seventeenth century by the monk Isaakiy: the digging of caves began in 1692, and the date of the monastery's founding is considered to be 16 June 1706, when the first church was consecrated — in honour of the icon of the Mother of God "Life-Giving Spring".[2] In 1927 the monastery was closed and its property transferred to the NKVD.[2]
Revival began in 1990 with the registration of an Orthodox parish; by decree of the Holy Synod in 2006 the monastery was re-established, and in 2010 a prior was appointed — Hegumen Nikon (Ivashkov).[2] The church of the Venerable Seraphim of Sarov was gradually restored (consecrated in 2003), along with his cell, the cave church of the Venerable Anthony and Theodosius (2011), the church of the Venerable Zosima and Savvaty (2012), and the cathedral of the "Life-Giving Spring" (2023).[2] For more detail, see The Holy Dormition Sarov Hermitage.
The Venerable Seraphim
The name of Sarov spread across Russia thanks to the Venerable Seraphim of Sarov — a monk of this monastery, canonized by the Russian Church in 1903 at the initiative of Emperor Nicholas II. The saint's relics were returned to the Church in 1991, and his cell in the monastery was restored during the revival of the establishment.[2] For more detail, see Seraphim of Sarov.
The Submarine
B-90 Sarov is a large experimental diesel-electric submarine of Project 20120 Sargan, built at Sevmash in Severodvinsk. The honorary name "Sarov" was assigned to her by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy on 26 May 2007; on 14 December of the same year the submarine was rolled out of the workshop, and on 24 December she was launched.[3] She is designed for testing new weapons and equipment and is part of the 339th Brigade of the Northern Fleet.[3] This is the first submarine in modern Russia to be named after a small city: a patronage relationship has been established between Sarov and the crew.[3] For more detail, see Sarov Experimental Submarine.
Chronicle of events
Details of each event are in the article about it; here are the dates and gist.
Sources
- vniief.ru — RFNC-VNIIEF — CATF Sarov: status, city history, population, and city-forming enterprise (archive)
- nne.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Diocese — Holy Dormition Male Monastery Sarov Hermitage: founding, closure, revival (archive)
- duma-sarov.ru — City Duma of Sarov — The submarine Sarov celebrates its tenth anniversary, 26 May 2017 (archive)