The Alan monastery is located in the village of Hidikus, which borders from the south with the Upper Fiagdon, the largest village of the Kurtatinsky Gorge. The Alan monastery is located at an altitude of 1330 meters above sea level, so it is considered the highest mountain monastery in Russia. Even more impressive are the three-thousand-meter mountains that rise above the monastery.
The Alan monastery is built of grey stone in the Byzantine style. It looks like an ancient monastery, although it was founded only in the 2000s. Archimandrite Ippolit, abbot of St. Nicholas Monastery in Rylsk, Kursk region, took an active part in the foundation of the Alan Monastery. There were several Ossetian monks in his monastery in the 1990s. He sent them first to Beslan, where they founded a monastery, but later it was moved to the Kurtatinsky gorge.
In the Kurtatinsky Gorge, the Alan Monastery was built on the site of the 19th-century Orthodox Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Wives. Next to this temple there were watchtower of the 18th century. These buildings became the basis for the Alan Monastery, erected by the end of the 2000s. The watchtower are built into the monastery complex as bell tower.
The Alan monastery in the Kurtatinsky Gorge became the spiritual center of North Ossetia. The ancestors of the Ossetian people, the Alans, adopted Christianity in the 10th century, so Christianity in Ossetia has deep roots. The monastery is constantly visited by buses with pilgrims not only from Ossetia, but also from other regions of southern Russia.
In addition to the Alan Monastery, pilgrims also visit the Women`s Sanctuary of Mada Mairam and the chapel of the Iver-Mozdok Icon of the Virgin Mary south of the Upper Fiagdon. This sanctuary is connected with the tradition of the worship of the Alans to the goddess of female fertility, Mada Mairam. In the same place since the 12th century there was an Iver icon of the Virgin Mary, which the Georgian queen Tamara presented to the Alans.
