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Optina monastery played an important role in the spiritual life of Russia during the 19th century. Here lived a string of monks with holy life and spiritual gifts. This kind of fathers are usually called by people, starets. The startsy attracted crowds of devout Christians to Kozelsk. Among others, Optina Pustyn was visited by important writers of Russia, Vasily Zhukovsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Vasily Rozanov and Feodor Dostoevsky. Leo Tolstoy also visited the monastery, although he didn't approve of the staretsdom.
The local starets, Saint Ambrose, is said to have been a prototype of Father Zosima in Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optina_Monastery