Childhood Memories

by Alexey Ivanovich Popov

Alexey Ivanovich Popov was born February 8, 1876 in the province of Elizavetpol, Russia, in the village of Novo-Troitskoye. At the age of two, he and his family, together with a sizeable group of Doukhobors immigrated to the territory known as Kars near the Turkish border. There, they founded the village of Spasovka, where Alexey remained until manhood. Many years later, he recounted his Doukhobor childhood in his memoirs, written in 1953 but published posthumously. The following excerpt, reproduced by permission from Chapter One of “Autobiography of a Siberian Exile” (Trans. Eli A. Popoff. Kelowna: 2006), chronicles the first fourteen years of Alexey’s life and provides a wealth of insight into Doukhobor life, events and beliefs, especially with respect to the upbringing and education of Doukhobor children in the Caucasus, Russia the 1880’s.

I, Alexey Ivanovich Popov, was a son of religious parents. They were a poor, peasant family of Doukhobor faith. I was born on February 25, 1877 in the Doukhobor village of Troitskoye in the Russian Gubernia of Elizavetpol, which is situated on the southern side of the Caucasus Mountains in Southern Russia. My father was Ivan Semyonovich Popov and my mother was Anna Semyonovna Popov (Androsov). They were humble, poor peasants who made their living as tillers of the soil. They were staunch in their Doukhobor faith and devout believers in their spiritual Doukhobor leaders. As true followers of their faith my parents migrated to Canada in 1899 with the Doukhobor mass migration of that time. Here in Canada, all the days of their lives they belonged to the Doukhobor group known as the Sons of Freedom. Both of them spent considerable periods of time in Canadian prisons and endured various forms of beatings and other persecution, but they did not change their beliefs to the very end of their lives. They passed away at different times; both are buried at the same cemetery in British Columbia. In their family they had seven children – three sons and four daughters. I was their third child.

Alexei Ivanovich Popov as an adult, c. 1915.

Recollections of what my mother told me:

When my mother gave birth to me, she had a very hard time and remained ill and in bed for months after my birth. It was my father who looked after all the farm chores as well as most of the household duties. Mother told me that I was a very quiet child. Very seldom did anyone hear me cry. During her illness my mother did not have any milk in her breasts to feed me. She was also not able to get out of bed and prepare any baby food for me. As was a common practice at that time among the Doukhobors, all the mothers who were breastfeeding their children in the immediate neighbourhood took turns and came to our house to feed me. Each came at their allotted time to feed me. At the same time when they came to feed me, each of the mothers would do some of the housework and look after some of my mother’s needs. This went on up to the time that I reached two years of age.

After two years of age:

Some of the following that I write about, it seems to me that I remember it myself, but it is possible that some of it may have been told to me by my mother, when I was still a child of eight or nine years of age. I remember that I was a healthy child and remember how I walked with steady feet all over the yard, but the events that went on in the family household at that time I do not seem to recall.

The first thing I remember is that on the south, sunny side of our house, right against the wall, the ashes from our Russian bake oven were always placed in a pile. In the summer this pile got very dry. I loved to play on it and sometimes would even fall asleep, half covered in the ashes. Sometimes I would sleep here till I woke up, and sometimes someone would carry me inside the house while I was still asleep. When I was two and a half years old, I was strong enough to roam around the whole yard and even outside the yard. At one time after it was past the noon hour of twelve o’clock, my mother decided to pay a visit to the nearby shallow river where the village women placed their flax straw to soak in preparation for the next stage to be made into fiber for spinning and weaving. This was a yearly practice that was done in the fall of every year. I was allowed to go with my mother for this visit. Shortly after we had already passed the outskirts of the village, I had my first sight of a large prairie jackrabbit. He had been lying in the grass, till we came quite close to him. Suddenly he raised himself and turning towards the nearby mountain, he ran with a brisk jump towards this mountain. The mountain was a landmark in the area that was called “Troitskiy Shpeel” (shpeel means a peak or spire).

After a short while we arrived at the river. The spot chosen here was a curve in the river with a very slow flowing current. The bottom was covered with a coarse gravel with scattered round and flat rocks. The depth of the water was from 6 to 18 inches. Between the scattered rocks it was excellent to place the flax or hemp straw for soaking. These bundles of straw would then have the river rocks placed on top of them. This was done so that the current would not carry away the straw and so that the direct sun would not shine upon it. When we came to this spot my mother took off her shoes and waded into the water. She reached into the water and took out a handful of straw. She rubbed it between her hands for a while and then put it back. Apparently it was not yet ready to take out. At this same spot, a little further up river, we saw that there was another Doukhobor woman who had come to examine her material. She was also finished with her examination, so we started going back to our village together – this lady and my mother, and me following them. On our way home we did not see any other wild life. Arriving at the outskirts of our village I noticed that the sun was now setting over that same mountain, “Troitskiy Shpeel”, towards which the jackrabbit had scampered.

When we came home, mother went to milk the cows, but as for me, I felt so tired from the walk of about four miles that I immediately climbed up onto the space above the Russian bake oven where it was always warm. Feeling warm all over, I fell asleep almost at once. And it was here that I slept throughout the whole evening and night and right through the early morning. It was never the practice of my mother to wake a child to feed him the evening meal, or to move him once he was comfortably asleep. She always said – once a child is comfortably sleeping in the evening, let him be. Missing the meal won’t hurt him as much as disturbing his peaceful sleep.

In the morning I got up from my place of sleep before my other siblings got out of bed and at once told my mother that I was hungry. Mother immediately poured some milk into the earthenware dish, along with some small chunks of leftover wheat bread. I took out of the cupboard one of the hand-carved wooden spoons and heartily ate what my mother had set before me.

Being only two and a half years old, none of the household or yard chores had yet been allocated to me, and so my daily life went on as with all other children in the quiet peaceful life of our agrarian village. At this age I was already quite articulate in my speaking. Although I did not have too broad a vocabulary, this was being added to from day to day.

As usual, I was always interested in what my father did as his village work routine. It was about three weeks after the visit to the river with my mother that my father brought home on a hayrack wagon the flax and hemp straw that had been soaking in the river. He carefully placed it under a roof to dry. After a period of drying, mother would go to the shed and take small bundles of the straw and with wooden tools she would work days on end beating the straw till it would separate into fibrous strands. The straw would be thrown aside for use in making fuel bricks, and the semi-clean fiber would be taken into the house. During the long winter evenings, in a special corner of the house both mother and father would keep on tramping this semi-clean fiber with their bare feet. Every once in a while they would take this mass outside to shake out the straw from it. When this mass was reasonably clean, mother would then card it piece by piece with special hand carders. Now this fluffy mass was ready handful by handful to be spun into yarn on the home made spinning wheel. In the evening mother would spin while father would be tramping the semi-cleaned flax fiber in the corner. During the daytime mother would work with the wooden tools outside, doing the first stage of the straw separation. In the evenings my father would continue the cleaning process of tramping by foot in the corner of the house that what mother had prepared outside, while mother would be carding or spinning in another corner of the living room. This kind of work continued up until about the month of February. At this time all of the cleaning, carding and spinning should be completed. Now the spun yarn had to be made into linen and hemp cloth in a process that was very fascinating to me as a child. As I grew older the process became clearer to me, but it is still quite hard to explain step by step how the yarn eventually became a very durable linen, hemp or wool material used for sewing the clothes that were worn by all the Doukhobors. All this was done in the living rooms of almost every Doukhobor family in the village.

The spun yarn was rolled into large balls. The place for preparing the yarn for its required width of usually about two feet was chosen along the longest wall of the living room. After a rotating walk around the set up pegs on a raised bench, the resulting unrolling of the large balls of yarn into a long pattern was ready to go into the set up loom for weaving. The loom itself was an intricate homemade wooden construction that a woman had to sit at. Working with her hands to put a cross thread through the two-foot wide yarn on the rollers, and using her feet to move the thing along was an art exclusive mostly to Doukhobor women. The work of weaving on the loom to make these two-foot wide and of various lengths materials or rugs went on into the months of March, April and even May. When it became warm enough in the spring to do this, then the women would take these rugs, which were still quite coarse, to the river again. There they are again soaked in the water and then spread out on the green grass to dry in the sun. As soon as they are dry, they are again soaked and again spread out in the sun. This process softens them, and also makes them become whiter. From this material the women then sew what the family requires. From the purer and softer white material they sew women’s clothes. Some of the coarser material is coloured, usually blue, and men’s pants are sewn from it, and also some women’s work clothing. The women do all their sewing by hand, and use their own, finer linen thread. A lot of clothing material was made from sheep’s wool. The process of preparing wool into yarn for spinning and weaving was a bit different and a lot of wool yarn was used for knitting.

All of this work with flax and hemp straw and sheep’s wool was done in the wintertime, and most of it was done by the Doukhobor women residing at this time in the Doukhobor villages of the Caucasus area in southern Russia. In the summer, during haying season, these same women worked side by side with the men. The men with hand scythes would be cutting the hay, while the women, with hand rakes made of wood, would be raking the hay into little piles, which they referred to as “miniature stacks”. At harvest time the women together with the men, using hand scythes would harvest the grain, tying the grain stalks into sheaves that they would later thresh together. Threshing of the grain was also done by hand by both men and women.

Besides helping the men in the fields, Doukhobor women also planted large vegetable gardens, which they looked after from spring till fall using hand tools. Every Doukhobor family had cows, which the women milked by hand. They also looked after the sheep and it was the women’s job to shear the wool from them every spring. Every family raised chickens, ducks and geese and the women looked after these as well. Of course it was the women’s duty to cook, to sew, to wash clothes, clean house and do all other family chores including the bringing up of children. Among all of these responsibilities the women still found time to go and pick the abundant wild flowers of the Caucasus area. They also picked herbs for their own medicinal use, as well as for sale.

One other very important responsibility of Doukhobor women was that they had to pass on the Doukhobor life-concept to the children by teaching them to know from memory Doukhobor psalms, wherein was contained the aspects of the Doukhobor faith. When a child was still quite young, the mother taught them the psalms only for reciting purposes. As the child grew older, the mother was required to see that the child would start learning the melody of each psalm. This was in order that the child could participate in mass prayer meetings, which were based on the reading and singing of psalms. The melody for Doukhobor psalms was very intricate and not easy to learn, even if you were growing up as a Doukhobor. For most outsiders the melody of Doukhobor psalms is very hard to understand and almost impossible to sing in the same soul stirring way.

When I was two years and eight months old my mother taught me one short psalm, which was specially composed for children. It was easy to read and I learned to read it quite fluently. It started with: “Lord, give us your blessing.” “Thou art my God and I am your slave. You will not desert me, and I will not ever leave you” and ended with “Honour and Praise to our God”. This psalm I learned to read from memory while we still lived in the house where I was born in the village of Troitskoye (Elizavetpol Gubernia).

In the spring of the year 1880 a sizable group of Doukhobors including our villagers and also from the neighbouring village of Spasovka of our Gubernia of Elizavetpol, decided to move to the Kars area of the Gubernia of Tiflis. The distance to cover was about two hundred and fifty plus Russian “Versti” (about 150 miles). My parents decided to make this move with the group. Being merely three years old at this time, I was not too aware of the hardships of this trip. I only remember the convoy of covered wagons following one another and slowly making their way along wagon trail roads, which were often muddy and soft. The wagons were heavily loaded and sometimes got bogged down in the mud so that the team hitched to the wagon would not be able to pull the wagon out. I remember cases where all the wagons would stop and they would hitch teams from other wagons at the head of those stuck. After pulling out the stuck wagon, the whole convoy would then proceed. On the third day of our journey our convoy had to cross a river. Its depth was from one to three and a half feet. Its width was about three hundred feet and it was quite fast flowing. My father was driving a four-horse team hitched to our wagon and it appears that he had moved a bit to one side of the regular track where it was safe to cross. There was a huge unseen rock in the water that stopped the wagon and the horses could not move it. Many men from the other wagons immediately came to the rescue. They waded into the water, and finding out what the problem was, they placed themselves at the wheels and at the back of the wagon and helped to get the wagon over the rock and safely to the other side.

A sample page from Alexey’s handwritten memoirs of 1953, painstakingly translated by his son Eli A. Popoff in 2006.

At the other side of the river, all of the convoy stopped for a meal, to rest and to feed the horses. Feed for the horses was not being hauled because the wagons were overly full with all the household and other belongings that were being transported to the new place of abode. So the horses were fed merely with the local grass that they grazed and any fresh hay that could be cut on the way. The early spring green grass was not very nutritious for the horses. They weakened day by day, and so the journey was longer than it should have been. What added to the hardships was that there was much rain during this trip –making the roads wet and soggy. The wagon wheels kept sinking up to four inches – making ruts as they proceeded. Because of all this the convoy used to make as little as fifteen versti, and at the most 30 versti of travel per day (a “versta” is approximately one kilometre. – Ten kilometres is approximately 6 miles). It was fortunate for the whole convoy that the climate of this Caucasus area was reasonable during the spring. While there were times of very heavy rainfall making puddles three or four inches deep on the roads, within the same hour the sun would come out and in a short time the water would all disappear. The rain did not bother the people or their belongings because all of the wagons were well covered with good frames covered with durable canvass. The food brought along for the trip was very simple. Basically everyone had sacks full of “sookhari” or twice baked bread chunks, made from whole wheat. They had a supply of potatoes, millet grain and salted chunks of sheep’s fat. The road from Elizavetpol to the Kars area was very hilly and rocky and there was a considerable amount of forest growth all around. The territory that was being crossed was all Crown Land and therefore it was permissible to let the horses graze at every stop that was made. We children always rode in the comfort of the covered wagons, where we also slept every night. All of the men usually walked behind or beside the wagons. They did not have to drive the horses most of the time as the Caucasus horses were better trained to keep to the trails, than the Canadian horses that we have had to use. It was only once in a while when a steep hill would appear ahead that the drivers would sit down on the driver’s seat to urge and steer the horses.

In the evenings when the convoy was camping for the night, the men would gather in groups and join in light hearted discussions and usually sang joyous hymns and songs. The women would be cooking the evening meal and tending to the children’s needs. In general this migration from one area to another had its hardships, but there were also joyful times. Throughout the whole trip there was not a single occasion of misfortune or trauma to any family in the whole convoy.

In the latter part of April, our convoy reached its destination. My parents chose to settle in the village named “Spasovka” in the District of Arganov about 40 “Versti” east of the City of Kars in what was referred to as “Karsskaya Oblast” or the region of Kars in the Gubernia (or province) of Tiflis. The village of Spasovka was situated in a unique location. From the west side there was a huge long mountain. On the north, east and south sides, the river “Karsina” made a huge bend. Along the south west side and along the mountain there flowed a smaller unnamed river, which always had warm water in it. On frosty days of the winter months there was always a vapor of steam above it. At the southeast end of our village location these two rivers joined together and they flowed out of our valley in a southeasterly direction between two tall mountains of rock, which formed a gorge at this point.

Both these rivers had an abundance of fish. However these fish were of a small common variety and could not be compared to the special fish that we came to know in far eastern parts of Russia, in Siberia, province of Yakutsk.

In this, our new village of Spasovka, my parents did not have to build their new home to live in. This was because there were two parties of Doukhobors that had already moved here from our province. With one of these parties, my grandfather Semyon Leontievich Popov came here before us. These parties that had come here before us, by mutual agreement, had already allocated exactly how the village would be built. They had measured out equal lots in a long line with homes to be built facing each other. One side of the line would have the houses with the rear facing eastward, and the other side would have their rear facing westward. In the centre was a wide street running from north to south. The total length of this street was about one and one quarter “versti” (about ¾ of a mile). After all the lots were marked out and numbered – each family drew lots for the one that would be theirs.

Part of these lots covered a territory that once had the remains of a small Turkish village. This territory still had the skeletons of five Turkish dwelling homes that were not totally deteriorated. These dwellings all had the same shape and style. The structure was all under one roof and quite low to the ground level. The roof was made from turf. Each had two doors on the long side of the structure. One door led into the structures most spacious division, which had four separate divisions and was used to house the farm animals and the poultry. The other door, at the other end, led into the division where the family was to live. One of these structures still remained on the lot that grandfather drew as his allocated lot. When my parents arrived at this newly pioneered village, my grandfather greeted us at the front of this building, and this is where we settled in to live.

The first essential chore that had to be done here was to go to the place and dig the special clay, from which bricks could be made. After drying and processing the bricks, these would then be laid in proper formation to make the brick oven for baking and cooking. I remember my father and grandfather at work making the bricks, while mother was busy washing up all the clothes from the trip and doing other cleaning. From these very first days I remember my older brother and sister and myself climbing the low roofed dwelling of ours and walking all over the long roof.

Because grandfather had come here earlier, he had done some essential work that every homeowner had to do here at this time. He had tilled some of our allotted soil and sowed some barley. He did complain that the Turkish people who lived here had apparently used the soil continually for many years and he feared that the crop would be very poor. We did not have any choice at this time, so in the latter days of the month of April, we, as all others – planted our gardens, each on the allotted lots, which were also very much worked over before us.

At this time I was just three years and two months old and so all of the responsibilities of this first pioneering year did not affect me. All the responsibilities rested on the shoulders of our parents. As for us, children, free of worldly responsibilities, as soon as summer warmth came around, we headed in groups to the shallow warm river that was really right in our back yard.

There for days at a time we sat in the warm waters of the river taking hourly outings to stretch out on the warm sand of the beach. Because there were no schools in this new area where we settled, the children that came to the river ranged from two to nine years. The parents felt safe to allow the children to come here, because the river was shallow and slow flowing. The shore was not deep set, but just about even with the land’s surface and the river bottom was firm and solid. This was why all the children of our village spent all the sunny days at this river shore. In the evenings the parents always insisted that all children spend a certain amount of time learning from memory the prayers of the Doukhobors, which were called psalms. When I was four years old I learned my second psalm, which read as follows:

Lord, Give Us Thy Blessing

Let us all tearfully reflect on all the daily workings of our lives. Verily speaks to us our Lord with entreaty: “You my male servants and maid servants, devout Christians, do not forget to be faithful to God, and He will not forget you in the end time to come. In our present day, the times are very trying. We are being judged and persecuted. There has been born an evil anti-Christ. He has sent forth his evil oppressors out into the whole world. There is no place to hide for my faithful followers, neither in the mountains, nor in the caves, nor in the distant barren places. My faithful followers have to live in exile and suffer persecution for keeping to the word of God and for manifesting the teachings of Jesus Christ. But you my faithful followers rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.

Our God be praised.

Because my age group of children was not yet allocated any responsibilities, we continued to spend all our time at our favorite spot by the river. We would go there day after day. The only time we were not there was when we would see a dark cloud coming over the horizon and rumbling of thunder would be heard. At such times we would race to where the nearest covered wagons were parked and hide under their cover. For the first season, families continued to live in their covered wagons while the houses were being built. The last parties were all still living in their covered wagons. My parents were very fortunate to have the frames of the five Turkish huts that were on their allotted plot. We were sheltered in them during the first trying years. All the other families next to us were all hurrying to get their houses built. The construction of houses in this area was very simple. The walls were built from the slabs of unhewn gray rock that was freely available at the nearby foothills of the mountains. In between went layers of mixed clay mortar, which was also readily available at various spots of the valley. There was no visible forest anywhere nearby so wood was only used for window frames and doorjambs. For the roof some round poles were used sparsely, on which were laid split flat slabs of stone. On this base, plain soil was heaped, and this method was used for every roof of every building in the village. All the buildings had similar rock walls. Our village of Spasovka had 86 family residences. Each and every residence was similarly built and there was not a single wooden roofed building in the whole village.

With this form of construction, not counting the labor the cost of the buildings was very minimal. For a residence to house a family of ten with livestock from 25 to 30 head, the cost of constructing a residence would be from five to ten rubles. This expense goes specifically for the cost of glass and any ironware that was required for the buildings. It also covered anything that was needed for the large Russian oven assembled out of hand-made bricks. This oven served for all the kitchen cooking, bread baking, as well as supplying heat in the winter months. The construction of these buildings was the prime occupation of each and every family in these first years of settlement. All of the needed materials for this type of construction was readily available nearby. The forms of rock and stone slabs were all around you to the fullest of your hearts desire. There were mountains of clay for your mortar and brick baking. Water was abundant from the two rivers in the valley. The biggest detriment was the lack of forest nearby. The closest place for cutting any timber was 50 Versti away. Although there was one good thing about the timber, and that was, that for all our new settlers the state allowed a given amount for free. However to transport this timber was very difficult. In the first place there was still a shortage of horses in the first years and there was no supply of any kind of grain to feed the horses in this long and arduous journey. Even though throughout the Kavkaz Mountains there were always patches of good grass, this was not good enough to give strength for the horses to pull these heavy loads of timber for such long distances. Besides all this, horsepower was needed at home for hauling the rocks and for tilling the soil. The roads that were used to get to the timber belt were not kept up by anyone. Although the trails were somewhat packed down, the continuous summer rains would make them muddy and difficult for any kind of transportation. It was because of all of this that lumber was of the highest value in all of our villages.

There never was any talk of a sawmill to be constructed because the logs brought here were few and far between. For the absolutely essential boards the logs were cut by hand with long crosscut saws. Those families that did not have two grown men got together in pairs with other families. Since this was not an occupation that was practiced often, some of the boards that were cut were very uneven. These were the tasks that were performed by all the grown ups of the village throughout the spring, summer and fall. In the fall the gathering in of the crops took precedence over all. The first crops were very poor as these were sewn on lands that the Turkish people had been farming for many years and new land had not yet been prepared. Our children’s summer occupation that we loved best of all was our time spent by the river. Nevertheless there were times when we would go to the spots where the families were mixing the clay for mortar for the buildings. Here we would roll our own little balls of clay for our own kind of play. Sometimes we would dry them, but sometimes we would throw them at each other while they were still raw and wet. The object was to dodge them, as they hurt quite considerably. Sometimes one of the clay balls would hit a grown up person, at which time we would all be chased away. A chase from one place did not usually stop us. We would just go to another place further away where the same clay mixing was going on. Our group eventually earned the name of “mischief makers.”

When it was time for harvest all of our barefooted gang was broken up. Each went to their own family group in readiness to be taken to the fields together with the elders. Only those children stayed at home where there was an elder staying behind to allocate to them the home chores that had to be done.

Harvesting the grain at that time was very simple. The men cut down the standing grain with hand scythes, and the women raked it into small neat piles called “Kopitsi”. Then the men using special thin poles about 10 feet long, and sticking them under the pile from two sides, they would lift and carry this pile to a central place where a neat small stack would be made. This stack would be left that way till all the cutting down of the grain would be finished.

The children’s responsibility was to see that not a blade with a head of kernels in it would be left lying in the field. We would gather these individually and tie them into little sheaves with the spare straw stems. Every child would place his little sheaves separately into neat piles. These sheaves would then be taken home in the evening, where we would give them into caretaking of the parents and receive their praise according to how diligently they had worked and how many sheaves were made up. The parents kept these little sheaves separately and allowed them to be threshed separately. With the grain that resulted, the children were allowed to trade it with the local traveling merchants for goodies like apples, plums or grapes, either fresh or dried.

After the harvesting of the grain in the fields is completed, the families individually, if large families, and sometimes together with others, if small – prepare a special spot for threshing. A sizable smooth surfaced place is chosen. First it is wetted down with water and tall grass or straw is scattered loosely on it. A horse is then hitched to a special wooden roller with pegs in it, and with a rider horseback on the horse, drives back and forth on this patch until the straw is tramped in and the whole base is quite firm and solid. After this has dried, the excess straw is swept off and the reaped grain is then spread on this firm base which is called a “Katok” and the same wooden roller is hauled across, over and over until the kernels are all freed from the heads. When the men feel that all the kernels are free from the straw, they gather the straw with forks and take it away, piling it into stacks for feed. The grain is shoveled to the centre of the “Katok” and more unthreshed wheat or whatever grain is being threshed is spread around. Then the roller and the horse again commence their threshing process. After the men feel that there is about 50 or 60 “poodi” of grain (one “pood” is 40 pounds) in the centre of the “Katok”, the threshing process is halted. Now they take shovels and throw the grain into the air against the wind – thus separating the chaff from the kernels, as it is light and the wind blows it away. If there are any pieces of solid matter like dried mud chunks or small rocks – these are later removed by hand made screens.

All this harvesting work was carried out by the elders. In the meantime we children see how the elders are throwing the wheat and chaff into the wind, develop our own form of make believe. We gather in the street where there is loose dirt and make piles of it in the centre. Then cupping our hands we throw it into the air, just to see which way it blows. Because there are up to ten of us in a group, we create a regular dust storm in which you can hardly see our bodies. In the morning when we get together, all have different colored clothes. In the evening all our clothes are a dark gray. All around our eyes, nose and mouth there is a layer of black dust. We no longer look like children but like knights in black armor. In the event that we have a rainfall and the streets have puddles, we begin by racing through them, and then wrestling and before you know it we begin to go our separate and march home like fishermen coming home, wet and soggy.

It wasn’t always that we children got away with our naughty frolicking. Often either an elder man or an older woman would catch us doing something naughty and they would get after us with a willow switch, and without paying attention as to who belonged to which family, would give each one of us a good wallop on the back and chase us to our individual homes. Most of the time we were on the watch for any approaching elder, and when catching sight of one, we would immediately scatter and hide. There never was any thought of standing up to any older person of your own or any other village. If ever any child would answer harshly to any older person, he would be severely punished by his own parents at home. This meant that no child could do any mischief in any part of the village without immediately answering to any elder around. Even if he got away from the elder on the spot, he knew what he would get at home, when his mischief and disrespect of elders would be reported to his parents. This kind of upbringing allowed the Doukhobors to live in peace and harmony in their large extended families, and in their tightly knit villages. Every parent trusted their neighbouring parents to do the right thing when dealing with children’s pranks. Parents always trusted the elders’ assessment of an irresponsible occurrence, rather than the version given by a guilty teen-ager. There were no schools in our village and at most the literacy rate of the whole village was no more than 5 percent. Yet the whole village kept strictly to the above disciplinary guidelines without any exceptions.

With the oncoming colder weather, after all the fall work was done, our children’s group gallivanting came to an end. Because of general lack of warm winter clothing, most of us children now became confined to their homes. Staying at home, all we could do was think about all of the things we had done this past summer, and plan for the coming spring and summers escapades and the new things we might come up with.

During the fall and winter time of short days and long nights, because the children had no place to play and no responsibilities to fulfill and were having time on their hands, it became the duty of every parent and grandparent to teach them the prayers and psalms that contained the life-concept of the Doukhobors. These were passed on from generation to generation and were learned from memory. Families that had four or five children above four years of age, had them, every day, lined up in a row and made to recite from memory the psalms they already knew, and then separately, each one would be taught additional psalms. Up to a given age these psalms would be taught only for recitation. Later the melody of these psalms would be taught as well. In this particular winter I learned from memory my third psalm, whose contents was as follows:

“Lord, Give Us Thy Blessing”

“From the beginning of time and till now, the Lord God calleth to His faithful children: “Come to me my dear children, come to me my most dear ones. I have prepared for you the Kingdom of Heaven. Do not fear to forsake your father, your mother nor all of your race and lineage in the physical sense, but give reverence to me your heavenly Father in spirit. And the faithful children turn to Him in prayer – Oh Lord, our dear Lord it is so difficult for us to enter into your heavenly kingdom. All the pathways have gates of steel, and at the gates there stand fierce and unjust guards. And the Lord speaketh to them and sayeth: “Do not be fearful my children, do not be fearful my dear ones. I am the powerful wrestler that shall go forward before you. I shall break down all their gates of steel and I shall disperse their fierce guards. And then I shall lead you into my kingdom of heaven, where all shall reign with me as witnessed to by the God of Jacob.”

