At 8 kilometers from the town of Ostashkov (water) is a small flat island Stolobny where the monastery was built - Stolobny Island. Once there lived a holy Nile, who healed the sick, relieve the fishermen caught the storm on the lake. After the death of the saint began to settle on the island more Desert and the middle of the XVI century there was a monastery.

The founder of the monastery was a monk from the Monastery of St. Nicholas Herman-Horn. Built to them (along with former strangers here passers) wooden church on the island and cells received the title of the monastery and became known as Nil desert. The monastery gradually builds wooden and then stone buildings.

Center of the monastery complex is the Epiphany Cathedral, topped by five domes. From the west it was attached to a four-tiered bell tower, the facade of the cathedral decorated with six-columned portico. Inside the temple, the walls, pillars and pilasters decorated with a colorful artificial marble, paintings done in the style of grisaille. Here, in the cathedral of the relics of the Nile Stolobensky.

At the turn of XIX-XX centuries, the monastery was one of the most renowned and prosperous. However, June 9th, 1928 the monastery was closed and looted. And only in 1991 the monastery was reopened as a monastery.

To have survived: Epiphany Cathedral (1821-1833 gg.), Peter and Paul Church (1764), Church of the Nile (1755), Church of All Saints (1701), housing and communal cells Treasury Chamber. East Coast take numerous wooden and stone buildings of the XVIII century. Partially preserved garden and grove, horse stables and yards.

Nilov of deserts and now attracts an endless stream of pilgrims.