8 kilometers from the town of Ostashkov (on the water) is a small flat island Stolobny, where was erected the monastery – Nilo-stolobenskaya desert. Once there lived a Holy Neil, who healed the sick, saved the fishermen caught in a storm on the lake. After the death of the Saint on the island began to settle other desert and the middle of the XVI century there was a monastery.

The founder of the monastery Herman was a monk from the monastery of St. Nicholas Horn. Built by him (together with the former here people passing by strangers on the island, the wooden Church and the cells received the title of the monastery and became known as the Nilov desert. The monastery gradually builds wooden and then stone building.

The centre of the monastery complex is the Cathedral of the Epiphany, crowned with five domes. From the West to the adjoining four-storey bell tower, the facades of the Cathedral are decorated hexastyle porticoes. Inside the temple all the walls, pillars and pilasters finished under artificial variegated marble, the paintings were done in the grisaille style. Here, in the Cathedral the relics of the Nile Stolobensky.

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

To have survived: the Cathedral of the Epiphany (1821-1833.), Peter and Paul Church (1764), the Church of the Nile (1755), all saints Church (1701), the body of monks ' cells and the Treasury chamber. The Eastern shore is occupied by numerous wooden and stone buildings of the XVIII century. Partially preserved garden and grove, stable and equestrian yards.

Nilova deserts and now attracts endless streams of pilgrims.