St. Nicholas Monastery Complex is situated in the Dnieper river valley, in a fenced territory. It consists of a number of stone buildings: the St. Nicholas and St. Onuphry Churches, a dwelling house (a hospital), a belfry and a fence with an entrance gate.
The stone building of the St. Nicholas Church was erected on the place of a wooden church from 1669 to 1672. The church is a three-nave cross-dome basilica with an octahedral light tambour and a large bulbous cupola over the middle part of the church. The dominant architectural feature of the church was a two-tower main facade with a figured pediment decorated with a set of diversiform tiered bays.
At present the complex is an active monastery. It was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2004.
References:Towering 52 meters above the sea, Bengtskär lighthouse is the tallest one in Scandinavia. The building started in in 1905 after the shipwreck of S/S Helsingfors and was completed in 1906. The lighthouse was designed by architect Florentin Granholm. On December a special petrol lantern, designed and built in Paris, was brought to Bengtskär and installed atop the tower.
German fleet bombarded Bengstkär in the First World War in 1914. Since the Gulf of Finland was heavily mined, it was not until 1919 that the surrounding seas were declared safe for shipping, that the light was lit again.
After the war the military value of Bengtskär increased as part of the defence system of independent Finland. In Second World War (1941) Soviet Union made a suprise attack to island. After a bloody battle, the small Finnish garrison emerged victorious. Intermittent repairs to the facility continued during the post-war period.