“Our God be praised”

During the winters male children under the age of 12 years had no responsibilities, so their day-to-day routine was always the same and the winters felt long. In regard to the girls it was a bit different. Beginning from the age of seven, the mothers began teaching them how to knit from the woolen yarn and even simple patching. Those families that had smaller babies, the girls were trained to take care of them. The girls were also taught to clean the floors as well as help their mothers with the washing of dishes. After the girls reach 12 years of age the mothers began to train them how to spin simple, thicker yarn for mitts and working stockings. All the spinning in our area of Kars province was done from sheep’s wool. Some sheep had been brought from our Elizavetpol province because there, most villagers had large herds of sheep. Some long horned cattle were also brought here from Elizavetpol, and these were used for milk from the very beginning of our new settlement.

When the frosts came in late fall, all work on construction was stopped. This was because in order to lay the stone walls it required mortar from the brown clay mixture. This mixture had to be handled with bare hands, and of course later this would get frozen and without a proper drying process this mortar would fall apart in the warm summer weather. Thus ,for the men folk there was less to do. All they had to do was look after cattle, horses and sheep, and in the homes they would patch the leather harness gear, repair worn boots or sew new ones. At times they would tan woolen sheepskins and sew them for wearing as short fur coats. Wood working shops did not exist here because wood was so hard to get. It was not even possible to haul logs from the forest in the wintertime. The roads were not passable. A blacksmith shop was very rare, as only a few essentials for household use or construction were ever made in the village blacksmith. There was nowhere in this area where men could go and do work for others, so in the year there were five months where the men, also, were tied to doing household and barnyard chores, the barn being part of the residence.

All the men’s main work of working the land, sowing, harvesting, and construction work could only be done in the spring and summer, so during the long winter evenings, the men – like the children spent a lot of time learning the Doukhobor psalms. This was done not only in their own homes. They also gathered in groups in neighbour’s homes. They not only read the psalms, but also in groups, sang them. On Sundays there were large gatherings for prayer meetings. At these prayer meetings everyone participated by each reading a psalm. The Doukhobors never had any special person for leading prayer services. Each and everyone participated with the reading and with the singing. That is why the children were taught from a very young age. It was always expected that each person would read a different psalm. And so if a group of one hundred gathered, the elders would be obliged to know just about that many psalms. The Doukhobors read their psalms, their prayers to God, not with the intent of absolving themselves from sin, but they read them for their own enlightenment as to how they should lead their lives. Each and every psalm had some explanation about the living spirit of the teachings of Jesus Christ. This is why the Doukhobors referred to their collection of psalms as the “Living Book”.

When a person has within his memory many Doukhobor psalms, no matter where he is, or what his circumstances are, he always has with him the instructional words contained in the psalms. No one can take them away from him, and having them always within the innermost sanctions of his being for his guidance, no one can sidetrack him, or change his deep seated and deeply rooted faith. This then, was one of the main reasons that the Doukhobors were not so concerned about grammar schools or other forms of academic learning. Their first concern was to instruct their children with the “Living Book”, their religious and moral, ethical, instructional psalms. In addition to all this the Doukhobors believed that their spiritual psalms were their own unique and bona fide life-concepts that no outsider had tampered with. Keeping firmly to the concepts contained in their psalms, the Doukhobors could safely withstand any foreign or alien influences. Their feelings were that any outside grammar teaching could still contain influences that were alien to Doukhobor thought and would infringe on or tend to obscure pure and untainted Doukhobor teachings.

During this first winter, with its short days and long nights was spent with even greater emphasis placed on spiritual aspects and the learning of psalms by both children and elders. I remember this first winter starting to turn towards spring because in February 25th of the year 1881 I became 4 years old. I really was not too aware of how good a crop we had this past year, or what other hardships my parents went through, because at my age this was not within my realm of comprehension. I do remember that the house (Saklya) that we lived in was warm and comfortable. The walls were about four feet thick. The rock walls were double layered. The rocks were laid in clay mortar in two columns, and in between the space was filled with common soil. The roof had round rafters – pine logs twelve to fourteen inches in diameter, on which were placed flat slabs of rock, a few inches in thickness. On these slabs straw was placed and then about twelve to fourteen inches of soil. There were only two windows and one door. The doorway entrance was a corridor with walls about 10 feet thick, and having a door at each end of the corridor. With only the two windows and a doored corridor entrance, the inside of the house was cozy and warm. I do not remember ever feeling cold or uncomfortable throughout the whole winter. It was only later in my life that I began experiencing a longing for the warm sunny days of summer.

Spring did come, and at the end of March the snow began to melt. It was wonderful. For just as soon as a bare spot of earth showed up, there immediately green tufts of grass started to show. By about April 10th the snow was all gone and a vaporous fog started to rise from the soil. Soon the soil warmed up and everywhere green grass appeared. Right after this, the earliest white flowers of the “maslyonka” plant, a variety of buttercups began to dot the green prairie land. These buttercups in their roots had a large kernel, the size of a peanut, which was edible. There we were in groups, armed with a special wooden rod sharpened at the end like a little shovel scampering all over the prairie meadow digging these peanuts to eat right there and to bring some home. This daily occupation of ours lasted till about the 5th of May. After this the white flowers would wither and fly away. Then there was no way you could spot the buttercup plant in the lush green grass, and besides that the peanut seed itself would get to be coarse and hard and not edible anymore. And so, for a time our children’s groups would be left without too much to do except wait for the warm sunny days to come, when we again could go to our favorite river beach to swim and bask in the warm sun. The last year’s pastime was to be repeated again this year, until such time as our parents would begin the harvest season and again get us to pick up all the loosely fallen grain.

This was the routine for all of us children, and this is what occupied my time when I was five and six years old. When I became seven years of age, that winter my parents taught me several more lengthy psalms. I remember that spring when the snow melted more rapidly and the streets were full of puddles and little creeks. Here was something new – to build little dikes and canals and float little hand made boats and make imaginary turning mills on the flowing rivulets. After this came the season of digging the buttercup roots and when that finished a new phase of my childhood development came about. My older brother Nikolay made a fish hook out of an old needle. He attached a length of string to the homemade hook and gave me my first instructions on how to catch the little fish that abounded in the same river that we loved to swim in. He showed me where to dig for the long, red earthworms, how to store them in an empty can with some earth in it, and how to attach them in short pieces for baiting the hook. He showed me how to lower the hook into the water and then patiently wait till a fish starts jerking on the line. This shallow river that we swam in seemed to have millions of these little fish. They were the size of Canadian perch and resembled them in appearance. And so, along with all other boys that were seven and eight years old this became another pastime with which we were occupied.

The little fish were very plentiful in the river, and if a boy struck a good spot he could catch from 50 to 75 of them in one day’s outing. The caught fish would be kept in a screened cage in the water. When these were brought home, the mothers would merely clean the innards and then fry them whole. When the fish was fried for some time they are smothered in a mixture of dough that is made quite thin, and then the whole mass is baked in the oven. This kind of fish in pastry, served as a very special delicacy for all of us children. It also substantially added to our dietary supplies, as in our first years in this new settlement food was not too plentiful. In our particular family this was even more so.

Alexey’s parents, Anna and Ivan Popov, c. 1915. Ivan was a very large man whereas Anna was diminutive. In this photo, Ivan is sitting while Anna is standing.

When our family was coming from our village in the province of Elizavetpol we had brought with us 4 cows. In the fall of 1882 three of these cows were stolen. On one night that fall a group of thieves came and from the far side of the barn they took apart a part of the stone wall and led the three cows away. Even with the help of the whole village, we were never able to track down the culprits or to find out where three of our best cows disappeared. From that time on, our dairy products were far more limited than in other families. Our daily food was bread made from whole-wheat flour with soup, which was made basically of potatoes and coarsely ground wheat. Borshch had potatoes and cabbage plus a large tablespoon of thick cream. Into both soup and borshch, for our family of six people, one small tablespoon of butter was added.

Therefore, the small perch that I caught with the homemade fishing tackle was a very welcome addition to our meager food supply. It was a change, it was very tasty and it cost nothing. Up to seven years of age, no outside family responsibilities were designated to me. I was still allowed to go and dig the buttercup peanuts. But when their season came to an end I was given a more serious responsibility. Most families had flocks of geese. This particular spring my mother was able to successfully hatch 48 goslings, in addition to the five older geese that we owned – making 53 in all. As soon as they grew up a bit and got trained to keep to their own flock, because of shortage of home feed, the flock had to be herded out to pasture in the meadow and also to the same river where we went swimming. The river was shallow and quiet flowing and posed no danger for the geese. In places along its banks there was a lot of lush green grass which both the older geese and the young goslings loved to feed on. Besides this, when they would plunge into the river there were all kinds of bugs that lived in the quiet eddies, and the geese young and old feasted on them. With this range free feeding, the young geese developed in leaps and bounds. My job was to keep them together, both on the range and in the water from 7 o’clock in the morning until 9 o’clock in the evening. After 9 o’clock I would herd the geese home where they had special housing under a solid roof with solid locking doors. It was not possible to leave the geese free overnight because there had been occasions when the large gray wolves which roamed the mountainside would sometimes come down into the village at night and kill some geese and drag them away for eating later.

In the daytimes there had not been any occasion that the wolves would come to the riverside. There were a few occasions when stray dogs would come there but they could be frightened away. On rare occasions there were serious hailstorms and some of the little goslings would be seriously hurt or even killed. Apart from these rare times of worry, we young children that looked after the geese felt free and happy. We often had time to swim in the river ourselves and lie on the shore. Sometimes we even did some fishing. The flocks of geese also enjoyed these free-range outings. At times when they would have a good feeding quickly, they would also stretch out on the sand and lie sleeping. Other times they would swim in the deeper water and then lazily stay in the shallow eddies snapping at the bugs that swam there. There were odd times when one flock of geese would get mixed up with another flock and coming home we would have different counts. To avoid disputes every family had their own markings on the feet of the geese. Some cut slits in the goose toe webs. Others cut one nail off, either, the left or right foot. All were different. And so checking the markings each family claimed their separated goslings. I do not remember that there were ever any serious disputes.

This work of pasturing geese continues from the first of June until the fifth of September when the harvest season commences. At this time the geese are not pastured at the river anymore, but they are brought out into the harvest fields where they methodically go through the harvested field and pick up every head of grain that fell aside from the main stacks. Some families who had the proper utensils brought out water for the geese into the fields and so the geese remain in the field from dawn to dark. Feeding on grain, the geese accumulated a considerable amount of fat. Thus, at home they are grain fed for no more than 2 weeks and then they are sold. The summer’s pasturing of the geese was not a troublesome one for the children. It was rather enjoyable, because the hours of work were not too exact. Morning or evening the timing could be one hour earlier or one hour later. There was however one hardship. Being bare legged all the time proved to have its disadvantages. Wetting your feet about every hour, and then being in the hot sand and sun eventually made all the skin rough, which later would have cracks appear and even open sores. The sores would bleed and be very painful. There was no medicine for this. The only thing that helped was to cover all your legs with black Caucasian oil. The oil seemed to protect the skin and going in and out of the water did not affect the skin as much.

Pasturing the geese at harvest time was more arduous. This was because the grain fields were sometimes one, two or three “Versti” from the home residence. During some hot days in the fall it would not be possible to herd the geese for such distances. This then required the young lad to get up before sunrise, and while the dew was still on the grass to get the geese into the fields and have them already fed before herding them to the river for water. In the evening it was the same problem. While the sun was still high it was too hot for the geese to trek from the river to the fields. They would get hot, open their mouths and lie down without going any farther. You could only start them from the river when the sun was already quite low. By the time they would get themselves fed it would already be getting dark. This created considerable hardships for a boy only seven years of age. Also the weather in the fall was not always calm. Sometimes it rained heavily. Other times a wind storm would come up and you would have to be fighting dust and wind against which even the geese did not want to go. There were times when the older people in the village felt that they had to come and help the young boys to bring the geese home on one or another turbulent evening. They would holler into the night and children would answer in the high-spirited children’s voices. The one saving grace for us children was that we never went in separate groups. Most of the time we had four or five groups of boys following each other, especially after dark. Each was looking after his own herd of geese. Being in a group gave us some comfort. At times, however, it used to get so dark that each of us seemed to be totally alone. All of us were quite well aware of the fact that the huge gray wolves were always not too far away from the grain fields. Thoughts of the wolves always brought a cold shudder down one’s spine.

In my eight and ninth year I did not get any additional responsibilities. There still were no schools in the village. So in the summers I herded geese and in the winters I added to my knowledge of psalms.

When I became 10 years of age I was given another responsibility. Now I had to begin herding sheep. Looking after sheep had its own season. This was from the middle of March till the tenth of June. At this time the sheep were having their lambs and the lambs had to be trained near to and around home, to stay with the herd.

After the 10th of June all the sheep in the village are brought together into one or two large herds. Specially trained Tartar herdsmen are hired, who take the sheep into the hills and graze them on especially rented crown land. They keep them here till about the fifteenth of October, and sometimes even till November 10th. They then bring the herds back to the village and every owner starts taking care of his own little group. They are pastured in and around the village till the time of the first big snowfall. Those owners who have over a hundred sheep pasture them individually. Those that have 20 to 45 usually group together and either hire a person as herdsman or take turns in herding.

All sheep have their own kind of markings. Their markings are on their ears with either one or two cuts or piercing. Herding sheep was one of my favorite responsibilities. There were many groups of boys. During dry weather and no wind, the sheep grazed quietly and the boys would organize some games. In this way, the days would go by quickly. The games could be different each time. One of the games played the oftenest was called “Na v shapki” or beat the cap. This was done by each one throwing his herding stick as far as he could. Whichever stick landed the closest, the owner would have to take off his cap and throw it in the same direction. All the boys were then permitted to run and beat this cap with their sticks a certain amount of times and then again throw their sticks. This could go on all day, and it did happen that some of the less lucky boys would have their caps beaten into shreds and come home bareheaded. To hide his shame this boy would keep his herd out till it was completely dark and then bring them home.

Sketch of merino sheep kept by the Doukhobors by Russian painter, Vasily Vereshchagin during his visit to Elizavetpol in 1863.

There was only one particular drawback in herding sheep, and that was the rainy weather. There were times when it would rain several days in a row. When it was this wet the sheep would not graze quietly but kept running around uncomfortably. For these rainy days we boys had a special garment, which was called a “Bashlik.” It was a kind of large vest that had no sleeves but did have a special parka that pulled over your head from the back. These vests were made from sheep’s wool, tightly knit and well pounded. These vests did not let the rainwater through to your body, but if it rained all day these would become so soaked and heavy that your shoulders felt like you were carrying unwieldy weights of steel that seemed to get heavier every step you took. Carrying this amount of weight from morning until evening was quite a trauma for an eight or nine year old. It was that much harder to carry this weight because the soil beneath your feet was all muddy and sticky. Some evenings it was real torture to drag one foot after another on the last stretch home and when you finally got to bed your legs would continue to feel the pain.

There was another hardship herding sheep in the spring and that was their giving birth to lambs right in the distant field where you had led them. If this were one or two lambs, you would be obliged to carry them home. If it there were more than two new born lambs, you would go to the nearest hilltop and holler at the top of your voice until someone in or near the village would hear and they would come to help.

The most frequent trauma in herding sheep in the summer was this matter of getting soaking wet, which was sometimes followed by a cold wind. There were times when one remained shuddering throughout the whole day. One other fear that always seemed to hover over you when you came closer to the mountains with your herd was the fact that you knew that the mountains abounded with large gray wolves. During my time there was never an occurrence of a pack of wolves attacking a herd of sheep. In the two years that I herded sheep there was only one occurrence of my actually seeing a large gray wolf lurking nearby. There were other older boys that let out loud shouts and the wolf disappeared into the mountains. As for myself I stood petrified and motionless for about half an hour. I was not able to move my feet. It seemed that my whole bloodstream was frozen.

There was one other occurrence that happened to me with one of my older and rather feeble sheep. This happened at the beginning of the month of December when the first snow covered most of our low-level pasture ground. About one quarter of a “versta” from our home there was a gorge through which flowed a larger river named “Karsina Reka”. This gorge stretched for about eight “versti” and three of these “versti” was in the territory of land that was allocated to our village. This gorge had banks of different elevations. Some places the height was about three times the height of prairie grain elevators, other places this elevation was lower. Most places the distance from one side to the other was about 160 feet. The river was not too wide, and it ran through the centre. At one side of the river there was the general road that ran through along the gorge, and at the other side the distance between the river and its mountainous bank varied. In places it came right to the river’s edge and in other places there were ledges of various heights, which contained luscious green grass. From the warmth of the river water there was no snow on these ledges. At places these ledges led to level pieces of land, and at other places they led directly into steep and very rocky mountainous territory. On some of these ledges even horses or cattle could graze. On others only the sheep, being more agile, could safely graze. And so in the first part of the winter, I took my sheep to these ledges. I directed my sheep to a lower ledge, which had very luscious grass on it, but the descent to it was quite steep. Going down, the sheep managed very well, but having smoothed the path going down, when I was ready to chase them back up they found it very slippery and difficult. I had to help practically every sheep to scamper up and onto more level territory. It came to the last one, a heavy older sheep that wasn’t very agile anymore. She just could not make it to the upper ledge, and with all the strength that I could muster I just couldn’t get her out of this lower ledge. It was getting dark and I had to make a quick decision. If I left her loose, she could conceivably scamper out of here later and wander into the mountains where the wolves would most certainly get her. Each of us boys had our slings for throwing stones and so I decided to use that string. I tied all four feet of the sheep as firmly as I could and left her there lying at the foot of the ledge. In the morning we would come with my father and rescue her.

I came home with the rest of the herd later than usual. When my parents asked why I was so late, I explained what happened with that one old sheep. Sheep at that time were valued from two and a half to four dollars each. To me that seemed not such a great deal. However, my parents were so upset with this possible loss that they hardly slept all night. They prayed and grieved and mother even went out into the night to carry out some kind of an ancient witchcraft ritual. She took an axe and plunged it into the ground in the middle of the road, and if everyone went around it without knocking it down, this would denote that the sheep would be safe.

In the very early morning, before dawn, my father and I went to the place where I had left the sheep. The spot was empty but there were signs of struggling. Looking further around and below, we found the dead sheep in a clump of brush. She had kept beating and turning until she fell and rolled among rocks. The whole carcass was so beat up; we could not even salvage the sheep’s skin. The loss of this sheep was a subject of grief to my parents for a long time to come. When spring came my parents did not fail to mention to me – you see that sheep would now have brought us two lambs. It was so hard for me to understand why it was that my parents were so overly concerned with this loss of one old sheep. Was it just grief for a material loss, or was it fear of loss of self-sufficiency, and possible want in the future? It was probably the latter, because we scarcely ever had anything in abundance. However in my childhood immaturity I thought that how could it be that my parents seemed to value the sheep more than they cared about me and my anguish. They continually mentioned that the sheep would have brought two lambs, and that she always fed them so well, and that her wool was of the finest quality. It was long and soft and it produced the finest of yarn. All these rebukes about my fault for this loss kept on for a whole year. For a nine-year-old child these parental rebukes about the loss of a mere older sheep gave me severe mental depression. I kept being sore at heart. At the same time it was a very indelible lesson to me to always be more careful in the future.

When I was in a more self-pitying mood I would think to myself – of course my action in getting the sheep to this luscious green ledge was not done for any kind of self-gratification. I had done this out of pity and love for the sheep. I well knew that they would be half hungry treading over grounds that were already eaten bare, but here I was directing them to a ledge of luscious green grass where not a single foot had trod, – a place you just didn’t want to leave from. And then I would reason again – true enough the thoughts came to me that if I did not take advantage of this ledge today – others would discover it tomorrow! And then of course our elders were always praising the boys that were more alert than others, and I did have the thoughts that when the elders found out that I had discovered and used this ledge for my herd before anyone else – they would say, aha, that Popov youngster finds ledges that even older herders failed to discover! And so really – this was the thought that made me venture to that steep but luscious ledge. Instead of receiving this kind of praise, it turned out that in the end I received an unforgettable lesson to be more careful rather than being more daring. Had I brought home the sheep that evening even half hungry, their suffering would have been minimal. No one would have been able to assess exactly how much was in their stomachs. My parents would have been at peace, and there would have been no rebukes to me in the future. With those thoughts of getting praise and commendations, I probably would have become unnecessarily proud and to think too much of myself. This event of the loss of a sheep brought out in me deeper thoughts of the wisdom of being careful in all matters. Not the least of this was that it is wise to be careful in material matters insofar as one’s welfare sometimes depended on saving every hair that was needed to keep the family self-sustainable.

Traumatic events be they as they were, time did not stand still. On the 25th of February 1887 I became ten years old. In this winter, after the loss of the sheep, I was more studious than before and learned a lot of new psalms. As usual there were no other particular responsibilities for young boys in these winter months. There were only the few times of warmer sunny weather when the parents would allow me to take the sheep for a drink at the river, the same river where we always swam. With the spring break we still went digging for the buttercup peanuts, but even before their season was over there was an additional responsibility given to boys our age with the beginning of the spring planting of grain.

The sowing of grain was done by hand. We did not know any other way, except using a special sack with two straps over the shoulder. The sack was open in the front and from here the sower would take the seed into his hand and scatter it fan wise. About 65 to 80 pounds of seed is placed into the sack. The opening of the sack appears under the left arm and with the right arm the sower takes fistful of seed. He scatters the seed from left to right measured by his steps. When he puts his left foot forward he fills his fist with seed. When he steps forward with his right foot he scatters the seed. This is done by the elders in the family. This job was done by my father. He scattered the seed onto the ploughed land. After this it was essential to pull harrows over the land so that the scattered seed would be covered by soil in order that the birds would not pick it up and in order for the seed to properly germinate and sprout. This part of harrowing was done quite uniquely and probably different from other places in the world. The harrows themselves were constructed right at home. The spikes that were driven into the frame of the harrow were made of dried, firm wood. Each separate frame was made for one horse to be hitched to it and drag it. Each horse would have a young boy driver. If the family did not have a boy, girls also could be seated horseback on the horse. One track of the harrow was not enough to properly cover the seed, and so it was most usual to have four horses hitched to four separate frames that would follow one after the other. Only the front horse had to have a driver. The other horses were just tied to the back end of the harrow. And so in my eleventh year I was entrusted with being the driver of the front horse. The other three followed my trail one after the other. This job was not one that required any amount of physical labour, but it did have its own peculiar difficulties. The driver of the lead horse had the responsibility of traversing the field in a straight line. Keeping this line straight was important, because on the return trip the boy had to make sure that he wasn’t going over the same trail twice, as well as he had to be sure that he was leaving no spaces uncovered.

It was always the same problem. The horses usually walked slowly and carefully. At this time of the spring the sun was usually quite warm, and so the gentle swaying of the horse, and the warm sun never failed to make the young driver start dozing. In this half asleep mood it was usually quite hard to keep your line straight. This brought about the fact that you either wandered over territory that was already covered, or also you left some uncovered spaces. What would happen was that when an elder came to check on the work, he would have a double job of getting the line straight and also having no spaces left uncovered. This slowed down the whole process of completing the harrowing of a given field that was already sowed.

In all our villages the land was divided into long narrow plots seeded on a three-year rotation basis. All the families usually worked their allotted plots at the same time. At times there were up to 50 families in the fields at the same time. When the elders would complete the sowing of a given field they would gather together in group discussions awaiting the completion of harrowing. When they felt that the young boys should by now have completed the harrowing, they would go out to the fields to check matters out. Quite often there would be poorly harrowed plots, and the elder who found such a state, would have to then take over the lead horse and correct the poor job. Sometimes, just about the whole field would have to be done over. Where the job had been ably looked after by the young driver – his elders would already start moving to another plot, and the one who had dozed on his horse and made a mess would then get serious lectures from his elders. Some very irresponsible youngsters were sometimes even punished. Thus it would happen, when horses are unhitched for noon feeding, those boys who had everything in order would be jolly and would get together and have fun amongst themselves. The unfortunate ones whose fields were poorly done would get lectures from their elders, and all of the other boys would be ribbing them about how sloppy their work turned out. Not only would the boys receive lectures from their immediate elders, other elders would also pipe in. This sometimes happened to me. Other elders would have their say – admonishing me: “How come Alyoshka, you worked so sloppily that your father had to spend so much time correcting all your errors? At this rate, if you keep up such irresponsibility – no one will ever want you for a husband, and you will never get married”

At our age this seemed to be such a dire prediction. To add to this, if one received the elders’ lectures several times throughout the spring season, you would never hear the end of this from all of your peers and friends for the whole summer. Of course the age we were, and the warm spring sun and the swaying horse were all part of the natural make-up of things. It was really not such a major sin to doze – but it was really hard to take all the consequences of this dozing. And so this simple responsibility of driving the lead horse in harrowing the fields proved to be its own kind of a painful chore.

Seeding operations are completed by about April 20th. Land is not worked again until June 10th. This gives the working animals a rest of about one month and twenty days. During this rest time I had to lead the horses out for grazing in the pasture. In the free pasture land, the horses had to be hobbled on their front feet. If a horse was exceedingly frisky he would have to be hobbled on a third back leg as well. When the horses would be all hobbled they would be allowed to graze on their own. This was the job that every boy of the village was occupied with. The pasture was common to all the villagers and so all of us boys would get together for games throughout the whole day – as the horses could not wander away too far while they were hobbled. Some of the boys who weren’t too enthusiastic to play –would catch up on their sleep that they lost in the spring. The games we played were simple. One was called “V Tsoorki” and another was called “V Doochki”. Rarely did we play ball, and sometimes the younger boys played riding horses near the river and then we would go swimming. Some of us would take this opportunity to catch fish. Pasturing horses during the rainy season was not as troublesome as with pasturing sheep. Horses did not really get upset with the rain. They either continued grazing – or would just stand quietly in one place. As for us children, we would also stay upright quietly or rest on some jutting stone outcrop, which were plentiful in our area. The only problem with horse pasturing during rainy weather was the form of hobble that was used. If the hobble was made of leather, the rain did not affect it, but if the hobble was made of rope – it would tighten when wet, and it was very difficult to get it undone when the horses would have to be herded home. Sometimes a boy would have to take his horses home all the long way from the pasture while they remained hobbled. This was a slow process and such a boy would come home a lot later.

Picture of Alexey as a young man with unidentified woman in exile in Siberia, c. 1903.

Some of the times the horses would not be herded home every night. At such times all of the horses would be brought together in a large herd where designated elders would watch over them all of the night. The elders of 15 to 30 men, who would divide into groups of four taking several shifts through each night. There were also times when the younger children would take designated horses to the village homes for work that was needed to be done in the gardens or other work within the village structure. When all of the village work would be finished, then all the horses would be divided into two or three large herds watched over by two men to each herd in the daytime and by one additional man coming in from the villages for night time watching. This general overall system continued up to June 10th.

At this time the horses would all be brought back to each individual household for preparing the land that was left as summer fallow land, that is, the land that is left for resting for one year. The plowing of these fields had its own particular routine. To each plow there were hitched from six to eight pairs of horses. The front pair had a boy rider in the ages of from ten to thirteen. Every other pair also had a rider. It was the work of these riders to guide his own pair of horses, and also see that the pair ahead of you was pulling its share. Each boy thus had to look after four horses. This meant that in the morning he would have to put on the harness onto the horses, bring them and hitch them into their proper places and then keep them moving in their proper direction following the furrow that was made. At the proper noontime, the horses would have to be unhitched, unharnessed and allowed to graze in a special field of grass left nearby. They would also have to be taken down to the river for their drink of water. All this would have to be repeated in the evening. The land that was being plowed had been already grazed and well trampled by the village cattle. The plots where the horses had to be allowed to graze were nearby. None of the stock were allowed to graze here since the year before and therefore the grass was lush and plentiful for the working teams of horses.

