The Exaltation of the Cross Monastery was founded in honor of the defeat of the Polish troops by the Ukrainians, and its heyday began after the victory of the Russians over the Swedish. The monastery was repeatedly destroyed and devastated. It was the center of culture and education on the Left Bank, for a long time it had the status of a man's, but in the final version it became a woman's.

The seven-domed Holy Cross Cathedral is considered one of the best examples of Ukrainian baroque. It was erected at the beginning of the 18th century. According to the principle of construction, the shape of the cathedral is slightly elongated, cruciform. It does not have a main facade, its three sides are the same in terms of architecture. Area 366 square meters. The interior design of the cathedral was created in the second half of the 18th century. Unfortunately, the beautiful iconostases, made by the famous masters of that time - Vasily Reklinsky and Sysoi Shalmatov, were destroyed in 1933 by the Bolsheviks. Trinity Church does not claim to be an architectural masterpiece. It is quite simple, low, has only one dome and one tier, but organically fits into the entire architectural ensemble and is an integral part of it.
The building that most attracts the attention of visitors is a four-tiered bell tower. Its height is 47 meters. It was erected in 1786. The Italian style of architecture is complemented by elements of Ukrainian baroque. Almost all descriptions of the monastery, both old and more modern, point to the similarity of this building and the Great Lavra Bell Tower in Kyiv. At one time, there were 10 bells of different sizes and shapes on the bell tower of the Exaltation of the Cross Monastery. The real pride was the bell weighing more than 6 tons.

In addition to these religious buildings, within the monastery there is a tiny single-domed Semenovskaya church built in 1887, as well as a group of one-story utility rooms and cells. Located on a hill, separated from the city by a wide and deep valley of a small tributary of the Vorskla - Poltavka (better known as Tarapunka), the monastery is clearly visible from afar. Surrounded by a stone wall, it resembles a fortress (the railway embankment, almost a ring surrounding the foot of the hill, reinforces this impression).
In 1650, on a high hill near Poltava, a monastery was founded with the money of the Cossack elders (Martyn Pushkar, Ivan Iskra, Ivan Kramar, etc.) and the inhabitants of the city. The foundation was dedicated to the victory over the Polish-gentry army. History did not really favor this Orthodox shrine - the monastery was the object of socio-political disputes, it was devastated and destroyed more than once. But there were also happy episodes in its history - the monastery was made one of the symbols of the victory of Russian troops in the Battle of Poltava, it was the center of culture and enlightenment of the Left-Bank Ukraine, inspired the work of famous artists. Until the end of the 17th century, the buildings of the monastery were wooden. In 1695, it was destroyed by the Crimean Tatars, who, in alliance with Peter Ivanenko (Petryk), came on a campaign to the Left-Bank Ukraine. At the beginning of the 18th century, the construction of a new stone cathedral was started with the money of the famous Ukrainian statesman Vasyl Kochubey (the remains of the wooden one were dismantled). But after the execution of Kochubey, on the orders of Hetman Ivan Mazepa, the construction stopped.
According to historical sources, the headquarters of the Swedish king Charles XII was located in the monastery before the decisive battle with the troops of Peter I, later called Poltava. After the victory of the Russian army and the completion of hostilities in this territory, the Exaltation of the Cross Cathedral was completed with the participation of the son of the executed Vasily Kochubey. The construction of the cathedral was completed around 1725 - it stretched for almost thirty years. In 1750 they built the Trinity Church, and in 1786 - the decoration of the monastery - the bell tower.

In general, the 18th century can be safely called the heyday of the monastery. It was at this time that its main structures were erected. From 1775 to 1798 the archbishops of Slavyansk and Kherson stayed here. At the same time, the Slavic Seminary was founded at the monastery, whose students were the famous writer and poet Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Vasily Gogol-Yanovsky (father of Nikolai Gogol), the future rector and professor of the Pereburg Medical and Surgical Academy Semyon Gaevsky, the famous Greek scientist and encyclopedist Athanasios Psalidas and many others. others.
Among the archbishops in the monastery lived famous people in the world - a Greek by nationality, a friend of the great French enlightener Voltaire, Eugene Bulgpris, as well as Bulgaris' countryman - Nicephorus Theotok, or Nikolai. It is with these two individuals, as well as with Archbishop Andrei Serebrennikov and Bishop Banulesko-Bodoni, that the significant prestige of the Poltava Slavic Seminary is associated.

The monastery was visited by Taras Shevchenko, who sketched the monastery buildings, and the famous Russian artist Grigory Myasoedov. In 1901, the latter presented the Poltava theater with a 6 by 12 painting-curtain depicting the road to the monastery, next to which sits a kobza player with the face of Taras Shevchenko playing for a traveler with the face of Nikolai Gogol.
During the civil war, the monastery was devastated more than once. Although the real robbery began after the introduction of the decree of the Council of People's Commissars on the seizure of religious values. In 1923 the monastery was closed. In its buildings in the 20-30s of the last century there were: a club of railway workers, a historical archive, the Poltava children's labor colony of the NKVD, a hostel and a student canteen of the Poltava Pedagogical Institute.

During the Nazi occupation, the community of nuns, with the permission of the renewed diocesan administration, founded a convent in the former male monastery. In the post-war years, there were up to 100 nuns in it; in the early 50s, some buildings that had been damaged during the war were renovated. But in 1960 the monastery was closed again. Officially, it became a monument of culture and antiquity, although this did not save its bell tower from being set on fire by teenagers, and one of the churches from setting up a car repair shop in it.