The Volgo-Donskoy Krai was populated along its main rivers – the Volga and the Don. The colonization had a state character; all future cities were built as fortresses and were populated by strelets’. Some parts of those cities were temporary and were burnt in winter. Of course, this slowered any mass colonization and made impossible building of many temples and monasteries.

Russian people lived in regions difficult of access, e.g. Cossack saddles were built on islands, but the life there was also very dangerous because of possible attacks of Mongols. Because of small density of population and a small number of parishes all Orthodox temples and cloisters survived only thanks to state support.

Many monks were banished to the Don for some transgressions and they didn't aim to any strict discipline, but there also were people able to feats or hermit's life. Old Belief was also widespread and it influenced many monks. Many of poor priests and monks joined the revolutionary actions of Stepan Razin, Emelian Pugachev and Ivan Bolotnikov, but in spite of those destructive processes the population of the region continued.

At the beginning of 17th century in Tsaritsin were 2 cloisters by less than 1000 inhabitants in the city. And in the 20th century the Saratov eparchy, which included Tsaritsin, counted 3 monasteries and 11 nunneries, 897 churches, 159 chapels and 2800 monks and nuns.

On the base of the first church in Tsaritsin, of Joann the Forerunner, in the 30th of the 17th century a small cloister of Our Lady, dedicated to the Vladimirskaya icon of Our Lady, appeared. In the second half of the 17th century it was closed and on its base the nunnery of Joann the Precursor was built in 1652 – 1658. The time of abolition of the nunnery is unknown. In 1694 it still existed, in its temple served one priest, one deacon, 2 sextons and one sacristan. It was next mentioned in 1700 – 1704, when voevode Protopopov built there a stone temple, which was sanctified on the birthday of Ivan the Terrible.

In the honor of the celebration the cloister of Joann the Forerunner received a settlement for mowing of 30 cocks and gathering wood for its needs. The cloister had no allotments.

In 1718 in the nunnery of Joann the Forerunner a private school for young city dwellers was organized.

In 1718 Mother-Superior Anisia moved to Astrakhan nunnery and the bishop blessed a new prioress, but forbade making her a nun till his order. In 1722 bishop Joachim forbade the local priesthood to accept in cloisters vagrant monks and nuns, who were to send to the Church Prikaz.

In 1725 the nunnery still existed, there lived 18 nuns, who received a money and bread salary from the incomes of the city. The nuns had no other incomes and didn't do any needlework.

In the church of Joann the Forerunner there was the icon of Lady Day. On it there had been found the signatures of painters from Kazan Evgraf, Vasilij and Joann, but the date is unreadable. The Iverskaya and Smolenskaya icons of Our Lady were dated 1665. Very valuable were 4 Gospels printed in 1677, 1685, 1697 and 1698. Unique were pictures of Sibyls (ancient prophetesses), they were unfortunately lost before 1917.

The reforms of Peter the First made the situation worse for cloisters and temples in Tsaritsin. In the church then served a priest, a sexton and a sacristan.

At the end of the 17th century the nunnery of Joann the Forerunner became poor, but it existed till the middle of the 18th century. In the nunnery there was one stone church and 10 cells at that time. The latter existed in the 19th century. In 1741 20 nuns inhabited them. The cloister was closed in 1755 because of poor salary, some part of the nuns moved to The Astrakhan nunnery of Our Lady Day, but sick and aged nuns stayed. Only after their deaths the nunnery was abolished and its temples become parochial.
The church of Joann the Forerunner was believed to be very small, in it could be at the same time only 150 parishioners.

With the small cloister also began the history of the Troitskaya church in Tsaritsin. The cloister, inhabited by about 30 monks, was mentioned in the second half of the 17th century for the first time. Indeed, on the 1st of June 1667 was mentioned a «troitskiy builder the elder Alexandr», who was sent by voevode Andrey Unkovskiy to Stepan Razin's men with instructions to cease the rebellion and to return home. But the messengers didn't reach the Cossacks because of a flood. It is also known, that the treasurer of the cloister Aaron was a friend of Stepan Razin and possibly confessed the latter. Aaron also sanctified ships of Cossacks, but then renounced his friend.

Razin’s Cossacks were also welcomed in 1670 in Tsaritsin by the priest of the Troitskiy cloister Andrey. The poorness of the cloister made monks to support rebels; abbots couldn't count on strict discipline. The fire of 1678 destroyed the cloister, but it was rebuilt with the state support. Life in the monastery remained hard.

The Troitskiy monastery became stony and solid, the main temple was built of white stone, it was apparently the first stone temple in Tsaritsin. In that case Cornelius de Bruin, a Holland traveler and painter, who sailed near Tsaritsin in 1703, painted exactly that temple.

In 1703 archimandrite Ippolit served there, in 1708 – Melentiy, in 1710-1715 the monastery was ruled by Leontiy, who asked to appoint celibate priest Valaam, but the latter fled to Don. The next candidate was monk Pavel, who appeared to be a drunkard and also left the cloister.

In the cloister there was a chapel on the bank of the Volga. To its relics belonged: 2 silver gilded crosses with relics of a saint's body, made in 1712, a prayer-book (the end of the 17th century), and icons painted in the 18th century and decorated with silver settings. All old believers respected the temple because of the Gospel printed in 1651 before Nikon's church reforms.

The cloister was fully supported by the state; all the monks received 20 rubles salary, 8 rubles for candles till 1725. The death of the Father Superior could provoke a crisis, because the next Father Superior could be sent after some years.