As I became a ten-year-old boy, it was my job to look after 4 horses. Keep them harnessed when needed, unharnessed and fed at given times, and led to water as designated. Getting the horses to water was a chore in itself, as the fields for plowing were sometimes two to three “Versti” from the river. This entire fallow plowing time proved to be exceedingly hard and trying for me as a ten year old. This was especially hard during the night routine. At 8 o’clock in the evening you had to bring the horses to the place where they were to graze, hobble them and then lie down to get some much-needed sleep. The total of your clothing for the night would be one additional light, longer length semi-raincoat. At 12 o’clock midnight you had to get up and unhobble the horses and take them for their drink at the river. You had to bring them back, hobble them again, and then again lie down to sleep. At 5o’clock in the morning you had to get up, bring in the horses, unhobble them and lead them to the workplace. During the times when it remained dry, this job, although quite hard, was still bearable. However, when the rain kept coming all night it became a real nightmare. At times you would wake up and find yourself lying in a puddle of water – as in the night it was not always easy to spot a higher piece of ground for taking your nap. This torturous spring responsibility continued each year for a period of from 28 to 34 days.

The length of time depended on whether there was more or less fallow land, and also on whether there was more or less of a rainy spell. In some years the weather was cool, and not too much rain. In other years you had spells of intense heat and also many days of wet weather. Of course when it became obvious that conditions were too extreme and hard for the young boys – there was always the fact that there was one elder, the plowman for every group of three or four boys. It was his responsibility to see that the boys were reasonably looked after. This elder was always free to catch up on his sleep during the noon break, which lasted for three hours. But during the nighttime he also took four horses and went with the young boys when they took the horses for their grazing period. He always had the boys sleeping near him and would wake them when they had to take the horses for their drink at the river, and also when they had to take them in the morning to the field which was being plowed. In the nighttime he would help the boys get on their horses to ride to the river, and on the way there would often holler to the boys by name – in case one or another of them would begin to doze while riding and perhaps allow the horse to veer away from the others and head for home instead of the river.

During the time of fallow plowing all the boys remained under the rule and instructions of the one elder designated for their group. He was the one that told them how to look after all the harness gear, how to handle the horses, when to take the breaks and so on. This elder was given the authority to discipline any boy in his group. If need be, he had the right to even use the same whip, that was used on the horses, for punishing a disobedient or irresponsible boy. There was one time that I, when I was 12 years old received a snap of the whip for being too lippy. Our elder was a distant relative by the name of Jacob Voykin. He gave me a sharp snap, that made my pants wet. The wet was not from blood! This Jacob Voykin was the elder in our group, which was made up from several families. Because you needed 12 to 16 horses for each plow, and some families did not have that many horses, it was the custom to get several families together who then shared one plow. The plows were of heavy wood construction. The only steel on the plow was the share and the cutting disc that went ahead of it. There was only one share to the plow and it threw a furrow of about 14 inches. The soil was quite heavy and it required from 12 to 16 horses to pull it fast enough to throw a proper furrow. It was with this one plow that all the land had to be tilled to supply several families with a living. Sometimes the total of these families would be twenty or more souls. All the sustenance of these 20 souls would have to be derived from the produce of their allotted plot of land. Where there were this many souls to their allotted plot, most of the time they barely had enough produce to keep themselves and their stock for the ensuing year. Others, whose families had not grown since the past allotment was made, but who had the horsepower, were fortunate enough to have some produce for sale. Some of these more fortunate families were able to rent land from the nearby peasant Tartars and always had some produce for sale. Renting land was very favorable here as after three years of giving shares to the owner – the lessee could claim ownership of the land.

I spent four years of my life doing the routines that I explained, from the age of 10 to 14 years of age, to help the family till the land for their sustenance. Despite the fact that these years remain in my memory as very trying and hard times during this growing period up of my life, I do not remember getting sick at any time in spite of the many times of being wet, cold and tired. My physical health remained at a good level and I have no bad memories of this particular period of my life.

Afterword

   Cover of Alexey Ivanovich Popov’s “Autobiography of a Siberian Exile”.

Alexey Ivanovich Popov lived with his parents in Spasovka, Kars until the age of 21, when he received his call-up for conscript service in the Russian army. He refused to perform military training, as the taking of human life ran contrary to his Doukhobor faith and beliefs. For this, in 1898, he, together with other young Doukhobor conscripts, was exiled to Yakutsk Siberia for a term of 18 years. In 1905 a Manifesto of Amnesty was issued by Russian Emperor Nikolai II, thus granting the Doukhobor exiles in Siberia their freedom. Soon thereafter, Alexey and his new bride Katerina immigrated to Canada to join their Doukhobor brethren who had arrived some six years earlier. Alexey lived for a time in the Doukhobor Community, but soon became an Independent Doukhobor, taking out a homestead at Blaine Lake, Saskatchewan, where he lived and farmed until his death on August 14, 1955.

To order copies of Alexey’s fascinating life story, “Autobiography of a Siberian Exile” along with various other informative Doukhobor publications written by his son, Eli A. Popoff, contact: The Birches Publishing, Box 730, Grand Forks, British Columbia, V0H 1H0, Tel: (250) 442-5397, email: birchespublishing@shaw.ca.

Childhood Recollections

by Tanya Postnikoff

In her later years, Doukhobor Tanya (Makaroff) Postnikoff (1891-1982) wrote down her memories of growing up in Terpeniye village near Kars, Russia and in Petrofka village near Blaine Lake, Saskatchewan. The following excerpt, taken from her “Childhood Recollections”, is yet another rich and colourful example of Doukhobor oral tradition preserved in writing for future generations.

I remember very little of my Postnikov grandparents because we lived at opposite ends of our village, Terpeniye, in Russia. I can only recall two occasions when I visited them – once when grandmother was very ill, near death, and my mother, Paranya, was going on foot to visit her and I attached myself to her. I recollect that grandma, on that occasion, was already too ill to talk. I can’t remember anything of her looks or appearance, however, even then, I sensed the kindness in her heart and the deep love that she had for her children and grandchildren. 

As for grandfather, all I can recall is the occasion when mother and I visited them on a very warm day. We had heard that he was very ill, and when we arrived, we found him tottering about outside, heavily bundled in a heavy winter topcoat and obviously suffering from severe chills. Soon after this occasion grandfather took a turn for the worse and passed away. In appearance, I remember him to be a tall, slim man, taller than his son Nikolai (my father-in-law) yet with a strong similarity in their facial features. This is about all that I can remember.

It was a large family – five sons and three daughters – eight children in all. Nikolai (my future father-in-law) became a son-in-law of the Bondarevs and went to live with his bride’s parents and their family. The Patriarch or head of the Bondarev family was Lavrentii or Lavrusha for short. As a result, the family became known as the Lavrovs, and were always referred to by that nickname. At that time, their family consisted of five sons and two daughters.

Nikolai, my father-in-law to be, had at that time been working as a freighter on a wagon train. In an accident, he fell under a heavily laden freight wagon and both his legs were crushed between the heavy steel-rimmed wheels and the cobble-stoned military highway. The doctors refused to attempt to set the multiple fractures and decided to amputate. It was a common bone-setter (a Molokan with no schooling) who saved the situation. He did such a good job of bone-setting, that Nikolai retained full use of his legs for his entire lifetime. While convalescing, he would walk about supporting himself on two canes, and because of this was nicknamed Starichok (“oldster”) which stuck to him for life. His family, in turn, was alternately referred to as either Lavrovs or Starchikovs.

Wedding photo of Wasil & Tanya Postnikoff (left)

Nikolai’s convalescence lasted a long time, and while he was unable to work, their oldest son, Semeon, was gradually taking over the support of the family. One day Semeon with his mother, Nastya, decided to bring a wagonload of clay, which the villagers used to mix with fine hay or chaff in order to stucco all their stone-walled buildings. The excavation site was treacherous with overhanging walls and while working in it, Nastya was almost completely buried by a sudden collapse of an overhanging wall and the landslide that descended upon her. There were many other clay-diggers at the site at the time, and they managed to extricate Nastya from the mound of heavy clay and dirt. She must have suffered internal injuries, however, for soon thereafter she became ill and eventually passed away.

Nastya’s mother had been living with the family for several years prior to Nastya’s death. She was a kindly compassionate soul, beloved by all the children. Needless to say, she had her hands full in trying to discipline the large family of growing children. Sometime after Nastya’s death, Nikolai met and married his second wife, Mavrunya, who had also been widowed by the death of her husband, Nikolai Konkin. There were two daughters from that marriage, Elizaveta and Praskovia. Mavrunya was much younger than Nikolai and their marriage was more a union of convenience than anything else. She was a widow with two little girls who needed support, while he, in turn, needed her to manage his household with a large family of children. Thus, they faced the world together and managed not only to survive, but to bring up their families as well.

Nikolai had six sons and two daughters from his first marraige. With Mavrunya, they had six sons and one daughter. When their youngest son was born, Mavrunya’s father, who was noted for his wit, insisted that the baby be named Yosef (“Joseph”) after the Biblical story of Jacob, whose twelfth son carried that name. 

All in all it was a very large family group and yet Nikolai and Mavrunya not only managed to feed each hungry mouth, but were very hospitable and generous with outsiders. When they settled in Canada (Petrofka, Saskatchewan) there was a constant flow of immigrant settlers who were moving in to find their places in the newly opened country. Many of them, needy as they were, got stranded in Petrofka and were fed and sheltered, free of charge, for months at a time, in the Postnikoff mud-plastered, sod-roofed, humble household.

Going back in time, Nikolai himself had four brothers, the first of whom was Semeon, then Mikhailo, Dmitry and Ivan. He also had three sisters, Nastya, who married Vasily Vereshchagin, next Dasha, whose husband was Ivan Planidin, and the third one was Paranya, married to Gregory Makarov.

And now I will try to tell all that I can recollect about the Makarovs. I can remember grandpa and grandma Makarov quite well; they came to Canada with their family. Grandpa was injured on the train en route to their destination, Petrofka. His finger was crushed somehow by the car couplings of the train. It became infected (probably gangrene) and he died soon after. Grandma survived him by seven years and was totally blind when she passed away. They had only four children, three sons and one daughter. The sons’ names were Nikolai, Semeon and Gregory, my father. They all lived together in one family for a long time. The daughters’ name was Polya, an aunt whom I never saw because when in Russia, the family moved from Elizavetpol to Kars, while she and her husband remained behind. 

The Makarov family lived in one house. Nikolai had six children, Semeon had four while Gregory, my father, also had six. My aprents broke away from the rest a year or two before immigrating to Canada (1899) and farmed independently in that interim. The house we lived in was newly built, but very small and crowded for a family of eight, yet somehow there was always room even for guests (to think that nowadays people who own two, three or four houses sometimes complain that they are too crowded to entertain visitors!!).

My mother used to tell us that in the past, when they had been living in the Tavria province, in Milky Waters, the newly formed sect of Doukhobors decided to break away from the Russian Orthodox Church and denounced its hierarchy. They refused to register their children in Church records and defied the age-old custom of burial with a priest in attendance. On one occasion, some practical jokers allowed a priest to officiate by the grave-side, and when the ceremony was completed, seized the priest and announced that they would throw him into the grave as well, in accordance with the rule that the “dead should be buried with a priest”. Soon after this, the pressure from Church and government officials slackened off, and the Doukhobors were allowed to settle in the Elizavetpol province. Here they lived for a period of twenty years or so. Then, because land for farming was getting scarce, six villages decided to move to Kars (an area that has been under Turkey since 1918). Here, our village of Terpeniye was the largest and in it resided the leading Verigin family. In Kars, the Doukhobors resided for some twenty years. 

For some time, pressure had been increasing on the part of the Government to compel them to accept military service. The Doukhobors refused to comply, however, and soon were subjected to punitive persecution, such s exile to Siberia, violence, etc. These measures failed to shake the Doukhobor faith, however, and the Tsar’s Government then decided to solve the problem by exiling this steadfast group beyond the borders of Russia. Leo Tolstoy and the Quakers appealed to Queen Victoria of England to allow the Doukhobors to settle in Canada. Their plea was successful, and soon, several thousand immigrants assembled in the Black Sea port of Batum where for two weeks they waited while a coal freighter was being converted and readied to accommodate them as passengers.

The Trans-Atlantic journey took a whole month and was full of hardship. When they finally arrived in Quebec, the authorities promptly placed the entire group under quarantine because cases of smallpox had appeared among the passengers. After the quarantine was lifted, a fast-moving passenger vessel arrived; it was trim and neat and the children were delighted with its appearance. This boat took us to the city of Quebec where we went ashore to be met by a large group of men and women, some of whom may have been Quakers. The ladies in the group began tossing mint candy into the crowd of eager children and a wild scramble commenced. My brother Peter and myself were too young to join the general rush and felt quite left out, until a couple of ladies approached us and filled our pockets full of fragrant mints. After some time, the entire boatload of immigrants were taken aboard a train, the destination point being Selkirk, Manitoba. Here too, we stayed for a week or two prior to departure for our final ultimate settlement points.

At this point, I would like to go back and make a few remarks about my grandmother. Grandma loved me very much and tried hard to imbue me with a sense of piousness. She spent endless hours teaching me to recite psalms among which was one I still remember well. She also taught me a zagovorie (“incantation”) allegedly endowed with magical powers to stop a nosebleed or other small ailments – this too, I remember and can still recite. I can recall how hurt I was when my playmates refused to play with me, saying that my grandma was teaching me witchcraft. 

Prairie Doukhobor dwelling, circa 1901

The hardships and privations of the first few months of our pioneer life are unforgettable. We all lived in canvas tents which provided poor shelter against the cold, incessant rains. The tents dripped and leaked, so that everything inside was soggy and cold. It was next to impossible to build a fire or sustain it for long. To add to our torture, clouds of ravenous mosquitoes were constantly tormenting us – there was simply no refuge from them. Our diet was poor and inadequate, lacking in protein. All of this added up to a life of constant, almost intolerable suffering and misery. The nearest railway point was Rosthern, Saskatchewan, and that meant that to obtain flour and salt, the men would go some thirty miles afoot and return heavily laden with a hundred pounds of flour, ten pounds of salt, and whatever else each of them could afford and/or carry. It seemed incredible now that so many survived.

At this point, I would like to describe an occurance in which my two cousins Mavrutka (Fast) and Lisunya (Lastowsky) and myself were involved, and which nearly spelled disaster for us. We three were sent by our mothers to pick wild garlic for borshch. Our search finally brought us to the riverbank (North Saskatchewan) where we found a boat (the only one the village had), which we promptly untied from its mooring, climbed in, and were off! This was happening toward evening; the sun was low and we three were all about the same age – eight or nine years old. The main-stream current, by some quirk of fate, propelled us toward the shore where we climbed out, and tied the boat to a stump. 

It was getting late and with darkness came the fear of wolves! We remembered that somewhere nearby there was a homestead owned by Isaac Neufeldt, a Mennonite farmer, and for whom Nikolai Postnikoff was working at the time. I recall that the Neufeldt girls were painting the kitchen floor when we timidly knocked on their door. They spoke no Russian, didn’t know who we were, and soon summoned their father, who spoke Russian well. We told him that we three were daughters of Nikolai Postnikoff. The farmer did not want to wake Nikolai up (he had had a hard day and was already sleeping) so old Isaac ordered his daughters to put us up for the night. We slept in the hayloft that night. The wind had risen and whistled and moaned through cracks and knot-holes – it was a weird, sleepless night for me – an unforgettable night!

Early the next morning, old Isaac informed Nikolai that three little girls claiming to be his daughters had spent the night there. Nikolai was astonished. “Three little girls?”, “My daughters?” When he saw us, he was flabbergasted. “What are you doing here – how did you get here?” he yelled at us. We had, meanwhile, concocted a wild story about how Hrishka Konkin, a local mischievous brat, had enticed us into the boat, rowed us across the river, and abandoned us to our fate. Hrishka’s reputation was so notorious that Nikolai readily believed our story, which, of course, was a lie from “A” to “Z”. “Wait till I get ahold of that little devil!” he roared, “I’ll fix it so he won’t be able to sit down for a month!” 

The boat was still tied to the stump where we had left it last night, and as we were crossed, we three sang an old Russian song – something about Cossacks returning to their native villages. Our absence apparently had caused a great deal of alarm and fear about our safety, and as our boat approached the shore, the bank was lined with a large crowd of anxious people. Our mothers were hysterical with joy and relief at the sight of us – it was a highly emotional experience indeed! We soon learned that our boating adventure had not gone unnoticed. Someone had seen us board the boat and head downstream. The alarm was sounded and runners were dispatched to the village of Terpeniye, some miles downstream, where quickly, a boat was launched in the hope of intercepting us as we drifted in that direction. Their efforts and vigil were fruitless, of course, and lasted throughout the night.

At the time, I was terrified, expecting a severe beating from my father, who was always quick to punish his children mercilessly for any misdemeanor. My grandmother, seeing my terror and knowing what was in store for me, took me to bed with her, and when father entered, she intercepted him, saying that he had better not touch me, that I was blameless, and that it was my cousin Mavrutka who was the ringleader of our escapade. Fierce though he was by nature, my father broke into tears – which both astounded and, of course, delighted me.

Refusal of Military Service

by Gregory F. Vanin

The following is a letter from Doukhobor Gregory F. Vanin to Russian ethnographer Vladimir D. Bonch-Breuvich outlining Vanin’s experience as a young military conscript during the “Burning of Arms” in Russia in 1895. Translated by George Stushnoff and reproduced from the pages of The Dove magazine, Volume 32 (Saskatoon: October 1996), this article is a dramatic and powerful account of the torture and incarceration of Doukhobor conscripts who refused military service as conscientious objectors.

Dear brother Vladimir Dmitrovich,

I will attempt to write about my denial of military service in Russia. I feel the younger generation needs to know that part of our history. This has been written about in the past, but not by me, and the writings were not complete historically and they were not factual. I have now become an old man 74 years of age and all this happened a long time ago – hard to remember it all, where and what happened to me. Nevertheless, I will try to write whatever I can recall, which may be brief but true.

The Burning of Arms, 1895. Painting by Terry McLean.

I will begin when the Doukhobors burnt their weapons in 1895 when I participated in this bloody work at the age of 21. I was already married and it so happened that I also participated in the bloody execution by Cossack whips when Esaul (Cossack Commander) Praga gave his orders in the village of Bogdanovka, to the right and to the left, day and night, sparing no one.

Then they immediately deported us to the village of Goriski where I spent only one and a half months till three military men arrived taking me away without my relatives knowing whereto. They brought me to the Goriski military disciplinary battalion and at this time brought three of my friends here, Shcherbinin, Kinyakin, Makhortov; so we became four and we were told there that our lot was drawn by an elder at the Akhalkalak district and we were required to report for service and so we were to be examined and measured.

We asked them why measure us because we will not serve. Then they forcefully undressed us and did what they had to with us and told us that they will send us to the Ekaterinodarski Vanapski reserve battalion where we will be forced to serve.

They did not allow us to bid farewell to our families and sent us away by convoy. When they brought us there they immediately placed us in different companies. Kinyakin and I into the second company, Shcherbinin into the third company and Makhortov into the first company. For me and Kinyakin, the Sergeant Major at once ordered us to take off our clothes and put on soldiers uniforms. We reply that we would not wear uniforms, we would not even serve. Then they forcefully took off our clothes, put on the uniforms and cut our hair. It was already evening, at nine o’clock the Sergeant Major commanded a prayer service, we sang the Lord’s Prayer, then we were shown our beds where we must sleep. 

We slept the night and in the morning the whole company arose at the same time and went outside for their duties. The two of us remained seated on our beds on one lower bunk and since our own clothing was still with us we put it on and remained sitting. We noticed the Sergeant Major coming straight toward us and laughingly says to us: “What, are you boys ready to go home?” We remain quietly seated, he looks at us and goes away. Then returning abruptly he tells us boys to follow him, the company Commander wants us in his office. We came, he was sitting; we stopped and stood. The commander rose up, looked us over and tells the Sergeant to go and bring the uniforms. Immediately he brought them and laid them in front of us. Then the Commander orders: “Vanin, put on the uniform!” I replied I will not wear the uniform and I will not serve. He started scolding me with bad words and cries at me with all his might, “I will knock your head off” while he pulls a knife out of its sheath and for a long time he shouted at me, stamping his feet on the floor while I stood motionless. Then he turns to Kinyakin and orders him: “Kinyakin, put on the uniform.” He also replied that he will not wear and will not serve. Then he got even angrier and scolded us for a long time but did not hit us, and we didn’t put on the uniforms. Eventually he asked us why we didn’t want to serve our Sovereign. We answered because he teaches people to kill but Christ forbid the killing of people. We believe in Christ and the Sixth Commandment says not to kill.

Saying nothing to us he sat at the table, wrote something and ordered the Sergeant Major to take us away and lock us up in a dark cell and no food but bread and water. He led us away and locked us up. Then after three days they brought Shcherbinin and Makhortov and locked them up. Shcherbinin sat in a row with me and we were able to converse quietly. The prison had a small opening and I heard him groaning, and then he began to explain how they tortured him, forcing him to do gymnastics and to run but he didn’t want to do these and would fall to the ground. They would trample him with their feet, kick him, pressed their knees into him and dropped him over a wooden bar. The uncommissioned officers were horribly nasty to him and from that time he became sick, something inside was injured. But Makhortov was not beaten and we sat in the jail cells for almost a month when they brought here another ten of our young friends from the Kars and Elizavetpol region in 1896 and they were no longer allocated to companies but put us all together in a military jail and through a military court ordered us to proceed under a convoy to a disciplinary battalion.

When they brought us there they locked us up in a stronghold that was guarded both inside and outside both day and night. Sometime before us, Lebedev’s party which had been serving but then refused, were already here in jail and each had already received by 30 lashes with thorny rods, and were forced to learn the ways of war.

They then allocated our group into companies and I, once again, remained here with another friend Chevildeev in the third company. Here, they handled us quite differently, forcefully dressing us in torn and all patched uniforms, took away our own clothing and showed us where we will be sleeping. In the morning two companies woke up and went outside to perform their duties and we two also dressed up and stood in the cell. Shortly an elderly company Commander came straight towards us; with a wide and long beard, appearing very scary, he was called Akinchits. Approaching us, without saying anything, instantly he cried out: “Chevildeev, stand straight, raise your nose”. Poking me with his boot, he yells: “Vanin, hold your head higher, raise your shoulders” while hitting me on the chin. Then he questions us, if we will serve our Sovereign. We replied no, we will not, so he didn’t ask us anything else but turned to the Sergeant Major and directed him to bring the executioners here, while telling us to come into the corridor. 

We went and stood there, noticing two executioners carrying several bunches of thorny branches, bound together in bundles of five – which always are soaked in barrels of water so that they would not break up. Also four soldiers were coming who were going to hold us and two soldiers with guns. The executioners took their coats off, rolled up their sleeves, took into their hands by a bundle of branches – awaiting the command. Then the Commander ordered the soldiers: “first lay down Chevildeev” but to me he said: “but Vanin, you must stand here and watch”. Then the soldiers took Chevildeev and laid him down on the cement floor face down, his hands tied behind his back. Pulled his pants down, revealed his buttocks, sat down on him, two on his head and two on his legs. One soldier with a gun stood at the head and the other at the feet, holding their guns in readiness. The executioners stood one on each side. The Commander then told the Sergeant Major: ” count the lashes, there must be 30 lashes”. He, himself turned away, and walked off a distance, not being able to look upon such a bloody scene. The Sergeant Major in command cried out to begin. And the branches began to whistle in the air. The first one swung to the left, then to the right, then with all his might he struck at the naked flesh, then the other, from the other side, in similar manner with all his might, beating rather occasionally. Blood squirted in all directions, the back, turning blue, began to swell. After that they locked him up in a cold prison cell, this happened in wintertime.

Russian Prison Warden and Guard, c. 1890. Photo by John Foster Fraser.

I stood motionless, paralyzed with fear and looked upon this bloody pitiful scene, while my heart was dying from the horror. Then the Commander approached saying: “Well Vanin, you got scared. You will now serve”. I replied with a trembling voice, “No I will not”. Then he ordered: “Lay this one down too”. I stood motionless, paralyzed with fear and looked upon this bloody pitiful scene, while my heart was dying from the horror. Then the Commander approached saying: “Well Vanin, you got scared. You will now serve”. I replied with a trembling voice, “No I will not”. Then he ordered: “Lay this one down too”. They lay me down the same way and gave me also thirty lashes, hot as fire. Then they lifted me up and started putting my pants on, they would not come on, barely came on, sticking to my bloody flesh. And in the same way they locked me also in the cold prison.

It was like that for all of us that were in that battalion, practically all of us were beaten with the thorny branches in the same way. Except that some got more, some less. And in that battalion there was a church and the priest also fulfilled his disciplinary role by inducing us forcefully so that we would attend their church to pray to God, that our ancestors had already rejected several hundred years ago.

Twice a day, morning and evening, all imprisoned soldiers had to attend church. There were four companies and each company had by 10 Doukhobor boys in it. The commanders marched the soldiers to church, all the soldiers went but we stood still. The priest explained to us that if we called ourselves Christians then we must attend his church. Then the secondary officers and the soldiers would grab us and drag us, while we would cling unto trees that grew there and they couldn’t tear us away, so they would beat our hands with belts, sabers, knives. And so goes the struggle throughout the whole battalion, until they drag us into church, then we stand there doing nothing while they all got down on their knees we just stood. Then the priest would walk through putting the incense under our noses, but we would wave the smoke away with our caps, while he would stare at us in anger.

My God, if you had only seen, dear brother Vladimir Dmitrovich, what they did to us there, even forced us to mix clay (manure). Crawled up to our bellies, made bricks and different other kinds of jobs. We were vegetarians, did not eat meat, but they would not allow such food that we could use. Told us to devour from the same pot that the soldiers eat. So we would come for dinner or supper, sit at the table, put a piece of wormy rye bread into our pockets, go back to the prison and eat it with water, and that’s how we survived. We were so worn out and sick with chicken blindness from a lack of food, barely staying alive. When the first Lebedov party of Doukhobors arrived at the disciplinary battalion, General Maslov didn’t want to have them tortured with thorns but wanted to exile them at once to Siberia. However the local administration – Sub-General Morgunov, Doctor Preobrazhenski and priest Stepanovski and others did not want to exile immediately to Siberia, kept us all in jail and tortured us for a year and a half. They wanted us to give into everything and force us to serve and so we were left barely alive but refused to give in. One of our friends, Mikhail Shcherbinin died there in the disciplinary battalion from the beatings. They allowed us to bury him, so we buried him in Doukhobor tradition. Then they exiled us to (Yakutsk) Siberia for 18 years.

Now the continuation of our history and our experiences in Siberia will be written by others. I am now concluding the writing of my version. Our remaining friends, who struggled for the truth in the disciplinary battalion, are very few, almost all of them have departed into life everlasting.

Your brother,

Gregory F. Vanin
Veregin, Saskatchewan, Canada
April 15, 1947

A Message to Relatives

by Alexei N. Chernoff

Towards the end of his life, Doukhobor Alexei Nikolayevich Chernoff (1877-1967) set to writing his experiences as a young military reservist during the “Burning of Arms” in Russia 1895. Reproduced by permission from the pages of “The Brothers Chernoff from Azerbaijan to Canada” (Winnipeg: December 1992) this article is a wonderful example of our rich Doukhobor oral tradition, now preserved in writing for future generations. Translated by Fred J. Chernoff.

I, Alexei Nikolayevich Chernoff, had the desire to write to my relatives about our past, that part that is still in my memory. My parents were Nikolai Timofeyevich and Anna Semenovna Chernov. My mother’s family were the Popovs. In our family there were six sons: Aliosha (Alexei), Mikola (Nikolai), Vanya (Ivan), Fedya (Feodor), Misha (Mikhail) and Andrusha (Andrei). The parents were neither poor or rich. Their occupation was with farmland and they owned cattle, horses, sheep, chickens, geese and ducks – all in small numbers. There also lived with us two brothers of my father whose names were Danilushka (Danila) and Mikisha (Mikifor). My father Nikolai was the eldest brother. In total there were 23 people living together and all ate at one table. At first we lived well and were happy. This was in Russia, the Caucasus, the village of Slavyanka in the Elizavetpol province (present-day Republic of Azerbaijan).

