"Fadeless color" icon of the Mother of God

If Optina Pustyn has always been a place of mass pilgrimage, then Kazan Amvrosievskaya women's hermitage or simply the Shamordinsky monastery near the village of Shamordino, Kaluga region, 12 km north of Optina Pustyn is not known to everyone. But those who have visited it forever carry it away in their hearts.
The women's community (not a monastery) in the village of Shamordino, on the estate of the deceased widow of the court councilor Klyuchareva, was established by the Decree of the Holy Synod of June 13-20, 1884. Through the efforts of the Optina elder Ambrose in October of the same year, the first church was consecrated there. An icon of St. Ambrose is placed above the entrance gate to the monastery. In his open palm, as its founder, he holds the Kazan temple - the main temple of Shamordin. A beautiful legend also surrounds the appearance of the icon of the Kazan Mother of God in the Shamordinsky monastery: “One woman brought the icon to a rich widow in the Klyucharevo estate as a deposit, asked her for ten rubles, but did not come for the icon. And then the widow brought it to the Shamordinsky monastery. And when the elder Ambrose saw her, then prayed for a long time, his face brightened, tears were pouring from his eyes, and he said that the icon was not ordinary, but miraculous, take care of it, and as long as it is here, the monastery will prosper and develop .. ...
On July 8, 1901, the community was raised to the level of a monastery and renamed Kazan Amvrosievskaya hermitage. With the blessing of Elder Ambrose, the Moscow merchant Sergei Vasilievich Perlov donated money for the construction of the monastery. Everything built of dark red bricks on the territory of the Shamordinsky monastery was funded by him. He brought tea from China, and in Moscow, on Myasnitskaya Street, there was a three-story factory building where this tea was packaged (now the "Tea and Coffee" store).
A simple novice of the Shamordinsky monastery from 1901 to 1912 was the sister of the writer Leo Tolstoy, Maria Nikolaevna Tolstaya. Here she died and is buried here. Leo Tolstoy visited her several times. The count liked the locality itself, he dreamed of spending the last years of his life near Shamordin. Buy a simple peasant house and live in it ...
In 1923 the monastery was closed and only in the spring of 1990 monastic life was resumed in it. The first time I visited him was in 1997. Despite the beauty of the architecture, it was still a pitiful sight at that time, and in 2006 it was no longer recognizable. But the most striking thing about this monastery is the embroidered icons. The reproductions are unfortunately powerless to convey the amazing beauty of these true works of art, executed with great taste, sparkling with gold and precious stones in the light of numerous candles.