In A. N. Minkh’s dictionary you can find some information about this village: Large village Gusevka of district Tsaritsynsky of the 1st Olhovskaya volost is situated on the right bank of the river Ilovl. This large village had been populated since the 1770s. The population consisted of former peasants, and after the cancellation of the serfdom peasants – proprietors lived there. There were houses and lands of noblemen and landowners (Grekov, Rovinsky) and some buildings of Gusevsky female monastery. In this large village there was Svjato-Troizkaya Church, made of wood. This church was sancritified in 1837. There was another monastic stone church on the territory of Gusevsky Akhtyrsky God’s Mother female community with the lands.

It is regrettable, but A. N. Minkh does not give any information about the origin off the first peasants, who had settled down there. It is quite possible, that the first peasants of Gusevka could be natives of Kharkovskaya province. Thus, they could have brought a memory of two wonder-working icons of God’s Mother. In the name of one of them the monastic church had been sancritified. (Chenstokhonskaya icon). And in the name of the second of them the monastery had been sancritified (Akhtyrskaya icon). But it only a supposition (From a book by priest M. N. Solovyov).

Akhtyrsky female monastery was founded by priest Joann Levitsky from village Lopukhovka (district Kamyshinsky of Saratov province) and by peasant Illarion Jakovlevich Dvojchenkov from Tambov. Wandering along sacred places, Illarion Jakovlevich Dvojchenkov spent many years in Verkolsky monastery of Arkhangelsk province and eventually he secretly became a monk on Athos. His name became Nikodim. Monk Nikodim was sent to Russia to ask for donations. And he founded a monastery in honour of God’s Mother (He brouht Akhtynskaya icon with him from Greece). In village Lopukhovka in summer of 1865 the monk met with Father Joann Levitsky and he persuaded him to found a community at that place.

About 30 lay sisters, who wanted to serve to the God, gathered in the town Kamyshin in 1860 and they founded a communal economy from a house with a dining room and some other buildings. But it was difficult to develop this initiative in the town further and the lay sisters decided to try it in the country-side. In 1871 Father Joann and Father Nikodim bought some lands near large village Gusevka (region Olhovsky of Volgograd area). According to the chronicle of the first villagers some miracles had taken place at that area before the foundation of the community: some people had heard singing, invisible bells ringing, lights of burning candles... At the same time founders got some lands in the large village, for example, the house of landowner Nikolev for the lay sisters. In 1874 some other buildings were bought (farm of Tolmachyov). Local peasants made their smoll but sincere donations to help to found the monastery.

Priest Joann with some nuns built wooden constructions for living very fast. He left Lopukhovka to the temple of large village Gusevka, he gave all the donations, he had received, to the needs of the community. About 50 lay sisters lived there in that big community. That’s why it was rather difficult to live on those donations only. They did not have their own temple, and that’s why they went to services to large village Gusevka. That was not rather convenient. Local officials were an obstacle for it, because they did not want the lay sisters to go there. Joann decided to ask a patron of monks and nuns, Father Amvrosy, for help. And he went to Optina desert. And this well-known Father Amvrosy (1812 – 1891) made a big contribution to the foundation of the monastery. He found a philanthropist, who supported the community financially Elizaveta Nikolaevna Godejn (23.10.1835 – 07.12.1904).

There is a story about the origin of the name of the monastery «Akhtyrsky». Once in 1748 a sick widow named Elizaveta (!) with two daughters was going through set tlement Akhtyrka of region of Kharkov (the wonder-working Akhtyrskaya icon of the God’s Mother appeared there) and they were praying in front of the icon of God’s Mother. At night she dreamt a prophetic dream. The widow saw the God’'s Mother Maria at night and God’s Mother predicted her, that she would die soon and she told her to make donations to churches as quickly as possible. God's Mother promised her to take care of her two daughters. And everything happened to her as it had been predicted: the sick widow distributed all her financial means and died, and her two daughters got married and became happy wives and careful mothers.

Elizaveta Nikolaevna, who was a spiritual daughter of Father Amvrosy, came from a very well-known noble family. In 1876 Elizaveta Nikolaevna made a donation to the community in the sum of 17 thousands roubles. She actually helped the community to survive. And in spring of 1877 she visited that place for the first time. The desire to become a nun arose in her and she decided to go to Shamordinsky Monastery, but Father Amvrosy blessed her to serve in a rural monastery situated between the river Volga and the river Don.
After she had sold her lands, she went to the monastery in autumn of 1878 and bought all the lands of the monastery, which had been mortaged in some banks. She made a donation to the priest and to the lay sisters. She gave money to the building of a church. Thus, the community was able to build the temple. The building was finished and sancritified by bishop Tikhon of Saratov on the 8th of September in 1879.

This wooden church received its name in honour of Chenstokhovskaya icon of God’s Mother. The nuns did not like the fact, that a large village was near, and they dreamt to have a temple on a lonely farm called Tolmachyovo.

In the community Elizaveta Nikolaevna started to rewrite letters, she wove carpets, embroidered. If she had her leisure time, she painted icons, drew pictures.

«Another problem, which should be solved, was the problem of the Abbess of the monastery, » – wrote M. N. Solovjev, – «the Little Community should have a skillfull and experienced abbess, because the lay sisters were too simple and inexperienced in spiritual life».