The life of the monks was also difficult because of nearness of worldly amusements, as the city dwellers often amused themselves on the banks of the river Tsaritsa, drank vodka, danced and fought with each other. Sometimes young priests and monks joined them. In 1717 archpriest Kondrat Illarionov, Dean of the Voskresenskiy Cathedral, complained of that priests to the Astrakhan archbishop. Kondrat received powers to punish priests. According to the received order those monks and priests should be fined because of visiting a tavern. The fine made up more than one fourth of a yearly allowance. If the measures didn't help, the sinners could be excommunicated.

In 1722 the priest of Troitskiy monastery Zakhariy became head of the Tsaritsin Church Prikaz. He was to control all clerical occasions in the city, treasury, duties and priests. The Prikaz was in a small inconvenient cell of the monastery, but received no other room, as its income was low and didn't reach 20 rubles a year.

In 1722 the archimandrite was transferred to Astrakhan, the cloister remained without a prior. The next year bishop Joachim arrived to Tsaritsin and ordered a part of the cloister property to be sold out. The cloister farm, cattle, wood, hospital bakery, smithy were sold, but hospitals and almshouses still functioned. On the 24th of October in 1738 the Troitskiy monastery burnt out completely and it was transferred to Astrakhan.

Peter the First visited the monastery on the 6th of June in 1695 during the Asov campaign. He ordered to sanctify 2 new churches without contacting the Astrakhan metropolitan Sampson; because of it the local archimandrite Antoniy refused to sanctify those buildings, but was forced to do it. The metropolitan was later asked by voevode Golitsin not to punish the disobedient priest, who was forgiven. The building and sanctifying of those 2 churches increased missionary activity of orthodoxy on the Don. Peter the First and his wife Ekatherina Alekseevna visited the temple during the campaign against Persia in 1722 and later the Emperor ordered 2 side-chapels in the name of the apostles Peter and Pavel.

In the middle of the 19th century a blue 3-circle iconostasis stood in the church. In the church a cross with relics of the apostles was kept.

The Troitskiy temple was very important for the culture life of Tsaritsin and had a high status, for the revolution there was the orthodox city library, which was later destroyed by Bolsheviks.

Since 1900 the second priest Aleksey Fyodorovich Mirandov served there (who took part with other priests in the fight against hard drinking and in organizing in the city the Soberness Society in the name of Saint Nikolay). The society counted in 1909 1500 members and the number increased in 1911 to 3000.

On the 24th of December in 1923 a secret meeting of the presidium of the local executive committee took place in Tsaritsin, where its members decided to close the temple and to give the room to the division that was located near it. In the building a cinema was opened, and then it was torn down in the 60th of the last century. In 2002 the foundation of the cloister was found during some capital repairs.

In 1860 peasant of the village Verkhne-Aktyubinskoe Andrey Lukyanov began digging caves near the village Besrodnoe (now it's the 39th block of Volshkiy). Other local dwellers joined him and he founded the sect of Enokh, named in the honor of saint Enokh. In 1891 on the 30th of September the church of All Saints was sanctified there. It burnt out in 1900 and it was replaced by a new stone temple with a wooden bell tower, the other buildings remained wooden.

In 1917 6 nuns and 24 lay sisters inhabited the cloister. They prayed and did needlework: embroidered, quilted, made shawls and artificial flowers, and taught girls needlework. The cloister had gardens and farms. The nuns grew potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and wheat.

When the Bolsheviks came to power the cloister was closed. It was completely destroyed by bombings in the days of the Stalingrad battle. The nuns of the cloister remained in the village Besrodnoe even after the war.

The monastery in the village Kalach opened at the beginning of the 19th century, its name was unknown, later it became a nunnery. In 1915 in its hospital soldiers wounded in the war were cured there. In 1945 a local hospital for 60 patients was opened there. The cloister was destroyed during the Stalingrad battle.

The Gryasnushenskiy Svyato-Troitskiy nunnery was founded in 1837 in the village Gryaznukha with the means of Pelagiya Burkova, who had donated her country estate and became prioress of the nunnery. In 1877 an orphanage was opened there. In 1890 in the cloister was sanctified the Svyato-Troitskiy temple with side chapels Tikhvinskaya and of All Saints.

The Kraishevkiy-Tikhvinskiy nunnery was situated in the village Kraishevo. It was founded in 1865 as a community. At the end of the 19th century the community became a nunnery with 4 temples. The nuns found near the river Tersa a spring with healing silver water and built there a chapel, then a temple. In 1920 the nunnery was closed, the temple near the spring was torn down, but believers gathered there every year according to official documents dated 1945. The nuns of the former cloister organized those meetings. At that time there gathered more than 2000 persons. But the number of believers decreased and there were no masses after 1947. In 1961 came only 30-40 pilgrims. Now the spring is a state water reserve and there is a waste on the place of the nunnery.

After 1917 members of renewering church played an important role in the life of the city, they approved of cooperation with Bolsheviks and occupied most temples. In October 1922 they liquidated cloisters; monks were announced free citizens and had to leave their cloisters. The war of 1941-1945 provoked religious enthusiasm. After the war nuns held masses within temples. Believers asked local authorities to let nuns serve instead of priests. Historians mention that nuns disapproved of the official church, which wasn't free from the state. The last of the sisters agitated at the time of «perestroika» and «a new thinking».