The Return of the Sacred Relic. The Detailed History.

A Look Back

The reason for the icon's appearance in the city has roots deep in the past. In 1552, our city was an outpost, the last fortress of Siberia and the Urals, and thus suffered continuous raids from the Nogai and Vogul peoples. The defenders appealed for support to the Moscow Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who was besieging Kazan at the time. Instead of military aid, the Tsar sent a religious relic to the city – the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. And the city withstood! Since then, the Ninth Friday after Easter has been celebrated as the great holiday of Solikamsk's independence, a symbol of the resilience and courage of its inhabitants. The icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker became the city's main protector, in whose power our ancestors believed and whom they venerated as a great sacred object.
Changes came with the Soviet regime. In 1965, the folding icon, packed in a simple backpack, was sent to Moscow for restoration and spent the next 40 years in the Andrei Rublev Central Museum of the Old Russian Art.

Joint Efforts

“The idea of returning the precious icon had been around for a long time, but implementing it proved difficult,” recalls Nadezhda Shilkova (in 2005, Director of Personnel and Social Affairs of JSC “Solikamskbumprom”). “The city administration made repeated attempts to persuade the Moscow management of the Andrei Rublev Museum to return the relic to Solikamsk, but these efforts were unsuccessful. Resolving the issue required a non-standard approach and active cooperation between government authorities and business. Viktor Ivanovich Baranov played a key role in this process. Thanks to his intervention and direct assistance, an agreement was reached to transfer the icon from Moscow to Solikamsk.”
As Nadezhda Alexandrovna recalls, it was Viktor Ivanovich’s initiative and concern that helped overcome bureaucratic barriers and successfully complete this challenging project. After discussing the importance of the relic's return, the negotiators agreed to assist in creating special conditions for preserving the icon.

“Viktor Ivanovich Baranov and I worked on the icon’s return for several years. It all began when we were together at the Rublev Museum, and the director spoke to us with feeling about its enduring significance,” recounted Viktor Dobrosotsky (in 2005, representative of the Perm Oblast in the Federation Council). “And all the business projects we had discussed with him in Moscow immediately took a back seat. The return of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker to Solikamsk became the priority. Returning the icon through administrative methods was out of the question. There was no talk about the cost of the icon either: the director categorically stated he would never take money. We contemplated how to help the museum – what needed to be done so that the museum itself would want to hand over the relic.”

According to Dobrosotsky, throughout this entire period – from the moment the idea of returning the icon arose until its realization – painstaking work was underway: negotiations and coordination of positions. Viktor Baranov, head of Solikamskbumprom, took the most active part in them.
“We had a long way,” recalls Mikhail Bogdanov (head of Solikamsk in 2005). “Everyone understood how important the icon was to the city. The Moscow museum staff also treated it with particular reverence. We had to fulfill a number of complex conditions, starting from manufacturing a capsule to preserve the icon under proper conditions, to creating an exact replica for use in church services and religious processions. Thanks to the help and support of Viktor Ivanovich Baranov, we managed to meet all the requirements, and the transfer of the relic took place.”

And so, after decades of waiting, the historical cycle was complete. The icon arrived in the region on a special flight under heavy police escort. It spent two nights in the Perm Cathedral, then travelled to Solikamsk, taking its rightful place in the Epiphany Cathedral.

For Many and Good Years

“I remember that day very vividly and am grateful to Viktor Ivanovich for one of the brightest events in my life,” shares Nadezhda Shilkova emotionally. “It was a real holiday for all Solikamsk residents. The procession with the returned relic went from the Memorial to those who died of wounds during the Second World War in Solikamsk hospitals to the Church of the Epiphany. It seemed that nature itself supported our feelings: while the column was moving from the outskirts of the city to the church, the sun was shining, and after the icon was brought inside, the long-awaited summer rain suddenly poured down, clearing the space and hearts from the anxieties of the past decades.”

“We all move towards some goal in the process of life and often achieve it. But one day we need to stop this run and realize what the main goal of this movement is,” Viktor Baranov noted at the time. “And the goal is to provide a decent life for children, so that they get more from us than our parents left to us. And it is not about material goods, but about memory, culture, national dignity.”

Twenty years have passed since then. But even now, gratitude lives in the hearts of Solikamsk residents towards those who helped the sacred relic return to its native soil. And it seems this miraculous return marked the dawn of a new era – an era of returning to ancestral traditions and strengthening spirituality.

Today, the religious procession on the Ninth Friday after Easter has become one of the main events in the city's life, annually uniting different generations of Solikamsk residents. Every resident can turn to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker for prayerful protection, feeling a deep connection to the past, present, and future of their native city.