Alexei Nikolaevich Chernoff (1877-1967)

As children we grew up and soon started to help our parents with the work. When I reached the age of 17, my parents decided to marry me off. They had arranged for the daughter of a rich family by the name of Verigin, whose name was Paranya (Praskovia) Nikolayevna. Both of our families were happy about this arrangement. Our lives became happy and joyful. This happened shortly after the death of the former leader of the Doukhobors, Lushechka (Lukeria) Kalmykova. Her place was taken by Peter Vasilyevich Verigin. Not all the Doukhobors accepted him as the new leader. In opposition a group emerged and began to pass information to the government. Peter Verigin was arrested, tried and exiled to Siberia.

At this time, the young men from 21 of age were called by the government for service in the army, and because of an error by my parents, I was one of the people called. I was given a (reserve) document indicating that I had to appear to serve when it was my turn. This came at the time the Doukhobors started to refuse service in the army. As I was not yet 21 years of age, by law I should not be called into the service. During the last census, believing that they would save me from the army, my parents had added 3 years to my age. Because of this entry in the census, I was now called into the military service. My father appealed to the military command to nullify the call. The officer in command asked if there were any records of the birth of your son. My father answered no. The officer then replied that, the order to serve cannot be nullified, but he added not be afraid that he would not be called for the time being. This is how the matter ended. They didn’t take me into the army, but my name was left on the list for future call.

In 1895, a call came from Siberia from Peter V. Verigin, that the Doukhobors show by action their opposition to service in the army. He ordered all of his followers to burn their arms and guns. The men who were drafted for service went to the officials and turned in their call papers. They informed the officials that they will no longer serve in the army.

On June 29, 1895 was the celebration of Peters Day. On the night before, the Doukhobors secretly collected all of their guns and burned them. This stirred up the government officials, and they started an investigation as to why this burning occurred. Next morning another event furthur antagonized the government officials against the Doukhobors. The young draftees started to hand in their call papers and advised that they will no longer take part in serving in the army. I too, went to turn in my papers, along with 60 other draftees. We were all arrested and placed in jail cells. Our parents were also arrested for influencing the young men. Without giving us an opportunity for a farewell, we were marched to Elizavetpolski prison. That ended our happy life. My dear relatives, it was difficult to part with our family – my mother, my 5 brothers, and my dear wife and son Nikolai. I was young, and God gave me strength to bear this sorrow. My father and I stayed in jail for 5 months. Then along with others we were sent to Kozakh prison. Our parents, the older people were sent to Siberia. Part of their trip was by water and here my father got sick. The ship doctor was unable to help him. Upon landing he was sent to hospital where he passed away. The date was August 17, 1895. He had nobody with him when he died and the news of his passing did not reach us for 6 months.

In Kozakh prison were 65 draftees who had refused to serve and had turned in their papers. In prison, life was not all that bad. We were allowed to exercise, sing and pray to God. They gave us a kitchen, and we had 2 cooks amongst us to board ourselves. Life went well. One thing that bothered us was fever, as the climate was favorable to this illness. Everyone was sick from this except myself. We stayed in that prison for about a year and one-half. 

In August 1897, the government decided to send us to the Yerevan region to settle among the Tartars. We notified our relatives that we were being exiled. Our relatives came to a meeting in prison, and the government permitted this. We were glad to see them and they were glad to see us. After the first meeting, we were allowed to meet with them the next day. Soon after, we were all counted, put into a convoy and started on our journey. We called to our people for the last time a good-bye and to forgive us. We marched to Yerevan over a 7 day period. In the month of August, the weather was warm and dry and we thanked God that we reached our destination safely. Nobody was sick on the way. Again we were imprisoned, and due to the lack of room inside, we were kept outside of the prison. They allowed us our own kitchen and gave all that we required. They kept us here for 12 days. Here some of our comrades were distributed to the Tartar villages and the rest of us, about 13 people, were sent further to Nakhichevan. 

Again, we were marched through the valleys of the Caucasian mountains for 5 days. On the way, we were given time to rest. The valleys were very hot and the people in this area raised fruit. I was attracted by grapes growing so I picked a bunch and ate them. Shortly after I became sick and became cold and shivering. It appeared that I had the same malaria fever that attacked the other comrades. Every day at the same time I got the shivers. We reached Nakhichevan and were distributed 2 to a village. My partner was Nikolai Fedorovich Salykin. He was much older than myself and had already served in the army. But he was in prison because he turned in his military service papers. Because he was older than myself, he took advantage of me and made me serve him. The village was known a Karabahli. It was a large village and the people were kind and courteous. They provided a well lit room and slowly we got used to our surroundings. We knew their language and soon found a job cutting hay. They paid us a fair wage and did not mistreat us. Their women baked us bread which was very tasty. Here we lived for a year.

One day a Russian doctor visited our village, and I turned to him with my illness. He examined me and told me to appear at the hospital in his village. He ordered that I be released with a guard. We walked 50 verst (kilometers). There he gave me a mixture of quinine and shortly thereafter the fever left me completely. I got well, but the doctor kept me there for 2 weeks. In that time I helped in the house and looked after his little girl. The doctor asked me to stay with him, but I refused and went back to my friends. 

Shortly thereafter, our relatives decided to visit us. My Uncle Danilushka decided to ride horseback to our place and invited a Tartar to accompany him. I was very glad to see my Uncle Danilushka. He passed regards from my family, told me how they lived and how they had safely traveled to see me. Thank God. After supper my friend Salykin decided to invite a town official. The official came and with him were 2 policemen. He asked my Uncle whether he had a permit to travel. At that time, every person had to have permission to travel from one place to another in Russia. Danilushka did not have such a permit. The official did not say anything and went back to his room. Shortly thereafter, the official arrested our guest Danilushka and took him away. Next morning, he and his friend were marched to Nakhichevan prison. The horses were left with us. This is how my Uncle visited me at this time. I wondered what to do with the horses and discussed this with a regional official. He sent me to the prison where my Uncle was held and he requested that they not be sold. He wanted them sent back to his village. This request was sent back to the official who became irrate, and sent me to see someone else with authority. An order was given that the horses be given to the local villagers. Nobody wanted them, so I kept the horses. Feed was obtained for the horses till my Uncle Mikisha came and took them away. Later my Uncle Danilushka and his friend had walked back to their village from which they came. All this we lived through. The people here were good, gave us feed for the horses, and helped us in many ways.

In 1899 we were freed. We hired a Molokan, and he drove us to the station Astafoo. By this time we joined a group who were migrating to Canada and were on their way to Batum. Our relatives were already at Batum, and met us after 3 years of separation. I cannot describe this meeting. My mother especially, thanked God that her son Aliosha came back safe and sound. My relatives kissed me and could not believe that I was their Aliosha.

On February 16, 1899 we started boarding the ship. The passage across the ocean was difficult. The ocean was rough but we reached Canada, at Halifax, on the 9th day of March, 1899. We unloaded on a large (quarantine) island. There they gave us a bath and vaccinated us. We stayed there several days, boarded a ship and reached St. John. Here we were loaded onto a train and sent west to Manitoba – Winnipeg, Selkirk and Brandon – where they had places for us. It was still winter and there was a lot of snow. After a while, we were sent to Yorkton, Saskatchewan and from there we went by sleigh to the village of Verovka where they had built long barns. In these barns we spent the remainder of the winter. Spring came and the warm weather with it. Then they started to sort families, who would want to live in the same villages. Everyone was organized into villages and our village was Sovetnoye. It was north-west of the village of Veregin. Here we started our Canadian life.

Doukhobor Village in Saskatchewan, 1902

At this time we had no farming facilities and just set up tents in the middle of the field. The stronger men were sent out to look for jobs and the older men and women began building. They dug and started building sod houses. They were plastered inside and dried outside so to be livable. This was in 1899. Towards fall the workers started coming home and had a place to winter. We had a lot of wood for fuel and wintered well. In the spring we started to get ready to look for work again. Some stayed home to improve the facilities. By then, the village had one horse and several cows, so we had milk for the children. This was 1900. We started planting gardens and getting ready for the next winter. We started to accumulate the necessary equipment, plowing the land and seeding oats. The crops were very good and the times were getting better. We all lived in a commune and had a happy life. I was elected senior in our village and had control of the money. 

In 1902, near Christmas, Peter “Lordly” Verigin came to Canada. All Doukhobors were glad of his coming. He visited the villages and met everyone. He advised the people to live a communal life and nearly everyone took his advice. He started to buy cattle and horses and allocated them among the villages. After some time in the communities, a misunderstanding arose with the Canadian government regarding the registration of land ownership and taking the oath of allegiance. Then, Peter Verigin decided to move some Doukhobors to British Columbia. Land was purchased for orchards, and nearly all of the people of the community were transplanted to British Columbia. Our family, the Chernoffs, including the 6 brothers and my 2 sons, stayed on the Khutor ranch near the town of Veregin. The ranch had been well stocked with cattle and horses and the animals were worth a lot of money. Peter Verigin delegated the Chernoffs to look after this property. My brother Nikolai was a tabunchik (“horse trainer”) and I was delegated to look after the stallions. The rest of the brothers looked after the land and planted the grain. The grain amounted to over 30,000 bushels. In the winter we looked after the livestock. We lived under the leadership of Peter “Lordly” Verigin for twelve years, up until the time of his death. He always favored us and was kind.

During October 1927, the other Verigin arrived. The Doukhobors were glad of his coming and soon he started to change procedures and practices. We started to live according to his plans and what he wanted. The time passed and then, he too died. After that, the whole community broke apart. Everyone started to live independently and that’s the way it is now. However, there are a group who are organized under the name of the Union of Christian Communities of Christ.

Dear relatives, the time is fleeing and the memory of relatives and friends is disappearing. My mother died in 1934, and my wife Paranya died in 1950. I myself am 87 years old and nearing the end of my life. I have decided to leave my remembrance of our previous life, and how and why we came to Canada. My sincere desire is that you live in a Doukhobor society and carry out all of the teachings for the well being of ourselves and future offspring. Guard all the time our Doukhobor faith.

Your Father, Grandfather, Great Grandfather, Your Brother and Your Uncle,

Alexei Nikolayevich Chernoff
Veregin, Saskatchewan
September 12, 1964

My Beautiful Sons – Why Did You Have to Die?

My Beautiful Sons – Why Did You Have to Die?

by Akim A. Fominov

In the 1890’s, hundreds of young Doukhobor men endured persecution and suffering as a result of their refusal to perform military service. The following is a true, first person account of Doukhobor Akimushka A. Fominov’s visits to where his two sons were exiled for denouncing military service and surrendering their army tickets. Reproduced by permission from the pages of ISKRA Nos. 1915-1916 (Grand Forks: U.S.C.C., 2001) it features the struggles and tragedies that occurred during that time. Recorded by William A. Faminow. Translated by Vera Kanigan

I

After surrendering their army tickets and denouncing military service because of their newly declared pacifist beliefs, Vanya (Ivan) Fominov and Grisha (Grigory) Gorkov were first arrested and then placed in prison in the Kars Region. Soon thereafter, they were led on foot to Tiflis where they were exiled to the Tartar villages close to a place called Agdash.

On the way to Agdash, the military horsemen herded them 40 kilometers on foot, attempting to cover this distance in one day. The young men were humble and obedient, walking diligently. It was very hot, and they got extremely sunburned and thirsty. Coming upon a creek by the road, they drank with great zeal – they were unaware that the water was not suitable for drinking. When they had arrived at the designated place of the wealthy Becka (officer who looked after exiled people) it would not have been too bad, as he gave them adequate quarters; however, shortly after, they both turned very ill. They wrote to the Fominov family and explained their situation. I, Akimushka Fominov (Ivan’s father), decided to secretly go to visit them.

When I arrived, I tried to make them as comfortable as possible and looked after their needs before returning home. After some time, they wrote once again, telling me that their illnesses had continued, and indeed, gotten worse. This time I invited my daughter-in-law Masha (Ivan’s wife) to accompany me.

When we got off at the last train station, we were supposed to walk another 40 verst (kilometers) on foot. Here I asked my daughter-in-law to dress in a man’s attire, as the road was very remote, frightening and open to all kinds of occurrences. This precaution of ours was very wise as two Tartars happened to catch up to us on horseback, and with suspicion, asked us many questions.

By the time we arrived at the young men’s living quarters, the sun had already set. Grisha Gorkov sat beside the house leaning against the wall, apparently feeling very sick and not even noticing us until we came up very close. As we walked closer, the thought went through our heads, “God, why are you young people suffering here, as you have not done any evil to anyone in the world?”

My son Vanya was in the house and he looked a bit more cheerful. We did not waste much time in pleasantries but immediately tended to the tasks at hand. I went to see the Becka and took from him a kettle and started to heat water for a bath as they had been eaten up by lice. First of all we bathed Grisha and then Vanya and then we boiled their clothes to get rid of the lice.

In the morning Grisha looked more cheerful and asked me if I could arrange to move him to another village – Kietkeshen. This village was eight or nine kilometers from Agdash and they had good water and a more tolerable climate. In that village were two more exiled young Doukhobors – Feodor Ivanovich and Nikolai Vasilievich Tikhonov. I went to address this request to the Becka. He agreed and sent a Tartar on a bullock-cart to transfer Grisha and his belongings. I went with Grisha and helped him settle in with the Tikhonovs and then returned to my son and daughter-in-law. We discussed with my son that we needed to return home, so we proceeded to arrange our return trip. But Vanya’s health had not improved, and he asked us not to leave him alone. His wife, Masha, decided to stay with him for the winter while I returned home. I agreed to come for her in the early spring. 

Burning of Arms, June 29, 1895. Painting by Terry McLean.

When I came back to the village on February 25th, I spent some time with Vanya and Masha and then walked to visit Grisha Gorkov. Grisha appeared a bit more cheerful this time, but both Grisha and our son Vanya’s health was not very encouraging. When March came, we decided to travel home to the Kars Region. Vanya became very despondent but said: “Once you have decided, do not delay your plans: I will accompany you to Agdash.”

I then went and asked the Becka if he would allow for such a plan. The Becka agreed and even gave us a horse for Vanya to ride on. When we woke up in the morning, preparing for our return trip, Vanya appeared very ill. He hardly ate anything for breakfast, drinking only half a cup of tea. We started to talk about postponing our trip, but Vanya would not agree to this, and we proceeded on our journey.

Vanya rode horseback, and we walked on foot. By the time we arrived at Agdash, our young man turned worse, swaying on the horse, and when we helped him off the horse, he lay down and was unable to walk on his own. We were unable to leave him alone, so I decided to find temporary living quarters. I was unable to find anything. The only place where there was vacancy was in a small hut where a single woman, a Kazonian Tartar, resided. She agreed to allow us to lay Vanya on her porch providing that Vanya’s wife would look after him, as to leave a single man with her would be viewed questionably by the surrounding residents. She made a living by doing laundry in the region, and if people would hold her in suspicion, her source of income could cease. 

We were glad even with this porch, laid Vanya there, and then I proceeded to find the village doctors. They prescribed medicine that did not help at all, so we decided to transport Vanya back to the Tartar village of Agdash. To our good fortune at this time, a Tartar from his village was here on a bullock cart. For three rubles, he agreed to take Vanya, cautioning us that he would travel very slowly, as that is how his buffalo are accustomed, and he did not want to ruin them. 

After travelling all night, we arrived in the morning. My ill son had turned worse and passed away on the second evening. I went to tell the Becka about what had happened. He sympathized and asked, “What are your plans now?” I replied that we want to bury him according to our own tradition, and therefore, needed to make a coffin.  He gave us some boards and sent a Tartar somewhere for the tools. He also sent another rider to Kietkeshen to get the Tikhonov cousins to come and help with the burial.  The rider returned quickly and said that half way to the village he met up with a messenger from Kietkeshen, sent to inform us that Grisha Gorkov had died as well – he was on his way to tell us that we should go there to help with that burial! 

We buried my son on our own. Even though the tools were not adequate, somehow we were able to cut the boards and nail the coffin together. The Tartars dug out a grave at the place where we requested. The police officer came, offered his sympathy, wished him to enter God’s Heavenly Kingdom, and left. With the help of the Tartars, we lowered the coffin into the grave and covered the body with dirt, while I said a prayer for my dear son: “Please accept his innocent soul into Your Everlasting Abode, as this sacrifice was offered for the adherence to the great commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Kill…” 

Upon returning to our quarters, I asked my daughter-in-law to assemble the clothes and belongings in order so that I could go to Kietkeshen to see if they buried Grisha Gorkov. When I had arrived and asked the Tikhonovs about Grisha, I was told that Grisha had died the same morning; and unbeknownst to me at the time, at the same hour and at the same minute as our son Vanya. I stayed a while at the Tikhonovs, then gathered Grisha’s belongings and returned to my flat.

When we got ready for our return trip home, we realized that we had too many items for us to carry and went to the district police officer to request permission to give us a ride. He did not allow us to take Grisha’s clothes, as according to the law, they were required to be returned by mail. When I objected, he said: “Aren’t you satisfied with all that I have allowed already?” My orders from my superiors were not to permit you to even make contact, but you were here and even lived here. If the authorities learn this, I will be fired from my position! I need to feed myself!”

I did not pursue my request any further, but thanked him for all of his concessions and left. Without Grisha’s belongings, we were able to proceed on foot. On the way, we stopped at the Becka’s quarters. His Matushka almost cried at Masha’s leaving because she had been a big help to her while looking after her husband Ivan.

When we arrived at Agdash, we realized that we didn’t have enough money to go by train. To our good fortune, however, Molokan carriers were travelling to Alexandropol and they agreed to take us along. On the way, they stopped in their village, Voskresenovka right on Sunday. We all attended moleniye (prayer service) together. These were the steadfast Molokans. They were not jumpers. Their Father Superior read the psalm: “Listen, King of Everlasting Glory.”

When we arrived with the Molokan at the town where we were supposed to get off, and we started to give them the promised 1 1/2 rubles, he took into consideration our hardship and did not accept any payment. We thanked him sincerely from the bottom of our hearts and bade him farewell.

From the town we traveled home with our neighbour. Our relatives gathered to meet us but all we brought with us was unbearable pain. Everyone who came cried and expressed their sorrow for Vanya. Only his very own mother, and my wife, did not shed a single tear, but paced around the house, whispering and praying to God…

II

My son, Fedya, for refusal to serve in the army along with others, was sent to the disciplinary battalion at the Ekaterinogradskiy prison. We received a letter from him that they were badly beaten for the second time; that is, they were whipped with birch rods. Military officers were trying to change their minds about serving in the army, and we heard that they decided to obey by using some of the firearms.

For that reason, I decided to travel and find out for myself how they were and what was being done to them, as many elders, both men and women, begged me to go there as soon as possible. They said that I had a son there and I would be allowed to speak to him. I decided not to put this off, gathered my belongings, bade farewell to my family and went on my journey. I travelled with my neighbour as far as the town of Aleksandropol and immediately came to the post office and asked the postmaster when the mail would be leaving. He told me that in a 1/2 hour it will leave to Delezan and that I can go with the driver in the wagon. I was happy with this arrangement.

I sat down and we left on our way. When we arrived at the train station, I got on board and traveled to the city of Tiflis. There, I had a chance to see many brethren (Kholodenskiye). They were dispersed among the Georgian villages. I had an opportunity to speak to several of them, and I learned that with the majority of them, their situation was very dismal.

I continued my trek further, from here to Dushet, travelling by train. From Dushet I traveled on the letter-carrying horses, over the Kazbetskiye mountains to Vladikavkaz, then by train to Prakhladnoe. From there, I went by horseback to Ekateringradskoye station, where the prison was located and where my son Fedya was being held in the disciplinary battalion. In the station there lived mainly Leninskiye Cossacks. I entered my former quarters where I had once previously stayed.

Group of Russian Prisoners with Heads Half-Shaven, circa 1890’s Photo by John Foster Fraser.

The proprietors welcomed me pleasantly and said: ” So, Starichok (“Elder”), have you come to visit your lads?” I replied that, yes, I want to see them. They said: “This is the situation, old man, that we need to tell you. Please do something about your lads. Ask them to serve in the army like everyone else, or ask the authorities not to punish them so harshly, or approach the Tsar himself so that he could arrange some sort of lenience or pardon. Just a short while ago they were so harshly beaten and tortured that they screamed and cried with inhumane sounds. It is getting to the point where it is impossible for us to stay here, as their cries break our hearts. At this station reside five hundred families, and the last time nearly all of us moved three kilometers away just so that we couldn’t hear their heartbreaking screams…” I replied that I’ve come here for that very reason, to speak to the lads and the authorities. At this time I went to the fortress.

From a distance, I noticed that six people sat on the roof of a new building, which was part of the prison stronghold. They were covering the roof. I walked up closer to the gate of the fortress and saw a soldier walking away, carrying a garbage pail. Behind him was a corporal. I walked up closer and started to greet them loudly. “Good day, countryman! Are any of our Doukhobors here?” The sentry man answered: “Certainly not!”

Apparently, those who were on the roof heard me and when I looked up, I noticed that there were only five of them, as one of them had already left. He ran and climbed along the wall of the fortress and started to greet me. It was Lukyan Fedorovich Novokshonov. He immediately started to say: “Akimushka, I beg you, please leave from here immediately. Do not even show yourself to the officials. They are extremely angry right now. The other day they tortured us almost to the point of death. We barely survived. They told us that if any of your hometown people come here for a visit, we will also rip a strip out of them and will deport them home like convicts. ” I gave him some money and said that it is to share with those in need. He jumped off the wall and ran away from me. I looked up and there he was, once again, sitting on the roof in his own place. Obviously, he was afraid of being noticed.

He frightened me so much that I stood still for a long time, contemplating my next step. What should I do now? Should I listen to Lukyan and return home? But everyone would gather and ask me: “How are the lads, what is with them?” I would have to tell them that someone warned me not to show myself to the officials for they would tear me apart, and therefore, I was too afraid to stay. What will my people say then? The lads are so young and are enduring such extreme torture -“for whom and for what? For our common cause, and you, old man, are running away?” I thought to myself, “let them flog and cut me up in small pieces, but I must speak with them in person.”

It was Friday evening. I went back to my quarters and almost all night thought about my situation. How could I arrange it so that the officials would not suspect me and catch me?

On Saturday morning I woke up, washed myself, prayed to God and then went to the fortress, thinking that I may see one of the lads. I stayed quite a while, not too far from the gate of the fortress and not seeing anyone walk out. I checked around from another wall, thinking that someone may be there. In one place were a group of soldiers. I walked closer to them and noticed that they were digging dirt. I didn’t know for what purpose. Two officials walked up to me, very quickly, and immediately started to say: “Did you know Mikhail Shcherbinin?” I answered that although I did not know him personally, my son had written me about him, stating that he was ill. They replied, pointing: “Do you see those black gates, that is a cemetery. Remember, he will be there soon! Do you know Fominov and Malakhov? We will build them coffins as well for they are very stubborn. But in this group, (pointing to someone), one of your Doukhobors, since he came to this battalion, has not received even one whipping.”

He stood there smiling and I thought to myself, “Fominov is my own son, and you are such hypocrites, you want to take one to the cemetery, and for the others, you wish to build coffins, and the other one is laughing.” Then I spoke up: “Aren’t you afraid to punish innocent people? You should fear God,” They replied: “Here no one speaks of God, they only say hit and whip… We simply obey our commands.”

I did not continue this conversation and went back to my place. As I was walking, I thought to myself -”as if no one speaks about God?” Here, in this fortress, stands a church, one that is called “Orthodox”. Our lads were forcefully driven there, that is, as if they had strayed from God’s path. Where should there be more conversations about God than in this church? At that point, a thought came to me to enter this church and there, hopefully, see my lads, but I couldn’t figure out the way to get inside.

I approached the store to buy some bread. It was possible to buy some good bread there, as well as watermelons. Several area villagers were also in the store. I started to ask them whether they attend the prison church. They answered yes, some of them do attend. I said that I wanted to attend the church but had no idea as to the procedure. They suggested that tomorrow was Sunday and when others start to assemble, that I could join them and walk inside. I went back to my room and didn’t go anywhere else. I lay down to sleep early, but couldn’t sleep as I kept thinking about how to attend the church and how I could see my son. I woke up way before dawn, washed up and went to the fortress. There I stopped and stood and waited for the people to arrive.

It seemed to me that I stood and waited there the whole night. Finally, the church bell tolled and I thought that now people would assemble. I waited and waited but no one came…

Then the bell tolled a second time and still no one came. When daylight arrived, the third bell tolled and I saw one family corning. I walked up to them, thinking that I could walk in with them, but when we walked to the gate, there stood the sentry soldier. He opened the gate, let them in and yelled at me: “You! Stand there! Where are you going?” I answered that I wanted to attend the church service. He said that he could not let me through until he consults the sergeant major. He went to confer with the sergeant as I stood thinking: here I wanted to walk through so that I wouldn’t be noticed, but the sentry went straight to the major, who would order the soldiers to put me in jail. But, so be it, if it is God’s will. I will not run away!

During the time I was waiting, more people assembled. At last the sentry came, opened the door, allowed others through and also told me to enter. I walked with the other residents, thinking, wherever they stand in church, I will stand with them. We entered. The plain folk stood on the left and the soldiers stood on the right. Everyone looked at the priest who waved the censer and read something. When he would say “Amen”, the soldiers knelt on their knees and our boys remained standing. Doing so, I was able to see the boys, and my son Fedya, but they kept looking straight ahead, not even glancing to the side. I thought to myself, you poor soldiers, you are under strict discipline, even in church. I started to think of a way to move closer to the front, so that the lads could notice me for the moleniye would end soon. They would be taken to the back and they wouldn’t even know that I was here. I started to slowly and inconspicuously move forward.

I hardly moved a half-meter when an officer on duty called out from the back: “Leave the church at once! You came here not to view the church, but to see your lads.” I begged his forgiveness and said that I simply was not aware of their procedures, that when we have visitors at our moleniye, we do not restrict their movement, nor do we tell people where to look or not to look. He once again sternly warned me that in their church, they have their own rules and that I should follow their procedures. I promised to do so, and he left me alone. As a result of this argument, our lads clearly recognized me, and when the church service concluded, and the soldiers left, our boys came over to me, walked by, greeted me, and said, “Thank God, we are still alive!” My son rushed up to me, said that he was okay, and continued walking after the others, not stopping for a moment. I went outside and looked sadly upon them and thought – “I sure have heard lots about God, and was almost beaten on the neck! I didn’t even have a chance to get a good look at my son because they were driven away. What sort of a place is this Russian Orthodox Church?”

I stood and glanced around. I noticed that I was not too far away from a large house where a man in an overcoat was pacing on the balcony. At that moment the sergeant major came up to me, and simultaneously, I heard a loud voice blare out from somewhere near the balcony: “Well, old man, do you want to see your son now or after dinner?” I realized then that I had not remained unnoticed. I thought to myself, “Let whatever happens, happen. I am already in their hands!” and replied, “If possible, right now.” The sergeant major said: “Okay, I will relay this to the colonel.” 

The colonel turned out to be the fellow pacing on the balcony, and I overheard him say that a Doukhobor from the Kars region had come and wanted to meet with his son Fedya Fominov. I noticed the colonel waving to me to join him. I came forward, removed my hat, bowed, and said, “The best of health, Gospodin Colonel,” and then placed my hat back on and stood still. At first, he harshly reproached me: “You come here for a visit and then simply confuse your children! Not too long ago an old grey-haired elder like you came from the Kazbetski mountains and do you know what happened? The boys had just started to settle down here and had begun to finally serve, but the old man knocked them off the path of reason, confused them, and they, once again, refused to take up arms! We whipped and ripped strips out of them that they will never forget! Do you know that this is a correctional prison, that not only your lads, but if an angel from heaven were here we would have to make him serve. And you, old man, refuse to submit to authority and the Tsar. You and all your people have been dispersed over all of the Kazbetski Mountains!” 

Russian Prison Warden and Guard, c. 1890. >Photo by John Foster Fraser.

