No Borders……………………….Only Horizons

Bruce’s Travel Blog

Posted : 26^th May 2019

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The DOUKHOBORS (Russian “Spirit-Wrestlers”)

 

20 years ago my Aunt (Kate Charity, known in the family as “Candoo”) heightened my awareness of her mother’s father, John Bellows (my Gt-Grandfather). She gave me a copy of a book he had written (“A Winter Journey to Norway”) and she talked about his life; Eventually, she published a book about him “John Bellows of Gloucester”

I was fascinated because all my family history to that date had focussed on the Cadburys. My mother has no interest in her own Scottish background.

 

In 2006 I went to Norway following in the footsteps of his winter journey, and I put in the back of my mind that later in his life, JB had, with Leo Tolstoy, helped a persecuted sect of pacifist Christians out of Russia and into Canada. One of these days, I thought, it would be nice to go out to the Canadian Prairies and see what had happened…

 

In 2017, I decided I would make a trip around the world visiting friends “down under” in Australia/New Zealand and tie this in with visiting Canada to see the “Doukhobors” . I started doing some research and decided that since I was going to spend April 2018 in Thessaloniki (trying unsuccessfully to learn Greek as it turned out)  I would go to Georgia to see where these people had come from. It all seemed very neat. I would find out about Georgia and then go to Canada in November 2018, meet up with Alexandra for Christmas/New Year in Mexico, and then go off around the world.

 

I hit the google-trail and soon established contact with a Doukhobor source in Canada who (a) said -as politely as possible – that I would be mad to go to Canada in the Winter, (b) that there was a group of Doukhobors visiting the “old country” (Georgia) in July 2018 and (c) it would be better to go to British Columbia in May 2019 for their annual festival.

Although this meant two trips, it seemed much more sensible, so I revised my plans and went off to Georgia in July 2018…

 

In Georgia I met up with Verna, Sharon & Sandra (all Doukhobours from British Columbia) in Tblisi and we were joined by Victor and his daughter Victoria, Corinne and Ilyana and we headed up to Gorelovka where we met up with local Doukhobors and Tatiana who had come back to her village from Siberia.

 

We got close as the sun was setting and went to the "Burning of the Arms" site (more later) and then ended up being plied with cheese and honey at the beekeepers (and vodka & wine...)

 

It was dark by the time we got to Tanta Masha's house, but food soon came to the table

   

Accompanied by tea made from the herbs we'd gather earlier.

As the evening and vodka continued there was some beautiful singing and many exchanges of toasts.

(By the way, they were all speaking Russian, so I just went with the flow..)

Eventually Tanta Masha extracted piles of bedding and mattresses and everybody bunked down.

 

 

Daylight came and we saw where we were

   

Outside hole-in-the-ground and no bathroom

We went off to an old graveyard

   

Sharon and Masha had just discovered they had a common gt-gt-gt-grandfather!

 

We then went off to where there was a work-gang (family) making fuel-bricks for the winter. Material = Cow-poo mixed with straw.

Everybody mucked in..

  

 

 

      

 

Later, we went for a walk around the village with Dasha, the 15-yr old daughter of Yuri, the village elder. She speaks good English and wants to become a diplomat!

Ilyana from Moscow who had to leave.

      

The next morning we went to the Sunday service “Mollenye” and went around the house where their pre-exile leader had lived.

 

We returned to the “Burning of the Arms” site and whilst there a man rode up and there was much discussion as he remembered various members of the Doukhobor community. He was quite a character.

      

 

We left Georgia after visiting the Vardia Caves, and moved into Turkey where we stayed Kars. We took a day-trip to the Fortress at ANI on the border with Azerbijan.

 

In the evening we met up with Vedat and saw his mixture of Doukhobor and Molokon items at his Culture and Art Association, and then went to a showing of his film about the burning of the arms.

 

Throughout the time I spent with Verna, Sharon & Sandra I gained the impression that they had been told that the Doukhobors had been helped out of Russia by Tolstoy. I didn’t think that this was the whole story, so when I returned to London I started digging into the archives at Friends House and in Gloucester.

 

It turns out that whilst Tolstoy was very helpful in assisting the Doukhobor emigration, it was the Doukhobor Committee of the English Quakers who had done the majority of the logistical and fund-raising leg-work.

 

I mentioned the “Burning of the Arms”. This was a turning point in Doukhobor history. In June of 1895, the whole Doukhobor community engaged in an an act of civil disobedience by burning all their guns, ammunition swords, etc., to send a message to the Tsarist regime that they were pacifists and their young men would refuse to do military service. They had bonfires in three separate locations and it was all well-coordinated. The authorities and military had never encountered anything like this before, and in Gorelovka they were particularly vicious, killing several people. After this, Leo Tolstoy wrote to the London newspapers and it was following this that the English Quakers decided to take action.

 

 

So in May 2019, I headed off to Canada

 

 

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