Kon-Kamen (Horse Stone)

Kon-Kamen, the Horse Stone, is a granite boulder on Konevets Island in Lake Ladoga, in the Priozersky District of Leningrad Oblast, a few kilometers from the village of Vladimirovka. The boulder is one of the few surviving Finno-Ugric cult stones in northwestern Russia: according to legend, horses were once sacrificed here, and the place still keeps a reputation as an anomalous one. A wooden chapel now stands on top of the stone, and the whole island is occupied by the Konevsky Nativity of the Mother of God Monastery.

Legends and testimonies

According to a tradition recorded in the hagiography of Arseny of Konevets in the 16th century, pagan Karelians pastured horses on the island and every year sacrificed one of them on this stone, whose shape resembles a horse's head. For the local tribes the horse was a symbol of the sun and of the passage between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and the sacrifices were meant to protect fishermen from Ladoga's storms.

In 1393 a Novgorod monk named Arseny, later venerated as Saint Arseny of Konevets, came to the island. Legend says he learned of the sacrifices from a fisherman named Philip, walked around the stone in a religious procession with an icon of the Mother of God, and sprinkled it with holy water. According to his hagiography, spirits left the stone as soot, turned into black ravens and flew away to the opposite shore of Lake Ladoga — which has since been called the Devil's Bay, or Sortanlahti. All the snakes are said to have left the island together with the spirits. It is also told that the larger demons turned into ravens while the smaller ones became mosquitoes.

A separate legend concerns Arseny himself: he is said to have received a prophecy on Mount Athos that in a northern land he would build a monastery where many would find salvation — an account later used to explain the founding of the monastery on Konevets.

The stone and its history

The boulder is made of gray granite veined with quartz, measuring about 9 by 6 meters, a little over 4 meters high, and estimated to weigh more than 750 tons. According to the scientific explanation, the stone was carried to the island by a glacier, though local lore holds that it has lain here since the beginning of time.

After Arseny's arrival, Christians did not remove the stone. Instead, a wooden chapel dedicated to Arseny of Konevets was built on top of it in 1895, after an earlier chapel had been destroyed during the Swedish period and rebuilt in 1815. Nearby, on the spot of the saint's prayer vigils, the Chapel of the Assumption was erected in 1899. After the revolution the island passed to independent Finland, and in 1940, together with part of Finnish territory, to the USSR. For almost fifty years after the war Konevets remained a closed zone: in the 1950s–60s chemical weapons were tested here. The monastery's revival began in the 1990s; restoration of the church complex ran from 2016 and was completed in 2021.

Getting there

There is no bridge to the island; it can only be reached by water. In summer, boats leave from Vladimirovskaya Bay — the motor ship Konevets, the catamaran Svyatoy Knyaz Vladimir, or the boat Svyatoy Arseny — and the crossing takes 20 to 40 minutes depending on weather and the vessel. It is best to book a place in advance through the Konevets Monastery's pilgrim service. From St. Petersburg, driving along the A-121 highway to the village of Vladimirovka takes about two to two and a half hours without traffic; it is also possible to take a train from Finlyandsky Station to Gromovo or Otradnoye and continue by bus or taxi. In winter, locals sometimes drive to the island over the ice in off-road vehicles, but residents warn that the ice is dangerous because of meltwater channels and trapped air pockets.

Good to know

A wooden staircase with handrails leads up to the chapel on the stone, ending at a viewing platform. Mobile coverage on the island is unstable, and Wi-Fi is available only at the monastery's guesthouse. The monastery runs a pilgrim service, a museum, a guesthouse and a refectory.