I turned to him and said “Gospodin Colonel, we are not against obeying the will of God, but we are against that which contradicts His will.” Here the colonel started pacing even faster on the balcony, almost running. He walked over to me and hollered: “Tell me, what here is against the will of God?” I noticed that he was very angry, so I decided not to answer, thinking that in this case, silence was the best answer. For quite a while he continued to pace the balcony, cursing and calling me all kinds of names, then he ceased and became calmer. He stopped pacing, turned towards us and addressed the sergeant major: “Go with him and let him meet his son for one hour.” We hadn’t walked more than five steps when he yelled for us to come back. I felt shivers down my spine, thinking that he had changed his mind and would now put me in jail. As we got closer to him he turned to the sergeant major and said: “Let him visit for two hours, one hour is too little. After all, the old man traveled a long distance and the trip cost him money.”

We went to the area where visitors were allowed. The sergeant major told me to wait there while he went to bring my son. Soon after, my son arrived, accompanied by three soldiers. They took us to another room and set us side by side on a bench. One soldier sat beside me and the other sat beside Fedya. The third soldier stood across from us, glancing quite often at his clock. They were instructed to listen to our conversation. In fact, we couldn’t talk about anything confidential. My son simply asked a few questions about news from home and I answered. As soon as the two hours were up, the soldiers got up and led my son away, and I stood for a long time with tears in my eyes, watching as they left. I felt so sorry for the poor lad. All of our boys looked very beaten, and with inadequate nutrition, they had become mere shadows of men.

The thought occurred to me to go to the colonel and ask him where I could purchase a few things to treat our lads. I walked up to his home. The sentry informed him of my coming and he walked outside. I thanked him for allowing me a visit with my son, and then I asked him: “Gospodin Colonel, allow me please to buy some bread and watermelon to treat all of the lads.”

“Absolutely not. I have everything here – bread, borshch, meat, and kasha, and if your lads do not wish to eat these things, that is not my business,” he replied. With this, he concluded his conversation with me, and I walked away from the jail with great sorrow and grief. I thought – “What authorities, they are whipping and beating our sons and won’t even allow us to treat them with bread!”

I went to my quarters, had breakfast and lunch at the same time and then sat down, thinking about what I should do next. Since it was impossible during my visit to discuss the most important issue, I decided to try get a secret meeting with my son. During the last two times I had been within the prison, I noticed that one sergeant major by the name of Zaitsev often left the jail for one reason or another. I decided to go, watch him more closely, and hopefully, talk to him. I walked up to the prison wall, and to my good fortune, he soon came out. Immediately, I went and started to speak to him directly. “Gospodin Zaitsev, could you please arrange a secret meeting for me with my son Fedya A. Fominov?” “If you will give me a ruble, then I will,” he answered. I agreed and we arranged to meet in a large new building in the early morning.

That night I hardly slept, praying that our meeting would pass safely. When I arrived that morning, the non-commissioned officer was already waiting for me with new plans, for the colonel had ordered the new building to be plastered, and therefore, it would not be possible to have the meeting there. He took me to a far corner of the prison grounds where tall weeds grew. He told me to pick some and make a wall so that I would not be seen and then went to go get my son. I made the wall and sat down waiting. Some cattle were grazing nearby and some of the cows came up towards me. At this point I started to worry, thinking that the soldiers would come for the cattle and see me. Here, I would get caught! They would whip and exile me. And that was almost exactly what happened…

A soldier came for the cattle, but because he was deep in thought, he did not pay any attention to me, took the cattle and chased them away, shouting at them to leave. Soon, the non-commissioned officer came, bringing Fedya and Kuzma Pugachev. We exchanged greetings as necessary and then I started to talk. “Before I left home. I met with Vasya Obetkov and he said that if I had a chance to meet with you, that I should advise you if I can. Since it is very difficult to bear the torture of this disciplinary battalion. You lads should concede. When everyone is returned to their own regions, then again they could refuse military service. There in their own regions they will not be subjected to such torture.” 

The lads answered that this plan would not work, as no one is released until they have served their entire sentence in the disciplinary battalion. Then I answered them: “If so, then stick to your convictions, as you are the first detachment (the vanguard) of our people. If you change your direction, the rest of us will surely be shipped through this battalion.” They answered that in spite of the hardships, they would endure suffering as long as they would have the strength.

I further started to tell the lads that when I was getting ready to come here many of the elders wanted details as to the reason why many of our young men were backing down and serving. Somewhere they had heard that one Russian man had been flogged to death, but that he never conceded to them; but none of our lads had, as of yet, died from the flogging. 

When I told our boys about this, both in unison started crying like small children. “We could endure almost everything from the flogging. The pain is unbearable at first, but afterwards, the body becomes wooden and a person loses all feeling. At this point the doctors’ assistants pay closer attention as to how much you can endure. When they see that a person is close to death, they cease the flogging. They rip the meat off your back, then put your clothes back on. They drag you to the punishment cell, pushing you there like an unfortunate animal. In this cell there is no bed and no bench. The floor is cold cement, and one can only lie on the stomach. The clothing freezes, turning to wood. For food, they bring a piece of bread and water. When the wounds heal a bit, the commanders come and tell you to now accept military service, and if you don’t, tomorrow you will be flogged twice as hard. At this point, one, not having any more strength, agrees, telling them, I will pick up a rifle, but we pretend it is just a stick when we agree to serve, and under no circumstances will we kill anything or anyone.

They continued, stating that even if angels from heaven were to come here, they would not be able to endure the punishment and would submit to military service. They told me that if I were to arrive home safely, I should ask the elders to take the brushwood which they use to light a fire and imagine themselves being whipped, as the lads are here. I asked them about those who had totally agreed to serve in the same way as the soldiers. They answered that even though their situation was already unbearable, that this has made it even more difficult. At this point the non-commissioned officer rushed in and told the lads to hurry, it was necessary to go to the colonel. They left with him, and I left the fortress. When I came to my living quarters, I had breakfast, packed my belongings, bade farewell to the proprietors and left on my return home.

I arrived home safely, passed on regards to my family and shared all about my visit in detail. When all the rest of our people assembled, I explained what the lads had told me and passed on regards to their families. Soon after my trip, Nikola Chevildeev went to the disciplinary battalion as well. His son Kiryusha was there. During his time there, a new agreement was made in regards to the imprisoned Doukhobors. A decision was reached that would have all the Doukhobors who were refusing to serve in the military, sent to the Yakutsk Oblast for eighteen years. Therefore, Nikolasha Chevildeev accompanied the lads to Vladikavkaz. The boys were driven further, but Nikolasha returned home.

On the trip to Siberia, our son Fedya had mailed a very sad letter home. “My dear parents, father Akimushka and mother Polyusha, sister-in-law Masha and your son Petya, my dear wife, Anyuta, as well as my children Mavrunya and Malasha, brother Vasya and your wife Tanya, and also my sisters, Hanya and Marfunya, all of our dear Fominov family combined.” 

Siberian Prisoners Starting Up-Country, circa 1890’s. Photo by John Foster Fraser.

“At this time I wish to tell you about myself and about our present life here. My health is very poor. From day to day I feel as if I am drying up like the cut grass in a meadow.”

“What stands before us is a very long walk. Some people say it is more than a thousand verst. We must walk 35-40 verst a day, and when we arrive at the station, they send us to a convicts’ building which is infested by many different insects, especially bed bugs. We must sleep right on the floor, but the bed bugs eat at us all night, not giving us any peace. We have to get up early in the morning and proceed on the trip once again. When I get up and start to dress, my feet are so swollen that I am barely able to pull on my boots, but we must walk another 40 verst.”

“When I lag behind the group the soldiers walk up to me and start to nudge me with the nose of their rifles. They aren’t the ones to blame though. Those to blame are the higher authorities that do not give us more transport carts. The carts are only given to the convicts who are shackled. But even amongst the shackled convicts, there are kind people. When I start to get weak, almost falling down on the road, someone from the group of prisoners gets down off the cart, walks up to me and says, “well brother, I see that you are exhausted. Go to the cart and sit in my place, rest, and I will walk in your place.” Such people support me, and if it weren’t for them, I would long ago have been left alone on the road.”

“My dear family, I beg you, don’t worry about me and don’t feel sorry for me. Even though this trip is extremely difficult, I do not complain, nor am I sorry. Yes, I cannot com plain, for I chose this path myself. After all, our Lord Jesus Christ took the cross and carried it on His back to Golgotha: “He who wants to follow Me, take My cross and follow Me.” On this cross He was crucified. We must also continue without complaining, and with God’s help, we will reach our destination. If something should happen to me on this trip, then this will be the will of our Lord in Heaven. With this I will end my letter. I send you all my love, warm kisses and hugs. Your son, husband, father and brother. Feodor A. Fominov.

III

Following after Fedya’s letter were several other accounts about our ill son and his friend.

Misha V. Arishchenkov’s Account

“When we were brought to the town of Yakutsk we bought ourselves some warm clothes, especially good, warm valenki (boots made out of felt). From Yakutsk we had to go further north to the place where we were to serve our 18 year sentence. We arrived at our destination and occupied an abandoned yurta (nomad’s hut). It was very cold, and the windows were all iced up. There were approximately thirty of us. We installed some glass windows, and with difficulty, built a Russian kiln for baking bread in the middle of the hut. Beside the kiln, we set up a bed for our sick friend, Fedya Fominov, and for the rest of us we set up nari (plank beds). In order to sleep, we would lay down with our heads towards the center of the hut and our feet towards the wall. We always slept in our valenki. The weather was fiercely cold and the nomad’s hut was so poor, that by morning, our valenki were frozen to the wall…”

Grisha Sukharev’s Account

“My responsibility was to look after our ill friend. Near him, I tied a belt to the crossbar of the hut. This was done so that when I went elsewhere, and Feodor needed to sit up or turn on his other side, he took hold of the belt, and although with great difficulty, he slowly turned himself over. After the winter was over, Fedya spoke gravely to us: “Brothers, tovarishchi (comrades) I want to ask you to please take me back to the town of Yakutsk, to the hospital. Even though I feel that I will not survive, I wish to at least free your hands as there is enough for you to take care of in order to survive. You must go and earn your daily bread without having to also care for me. There, in the hospital, it may be easier for me…”

Narrative of Seoma S. Usachev

“I chose to go with our sick tovarishch to Yakutsk and take him to the hospital. With difficulty we brought Fedya to the river and set up a tent. I stayed to look after him: We waited for the ship to arrive. On this particular river, the steamboat comes only once throughout the whole summer. Apparently, the boat was in Nelkan picking up winter tea brought from China on the backs of deer. We had to wait a long time. At one point Fedya said: “Seoma, tovarishch, are you here?” I replied that I was. He called me forward and said: “Please look at my side, there is something soft. ” I opened his shirt and saw a lump as huge as my fist. I got scared and explained that the situation was not very good. He turned and said: “if you have a knife, try and cut it off.” I started to carefully cut it off, ask- ing him if ithurt. He said that he didn’t feel any pain. When I finished I carefully cleaned the area and bandaged it up. It was a chunk of old, black blood. Fedya had been unmercifully beaten in the disciplinary battalion. His sergeant-major was strong, almost the same size as Fedya, and was an extremely angry man. He would often beat Fedya with his fists, on his cheeks, on his head, on his side. He also beat him with a stump of wood or with the butt of his rifle. His last beating was the most injurious, when he was beaten with an ammunition belt filled with shells on the back of his head, and both of his ears were severely scarred. They were always pussing. Almost all of his skin hung from his bones.”

Group of Doukhobor Exiles in Yakutsk, Siberia, circa 1904

“I wanted to look after Fedya until his bodily existence came to an end. However, to my regret, before the arrival of our ship, a man from our work party walked up to us and told us that he was also ill, and was going to Yakutsk and could take Fedya with him. I did not argue with him.”

“When they arrived in Yakutsk, he placed Fedya in the hospital, but he did not consider it necessary to constantly visit him and Fedya was left alone. Soon afterwards, a few middle-aged Doukhobors, exiled from Elizavetpol (including several brothers of Peter “Lordly” Verigin) arrived in Yakutsk. Petrunya Dimovsky, a middle-aged man, exiled for incitement, was also placed in the hospital because of his illness. He was not altogether bedridden, and at times, looked in on Fedya Fominov. When Fedya became even more tired and exhausted, Petrunya asked him: “What is with you, brother Fedya, how do you feel?”

“I feel that I will soon die and return to my Heavenly Father…”, replied Fedya. “What should be done about your clothing – should it be returned to your family?” asked Petrunya. “No, my family has everything, give it away here amongst the poor,” further stated Fedya. And so, on the 20th of August, 1897, in the Yakutsk hospital, one of our Doukhobor martyr’s earthly existence came to an end.”

IV

When we received a letter and learned about our son’s death, all of us grieved and mourned for him. Only his own mother did not shed a single tear, but prayed to God, so that the Lord would receive her son in his everlasting abode. She considered crying a sin, and said that her sons went to share the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ. However, after the sorrowful news, she stayed in bed for a whole week -“and how could she not lie in bed, when two of her sons died at the height of their youth, both in the same year?”

Our eldest son, Vanya, passed away in the Georgian villages in March at the age of twenty-six, and our middle son, Fedya, passed away in the Yakutsk Region in August at the age of twenty-four. Their families never saw them again. Their mother (and my wife) lived very well with her daughters-in-law. They looked upon her like their own mother, and she considered them like her own daughters. When they remarried and took her grandchildren with them, only then did our mother cry out loud, repeating, “Only now do I see that my devout family is torn apart!” She had three daughters-in-law. For many years they lived together and never spoke a harsh word to each other. They always tried to live a happy, Christian life.

Accomplishment of the Mission

by Grigory Vasilyevich Verigin

In November 1894, Doukhobor leader Peter Vasilyevich Verigin was transferred from exile in the far northern town of Kola to the village of Obdorsk in remote Siberia. His brother Vasily Vasilyevich Verigin and Vasily Vereshchagin travelled with him as far as Moscow, from where they continued south to the Caucasus. Upon their arrival home, the faithful messengers passed on their leader’s advice to his followers to reject military service and to destroy their firearms in a mass demonstration against violence. Tsarist authorities responded by arresting and imprisoning the messengers for disturbing the peace. These events were recorded by Grigory Vasilyevich Veregin in Chapter 13 of his 1935 book, “Ne v Sile Bog, a v Pravde” (Paris, Dreyfus & Charpentier).  This chapter, translated  by Galina Alexeyeva and Larry A. Ewashen, portrays the important historical events which led to the rejection of military service by Doukhobor conscripts and the “Burning of Arms”. 

Vasily Grigoryevich Vereshchagin and brother Vasily Vasilyevich returned home from the trip safely.  All of the Doukhobors waited for them impatiently.  When they arrived, there were big conventions and meetings where they spoke in detail about their trip, spoke about the health and well being of Peter Vasilyevich, and explained in detail why he was being transferred for such a long distance and such a remote place as Obdorsk.  Of course such a transition accompanied by much suffering made everyone sad but life and deeds soon took another turn.  They brought regards and best wishes from Peter Vasilyevich and without any hesitation presented his advice for the life of the Doukhobors concerning the Burning of Arms and rejection of military service and other related matters.  Over the next while, they went to the Elizavetpol region, to Slavyanka, and to the other villages.  They saw everyone there and delivered all of the necessary messages.

From there they went to Akhalkalaki district where the majority of the Doukhobors lived.  They went through all of the villages safely and discussed all pertinent matters.  But the police followed them closely.  If they were not as careful as they were, they could have been arrested and imprisoned.  But they avoided this successfully keeping in mind the words of Christ: Be wise as the snakes and you will be safe as the doves; they returned home to the village of Terpeniye in the Kars region safely.  When the police learned about the delivery of Peter Vasilyevich’s messages, they became concerned. 

Alexei Vorobiev, who was considered to be the closest friend, even the brother of Peter Vasilyevich (the late Lukeria Vasilyevna Kalmykova called them “brothers”) became intimidated along with the Small Party of the Doukhobors because they feared punishment by the government.  And that segment of the Doukhobors, headed by him, did not accept the message and advice of Peter Vasilyevich.  They didn’t stop eating meat, didn’t participate in the Burning of Arms and did not reject military service.  If that was all, it would be fortunate, but they went so far as to report to the government that some people were going around the villages creating disturbances.  Christ’s words are true which take on a meaning today.  He said: “Those who are not with me are against me”.  Let them do as they wish, but we will continue with God’s work.  Vereshchagin and brother Vasily asked their relatives to go to those who were in military service as soldiers and inform them of Peter’s message.  Brother Vasily passed on a letter to them personally where the message was explained. I quote this letter, word for word:

“Beloved brother in our Lord Jesus Christ, I would like to talk to you, dear brother, about what constitutes my faith.  I believe in the law of our Lord Jesus Christ and comprehend it sincerely.  When we live according to the will of our Father, our Lord, then our Lord lives in us reviving us and enlightening our reason with a radiant light.  Those who wish to fulfill the will of our heavenly father must bend their hearts to God’s will.  Our Lord tells us: You were bought at an expensive price, do not be slaves of human beings.  Learn the truth and the truth shall make you free.

Undertaking such a great deed we must totally realize that our sincere desire may have to overcome cruel tests.  It may bring some insults, offences, suffering and even death upon us.  Misunderstanding, false interpretations and lies will await us.  A storm will arise against us: pride, pharisaism, ambition, cruel rulers, authorities; all of these may be combined to eradicate us.  In a similar way as they did to our God, Jesus Christ, whom we try to emulate as much as possible, according to our abilities.  We should not be frightened by all of these horrors.  Our hope is not for the people but for our almighty Lord.  If we reject human protection what would support us, if not our singular faith, which conquers the entire world?  We will not be surprised by those trials to which we are exposed, we will be glad to have the honour to share the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Because of all this, we give our souls to God and believe what was said: “The one who leaves one’s home, brothers, sisters, mother, father or children for the sake of God will get one hundred times more, and in the Kingdom of Heaven will inherit eternal life”.  So firmly believing in the certain triumph of truth, in spite all which could stand against us, we trust reason and the consciousness of humanity, but most of all, God’s power to which we subject ourselves.  For a Christian to promise to follow people and people’s laws is the same as a hired worker who promises the owner to fulfill all he would be ordered not only by him but by other people.

You cannot serve two masters.  A Christian liberates himself from human power when he recognizes only the power of God over himself and the law which was revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ.  He realizes it within himself and abides by it.  Human life consists of following not your own will but the will of God.  A Christian may be subjected to exterior violence and may be deprived of physical freedom, and at the same time could be freed of his passions.  The one who sins is the slave of sin.  A Christian is meek and quiet, does not argue with anyone and never attacks anyone, does not use violence against anyone, and on the contrary, he overcomes violence and overcomes evil.”

Vasily Vasilyevich Verigin

They travelled, met with everyone, and did their task so well that those who elected to reject military service selected a specific day, as I explained above: if they consider this seriously and come to a conclusion, then they must take action on it on the first day of Easter, perhaps not everyone at once, but the beginning must take place on that day.  When the commander of the company comes and congratulates his soldiers on the greatest holiday in the world, saying: ‘Christ has arisen’, the soldiers must answer: ‘In the righteous, Christ has arisen’; and to prove this, someone filled with the spirit of God, must tell the commander that he believes in Christ in deed and will serve Him, and will deny and reject all violent regimes; that is why I ask you to accept this rifle from me because all this is unnecessary for me and contradicts my consciousness and the spiritual feeling of my soul.

And it was Matvei Vasilyevich Lebedev who committed this action first, and his brave endeavour became known to the whole regiment and everyone questioned: What happened to him?  Some people said he went insane, others said, cautiously, that he was correct in his actions.  He was tortured, beaten and put into the punishment cell, he was not given food except for bread and water.  Others followed his example, and soon all of the Doukhobors in all of the regions who were soldiers returned their arms and equipment.  They were all arrested, beaten, tortured and put into isolation away from the other soldiers.  But they did not recant.  Finally, they were all sent to the disciplinary battalion to Ekaterinograd Fortress for additional cruel punishment.  In all, there were thirty-three of them.

When the above mentioned brothers returned their arms to the government, the government was suspicious and began to investigate and search for reasons for this behaviour and although they were not certain, they suspected Vasily Vereshchagin, brother Vasily, and I don’t know why, myself.  On the tenth of July, 1895, all three of us were summoned by gendarme officer Astafeev and Assistant Procurator Stepanov to the Argeno station.  The above mentioned persons also took another road to come to our village with horsemen and began to search our houses.  They did not find anything suspicious, came back, and began to interrogate us.  Because there was no direct evidence against us to enable them to arrest and imprison us, they began to question us about our convictions, in what way do we recognize our sovereign and all existing authorities?

Without any hesitation, we informed them of our convictions; we recognize the sovereign as sovereign, authorities for authorities, but to abide to their demand if it were against the law of God, that we would not be able to do.  We deeply believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to the world to redeem the sin of his forefathers and he gave the whole human race the commandment and presented the testament, not to sin.  The foundation of his teaching consists firstly, to love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your reason.  Secondly, love your neighbour as you love yourself.  This is the foundation of the law of the prophets.  Also in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter Five, Verse 38: Christ says to the people: “You have heard the law as it was pronounced: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.  Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?  Do not even the publicans the same?  And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?  Do not even the publicans so?  Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”.

Grigory Vasilyevich Verigin, taken after his escape from Siberian exile in 1902. Photo courtesy Larry Ewashen.

From what we said, the Gendarme Officer and Assistant Procurator sensed that somehow we didn’t believe in them, and they said: ‘It means that you won’t abide the laws of the sovereign?”  “Yes, if the laws of the sovereign are connected with murder and violence, we will not participate in them”.  After that, they sentenced us and announced that “now you are arrested and tomorrow you will be sent to Kars to the Karadakh prison.”

Brother Vasily addressed them thusly: “Because our parents are old, the wives aren’t able to take care of the household, the children are very small, would it not be possible to liberate our youngest brother till the special order, to let him look after the old parents and small children?”  They agreed to do this on payment of 500 rubles bail.  And Ivan Ivanovich Usachev agreed to pay on my behalf immediately and in the morning they freed me.  I went home and my brother and Vereshchagin were sent to Kars under strict convoy and put into the Karadakh prison in solitary imprisonment the same day.  They informed Chief Commander Sheremetiev about them and he resolved to put both of them put under military tribunal in order to frighten all the rest; and to prove that, I quote excerpts from Tregubov and brother Vasily’s letters: “Once there was rumour that they wanted some Doukhobors to receive the death penalty through hanging or shooting.  Their friends informed the Doukhobors about this.  They replied with a dignified letter.  “Today we received a letter from Ivan Mikhailovich Tregubov in which he greets us with brotherly wishes and regards, God save him.  He writes that me and Vereshchagin were sentenced to hang; he also writes that he and Vladimir Grigoryevich Chertkov wrote to the Chief Commander in the Caucasus, Sheremetiev, to pardon us.  I don’t know from whence this rumour reached them, we haven’t heard this yet, maybe they have a plot to do some evil against us.  It’s up to them, our task – to fulfill the Lord’s work, who gave us life and light; and for this of course, we are thankful to our brothers, that they, because of plenty of love in their heart, care about us.  Save them Lord, but according to our understanding, for a Christian it is not common to appeal to a human person and ask for pardon” [from the letter of Vasily Verigin to Dmitry Alexandrovich Khilkov].

Beside Tregubov and Chertkov, Georgii Alexandrovich Dadiani wrote to Sheremetiev; he was adjutant to Sheremetiev but later on he gave up all his ranks and rewards and became a Christian.  Georgii Alexandrovich, a Georgian prince by inheritance, only a year ago was an adjutant to Sheremetiev and at that time brother Vasily Vasilyevich knew him.  Georgii Alexandrovich was a Tolstoyan.  And when he received that resolution he wrote a letter to Sheremetiev immediately, in which he said: “I received awful news that you have resolved to put Vereshchagin and Verigin before a military tribunal and it all depends on your signature.  This is awful.  How immoral this is.  How low this is.  Haven’t those times come to an end?  We are living in the twentieth century after the birth of Christ and the horrible death of our great teacher of truth Jesus Christ who wished brotherhood and peaceful life upon all humanity, and thanks to that the Kingdom of God will come to Earth as it is in Heaven.  And for this holy or sacred teaching you dare to publicly shoot these innocent people before you.  Moreover, you believe in this doctrine, you are considered a Christian.  You think that by such a cruel action as to spill the blood of innocent people you will intimidate people who are fulfilling the will of God expressed by Jesus Christ, for which he laid down his life and bequeathed his followers to do the same.  And perhaps you think that in such a way you will intimidate these wrestlers for virtue.  I am telling you as my bygone friend [now I stand in the ranks of Christ] – by this you will only put a spot of innocent blood not only on yourself but on the entire country of Russian people.  The greater part of these people, in one way or another, believe in Christ, and you will bury these people for Christ.  As for Vereshchagin and Verigin, I know Vasily Vasilyevich personally, they will not give in and will abide by your resolution with joy.  And the rest of the Doukhobors who have already accepted the spirit of Christ, will not only not be intimidated but will be inspired even more.  Because these people whom you wish to execute they will revere as holy.  And in fact these people deserve this name because they are dying for the teaching of Christ and for our brotherly mutual task.  And they themselves will abide by your resolution.

This is what Georgii Alexandrovich Dadiani wrote.  Of course such people have a great force in God’s work, maybe this helped their salvation and they were not executed.

A complete English translation of Grigory Verigin’s 1935 Russian publication, “Ne v Sile Bog, a v Pravde” is currently being prepared by Doukhobor Village Museum Curator Larry A. Ewashen. For more information on this project, please email: larryewashen@telus.net.

Romasha Kanygin – The Shackled One

by Marion Demosky

The following is a true, first person account of the life of Roman Ivanovich Kanygin (1799-1895), progenitor of the Kanigan family of Doukhobors. Passed down orally from generation to generation, it was set down in writing by Romasha’s descendant, Marion Demosky, and published in ISKRA No.1616 (Grand Forks: U.S.C.C., July 26, 1985) and ISKRA No.1713 (Grand Forks: U.S.C.C., June 27, 1990). It is a dramatic and inspiring example of the tremendous faith and extraordinary spiritual endurance of our early Doukhobor ancestors. Reproduced by permission.

Author’s Note

This story is a dedication to the memory of my mother Polly Vasilievna Semenoff, from whom I transcribed it. Mother, in turn, committed it firmly in her memory when it was passed on, orally, by her grandfather, Aldokim Romanovich Kanigan, who was gifted with an exceptional memory and who lived to a ripe old age of 102. This particular story was her favourite of the many stories her grandfather related to her. It is my belief this story will be of interest to all the other members of the Kanigan clan which, after all the years since the time of Roman Ivanovich, has branched out into the 6th and 7th generations.

I sincerely hope that this story will likewise be of interest to all Doukhobors in whom the faith and the convictions of our forefathers are still alive…those whose relatives, even though distant, probably also had traversed the martyr’s path, and had left their footprints on the pages of history.

Marion Demosky, Grand Forks, British Columbia, 1985

Roman Ivanovich was born in 1799 in the village of Krukova, in the province of Tambov, Russia. His father was a Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church and his family name was Kanygin. He had an only son, Ivanushka, whom he brought up to be literate and whom he prepared to be a priest. When Ivan’s father became old, it was in order for Ivanushka to take over the priesthood because in those days it was customary for the mantle of the priest’s office to pass from the father to the eldest son.

And so, on the day of Easter, Ivan’s father and the church were preparing for the services that pertained to that particular event. On this day it was in order for Ivanushka to receive the Eucharistic sacrament in preparation for him to become a priest, taking over his father’s position. Within the temple stood a statue of the Holy Virgin. A golden chalice was held in the hands of the statue and Ivanushka was supposed to dip a finger of his right hand into it as a sign of his receiving the Communion in the blood of Jesus … then making the sign of the cross, three times.

The priests were gathered together. A gown was held in readiness as they awaited for Ivanushka to arrive. However, Ivanushka made up his mind, on that day, to renounce the church. He sheared the long hair he wore and donned just plain, ordinary clothes. Upon entering the church, he refused to take part in the Communion, rather he began speaking to the people present about the injustices committed by churches and that he was now renouncing them.

