The book features photographs of the Velikoretsky Pilgrimage, a 160-kilometer procession in the Vyatka region dedicated to the icon of Saint Nicholas and timed to the anniversary of its miraculous appearance. Before the Bolshevik Revolution, the pilgrimage attracted tens of thousands of participants and maintained its mass character until World War II. During Khrushchev's anti-religious campaigns, it was forced to go underground, but partially resumed in 1989 and fully revived in 1991. The original icon disappeared in the early 1930s. Its fame was such that Ivan the Terrible demanded it be brought to Moscow, where it remained for over two years, inspiring the dedication of the southern chapel of the Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat (St. Basil's Cathedral).