«Soon after his acquaintance with Father Joann Father Amvrosy got acquainted with a woman from Saratov, who came from the family of a military man. Her name was Marina Jakovlevna Trunova (later nun Nina), who had already had some experience in monastic life in one monastery of Samara province and who wanted to devote her life to the God and to the monastery. Father Amvrosy understood that she was a very clever woman with clear mind. Father Amvrosy thought that she would be capable to found and to run the community. He said about it to Joann Levitsky. Father Amvrosy blessed Marina Jakovlevna and then she only visited a new community and lived there a little. And then, when Father Joann and the lay sisters decided to appoint her Abbess of the monastery, she accepted it after Father Joann’s blessing. Thus, she became the first Abbess of the monastery».

The founder of the community Father Joann stayed there till 1883, and then he went to another place (he died in Saratov in 1891). Father Amvrosy paid much attantion to Elizaveta Godejn’s spiritual life. Father Amvrosy died in October of 1891. Till his death he took an active part in the spiritual life of the community.

And in 1892 the community received the status of a monastery with management by Father-Superior. In 1894 77 nuns and lay sisters lived in the monastery. Elizaveta (Godejn) died on the 3rd of December in 1904 and she was buried in a crypt near the temple. Her dead body had been kept for about 5 days before the burial in the well-heated temple, but it remained unspoilt. The monastic priest Father Michael Solovyov published a book about her in 1912. In 1912 there was a big spiritual revival in the monastery and 27 sisters became nuns.

After Elizaveta"s death the monastery became larger and stronger: it possessed a comfortable temple, 6 buildings for the lay sisters, Father-Superior’s house, a hospital, a carpet workshop, some stalles and many other buildings. The monastery was surrounded with a high stone wall. A well-known artist Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin (1878 – 1939) created his famous picture «Bathing of a red horse» there. He wrote the following about Gusevka: «The village is down the river – there is a very beautiful female monastery with a magnificent park.» He had a rest in Gusevka with his friends (Grekov). One of them, Alexander Petrovich Grekov, became a well-known restorer, whose work was rewarded by the UNESCO.

The Monastery owned 3 farms with 2 gardens, some lands. In 1911 the capital of the monastery totalled about 12000 roubles.

Thus, the monastery had the church, sancritified in the name of Chenstkhonskaya God’s Mother; the house made of wood with an attic and 11 rooms – Father-Superior's house, an office and a library; the house made of wood and bricks with 6 rooms; the house made of wood and bricks, divided into two parts; the house made of wood with two dark corridors – the hospital; the house made of wood and bricks with two floors; the house made of stones; some constructions for people to live there; some economic constructions: sheds, a mill, a bakery, etc.

All those spiritual and material riches and wealth caused bolsheviks’ hatred during the Sovjet time. The bolsheviks started to destroy the monaster, though within the civil war (in March, 1919) the nuns opened in one of the rooms of the monastery a hospital for the hurt people. After nationalization of the monastery, according to historian S. P. Sinelnikov, within 1922 – 1924 the monastery had «only 4 living houses, 2 office houses, a bath-house and a plough». In 1925 the lay sister tried to rent some rooms, but they were refused, because the communists planned to open a school for the youth there. After a persistent struggle for preservation of the monastery it did not remain anything, only the temple. According to the lease agreement all living houses and office buildings, a garden with 2000 trees and a park were given to the school for the term of 12 years (from 1926 till 1938). The nuns complained to all the instances, but it was in vein.

At the end of 1925 the community consisted of 24 abled and 29 disabled lay sisters. In February of 1926 the community had to leave that place, though there were many free rooms there. Some lay sisters went to the temple, the other lay sisters went to peasants’ houses of farm Zaburunny. Referring to statements of some citizens about uselessness of the temple the communists decided to close the church. In 1929 the temple was empty and was used by the Village Soviet of Gusevka as a granary. In 1934 the local authorities decided to satisfy the application and to close the temple. They turned it into a cultural educational institution. Svjato-Troizkaya Church, built in 1837, was also closed on the 22nd of September in 1934. In 1934 it was destroyed, because the communists wanted to build a new bath-house. A little garden appeared at that place. Till 1945 according to reports of the local authorities Akhtyrsky monastery had only the building of the former church, where a school was located, and some other buildings, where there were houses of a children’s house. The building of the church was ruined.

The rebirth of the monastery was connented with the arrival of archbishop Herman (Timofeev) of Volgograd and of Kamyshinsky in Gusevka in July in 1994. The monastery was opened on the 21st of February in 1996. Its new lay sisters had to buy flats for several families, who had been living in an ancient private residence. Young assistants led by Father Joann revived the church in one of the buildings. Some local people collected the icons from the old monastery kept away in their houses. It was possible to repair houses for Mother-Superior and lay sisters, the dining room. They managed to make a bath-house and warehouses. They sur rounded everything with a fence.

Now there is a regular priest archimandrite Vasily and about ten nuns with Mother-Superior Efrosinia there. A new stone temple was built there and its building was sancritified on the 15th of July in 2002.

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You can see neither a fine garden, nor that magnificent scenery, which artist Petrov-Vodkin wrote about. Houses of peasants have surrounded with a dense ring a place, where Gusevsky Monastery was located. But there is a new monastic temple there – a signal of the rebirth of the female monastery. Father Vasily contributed to it very much. He wrote and sent letters to all the corners of the country and asked to help to build a church. And money from all the corners of Russia came. The sums were small, but they helped very much. Thus, that new temple in Gusevka was built by the whole Russia.

The modern history of Russian ancient monasteries begins. And nowadays there are people, who are ready to serve to the God and to their Fatherland. The name of Elizaveta Nikolaevna Godejn, the first Mother-Superior of the monastery (Mother Nina) will be forever in the memory of orthodox people as well as the names of monk Nikodim, Father Joann and Father Amvrosy.