The elder priest was so angered by these actions of his son that he began running back and forth in the church, tearing his hair and his clothes. For the betrayal of the church the father confined Ivanushka in a prison for a period of three months, during which time he continued to try to persuade Ivanusha to change his mind and to return to the church. Ivanushka, however being of a resolute mind, turned a deaf ear to his father’s pleadings, and even asked him (the father) to forsake the priesthood. In the end, the father’s anger against the son rose to such a height that he issued an order that he be burned on a skovoroda (heated metal plate). And, indeed, Ivanushka was done away with in this manner upon the behest of his own father.

Ivanushka left behind him three children. The oldest daughter was seven, her name was Khristusha (Khristina). The next was a male child of five, whose name was Kondrasha (Kondraty). The youngest, Romasha (Roman) was only three. Their grandfather, the priest, was making observations as to which one of them he would choose to make his heir. Roman was tall, quick and sharp, and the grandfather took him under his wing and sent him to a school to become literate and to study the Bible. When the child became thirteen, he already knew the Gospel by heart. However, though Romasha was doing well in his studies, which brought joy to the old man, yet he himself, being aware of the past and not able to forget the reason for which his father was made to die, resolved deep within his heart to take vengeance upon his grandfather … but not with malice or bad deeds, but by preaching the good. 

Romasha began resisting his grandfather, breaking off his studies for the priesthood. For taking such an attitude, the grandfather began to mete out severe punishment upon Romasha by various means. He ordered his servants to combine several ant-hills into one mound, then, removing all clothing from Romasha’s body, forced him onto these anthills, and only when the ants came close to devouring him to death did the grandfather allow Romasha to be taken out. The torture process was carried on for a long time. But Romasha, however, would not submit to his grandfather’s will. When Romasha reached the age of 16, the old man began to realize that by means of physical punishment his grandson would not be made to accept the faith of the church, so he resolved to achieve the aim by enticements. Upon consultation with his fellow priests, they brought a bundle of satchels filled with money, and piling them in a corner, addressed Roman with the promise that ”all this shall be yours, only do not abandon the church”.’ But Romasha threw back at them, crying “Let the gold remain with you, but I want to remain with God!” He turned his back on everything and left the city environment to begin living a life in the village.

At the age of 17 Roman married Stenya (Stepanida) Tarasova, and from that marriage they had two children: the older one – Trifan, the younger – Stepan. And during all this time Roman kept on convincing people of the wrong-doings of the church which, of course, did not please the authorities. And it came about that when Trifan was three and Stepan was still in his mother’s arms, these children were taken away while Romasha and his wife were taken into confinement. And in such a separated condition the family remained for seven and a half years.

On one occasion, while passing through the jail house, an elder priest made a statement to the effect that “if you (the inmates) will refuse to submit, you will be hacked to death by iron rods” while another priest walked behind him, inquiring (of the inmates) what each one was imprisoned for. When the turn came for Stenya to answer the question: ”What are you in here for, my dove?” She replied by asking the interrogator, ”And what happens to be your name, sir?” He replied: ”By our custom I am an Enlightened Master, but according to your simple ways, I am Arsentii Pavlovich”. ”Well then, Arsentii Pavlovich, I’m imprisoned here for the sake of the law of Christ”.’ The priest then told her that ”soon you will be released to join your dear little ones; soon you will be seeing them”.’

And so it indeed happened. Stenya, shortly after, was allowed to go home and her children were also brought back. But Romasha was held in prison for a while longer, but he did return later.

Upon arriving home Romasha made the remark that he ”had spent time in some 13 different prisons. Now, perhaps, there will be some respite”. However, enjoying his stay at home no more than two days, Romasha was visited, in the middle of the night, by a gendarme, a person who happened to be his friend from childhood days, and who began to beseech him to submit to the authorities and to renounce his convictions; otherwise, by daybreak, there would be eleven Doukhobors who would be driven to the Petropavlovskaya fortress in Petrograd. ”Roman” pleaded his friend, “We grew up together with you. We drank and ate from the same bowl. I really feel sorry for you. Very few people ever survive a term in this Petropavlovskaya fortress”. Romasha, however, replied that nothing would persuade him to change his mind. ”If that’s the case” the gendarme told him, “take along with yourself an extra night shirt so that you will have something to be clothed in when you die”.

Early in the morning, before dawn, in the midst of a winter storm, there were indeed eleven Doukhobors driven to Petropavlovskaya fortress where they were subjected to punishments in casements. A “casement” was a damp vault into which were introduced defanged toads, scorpions, and a variety of insects. Then a person was undressed to a state of complete nudity and forced to be confined in that place for two or three twenty-four hour periods. According to an account by Roman’s son, Evdokim, this type of torture is most awful and unbearable. The toad sinks its fangs into one’s spine, the serpent entwines itself around the arms and neck; the scorpion crawls into the ears and eyes. From such a place no person was able to walk out on his own. Tormented to the extreme, Romasha had to be carried out on a stretcher.

Of the eleven persons, after three and a half years of confinement, only four remained alive: Roman Kanygin, a Tarasov, a Potapov, and a Zbitnev. Of the others – some died, the rest became mentally deranged. When they emerged from prison, they were mere skeletons; bones held together by skin. When Roman arrived at his home, his wife Stenya was not able to recognize him. She was living alone at the time, since her children were once again taken away from her.

Having rested awhile at home, Romasha went forth to locate the whereabouts of his children. From enquiries, he learned they were living in a village some 50 versts from his home. He came to the village and, entering a yard of someone Iiving there, sat down by a stable which was opposite the place where his children were staying. They happened to be playing outside. Calling one of the boys that were there to come to him, he asked if he could bring Triyoshka Kanygin if he knew him. “Do you recognize me?” Roman asked. “I am your father. Tell Stepan, and then both of you go unnoticed along the fences up to the village. Be there by sunset”. The children hid in the shrubbery, and when it got dark, the father led them to his home. They travelled at night and hid themselves during the day in old cavities in the ground which he noticed while on his way to seek the children. They arrived home on the third day.

Not long after that Romasha, along with six other Doukhobors from the province of Tambov, were exiled to the Caucasus mountain region, to Karabakh in the province of Bakinsk on the Russo-Persian border, in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea. He pleaded with his wife Stenya to come along with him, saying, ”You will be transported on wagons while we will be driven behind”. But Stenya refused to go along with him, claiming she had enough of suffering, and so resolved to stay. She added that, allegedly, in the Caucasus the sky was sunken and the rain there was perpetual. At this time, when Romasha was driven away to the Caucasus, Stenya was pregnant. In a short period of time she gave birth to a daughter, Masha (Maria).

The distance to the place of exile in Karabakh was 700 versts. The group had to walk the whole distance to the place of exile, with each one of them shackled with chains, bearing cruel and torturous suffering from the irons cutting into their limbs to the very bone and where infection had set in. During that part of their march, when going through the Caucasus area, they came upon some Molokan villages, residents of which were exiled to that area earlier. While passing through these villages, the Molokans, when seeing the condition of the exhausted Doukhobors, begged the captain of the guards to stop at their place for a rest. They heated up their steam baths, washed the clothes worn by the Doukhobors, and steamed out the lice – thus alleviating their sufferings. When the lengthy journey came to an end and the process of unshackling the chains began, the weaker ones of the prisoners fainted from the pain. The chains were so deeply imbedded in the flesh, to the very bone.

Upon reaching Karabakh, the Doukhobors were released and were allowed to live in freedom. After some time an opening appeared at a border station where Romasha got employment, receiving a wage of one and a half kopeks an hour.

Not long after, he wrote to his wife asking her to come to him, explaining that the climate at Karabakh was favourable and that everything grew well. However, his wife still refused to come. In reply to his second letter she wrote that she would never return to him, and that if he wished, he was free to find himself another wife. It happened that in proximity to where Romasha lived there was a Molokan village where he got acquainted with a widow by the name of Marfa Harshenin, who was of the Chevildeev family, and whose first husband had died, and she was left a widow with a small boy, Vasya (Vasily). Roman took her for his wife and with her, while living in Karabakh, they had two sons: the first one – Nikolai, the second – Emeliosha (Emelian).

Marfa’s own son Vasya lived with them as part of the family. Marfa’s parents, the Chevildeevs, were of the Don Cossacks, converted into the Molokan faith. When rumours began to seep through to them in Karabakh that the Doukhobors at Milky Waters (Melitopol district, Tavria province) and in other areas would be resettling in the Caucasus region, Romasha was prompted to set out on foot to seek out his brothers and sisters. He reached the village of Slavyanka in the Elizavetpol district, where the Doukhobors began establishing a village and there discovered that both his brother Kondrasha and sister Khristusha were also living in the same village. They invited him to make his domicile with them, to which he consented. Consequently, Roman and his comrades, along with their respective families, after living in Karabakh for twelve years, now settled in Slavyanka.

There in Slavyanka, Romasha and Marfa had two more sons born to them: Aldokim and Misha (Mikhailo). Three years later, Roman’s former wife Stenya came to live in Slavyanka with her three children. Roman went ahead and built her a house also, in the same yard, and took care of them, alternately living with and caring for the needs of each family.

Romasha lived in Slavyanka approximately twelve years. Becoming quite prosperous, he constructed for himself two water driven flour mills. When the Doukhobors settled in the Caucasus, the Elizavetpol area produced bountiful harvests of grain, but in the region of Kholodnoye (“Wet Mountains”) in Tiflis province it was different. There the harvests were poor. So one time Romasha, leaving only enough grain for himself to last until the next harvest, loaded the remainder onto four wagons and transported them to Kholodnoye. Arriving there, he observed that the Doukhobors living there were very highly attuned spiritually. Their sobranyas were attended by great numbers, singing and recitals were very popular, and the people were fraternizing with one another. To Roman, seeing all this, it appeared that in such a highly developed environment, people did not consider it so important if there was a shortage of bread. He admired very much the lifestyle of the people at Kholodnoye, saying, ”here flows a river of soul gratification”. Consequently, he chose a suitable place, and upon returning to Slavyanka began coaxing his families to move their place of residence to Kholodnoye. His first wife – Stenya and children – refused outright. The second wife, Marfa, although reluctant at first to leave Slavyanka for the reason that she was so far away from her relatives as it was, and if she went to Kholodnoye, the distance separating them would be even greater, did, however, consent in the end. And so Roman, with his second wife and their children, moved to the Kholodnoye region, settling in the village of Troitskoye.

When leaving Slavyanka, Romasha gave away one of his flour mills to his brother Kondrasha, and the other one to the older children born from his first wife, Stenya.

While living in Kholodnoye another daughter was born to Romasha and Marfa – Hanya (Agafia).

Romasha was not a gifted singer, nevertheless, he did constantly hum to himself, in an ancient tune, the psalm Kto Vozliubit Pechat’ Gospodniuiu (“He Who Will Love the Mark of the Lord”).

Romasha, in the village where he resided, was not called by his name. People simply referred to him by the nickname Kandal’nik (the “Shackled One”) in view of the fact that so many years of his life were spent in prisons, in exile, and in chains, persecuted for the cause of the Doukhobor faith and ideals.

Roman was privileged to live in Kholodnoye for more than thirty years. When a division took place amongst the Doukhobors in the Caucasus, he remained in the ”Large Party”. All his life he enjoyed good health. However, a couple of days before the New Year of 1895, he felt a weakness coming over him, upon which he spoke out and said, “I’m aware of a weakness arid it appears the time has come for me to leave my mortal body”.’ He gave instructions that when he died, no one of the Chaldeans (Small Party of Doukhobors) was to be allowed in his home when the funeral took place, ”but when the coffin will be placed outside the house, if it would be so desirable, then let former friends of mine from amongst the Chaldeans come and take a look at my mortal remains”.’ On his grave he ordered that a black rock be stood upright as a marker. ”It could be” he said, “someone and at some time may be there from across the border and will take note where your Kandal’nik is interred”.’ At that particular period of time there was talk of Doukhobors migrating to Turkey. Romasha died exactly on New Year’s Day, at the age of 96. He was buried in the cemetery in the village of Troitskoye.

Romasha’s first wife Stenya married another man living in Slavyanka. And his children came often to visit their relatives at Kholodnoye. All of Roman’s children (eight altogether, born of two wives) were gifted singers, and all of them emigrated to Canada with the exception of Trifan, who died in Slavyanka while still young. Romasha’s wife Marfa came to Canada also and lived here with her children. She died in 1905, in the village of Uspeniye in Saskatchewan.

Roman is the progenitor of all the Kanigans in Canada. The families of his brother Kondrasha and of his sister Khristya did not emigrate to Canada. Khristya was married to a Kotelnikov and happened to be the blood grandmother of Avdotia Grigoreevna Verigina, wife of Peter “Lordly” Verigin.

Romasha’s second wife Marfa was formerly married to a Molokan by the name of Vasily Harshenin with whom they had a son, Vasya. When Vasya married, they had no children of their own, so they adopted a small boy Mikisha (Mikita) and a small girl Lusha (Lukeria) Shustov whose parents had died. They raised them as their own. In Canada, Lusha married Savely Kastrukoff. Mikisha continued to be identified by the Harshenin name until their children began using the Shustoff family name.

Upon arrival in Canada all the Kanigans settled in the villages of Troitskoye and Uspeniye, some twelve miles from Arran, Saskatchewan, with the exception of Stepan who came from Kars, Russia, to the region of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. In about 1905, Aldokim and son Vasya took a homestead and lived on a farm for thirteen years.

Aside from Stepan and Aldokim all the Kanigan brothers along with their families moved to British Columbia in 1909, settling at Ootischenia in the proximity of a large sawmill. Their two sisters, Masha Soukeroff and Hanya Jmaeff, also moved to British Columbia. Aldokim and his family joined his brethren at Ootischenia in 1917. Stepan lived in the Prince Albert area, but Iater moved, together with his son, to Oregon and then to California where he lived until his death. All the others: Masha, Nikolasha, Emeliosha, Aldosha, Misha, and Hanya ended their lives at Ootischenia and are buried there.

Kanigan Family Tree

1   Ivan Kanygin 
…….. 2   Kondraty Ivanovich Kanygin 
…….. 2   Khristina Ivanovna Kotelnikov
………………. 3   Grigorii Kotelnikov 
………………………… 4   Evdokia Grigorevna Kotelnikova 
…………………………….  +Peter “Lordly” Verigin
………………………………….. 5   Peter “Chistiakov” Verigin 
…….. 2   Roman Ivanovich Kanygin 1799 – 1895
…………  +Stenya Tarasov (Roman’s 1st Wife)
………………. 3   Trifan Romanovich Kanigan 
………………………… 4   (daughter) Kanigan 
………………. 3   Stepan Romanovich Kanigan 
………………………… 4   Mary S. Maloff 
………………………………….. 5   Nastia Popoff 
………………………………….. 5   Polya Kotelnikoff 
………………………………….. 5   Nikolai Maloff 
………………………………….. 5   Wasil Maloff 
………………………………….. 5   Anuta Vatkin 
………………………… 4   Vanya S. Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Grunya Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Nikolai Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Peter Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Tunya Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Fanny Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Olga Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   John Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Walter Kanigan 
………………………… 4   Nikolai S. Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Karaloff 
………………………………….. 5   Anna Louis 
………………………………….. 5   John Kanigan
………………………………….. 5   Nick Kanigan 
………………………… 4   Paranya S. Bonderoff 
………………………………….. 5   John Bonderoff 
………………………………….. 5   Peter Bonderoff 
………………………… 4   Onya S. Tomilin 
………………………………….. 5   Paranya Mahonin 
………………………………….. 5   Masha Stushnoff 
………………………… 4   Nastya S. Osachoff 
………………………………….. 5   Nick Osachoff 
………………………………….. 5   Pauline Atamanenko 
………………………………….. 5   Dora Atamanenko 
………………………… 4   Hanya S. Chutskoff 
………………………………….. 5   Olga Chutskoff 
………………………………….. 5   Verna Robinson 
………………………………….. 5   William Chutskoff 
………………………………….. 5   Gertrude Ryhorchuk 
………………………………….. 5   Peter Chutskoff 
………………………………….. 5   Fred Chutskoff 
………………. 3   Masha Romanovna Sookeroff 
………………………… 4   Sam Sookeroff
………………………………….. 5   Polly Malikoff 
………………………………….. 5   Lucy Goolieff 
………………………………….. 5   Nastya Bonderoff 
………………………………….. 5   George Sookeroff 
………………………………….. 5   William Sookeroff 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Pozdnikoff 
………………………… 4   Misha Sookeroff 
………………………………….. 5   Martha Postnikoff 
………………………………….. 5   Andrew Sookeroff 
………………………………….. 5   Evdokim Sookeroff 
………………………………….. 5   John Sookeroff 
………………………………….. 5   Anuta Berikoff 
………………………… 4   Hanya Kooznetsoff 
………………………………….. 5   Nastya Shkuratoff 
………………………………….. 5   Sam Kooznetsoff 
………………………………….. 5   John Kooznetsoff 
………………………… 4   Wasil Sookeroff 
………………………………….. 5   Misha Sookeroff 
………………………………….. 5   Fred Sookeroff 
………………………………….. 5   Peter Sookeroff 
………………………………….. 5   Dora Sookeroff 
………………………… 4   Masha Popoff 
………………………………….. 5   George Popoff 
………………………………….. 5   Eli Popoff 

…………  +Marfa (Chevildeev) Harshenin (Roman’s 2nd Wife)
………………. 3   Vasily Vasilievich Harshenin (Roman’s step-son) 
………………………… 4   Mikisha Shustoff (adopted)
………………………… 4   Lusha Kastrukoff (adopted) 
………………. 3   Nikolai Romanovich Kanigan 
………………………… 4   Grisha N. Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   John Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Pete Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Anuta Planidin 
………………………………….. 5   William Kanigan 
………………………… 4   Vanya N. Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Sam Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Pete Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Alec Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   John Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Nick Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Anuta Moojelsky 
………………………… 4   Trofim N. Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Grunya Vanin 
………………………………….. 5   William Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Larry Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Tanya Salikin 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Steve Kanigan 
………………………… 4   Havrila N. Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Fred Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Pete Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Nick Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Gertie Konkin 
………………………… 4   Martha N. Swetlishoff 
………………………………….. 5   William Swetlishoff 
………………………………….. 5   Fred Swetlishoff 
………………………………….. 5   George Swetlishoff 
………………. 3   Emelian Romanovich Kanigan 
………………………… 4   Nadya E. Plotnikoff 
………………………………….. 5   Tanya Strukoff 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Vanjoff 
………………………………….. 5   John Plotnikoff 
………………………… 4   Anuta E. Lavrenchenkoff 
………………………………….. 5   Elizabeth Kinakin 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Labonty 
………………………… 4   Axuta E. Stooshnoff 
………………………………….. 5   Helen Stooshnoff 
………………………………….. 5   Peter Stooshnoff 
………………………………….. 5   Nellie Harshenin 
………………………… 4   Martha E. Perepolkin 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Maloff 
………………………… 4   Daniel E. Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Luba Abrosimoff 
………………. 3   Aldokim Romanovich Kanigan 
………………………… 4   Wasil A. Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Elizabeth Rilkoff 
………………………………….. 5   George Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Tom Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   William Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Polly Semenoff 
………………………………….. 5   Mike Kanigan 
………………. 3   Mikhail Romanovich Kanigan 
………………………… 4   Grunya M. Hadikin 
………………………………….. 5   Philip Hadikin 
………………………………….. 5   Anuta Sookochoff 
………………………… 4   Martha M. Repin 
………………………………….. 5   Pete Repin 
………………………………….. 5   Dasha Fominoff 
………………………………….. 5   Hanya Fominoff 
………………………………….. 5   Masha Stooshnoff 
………………………………….. 5   Liza Repin 
………………………… 4   Fenya M. Shlakoff 
………………………………….. 5   Nastya Voykin 
………………………………….. 5   John Shlakoff 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Shlakoff 
………………………………….. 5   Florence Hughes 
………………………… 4   Savely M. Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Walter Kanigan
………………………………….. 5   Nastya Voykin 
………………………………….. 5   Cecil Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Vera Voykin 
………………………… 4   Afanasy M. Kanigan 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Jmieff 
………………………………….. 5   Mike Kanigan 
………………. 3   Hanya Romanovna Jmieff 
………………………… 4   Peter Jmieff 
………………………………….. 5   Fred Jmieff 
………………………………….. 5   Cecil Jmieff 
………………………………….. 5   Jim Jmieff 
………………………………….. 5   Florence Bloodoff 
………………………………….. 5   Lisa Jmieff 
………………………… 4   Arina Lactin 
………………………………….. 5   Mike Lactin 
………………………………….. 5   John Lactin 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Sophonoff 
………………………………….. 5   Nick Lactin 
………………………… 4   Masha Labintsoff 
………………………………….. 5   Florence Trautman 
………………………………….. 5   John Labintsoff 
………………………………….. 5   Helen Labintsoff 
………………………………….. 5   Pete Labintsoff 
………………………………….. 5   Mike Labintsoff 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Labintsoff 
………………………………….. 5   Brilliant Labintsoff 
………………………… 4   William Jmieff 
………………………………….. 5   Pete Jmieff 
………………………………….. 5   Mary Demoskoff 
………………………………….. 5   Ida Barisoff 
………………………………….. 5   Doris Murray 
………………………………….. 5   Pauline Brown 
………………………………….. 5   John Jmieff 

My Doukhobor Ancestors

by Evgenia Kabatova

Evgenia Kabatova is a Doukhobor schoolgirl at the No. 8 Grammar School in Volgograd, Russia. Her excellent article examines the Doukhobor movement in Russia, the history of the Kabatov family and Doukhobor traditions, past and present. Reproduced from Pervoe Sentyabrya magazine (No. 26, August 12, 1999). Translated by Jonathan Kalmakoff.

In our family, the memory of our family history remains carefully preserved. Father and mother’s stories and grandmother’s memoirs have inspired me to commence a study of the history of Kabatov family and to draw up our family tree. Over the course of two years, I attended the “My Family Tree” section of the Volgograd Children’s Youth Centre. Thanks to the knowledge and skills received there, a genealogical book was begun by my elder sister Tatiana and continued by myself. It consists of the story of the Kabatov history, the life of my family, photos and memoirs of loved ones. A genealogical family tree was created and a genealogical dictionary compiled. The subject of the following work is the history of the Dukhobor movement in Russia in connection with the history of my family. 

The Kabatov family belonged to the Dukhobors (Dukhobortsy) as members of one of the largest Russian religious sects which arose in the 18th century. In Soviet times, the literature devoted to the history of this movement, to Dukhobor views and beliefs, was almost absent. Information on this sect was limited to the information in the encyclopaedic dictionary or Atheist Dictionary. The most complete, realistic and revealing histories of the Dukhobors are the books of I.A. Malakhova and N.M. Nikol’skii. In spite of the fact that these books consider the issue of Russian sectarianism from an atheistic perspective, the material collected by the authors promotes the study of the origins of the Doukhobor movement and the history of the sect’s relations with authorities.

The position of believers in modern times is told in newspaper and journal articles, which our family collect and carefully preserve.

The basic source from which it is possible to find out about Dukhobor beliefs is the Living Book (Book of Life). It consists of questions and answers, psalms, verses, incantations and spells which to this day occur among the Dukhobors – it is a source of their belief. 

A copy of this book is kept at my grandmother’s in the distant village Slavyanka in Azerbaijan republic as a family relic. I was able to get acquainted with the text thanks to my father, Vasily Fedorovich Kabatov, who wrote out the basic provisions in a copy-book and exported them to Russia, and who also made a videofilm about Dukhobor life in Transcaucasia. 

The Dukhobor Movement in Russia

The origin of Dukhoborism relates to the last quarter of the 18th century. The first Dukhobors appeared in Ekaterinoslav province among the Cossack population which was ruined and constrained by distributions of Ukrainian Cossack lands to landowners. Soon this movement spread among the state peasants, odnodvortsy and small merchants of Ryazan, Samara, Astrakhan, Voronezh, Penza, Kharkov and other provinces of the Russian Empire. 

The followers of the sect considered themselves “wrestlers for the spirit”. They asserted that “the spirit of God also serves as the spirit of vigilance”. Hence their name. 

The basis of Dukhobor dogma lay in Christian principles relating to notions about the after-life and salvation. According to Dukhobor doctrine, the official Orthodox Church with its ceremonialism and pompous services is detrimental to spiritual belief and is perishable rather than eternal: “priests are an invention of people so that it is easier to live”. The Dukhobors did not recognize communion with bread and wine, comparing this ritual to the reception of ordinary food “giving nothing good to the soul”. They rejected icons, sacraments, ceremonies, priests and monks, reckoning them superfluous. 

Dukhobors typically assert that it is not the Bible – a source of sacred precepts and instructions – but the “words” of Dukhobor leaders, psalms and the records collected by them in the Living Book that constitutes Dukhoborism. 

The Dukhobor dogma defines their attitude towards the most various questions: to politics, war, nationalism and economic systems. Referring to Christ, believers assert that all people are children of one father, God, and are therefore brothers among themselves. Therefore Doukhobors count all people, irrespective of race, nationality and creed as equal, having identical rights to life and earthly blessings. 

From the very beginning, authorities received the new movement with hostility. Dukhobors were banished to settlements in Siberia, sent to penal servitude and to obedience in monasteries 

Dukhobor resistance occured in the form of petitions and complaints to government bodies. The “Dukhobor Confession” serves as an example of this. The Dukhobors sent this justificatory declaration to the governor of Ekaterinoslav. The confession stated Dukhobor belief, demonstrating the absence in their religious views of ideas undermining the foundation of the state. The authors of the petition sought to convince authorities that it was necessary to look upon their deeds as primarily spiritual, concerned only with the salvation of the soul. In reply to this application, the petitioners were banished to Siberia. 

Thus right from the beginning, the Dukhobor movement has underwent persecutions and reprisals. A vast number of communities were broken up and Doukhobors turned into exiles and convicts. 

In 1801, the manifest of Alexander I granted amnesty to those suffering for religious belief. And in 1802 an imperial decree was issued according to which lands on the Molochnaya River in the Melitopol district of Tavria province, the so-called Milky Waters, were allocated for Dukhobor settlement. Here believers from Ekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Ryazan and other provinces and from exile were settled. Dukhobors were given 15 desyatin of land, exempted from taxation for five years and given a hundred roubles travel expenses per family. 

For many years the economy of Milky Waters achieved tremendous successes. Horse breeding and sheep breeding developed, fulling mills and weaver’s linen workshops were constructed and record yields of grains and vegetables were harvested. By 1830, there were 9 large villages at Milky Waters with approximately 4000 inhabitants holding 49,235 desyatin of land. 

Evgenia Kabatova in traditional Dukhobor dress.

In the late 1830’s and early 1840’s a new wave of persecutions began. The Dukhobors were declared an “especially harmful sect”. In 1841 under the decree of Emperor Nikolai I, the Dukhobors were exiled to the uninhabited lands of Transcaucasia. Over 4,000 Dukhobors were deported and resettled on lands in the Akalkhalak and Elizavetpol districts of Tiflis province. There Russian villages were established: Slavyanka, Gorelovka, Orlovka, Kalinino, Spasovka and others. 

It was necessary to be equipped for the hardest conditions: stony mountain ground, spring and early autumn frosts, lack of water and constant attacks by Turkish and mountain tribes. In spite of this, the hardworking Dukhobors were able to quickly acclimatize to the unfamiliar environment and soon their villages were distinguished by their prosperity from the surrounding local villages. The Doukhobors lived more prosperously than the peasants of Central Russia. 

In 1887, universal compulsory military service was introduced in the Caucasus. Many Dukhobors who adhered to the principles of nonviolence were compelled to renounce their beliefs and obey civil laws. Not all obeyed, however. In 1895, as a protest demonstration against military service the Doukhobors publicly burned all the weapons in their possesion.

The reprisals against the Dukhobors were severe. Cossacks were sent to suppress the “revolt”. People were lashed and beaten, whole families were exiled from Dukhobor villages and settled in other districts of Tiflis province – without land and without the right to associate among themselves. 

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy rose up in defence of the Dukhobors. Thanks to his articles, the world found out about the fate of the exiles. The great Russian writer dedicated the proceeds of his novel “Resurrection” to assist the Dukhobors and organized a fund to support the movement through which resources from different countries were chanelled. However, the Dukhobors’ position remained difficult and uncertain. 

