There are places on earth marked by special grace, and the Ioann-Precursor Women's Skete of the Znamensky Monastery in the village of Sorochy Log is one of them. Visitors can orient themselves by the silver dome of the bell tower on the hill and the sign "Women's Bogoroditse-Kazansky, Ioann-Precursor Skete."

Next to the church is a holy spring, which, according to local residents, appeared in 1915 and is known as the Holy Key. The waters and mud of the spring are considered healing. According to legend, in the 1920s, about 20 peasants and priests led by Father Maximilian were shot here. The godless tried to bury the spring with sand, but it continued to break through.

In 1995, the Ioann the Baptist Skete was founded near the spring, where the first inhabitants were two monks. Now several nuns live and work here, dedicating themselves to serving God.

Life in the skete is full of trials. In addition to many hours of prayer, the nuns care for the Holy Spring, the church, the garden, and the cells. They welcome pilgrims, feed workers engaged in construction, and perform many other tasks.

In summer, it is blessed here, while in winter everything is covered in snow. The nuns move along narrow paths trampled in the snow. For household needs, they melt clean snow and use water from the Holy Spring, which is located 200 meters away.

People from all over Russia come to the Holy Spring in Sorochy Log. During the revolutionary years, laypeople and priests were shot here, and local legend tells of a living priest being sawed in half. Locals say that when bathing in the spring, blood stains sometimes appeared on the clothes. Before the Great Patriotic War, some people saw an image of the Mother of God with the Child at the bottom, created by the movement of silt and sand.

Despite the years of Soviet power, the Holy Spring in Sorochy Log was not forgotten. Every summer, pilgrims came here, built huts, and lived here, enjoying grace and healing bodily and spiritual ailments.