The Bogoroditsko-Igritsky Monastery was founded 15 km south of Kostroma, on the Pesochna River, at the site of the miraculous appearance of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God. The icon was discovered on June 12, 1624, by peasants of the local landowner Emelian Isaev in a dilapidated church of the Nikolsky parish "at Igrishchah," which had been abandoned for over 50 years due to a plague. After the discovery of the icon, miracles began to occur, and pilgrims flocked to it, now called Igritskaya.

In 1624, with the blessing of Patriarch Filaret, a Kostroma townsman, Archip Vasilyev, and his companions established a monastery at the site of the parish. According to the scribal books, in 1628 the monastery had 30 monks, 5 deacons, and 20 servants. In the center of the monastery, a wooden church was built in honor of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God with a Nikolsky chapel, and nearby stood 12 cells and a wooden fence. On November 10, 1634, a fire destroyed the church building. With the blessing of Patriarch Joasaph, a church built by the boyar Mikhail Mikhailovich Saltikov was moved from the town of Bolshie Soly, in honor of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God with chapels dedicated to St. Michael Malein and St. Blessed Prince Dmitry. During this period, the holy gates with a church above them were built in the name of the Venerable Onuphrius the Great and Peter of Athos, with a chapel in honor of Zosima and Savvatiy of Solovki. By the mid-17th century, a wooden tent bell tower with 11 bells and a clock with a chime was erected in the monastery. In May 1625, Samson Ivanovich Salmanov donated the territory of the former Nikolsky parish with adjacent lands, 10 chet' of land, to the monastery.

In 1919, the monastery was closed. That same year, peasants from the surrounding villages formed a religious community, taking over the monastery's churches and property. The economic property was temporarily left to a brotherhood of 12 monks. According to N.A. Zontikov, the monastery actually existed for another 9 years. In 1928, the monastery was finally abolished, and the last church, Nikolsky, was closed in 1932. The miraculous Smolensk icon and the Life-Giving Cross with relics were transferred to the Resurrection Church in the village of Lyubovnikovo, where services continued. The miraculous image was stolen in the late 1950s or in 1982.

Since 2008, a list of the Igritskaya Smolensk icon has been in the Church of the Holy Martyrs Alexander and Antonina in Selishche and is venerated as miraculous. The cross with relics was transferred in 1991 to the restored Epiphany-Anastasiin Cathedral of Kostroma. In the 1930s-1940s, all the monastery's churches and chapels were dismantled, and until the 1970s, a school was located in the brotherhood building. Now, only the two-story brotherhood building remains in ruins and the lower tier of the bell tower.

On June 25, 2003, the day of the finding of the Igritskaya icon, Archbishop Alexander of Kostroma and Galich held the first Divine Liturgy in eight decades at the ruins of the brotherhood building. On October 2, 2008, the first stone was laid at the site of the former monastery for the foundation of a Children's Village for large families raising orphans and children left without parental care.