The act of the Burning of Arms on June 29, 1895 has remained an unforgettable feat in people’s memory. In 1959, the Canadian Dukhobor magazine ISKRA published a list of names of believers who were thrown in prisons for refusal of military service. 

However, after the reprisals which befell them the Dukhobors continued to place their hope in God and on imperial favour which was requested in the most august name in numerous circulations. And only after repeated failures to reply to their request and further persecution by authorities did members of the sect reach the extreme decision to go abroad. The new motherland for the majority of Dukhobors became Canada. With the funds collected by L.N. Tolstoy, four steamships were chartered on which more than seven and a half of thousand Dukhobors sailed to Canada. 

However, not all left. A portion of the believers remained in Transcaucasia. Considerable difficulties fell on their shoulders. 

The Revolution, with its slogans of equality and brotherhood, did not accept sectarians even though the Dukhobors were regarded as the first founders of communistic economy in Russia, long before the origin of Marxism. The new authority did not like the Dukhobors’ independence and their prosperity based on great diligence, technology and emulation of German colonists. 

For refusing to participate in collectivization, the Dukhobors had their cattle and grain taken away and their property requisitioned. Dissatisfied families were exiled to Siberia and Kazakhstan. In the terrible years of repression, a large number of Dukhobors were arrested and dissapeared in the gulags. 

Yet still it could not break the Dukhobors. They continued to live, work and hope for a happy future. Among the Dukhobors were many heroes in the Great Patriotic War who renounced their principles in the name of protecting the motherland. They were awarded on account of their worthy efforts. 

In recent times, the Soviet press practically made no mention of Dukhobor life, even though they invariably achieved unknown economic successes. In the manufacture of milk, butter and cheese, only the Baltic could compete with the Dukhobor economy in the whole USSR. 

Years of persecutions, reprisals and exiles could not destroy the Dukhobors’ belief in kindness, justice, fairness and decency. It was their salvation in difficult times. 

My family, the Kabatov family, underwent all the difficulties that befell the Dukhobors and has passed a long and thorny way. 

A History of My Ancestors

The origins of the Kabatov family are lost in the depths of Russian history. It is known that my ancestors were natives of Central Russia. The Kabatovs appeared among the adherents of the Dukhobor movement exiled from Russia under the decree of Emperor Nikolai I in 1841. My ancestors were one of the founders of the Russian settlement of Slavyanka in the Elizavetpol district of the Transcaucasus. 

Nowadays this large settlement is several kilometers from the regional centre of Kedabek in the Republic of Azerbaijan. A mountain resort area has been created around the village. The vicinity of Slavyanka is presently an empire of botanical gardens, vineyards, market gardens, millet and potato fields and apiaries. In many places in the immediate area, mineral springs with medicinal properties flow from underground.

However, in the middle of the 19th century, this district represented a fruitless desert. The stony ground seemed unsuitable for cultivation. Yet thanks to the colonists’ diligence it was possible to transform a mountain plateau into a blossoming paradise. 

As was already mentioned, following the introduction of universal compulsory military service in the Caucasus, the Dukhobors resolved not to bear arms. In 1895 as a protest demonstration against military service, the inhabitants of Slavyanka performed the act of the Burning of Arms. My great-great-grandfather Petro Semenovich Kabatov and the inhabitants of Slavyanka led by Kuzma Tarasov, one of the leaders of the Dukhobor movement, took part in this event. Firearms and cold steel were carried by horse-drawn cart, dumped in a heap, stacked with firewood, doused with kerosene and set ablaze. The people stood facing the fire, singing psalms. They believed they had achieved a worthy cause. 

This fire was necessary. It swept away death, war and conflict. Faith and conscience made these people the first pacifists in the land. Faith that it is possible to live without killing each other, and a readiness to live according to conscience, doing everything to prevent war and violence. 

After the reprisals, many Dukhobors abandoned their accustomed surroundings and left for Canada in 1899. Those that remained hoped for the favour and indulgence of the new emperor – Nikolai II. However, their hopes did not come true – persecution and reprisals against the strong-spirited, freedom-loving Dukhobors continued. 

At the beginning of the 20th century Russia, not having had time to recover from the 1905 Revolution and war with Japan, began to make preparations for a new war against Germany. The Dukhobors steadfastly objected to these escalating events. And a number of them – basically the inhabitants of Slavyanka village including my great-great-grandfather and family – resolved upon a desperate measure. In the early spring of 1912, they left their accustomed surroundings and journeyed to their fellow countrymen and spiritual brethren in far-off Canada. 

At that time, Petro Semenovich and Tatiana Ivanovna Kabatov (my great-great-grandmother) had four children: Pavel, Grigory, Mikhailo and Nikolai. 

Upon their arrival in the new country, the Kabatovs settled in the area of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and were established in no time as Petro Semenovich was a hereditary smith, and the work of a smith in the countryside is always necessary. Within a year a fifth son, Vasily, was born to my great-great-grandparents. 

However, the Dukhobors’ quiet life did not last for long because the Government of Canada chose to relocate them on uninhabited western lands (Note: this may be a reference to the closing of Dukhobor village reserves by the Government of Canada). Tired of wandering on the land and yearning for their motherland, in 1914 the Kabatov family returned by its own means to Slavyanka.

How they were met in the motherland? As always, with difficulties. However, they had become used to starting anew – it was not the first time they grew new roots. 

The Kabatovs always adhered to the Dukhobor principle of “Toil and Peaceful Life”. The Dukhobors explain it as so: “to work, to earn one’s livelihood, to not enslave another and to not use one’s work to satisfy avidity and greed. To be content with little and what is necessary for bodily livelihood, sharing with others not only the surplus, but also what is necessary”. The Kabatovs were never afraid to work – that is why the land generously provided for them. 

My great-great-grandfather Petro Semenovich Kabatov died in 1925. My great-great-grandmother Tatiana lived to 98 years and died in 1978 in the village of Slavyanka. There their remains are buried. 

My great-grandfather Pavel Petrovich Kabatov was born in the village of Slavyanka in 1898. Like all Kabatovs, he was distinguished by a strong constitution and cheerful character. He was an exceptional smith. Till now the ramrods made by him are kept in our family. On the handle of each one is his name brand. They say that great-grandfather played the guitar and accordion well. 

In 1920, Pavel Petrovich married Maria Fedorovna Khudyakova. Great-grandmother was literate, she completed four classes at the Tiflis women’s grammar school. Maria Fedorovna was distinguished by her diligence, efficiency and kind nature. 

While Pavel Petrovich refused to directly participate in the Civil War, it placed a heavy burden on the shoulders of the family. The constant change of authorities resulted in the ruin of the peaceful country economy. In these foregone conditions, Pavel Petrovich organized forces for self-defense which courageously protected their native village from Midzhit detachments. Then regular units of the Red army crushed this group. 

In 1940, Pavel Petrovich was subjected to repression. The reason for the arrest is unknown till today. There are only piecemeal accounts of this tragedy. He was a great friend of the German colonists living in neighbouring villages. The Germans frequently asked Pavel Petrovich to assist in repairing agricultural machines and radio equipment. Such friendship seemed suspicious to local observers of the regime. Under Stalin’s order, the German population was removed from Transcaucasia and Pavel Petrovich was arrested. It took place in 1940 and in 1941 state papers arrived with the message of his death. 

The eldest son of Pavel Petrovich and Maria Fedorovna, Feodor Kabatov, was born in 1921 in the village of Slavyanka. He was my grandfather. Almost his entire life he worked as a driver in the collective farm “Il’ich Way”. 

Grandfather was very kind, caring and attentive to all. He placed great value in the education and formal training of his children. Grandfather imparted a love of engineering to each of his three sons – Pavel, Vasily and Ivan. From childhood, he accustomed them to physical and to mental work. 

In his free time, Feodor Pavlovich enjoyed reading military literature. His favourite book was G.K. Zhukov’s autobiography “Memoirs and Reflections”. In the evenings, grandfather would tell the children how he participated in the Great Patrotic War. 

War found Feodor Pavlovich in the army. In 1941, his artillery battalion was stationed in Ukraine where their military unit was encircled. Breaking out of the encirclement, grandfather found himself in occupied territory. For some time he hid among the local population, working as a smith. Then he began to make his way to the front. At the front line he was wounded and hospitalized. After recovering he found his unit and with it reached Berlin. Feodor Pavlovich participated in battles in Poland near Konigsberg. He completed the war in Germany. He was awarded with medals. 

Feodor Pavlovich had many friends of different nationalities. He easily mastered the Azerbaijan, Armenian and Georgian languages. Grandfather died in 1978. Unfortunately, I know him only from the stories of relatives. 

Doukhobor village in the Caucasus.

However, I know and love my grandmother very much – Fedosia Nikiforovna Kabatova. She is an amazing person. Now we see her seldom, as conditions in the Caucasus are very complicated. But earlier, my sister and I spent our summer vacations at grandmother’s in Slavyanka. It was an unforgettable time, the impressions of which remain for life. I remember how we impatiently waited for summer to go to our beloved grandmother. Every day that was spent in Slavyanka was interesting. 

She always had rabbits when I came. 

And what pies at grandmother’s! She baked them from ancient recipes in the Russian oven.

I remember how every evening I fell asleep to grandmother’s fairy tales. She did not read then in books, but heard them a long time ago from her mother and now told them to us, her grandchildren.

My grandmother is a very kind and sympathetic person. Besides this, she is a highly skilled craftsperson – thanks to her I learned to knit. Grandmother has worked her entire life as a teacher of geography at school. And though she has long since reached pension age, she has not retired and works to this day. 

There are presently few who may boast of knowledge of their family tree. That I know much about my relatives, I am grateful to my father. For some time he has been engaged in drafting and studying our family tree, and it is not an simple task. 

He was born in the village of Slavyanka in 1957. After completing high school, he arrived in Volgograd where in 1979 he successfully graduated from the Volgograd Polytechnical Institute, having received a degree in mechanical engineering. 

Daddy – the great conversationalist. It is always interesting to converse with him – he has seen much, was in all areas of our immense motherland as well as foreign countries. Thanks to him I too have travelled alot – I have been to Moscow, Saint Petersburg, the Caucasus, Stavropol, the Black Sea and twice to Turkey on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. 

My daddy – the inveterate mushroom picker and hunter. Every autumn we go to the woods where we spend unforgettable hours in harmony with nature. My father has achieved much in life but this is a priority. He has managed to open a business, and it requires great strength and persistence. 

Speaking of father, I should talk about my mom – Elena Petrovna Fokinoy. She was born in 1956 in Stalingrad. Mom, as well as daddy, was trained at the Volgograd Polytechnical Institute and has a degree in engineering-economics. My mom is a very kind, beautiful, sympathetic and caring woman. My sister Tanya (she is a second year student at Volgograd State University) and I feel this towards ourselves. 

Dukhobor Traditions: Past and Present

In our family some Dukhobor traditions are still kept. Regarding rites, many Dukhobors today observe only weddings and funerals. 

The atire in which my grandmother invited her girlfriends to the wedding in May 1949 is kept till today. At my request, she has described the wedding ceremony in detail. 

On the day prior to the wedding, the bride must invite her relatives or girlfriends. On the day of the wedding, between the hours of eleven and twelve, matchmakers on behalf of the groom go by horse and cart to the bride’s home carrying a barrel of wine (100 litres) and a keg of vodka (about 20 litres). At this time, attired maidens join hands and together with the bride go down the streets inviting the youth. Another attired messenger rides on horseback and invites other guests. 

The guests gather for dinner, dine and make merry. In the evening, the bride’s dowry is loaded on a cart. The bride, groom and youth sit down and carry the dowry to the home of the groom. The guests of the bride and groom follow on foot. They have supper and then disperse to their homes. The following day, everyone relaxes at home. At dinnertime, a party leaves from the home of the bride with an accordion – for the bride. They arrive at the house of the groom with songs, give greetings, dance and together with the bride and groom return to the home of the bride. There they have dinner together with the guests of the bride, make merry, have supper and carry the bride back to the home of the groom. 

It is a beautiful wedding ceremony which, of course, has substantially changed and altered over time. Dukhobor weddings are distinguished by their beauty, musicality and character. Beautiful songs resound. In some wedding songs the cult of the earth-mother is proclaimed. The Earth gives life and food – on her people are born, grow and have families. The groom thus speaks: 

I am taking a soul-girl as my wife.
I will love you, my sweet dove.
We shall live as one happy family.
Our native land will be able to feed us.
We shall not dare to hurt it.

In my family, all the women were good mistresses and skilled craftspersons. From long ago such verses were preserved: 

Our pies are a beauty.
Who tastes them say they are delicious.
It is impossible to describe, what goes into them at baking.
Particularly if you spread some sour cream over them.

It was (and is till now) a tradition to bake soroki. Thus grandmother liked to sing such verses: 

As soroki bake in the oven,
Little children gather under the window.
They are so beautiful, good-smelling and airy.
Put it in hand, then in the mouth, it’s very tasty.

Soroki are rolls made in the form of a flying bird. In one out of forty a coin is put. The one who receives it is considered lucky. In the future, they can expect good luck in all undertakings. 

All in the family love to sing. The Doukhobors sing in a capella chorus. They have beautiful voices and in songs, words full of feeling. It is not known who wrote the songs, but they were generally known by all – from youngest to eldest. Here is a passage from one: 

The soul of a person aspires towards peace, 
The strong heart castigate war, 
In peace we are devoted forever. 
We see only one purpose in peace. 

By the way, coming back to the wedding ceremony which is considered among the Dukhobors one of the most important, it is necessary to discuss wedding songs. They were not as melancholy as is typical in Russia. The songs little resemble lamentations, rather they resemble vows or wishes:

How my soul, oh my beauty, 
Is glad and exalted at seeing you.
And we won’t be now one without the other.
We shall live together in peace and accord.

My great-grandfather sang this song to my great-grandmother. And to him she replied: 

I have fallen in love with you, brave dear,
And I’m giving you my youth.
I will be your truthful and caring wife,
And our family will always be happy.

I do not know how my great-grandfather and great-grandmother got acquainted. Most likely they knew each other for a long time, as they lived in the same village. 

Doukhobors honour the dead. Actually, in this they differ little from other people.

The funeral ceremony lasts two days. On the first day, borshch and then noodles are served. Everyone eats with wooden spoons. On the second day – chicken soup. Red wine and loaves roasted in vegetable oil are obligatory. All meals are prepared in cast iron vessels in the Russian oven. 

The mournful ceremony is laconic. However, it is accompanied by songs, more truly, psalms – devoted to the hundreds of victims of the persecutions, reprisals and wars at the end of the last century. An unknown poet devoted the following verses to them: 

Your grave is not among those graves, 
That the land here keeps in itself. 
Both keeps and will maintain for centuries, 
But you are terribly far from the motherland. 
Who will plant a tree, begin to sing a song? 
Where are you, uncared for? Where are you, unwarmed? 
Scattered, poor fellow, over the world. 

Today many traditions are forgotten. Our family tries to preserve those few that remain. Ceremonies, songs, stories, fairy tales, even ancient recipes of the Russian kitchen – these also are a memory and tribute to our ancestors. 

Bibliography

  • Bonch-Bruevich V.D. The Living Book of the Doukhobors. (Geneva, 1901).
  • Bonch-Bruevich V.D. Sectarians and Old Believers in the First Half of the 19th Century. (Izbr. soch. T 1 M. 1959).
  • Kireev N. “The Dukhobor Belief and Love Did Not Disappear in Foreign Land” in The Russian Gazette (No. 27, 1994). 
  • Klibanov A.I. A History of Religious Sectarianism in Russia. (Moscow: 1965).
  • Kozlova N. “The Long Road Home” in The Russian Gazette (No. 302, 1994). 
  • Malakhova I.A. Spiritual Christians. (Moscow: 1970).
  • Maslov S. “A Century Ago in the Caucasus the Dukhobors Burnt their Weapons” in Komsomol’skaya Pravda (No. 26, 1996). 
  • Nikol’skij N.M. A history of the Russian Church. (Moscow: 1985).
  • Novitskij O. Dukhobortsy, Their History and Dogma. (Saint Petersburg: 1909).
  • Gordienko N.S. (ed.) Orthodoxy: The Atheist Dictionary. (Moscow: 1998).
  • Fedorenko F.P. Sects, Their Beliefs and Affairs. (Moscow: 1965).

A History of the Perverseff Family

by Roger Phillips

Roger Phillips (1926-) was born in Tangleflags, Saskatchewan to Francis "Frank" Henry James Phillips, an English "remittance man", and Agatha J. Perverseff, a university-educated Doukhobor schoolteacher. At the age of nine, he moved with his mother to her parents home west of Blaine Lake. There, Roger enjoyed a typical Independent Doukhobor farmboy upbringing for the times, complete with hard work and responsibility. Nearly eighty years later, his Doukhobor heritage and upbringing has given Roger much to treasure and remember. His memoirs, reproduced here by permission from his book, “A History of the Phillips & Perverseff Families” provides an overview of his Perverseff family roots from their earliest origins through to their settlement on the Molochnaya, exile to the Caucasus and emigration to Canada – the ‘Promised Land’, as well as the family’s early pioneer years, and his own boyhood during the Depression.

Having introduced (my mother) Agatha into this narrative, the time is ripe to trace what is known of her early family history—one very different from (my father) Frank’s and sometimes quite turbulent. The Perverseffs (maternal line) belonged to a unique social entity. They were Doukhobors, a strongly pacifist social grouping driven by persecution in Mother Russia to migrate to Canada. I spent some time with my Perverseff grandparents as a little boy and young man and learned just enough Russian to grasp snatches of stories my Grandmother told. I refer to my grandparents now as John and Lucille, but in Russian they were Vanya and Lusha; to me they were Dyeda and Babushka. They and my Mother were my bridges to the past.

Family Origins

Scholarly sources state that the Russian surname Pereverzev (transcribed as Perverseff or Pereverseff in Canada) originates from the Russian verb pereverziti meaning “to muddle” or “to distort”. One may suppose that an early ancestor acquired this term as a nickname, which in turn was passed on to his forebears. The exact reason for such a nickname is unknown. It might be complimentary or insulting, or even ironic depending on circumstance and the individual concerned.

I recall that Russia’s Perm region, some 700 miles east of Moscow, was often alluded to by the family, for there my Pereverzev forebears purportedly dwelled and toiled until the 1700’s. Lusha had heard folk tales but the intercession of tumultuous events had insinuated themselves between her memory and that long-ago time so the connection was at best tenuous. Nevertheless, that is the first historical hint we have.

Were one to fall back on an imagination sprinkled with elusive wisps of hearsay to pierce the mists of centuries, he might conjure up images of his village-dwelling ancestors herding sheep and cattle on the steppes of Perm gubernia (province) or meeting in sobranya (a primarily religious gathering) to foster a burgeoning pacifist faith which by the 1700s was already balking against an increasingly stifling church orthodoxy and corrupt priesthood.

The Molochnaya and Caucasian Exile

If, indeed, Perm was an ancestral home, my antecedents had left it long before the migration made to the Molochnye Vody (Milky Waters) region of Tavria Province on the Crimean frontier just north of the Sea of Azov. Doukhobor researcher Jon Kalmakoff’s accessing of Russian archives reveals that the Pereverzev family in the later 1700s lived in Ekaterinoslav province, migrating about 1801 to land along or near the Molochnaya River in the Melitopol district of Tavria province, Russia (present day Zaporozhye province, Ukraine) where they lived in Rodionovka village, farming adjoining land for some forty years. There were eight other Doukhobor villages scattered along the river and adjoining lake known as Molochnaya.

In 1845, a Pereverzev family and other Doukhobors were exiled to the forbidding Zakavkaz (Transcaucasian) region. Wild Asiatic tribes occupied this mountainous, inhospitable region and Tsar Nikolai I, hitherto unable to rehabilitate what he considered to be an incorrigible sect, opined that these mountain tribes would soon teach the Doukhobors a lesson or, better still, remove altogether this thorn from his side.

Kalmakoff, a Regina-based researcher, accessed long-forgotten Russian archives and found that the family patriarch, Vasily Mikhailovich Pereverzev, together with his wife Maria, was listed among the Doukhobors exiled to the Caucasus. His parents and siblings did not accompany him.

Seduced, one might posit, by a growing prosperity that looked askance at being driven into unpleasant exile, his parents and siblings demurred to Orthodoxy and pronounced allegiance to the Tsar. The parents were Mikhailo (b. 1802), and Maria (b. 1802); his siblings, Ilya Mikhailovich (b.1827), Pelegea Mikhailovna (b. 1828), Semyon Mikhailovich (b. 1830), Fedosia Mikhailovna (b. 1832), Irena Mikhailovna (b. 1834), Evdokia Mikhailovna (b. 1837), Evdokim Mikhailovich (b. 1839), Ivan Mikhailovich (b. 1841) and Anna Mikhailovna (b. 1843).

Ivan Vasilyevich Pereverzev (left) and unidentified Doukhobor relatives in Gorelovka village, Kars province, Russia, c. 1890.

So it was that as the middle of the Nineteenth Century approached, my maternal Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Vasily Mikhailovich Pereverzev had grown up and chosen to go into exile with his wife Maria and their two sons rather than bow to Orthodox Church and Tsarist pressure.

Their sons were Ivan Vasilyevich, to whom our branch of the Perverseffs traces our lineage, and Fyodor Vasilyevich, who founded the Fred, Andrew, and Alexander Perverseff lines. Their father, Vasily, was the only one of his line of Pereverzevs to accompany those Doukhobors who stood firm by their faith and were banished from their Molochnaya settlements between 1841 and 1845.

In the Caucasus, the Pereverzevs settled in Novo-Goreloye village in Elizavetpol province (in present-day Azerbaijan), one of four Doukhobor villages established in that province of Transcaucasian Russia.

Harsh Living Conditions

Ivan Vasilyevich, my Great-Great-Grandfather and son of the patriarch Vasily, married in the mid-1850s and his wife Aksinya bore him a son Vasily in 1859. In 1880 this son Vasily married Elizaveta Lapshinov and they had a son, my Grandfather Ivan Vasilyevich in 1883 and two daughters.

The Pereverzevs along with their fellow Doukhobors in Elizavetpol province found life harsh. Fleeting summers squeezed between frost-bitten springs and falls and deep winter snows contrasted sharply with the pleasing milder climate their elders had known in the Molochnaya region. Subsistence was based mainly on cattle and sheep raising, market gardening, and what little wheat could be grown. There was something else. An undercurrent of fear shadowed the Elizavetpol villages, with good reason.

Asiatic hill country tribesmen would occasionally swoop down on horseback on the Doukhobor villages, plundering livestock and poultry and, reputedly, even carrying off children. The hillsmen’s depredations were tempered somewhat by the retributive countering of armed Doukhobors riding out to punish the raiders. Circumstances soon offered many Elizavetpol Doukhobor families an opportunity to leave.

Aksinya Pereverzeva in Gorelovka village, Kars province, Russia, c. 1894. Her loyalty to Verigin’s Large Party resulted in a Pereverzev family schism in 1886.

During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, Doukhobor men were enlisted as teamsters for the Russian Army – a compromise from being actual combatants and a lucrative arrangement made by the then-Doukhobor leader Lukeria Kalmykova. The Doukhobor teamsters served faithfully and their efforts helped Russia emerge victorious from the conflict. As a reward, the Doukhobors in Elizavetpol and other areas were invited to settle in the more temperate and fertile province of Kars, newly-conquered from the Ottoman Empire. Many Doukhobors accepted, including the Pereverzevs.

The Pereverzevs’ migration to Kars in 1880 took them through Tiflis (later Tbilisi, Georgia), a city Grandmother Lusha sometimes mentioned when talking about life in Kars. Once in Kars, the Pereverzevs settled in the village of Gorelovka, named after their former home in Elizavetpol. It was one of six Doukhobor villages established in the province. There, they would live and prosper for the next nineteen years.

A Pereverzev family schism occurred in 1886 when the Doukhobor leader Lukeria (Lushechka) Vasilyevna Kalmykova died. Many Doukhobors decided to follow Petr Vasilyevich Verigin, who had been a protégé of hers, and formed what became known as the “Large Party”. Other Doukhobors maintained that Lushechka had not anointed Peter and instead sided with her officials who claimed Verigin usurped the leadership. Individuals of this persuasion established themselves as the “Small Party”. My Great-Great-Grandmother, Aksinya, was by all accounts a loyal Large Party adherent while her husband Ivan Vasilyevich sided with the Small Party. Sadly, the ill feelings this rift created forced the elderly couple to vacate the family home.

In his later years, Ivan Vasilyevich Pereverzev was a village starshina – a dignitary we would today call a mayor. His son Vasily Ivanovich became a trader as well as farmer, herdsman, and carpenter and, years later, related that on his trading expeditions he found Christian Armenian shopkeepers the most hospitable of the merchants he encountered in the Caucasus. Only after sharing a meal and an hour or two of pleasant conversation would they get down to mundane business.

Restrictions meant to better reflect their pacifism were imposed on the Large Party Doukhobors in the early 1890s, and the following obeyed Leader-in-Exile Petr Vasilyevich Verigin’s decree to forego smoking, drinking, sex, and eating meat. Late in 1894, Verigin wrote from banishment in Siberia that such denial would purify the body and bring into one fold all the animal kingdom in the Doukhobor pact of non-violence.

The Burning of Arms

A supreme test came in 1895 when Verigin ordered his followers to protest war and killing of any sort by burning their arms. This they did in dramatic fashion on the night of June 28-29. A bonfire near the villages of the Kars Doukhobors punctuated the darkness as guns and other killing instruments were put to the torch. As well, Doukhobors serving in the army laid down their rifles, refusing to kill for the state. Then it was that these folk felt the full fury of an enraged officialdom. The whippings and other means of persecution were brutal. Indeed, the “Burning of Arms”, as Doukhobor history records the event, became buried deep in the psyche of these people, a watershed act pointing them towards Canada and a new destiny.

Vasily Ivanovich (sitting) and his son Vanya (standing) Pereverzev pictured in typical Russian dress – a military style peaked cap, a coat tight at the waist and high boots. Gorelovka village, Kars province, Russia, c. 1894.

The Doukhobors wanted so little and yet so much. Above all they wished to peacefully pursue their faith, to be free to lead simple, non-violent, productive lives in a communal environment with “Toil and Peaceful Life” and “Thou Shalt Not Kill” their watchwords. Noble sentiments, indeed, but the Burning of Arms and Doukhobor soldiers rejecting the army were highly provocative acts inviting harsh reprisals by Tsarist officials. The persecution that followed seemed to leave no choice for many but to get out or perish.

Exodus to Canada

Their plight attracted worldwide attention. Journalists, writers and benefactors in several countries took up their cause. Not the least of these was the already famous Russian novelist and humanitarian Lev Tolstoy who, himself, embraced many Doukhobor ideals, becoming their staunchest ally. His financial contribution and towering talent as a writer did much to facilitate their move to Canada, an exodus that began December 21, 1898, when the first shipload left Russia. Their turn to depart set for some months later, the Pereverzevs and other villagers in Gorelovka, Kars Province, began selling off their possessions and preparing for their own departure. Overseeing preparations for our branch of the Pereverzevs was Vasily Ivanovich, now 40, who had helped shepherd the family through the harrowing times in Transcaucasia and the terrors following the Burning of Arms. He and his wife Elizaveta now had in their care a 16-year-old son, Ivan Vasilyevich, his wife Lusha, and two younger daughters, Dunya and Hanya. Ivan’s birth, on May 1, 1883, followed by two years that of Lusha (nee Negreeva). Under mutual arrangements and approving eyes Ivan and Lusha were married in 1898.

Cousin Mae Postnikoff tells Grandmother’s side of the story. Mae stayed with the Perverseff grandfolks in Blaine Lake while attending high school in the 1950s. Grandmother told her the marriage was arranged by the Pereverzev and Negreev families and confided that back in Russia she loved not Grandfather but another man her family wouldn’t condone her marrying. This “beloved” also migrated to Canada eventually moving on to British Columbia and Grandmother never saw him again. Love takes nurturing and while Lusha may not have loved Ivan at first, she did in time.

