naru81:

luthi69:

But can we please talk about Armand’s
(actually Andrei’s) Monastery of the Caves because it’s a real place!

Kiev Pechersk Lavra also
known as the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, is a historic Orthodox Christian monastery which gave its name to one of the city districts where it is located in Kiev. It was created in the early 11th century by an Orthodox monk named Anthony. He chose a cave at the Berestov Mount that
overlooked the Dnieper River. The Kiev Pechersk Lavra caverns are a very
complex system of narrow underground corridors (about 1-1½ metres wide and 2-2½ metres high), along with
numerous living quarters and underground chapels. 

Even
found a small interview with one of the actual modern monks, who said “The monk is actually a person who,
ideally, should not face the world for he is constantly talking to God. Therefore, he goes underground, he buries himself
alive by digging his own grave – that is, his cell. And when the real death comes, the
cave takes his body for perpetual storage. Therefore,
every cave monastery is a kind of underground necropolis”.

I honestly have no idea how I’ve never researched this, but I finally have a visual and detailed reference and I’m SO happy.

Я в шоке – “подземный некрополь”, пещеры – могилы, хоронить себя заживо (пусть даже и в переносном смысле) – ШО ЗА БРЕХНЯ???!!!И где это откопали, простите за сарказм, такого монаха? Ну да ладно, сохраню чисто для истории. Покажу знатокам, пусть оценят.