The model displayed at the Museum of Sarov was made by Sergey Mikhailovich Yalin, an engineer and a citizen of Sarov. He created it after visiting the Sanaksar Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God, located near Temnikov, 35 kilometers away from Sarov. Sergey Yalin has regularly participated in city art exhibitions for enthusiasts of applied arts. After the Sarov Masters exhibition ended, the museum purchased the model to expand two sections of its collection: the one on monastery history and another one on the navy commander Fyodor Fyodorovich Ushakov.
The Sanaksar Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God is an Orthodox monastery located in the Krasnoslobodsk Diocese of the Mordovian Metropolis of the Russian Orthodox Church. It was established in 1659, during the reign of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich, about three versts away from the town of Temnikov (currently Temnikovsky District of Mordovia), on the left bank of the Moksha River.
The land for the future monastery was donated by Luka Yevsyukov, a resident of Temnikov, a nobleman and a scribe. He invited the first builder and abbot Hegumen Theodosius from the Stary Kadom Monastery. In 1676, Theodosius built the first church of the monastery in honor of the Meeting of the Icon of Our Lady of Vladimir, with the blessing of Patriarch Joasaph II of Moscow.
The monastery got its name from a small Sanaksar lake, located near its walls. In the local dialect, the name literally means “lying in a swampy hollow near a hill”.
After about a hundred years of existence, the Sanaksar Monastery became deserted due to lack of funding and the brethren. It was then assigned to the Sarov Monastery.
The monastery’s revival is associated with the name of Feodor — born Ivan Ignatyevich Ushakov — the abbot from 1764 to 1774. He was the uncle of Admiral Fyodor Fyodorovich Ushakov. Together with Sarov, the Sanaksar Monastery was the spiritual center of Russia, with many high-ranking individuals from St. Petersburg and Moscow attending it.
During the revolutionary times of the 20th century, monks faced persecution. In October 1929, the monastery was closed.
In 1991, Sanaksar Monastery was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2001, Fyodor Fyodorovich Ushakov was canonized as the Righteous Warrior Feodor Ushakov. Thus, the Russian Navy and Russian Army found a heavenly protector and intercessor before God.
