MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/. President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a decree on setting up a fund for preserving and developing the Solovetsky Islands archipelago. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill I have been appointed its co-chairpersons.
A document on instituting the fund was published on Friday at the official website of legislative information.
"For the purpose of preserving the spiritual, cultural and natural heritage of the archipelago and developing its infrastructure, the setting up of a fund for the maintenance and development of the Solovetsky archipelago will be deemed rational," the presidential decree said.
The fund will accumulate the budgetary allocations, donations, and the monies from other sources of financing. It will finance and supervise construction works, reconstruction and overhauls of communication lines, engineering systems, and transportation routes, as well as the restoration of cultural heritage sites on the islands.
The Solovetski Islands, colloquially called the Solovki, are a small archipelago located in the southwestern part of the White Sea. It consists of six islands.
The Bolshoy Solovetsky Island is home to a major Russian Orthodox monastery founded in 1426 and turned into a notorious Gulag camp by the Bolshevik government in 1928. The revival of the monastery as a church organization took place at the beginning of the 1990’s.
UNESCO has entered the monastery in its World Heritage List.