Vasily Ivanovich’s immediate and extended family was among that part of the Kars Doukhobor population scheduled to set sail for Canada May 12, 1899. At sea they lived on sukhari (dried bread) and water, reaching Canada June 6. After a lengthy quarantine they proceeded west by rail, reaching the Northwest Territories settlement of Duck Lake in early July. Detraining there, they temporarily occupied immigration sheds, regrouped, acquired settlement supplies, and underwent further documentation.

A cavalcade of Doukhobor immigrants on the move from debarkation at Duck Lake, Northwest Territories, to settle a prairie site in the summer of 1899.

Canadian unfamiliarity with the spelling and pronunciation of Russian family names resulted in their sometimes being anglicized. In our case, Pereverzev became Perverseff although family members eventually adopted Pereverseff. Today, more than a hundred years later, the Russian pronunciation of names has often given way to anglicized versions.

With August approaching and half the summer gone, Vasily and the other new arrivals to Canada were understandably restless. Having heard of the harshness of western prairie winters, they were anxious to reach their new lands, build shelters in time to get through the inevitable snows and cold, and get on with their new life. To this end they formed into groups based mainly on extended family relationships. One group of some 20 families including the Perverseffs set off with wagons and on foot for a site nearly 40 miles west of Duck Lake. With a few horse-and-oxen-drawn wagons heaped with necessities they were part of the procession that marched to Carlton Ferry, crossed the North Saskatchewan River and entered the “Prince Albert Colony”. To the newcomers this was indeed a Promised Land where they and their faith might flourish. Little did they realize then that inevitable acculturation would modify and eventually replace traditional thinking and ways with Canadian thinking and ways. Once across the river, the different groups set off to the designated areas each was to settle.

The Promised Land

Let us retrace this migration and subsequent settlement as seen through the eyes of Grandfather Vanya and his son Jack, with manuscript-typist and cousin Mae Postnikoff joining in. In a memoir, Grandfather related that the Gorelovka villagers began their journey on a fresh April morning. They spent Easter Week in the Russian Black Sea port of Batum awaiting the May 12 departure of the S.S. Lake Huron, the Canadian ship taking them to Canada. Of the 2,300 Kars Doukhobors who made the voyage by sea and ocean, 23 did not survive the rough waters and meager diet. Reaching Quebec City at the beginning of June, the new arrivals were immediately subjected to a thirty-day quarantine on Grosse Isle in the St. Lawrence River to obviate any communicable disease spread. Ten days aboard Canadian Pacific Railway “colonial” rail cars with wooden benches to sit and sleep on brought the migrants by later-July via the still largely tent city of Saskatoon to Duck Lake, the seat of a Metis uprising 14 years earlier. There, immigration sheds housed them before they departed for their settlement sites.

With a few oxen and horses and wagons and a few cows in tow the group that included Grandfather’s family wended its way westward to a point approximately a mile and a half northeast of where the town of Krydor now stands. In a ravine near a small lake they stopped. Squatters now, the migrants dug holes in the ravine walls into which they thrust poles and used sod to complete rude huts. These first “homes”, not unlike the domiciles characteristic of some of their Asiatic neighbors in Russia, provided rough shelter. Grandfather wrote that “we lived about three years” in this “wild and desolate place…isolated in a strange and unfamiliar land”.

Vanya, Lusha and their son Jack photographed in Canada c. 1903. 

A creek ran through the ravine meandering across rolling prairie situated in the SE 26-44-8-W3. Men who could be spared were away railroad building or working on construction or for established farmers earning money for settlement needs. It fell to the womenfolk to break ground for gardens, manage the livestock and keep the village going. Many years later, the late Bill Lapshinoff, a relative whose farm was nearby, showed a friend and me where village women had dug a channel to provide water flow to turn a grist mill wheel. The channel lay in a copse of brush and poplar preserved from the effects of wind and water erosion. There is no one left to tell us now, but the new settlers presumably called this first village Gorelovka after their former home village in Russia.

Grandfather further wrote that things changed when the Doukhobor leader Peter “Lordly” Verigin arrived in Canada from Siberian exile late in 1902. He soon convinced his Doukhobor brethren to start living communally. New villages built would hold and work land in common sharing resources equally. Grandfather noted that “we began communal life which we had not been living before”. Grandfather’s revelation indicates that it was at this time that our forebears abandoned their original dugout settlement in 1902 to build the village of Bolshaya (Large) Gorelovka a mile or so north and a bit west. The word “Large” was needed to distinguish it from the nearby village of Malaya (Small) Gorelovka established at the same time. Both derived from the original dugout settlement. Goreloye, a diminutive form of the village name, was what my grandfolks called Bolshaya Gorelovka. The word Bolshaya was not used unless one needed to distinguish the village from Malaya Gorelovka.

Bolshaya Gorelovka or Goreloye was well situated. High bordering hills tree-covered in places offered shelter from the prevailing northwest wind. A ravine with a free flowing natural spring intersected the northwest corner of the village which ran in an approximate north-south direction for about three quarters of a mile. A large slough lay near the south end and sod from its environs provided roofing. The Fort Carlton-Fort Pitt trail ran east and west just north of the village.

The spring flowed year round providing water for household and livestock use. It ran northeasterly as a creek forming a muskeg that bordered a row of gardens including the Perverseff’s. An open area, where a Russian ball game called hilki was played by youngsters in summer and on hard-packed snow in winter, divided the village into two parts. Toward the north end on the east side stood a large community barn just to the north of which a shallow well had been dug where the creek flowed. A large wooden watering trough lay beside this depression. Here, old country innovation came into play. A stout pole sunk into the ground had attached to it a smaller pole with an arm that could swivel. A pail filled at the well and hung over the arm by its handle would be swung to the watering trough and there emptied. This beat having to physically carry the pail back and forth.

Vasily, in a traditional Russian coat, with his son Vanya and daughters Dunya and Hanya photographed in Canada c. 1903. 

An indoor, closed-in brick oven was built into the wall of each village house. Oven tops covered with blankets or coats made good resting places and in winter, ideal retreats from invading cold. Soon banyas (bath houses) that had been an Old Country fixture began to appear, one of the first built by William John Perverseff, as Vasily Ivanovich Pereverzev came to be known in Canada.

The land description on which Bolshaya Gorelovka or Goreloye village stood was the SW 35-44-8-W3, North-West Territories (Saskatchewan came into being three years later). While hilly benchland rimmed the west and north, the country east and south was flat or gently rolling prairie carpeted with fescue, spear and wheat grass knee high in places, and pocked with numerous sloughs and potholes. There were poplar groves and to the north, spruce was available. The soil was mainly good black loam. To the Perverseffs and their fellow settlers, this land truly held promise.

Cousin Mae picks up the narrative: "Grandfather Vanya was an admirer of education and he was the prime mover in establishing the first Canadian public school in their midst. He did attend school in Petrofka in winter months… around 1907. The teacher was Herman Fast who was… responsible for the English spelling of our surname… It was in this school that our grandfather… learned the rudiments of the English language… [and] to read the English newspapers and get the gist of the meaning."

Grandpa really did not have a good command of the English language, but he insisted on corresponding with the Department of Education through Uncle Jack after Uncle Jack started attending school in 1911. Before that, all business was transacted through a Ukrainian intellectual immigrant with old country higher education. His name was Joseph Megas…an organizer and field representative of the Department of Education….It was he who misnamed our school to Havrilowka, which later was corrected to "Haralowka"S, but still a far cry from Gorelovka or Goreloye.

By the fall of 1902, Bolshaya Gorelovka or Goreloye had taken shape, with the new pioneers sharing the tasks of village building and taming the wild land. Although many of the men-folk were away earning money, the work of building still got done with women pitching in to fill the manpower shortage. A belief that women were hitched to ploughs to till the fields is not true. Men using oxen ploughed the fields. However women, in pairs twenty strong, did pull a small one-furrow plough to break up garden ground.

Perverseff women and children grouped in front of the Gorelovka village family home in 1904. Vasily’s wife Elizaveta (Lisunya) stands at left, Lusha holds Agatha while Jack stands beside her, with sister-in-law Hanya at right.

Unlike other blocks of Doukhobor land elsewhere, the Prince Albert Colony allotment was in alternate sections. Canadian authorities were aware that the Kars Doukhobors were more individualistic than their brethren from other areas. These so-called “Independents” had been reluctant to go along with Verigin’s 1893 edict asking all Doukhobors not only to live communally but also to share all resource ownership in what amounted to Christian Communism. Alternate sections of land amidst other nationalities imbued with the spirit of individual enterprise fostered independent farmstead development instead of living in a central communal village – a notion the Doukhobors from Kars found attractive. But for the first dozen or so years communal living did prevail.

Village buildings were simple yet sturdy. Logs trimmed to form four-sided timbers made up the main framework. Clay, grass and other ingredients were mixed with water and treaded into a paste that was plastered on both the outside and inside of the timbered walls. Poles laid lengthwise on inverted v-shaped frames supported the roofing sod cut from the marshy margins of nearby sloughs. Grey/white calcimine covered the walls inside and helped waterproof them outside.

William’s home (starting from the street and working back) had a living room that also served as a bedroom, a kitchen, a verandah, a main bedroom, then a storage room, and a brick oven. Sod cut from the environs of a nearby slough covered the roof. Out back was the inevitable outhouse. Before long, William built a bath house patterned after those popular in Russia, and eventually a small blacksmith shop was erected. Since self sufficiency was an ingrained Doukhobor trait, the Perverseffs – like their neighbors – cultivated a large garden.

The Perverseffs and fellow immigrants soon added to their initial inventory of eight horses, five cows, four oxen, four wagons and three ploughs. Horses pulled the wagons; oxen, the ploughs.

Pioneering was at first extremely labour intensive. Grain was sown by hand broadcasting; mature crops were cut with scythes and sickles; grain was threshed by men and women wielding flails. William, good with his hands and mechanically inclined, made shovels and other needed tools and implements in his blacksmith shop. When Elizabeth (as Elizaveta came to be called) wanted a spinning wheel or Lucille (as Lusha was called in Canada) needed a garden hoe, William made them. Because money was needed to buy livestock and farm machinery, William’s son John joined other young men and walked to St. Lazare, Manitoba to work on the Grand Trunk Railway (see How the Doukhobors Build Railways). A picture taken in 1907 shows him with 18 other Doukhobor men in a work party.

When time permitted, Lucille and the other women earned money, too, gathering seneca root, considered to have medicinal benefits, and selling their fine needlework or trading it for things they needed.

John and Lucille began their Canadian family in 1901 when John Ivan “Jack” was born. Agatha (my mother) followed in 1904; Nicholas “Nick” in 1907, Nita in 1911, and Mary “Marion” in 1919. John and Lucille’s first-born daughter was lost in childbirth during the sea voyage to Canada. What became known as Haralowka School opened in 1911 three quarters of a mile southeast of the village and all five children went there, with Marion also attending a new, larger brick school erected a half mile north which opened in 1930.

This image of a Haralowka home was found among the Perverseff collection or pictures and may have been the family home. It is typical of those at the time–squared log construction, a plaster covering painted with calcimine and with a sod roof. A buggy or what was often called a “democrat” is parked beside the home.

Both Bolshaya and Malaya Gorelovka were reminiscent of old country mirs (communal villages in Russia), but they were short-lived, the villagers having abandoned them by 1920 to become individual landowners. However, the name continued in the form of Haralowka school district.

Independence

William and John were among the first villagers to file for their own land, the first in 1909 being 320 acres of scrip land that had been assigned to a Boer War veteran named Thomas J. Stamp. Its legal description was NW & NE 22-45-8-W3. Located some six miles to the northwest of the village, it was used primarily for grazing. In 1912, the SW 25-44-8-W3 was acquired and buildings were erected that served as a temporary base of operations. Other land subsequently added to the family holdings included the NW 25-44-8-W3, SE 31-44-8-W3 and NE 25-44-8-W3. An old land registry map shows the Perverseff home place on the NW 30-44-8-W3. Because Haralowka district Doukhobor settlers became sole land owners, they were referred to in Russian as farmli (individual farmers) and were no favorites of the Doukhobor leader, Peter Verigin. Lucille’s parents, on the other hand, joined more communally-minded Doukhobors migrating to British Columbia.

In 1909 William journeyed to Russia to bring back his newly-widowed mother Aksinya. According to Jon Kalmakoff’s research, they returned to Canada aboard the SS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, sailing from Hamburg, Germany on November 4, 1909, arriving at New York, USA on November 13, 1909. Aksinya lived in the village for three years before passing away and was laid to rest in the tiny burial ground near the top of a hill just west of the village. “Bill” Lapshinoff, the owner of the village land in the 1990s, regretted that this original cemetery had eventually been ploughed over instead of being retained historically.

The Perverseffs on their homestead. Jack and Agatha at back, Nick beside seated Vanya, Lusha and Nita. Blaine Lake district, SK, c. 1914.

For their home place William and John chose a site at the northeast corner of the quarter with the erecting of farm buildings starting immediately. The main farmyard sloped on all sides near the southeast corner to a low point at which the base of the main garden started and where spring runoff advantageously settled. A fence divided the house, great grandfolk’s cottage, summer kitchen, a small grassed field, orchard and garden from the farm utility buildings. Open to the east, this spacious area of perhaps ten acres was bounded on the south, west, and north by a three row-spruce tree shelterbelt. A caragana-lined sidewalk led from the farmyard gate to the house.

The home Vanya and Lusha moved into in 1914 was modest, probably no more than 30 by 40 feet. The front porch, entered from the south, had two inner doors, one opening into the kitchen beyond which was the one bedroom; the other, into the large living room. A bookcase and writing desk constituted John’s study and there was a large table where meals were served. A couch in one corner doubled as my bed when I stayed as a child with my grandparents. A radio was turned on mainly for the news, although I recall listening Wednesday evenings to Herb Paul, the yodeling cowboy, his program originating from Winnipeg.

The impressive barn on the Perverseff family homestead near Blaine Lake, SK, c. 1921.

A cottage built just a few steps east of the main house was a comfortable haven for William and Elizabeth. They ate their meals with the rest of the family in the main house and during the warmer months of the year, in the summer kitchen.

While the house was modest, the barn started in 1921 was anything but. The largest in the district, it was a red-painted, hip-roof type boasting cement and plank flooring, plank stalls, a harness tack room with harness repair equipment, water cistern, large hayloft area, and an ample chop bin. The north side was extended to include a cow-barn/milking area, a box stall for small calves, and a cream separating room. The barn was completed in 1922 and if ever there was a status symbol in the Haralowka district, this was it.

Down a bit from the west entrance to the barn was a windmill-powered well beside which stood a big corrugated metal watering trough. The garden and orchard extended south and west. Just north of the garden and behind the well was a Russian style bath-house and just north of it was the blacksmith shop, complete with forge and foot-pedal-driven wood lathe, a marvel that William designed and built. A few yards further north was the root cellar, while a granary and chicken coop with fenced-in yard stood south of the barn.

Implement and storage sheds were northeast of the summer kitchen. A three-car brick garage built in 1927 housed sleeping quarters for hired men and a McLaughlin-Buick car. A tree-lined lane ran a hundred yards or so north to an east-west road. The natural lawn lying west of the house and extending north and south served as an outdoor recreational area. Slough willow and poplar sheltered the south side of the garden and orchard. John, with an eye for symmetry and order, could be justifiably proud of the impressive yard.

A Good Life

Hard work and good planning combined with good wheat prices during World War I brought prosperity. The meager assets with which the Perverseffs started out had multiplied many-fold. John emerged the master planner; William, the implementer. By 1930, with the Great Depression still around the corner, they presided over a successful farming operation, with a complete line of farm machinery. They had a section of land under cultivation; three hired men during the busiest times and a hired girl when Lucille needed extra help. Cree Indian men from the nearby Muskeg Reserve signed on during fall threshing to haul sheaves and field pitch.

On the farm at any one time would be up to ten milking cows, at least eight draft horses, and a fast team of matched sorrels kept for buggy and cutter use. Selling cream and eggs provided extra income that helped tide the family over during the cash-strapped Depression years of the 1930s.

Grandfather Vanya was inordinately proud of the family’s white stallion, Safron, seen here pulling a buggy, c. 1908.

In the rhythm of farm life, seeding and harvesting took precedence over all else. Social activities followed the then-current rural pattern: visiting with relatives and friends, attending marriages and funerals, and going regularly to sobranya, first in a rural dom, a hall built for gatherings a half mile east of the farmstead; later in the town of Blaine Lake, ten miles east. Cream and eggs were delivered to Tallman, a hamlet three miles southeast, where mail was picked up and cream cans retrieved.

The main event of the year was Peter’s Day, held every June 29. It was essentially a commemoration of the trials and tribulations the Doukhobors had endured in Russia. There were prayers and the air swelled harmoniously with the a cappella singing of psalms and resonated with voices raised in discourse on the Doukhobor faith. A huge tent holding more than a hundred people was set up on grounds just southeast of Blaine Lake and a carnival atmosphere prevailed especially for the younger children who would absent themselves from the tent to play. A noon meal, served picnic style, consisted of such fare as pie-like cheese and fruit peroshki, crepe-like bliny, boiled eggs, fresh bread and fruit, especially arbus (watermelon), a universal Doukhobor favorite, if available. Life was good!

The Perverseffs did not smoke, drink alcohol, or eat meat but a diet rich in garden-grown vegetables and their own dairy products made for healthy eating. Vegetable borsch (a heavy soup), bread and cheese were staples, eaten pretty well daily.

About 1935, William and John acquired land near Blaine Lake for John’s son Nick to farm. I was present when John negotiated with the owner, Senator Byron Horner. A handshake sealed the deal – unlike today no lawyers were needed then to oversee an agreement between men whose word was their bond.

Perverseff family portrait, 1919. At back Agatha and Jack; in front, Vanya, Nita, Lusha (holding Marion) and Nick.

In 1935 William’s wife Elizabeth died. Casting further gloom was the Great Depression, the so-called Dirty Thirties, now firmly entrenched. The bottom had dropped out of wheat prices. Grasshopper and army worm infestations plagued the farmland. Only “empties” going by, a wry allusion to rainless dark clouds, conspired with wicked winds to rearrange quarter sections and penetrate homes, layering windowsills and floors with fine dust. Planted fields baked dry had to be ploughed over. Talk about good times and bad – these were really bad!

Tangleflags

Back in Tangleflags, Saskatchewan – where I lived with my parents in the late 1920’s and early 1930s – folks didn’t find the Depression quite so severe. There was more moisture – less than everyone would have liked – but enough to produce some grain, and livestock pastured better. I didn’t think anything was really out of the ordinary before we left the area in October of 1935. My friend Vernon Dubay would come over to play. I poled my raft on the lake. I walked to school or rode double on horseback with Dad or Mother or sometimes a visiting aunt. Grace Harbin, a spinster, taught at Tangleflags School, and I once penciled a rather good likeness of her attractive niece, Betty, who sat in front of me.

Born on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1926, I won a prize in the fall as “baby of the year” in a weekly newspaper contest and still wonder how such a chubby, round-faced little cherub could have been selected. Francis “Frank” Henry James Philips, an English immigrant farmer, and Agatha (nee Perverseff) had married in Lashburn at friends Bob and Dorie Sanderson’s place on December 26, 1924 and I was their first child.

I’ve speculated about why Agatha married Frank. Having attended university (Education) she was at that time considered well educated (especially for a Doukhobor). Frank wasn’t. She had mastered two languages. He knew only one. She had a quick mind. His was more plodding and his prospects didn’t really reach beyond farming. So! Was it pity for the underdog? Did she feel sorry for him because of his physical handicap (he was missing one arm)? Did his cheerfully and successfully forging ahead in the face of odds win her heart. Did his fine baritone singing voice move her? Why is something I really cannot answer.

This most glamorous image of Agatha is thought to have been taken just after she graduated from what was then called “Normal School” in April of 1924. She was immediately hired to teach for the remainder of the school year in rural Tangleflags, SK.

As the schoolteacher at Tangleflags, Agatha gained quick entree into the community. Her pupils brought her in touch with their parents and community functions with eligible bachelors usually in attendance. Just shy of eight months from the time she met Frank, they married and his little bungalow was their first home. In January, 1925 she started teaching at North Gully, close to 15 miles southwest from our place shortcutting across country. She rode Satin, a fine saddle pony, to a farmstead near North Gully School where she boarded during the week.

On one occasion, as she would later recall, Satin, likely feeling bored, decided to jump Cook’s gate [a quarter mile from our place and the beginning of the cross country shortcut]. “Bob Oswell was rounding up his horses nearby and saw me fall. He galloped over to render assistance but I was back on Satin before he reached me.” Falling off horses happened frequently in those days and it’s a wonder more people weren’t badly hurt. Satin’s faithful companion and Mother’s was Bob, a dog of mixed heritage but good character. Whenever she tethered Satin, Bob always stayed close by until they were off again.

Frank concentrated on building a proper house, and proper it truly was, the first in Tangleflags to have hardwood floors, occasioning some neighbor women to consider Mother “spoiled”. Agatha quit teaching in December and she and Frank moved into the new home the beginning of January, 1926, with me arriving a month and a half later. Agatha’s sisters Nita and Marion Perverseff came to visit in the ensuing years, and Mother chummed with a Miss Thom and Phoebe Mudge from Paradise Hill. By 1930, we had a piano in the house and a tennis court outside.

One was practically born in the saddle in those days and I was quite at home riding horseback by the time I was six. The only problem was getting on; but a fence or corral pole or anything a couple of feet high answered well enough. By the time I could ride, Frank had sold Satin and acquired Phyllis, a mare in foal who soon gave us Star, a black colt named for the white patch on his forehead. In the warm months I’d ride Phyllis to herd our cattle on Crown grassland a half mile northeast of our place. Influenced no doubt by tales of the Old West, I trained Phyllis to dig in her front feet and “stop on a dime”. If we were moving quickly and I yelled whoa, I’d have to brace myself or go for a tumble. Once, I did. I chased a gopher taking a zigzag course over the prairie. When it disappeared down a hole, I excitedly yelled whoa, and forgetting to brace myself, flew over Phyllis’ head as she stopped abruptly. I was seven at the time; my young bones were pliant, and thankfully the prairie wasn’t too hard; my feelings were the most damaged.

Frank, Agatha and “Old Bob” standing in front of the new farmhouse the couple moved into in January of 1926 at Tangleflags, SK.

Once summoned, other childhood memories flood back, jostling for attention.

Bob Oswell, whose folks farmed up in the hills southwest of us, was my idea of a cowboy. Bob always wore a beat-up old ten-gallon hat and had trained a white pony named Smokey to rear up on its hind legs when he mounted it. Watching Smokey rear up and then gallop away, Bob firmly in the saddle with a rifle in a scabbard strapped to it, convinced me to become a cowboy. But once in a long while an airplane would fly over and I’d change my mind. I figured piloting a plane was even better than being a cowboy. I even went so far as to build what vaguely resembled a plane with boards and logs in back of the old bungalow. Then I’d walk up a nearby hill to watch it get smaller, the way planes did in the sky.

Once, Frank let me plough a furrow right across a field by myself. Actually, the horses were so conditioned to this work that they needed no guidance. Still, I held the reins and kicked the foot rod that raised the ploughshares up and that released them when we’d turned around. I was pretty proud of myself and thought maybe I’d be a farmer.

I changed my mind when I fell off a straw stack. Frank was loading straw onto a hayrack and I, not paying proper attention, missed my footing and tumbled off the stack crashing down on my back. That hurt! Farming was proving to be dangerous.

Another incident altered my thinking about being a cowboy. On one occasion Aunt Marion Perverseff rode Phyllis to fetch me from school and for some reason Phyllis didn’t take kindly to riding double that day. She bucked and I fell off, much, I imagine, to the amusement of the other children.

I was fortunate to have a sister, if only for a short while. Her given names were Lorna Ruth and Agatha always remembered her as “my golden-haired girl”. Though she was more than two years younger than me, we were pretty good companions. She was my chum and we played together, happily most of the time but not without the odd sibling tiff.

Frank, Agatha, Roger and newly-born Lorna pose for a family portrait in 1928 at Tangleflags, SK.

Lorna fell dreadfully ill in the dead of winter. The last day or two before the end of January, 1933, a doctor snow-planed out from Lloydminster and took her back with him. Her death from peritonitis February 2 broke Mother’s heart and fanned the spark of a hitherto embryonic paranoia that gradually grew more troublesome and consumed her last years. I stayed with Cook’s, our closest neighbors, while Frank and Agatha were at Lorna’s hospital bedside and when they got home and told me Lorna was now with God and that I wouldn’t see her again, a terrible weight settled on me. I’ve since experienced many deaths amongst family and friends, but none that hurt more.

I wasn’t crazy about school, but I liked recess. One of our main amusements was a maypole-like swing with several chains having rungs to cling to that dangled from a rotating disk at the top of the steel pole. One person who was “it” would take his or her chain in a circle around all the other chains to which children clung. Then the youngsters would race around the pole with whoever was “it” flying high in the air. It was great fun and my turn could never come soon enough. But one day when it did, disaster struck. I was flung out and around so furiously that my hands slipped off the chain rung and my now uncharted flight path brought me into contact with a nearby woodpile. Somehow a nail gashed my skull which bled so profusely that some of the kids figured I was “sure a goner”. I survived, bloody and somewhat bowed.

In the 1930s for a few years a troop of Boy Scouts summer camped across the lake in front of Cook’s. The boys were from Lloydminster and possibly Lashburn and Marshall. Island Lake was likely chosen for this outing because it was so buoyant that drowning was practically impossible. In the evenings, if the wind was right, we could hear the boys singing around a campfire and see flames leaping into the air. I thought being a Boy Scout was alright and maybe I’d try it when I got old enough.

On the farm we grew or raised part of what we ate. We had a large garden which mostly gave us potatoes. Occasionally we’d slaughter a pig or a beef. I usually wasn’t around when that happened but the year before we left the farm, I was. I knew we were going to kill a pig and wanted no part of it. When a man Dad hired to help arrived, I headed down to the lake. Suddenly there was an awful squeal and I knew the pig was dying.

Agatha with Lorna and Roger in front of the Tangleflags house in 1932.

Grassland was needed for grazing when I was little, and there was more of it then than now. More grass meant more prairie fires and there was a bad one when I was about five. It burned to within a couple hundred yards of our place and I remember men with faces and hands smeared black from fighting it dropping in for coffee and sandwiches or heading for the dipper in the water pail. The lake probably saved us, both in cutting off the direct line of the blaze and being so handy a source for water to wet gunny sacking used to beat the flames. I was too young to comprehend what a close call we had. Instead, I childishly found the rush of activity exciting.

One tends to remember certain people. As a councilman for Britania Rural Municipality No. 502 our neighbor Joe Cook was out and about a lot in the district. He’d come riding by in his buggy, whip in one hand, reins in the other. His big walrus moustache made him quite imposing, even a bit fearsome. I rather fancied his good-looking daughter Joan, maybe because she always beat me when we raced on horseback. But she was older and paid me no mind.

British accents attested to the strong English influence in the community where the men smoked pipes and played cricket. There were garden parties, and you watched how you held your little finger when you sipped your tea. Since the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons, I, like Dad, smoked a pipe when I grew up. Eventually, though, I gave up pipe smoking as a bad habit.

I always paid heed when Bob Oswell’s dad passed in his wagon going to Bob’s place. He was built stocky, “strong as a bull”, my father said, and it seemed to me that he always scowled. And his Tyne-sider’s accent was so strong and his voice so raspy that I never understood a word he said. He was a good enough neighbor but his gruff manner told me to steer clear of him.

Nip and Tuck were a pair of greys that Dad treasured. They were big horses, Clydesdales probably, and powerful. I would watch them strain and see their muscles ripple as they pulled a wagonload of wheat up the steep hill a half mile south of our place. It was a treat to accompany Frank to Hillmond for these trips usually promised hard candy in Arthur Rutherford’s general store. I remember coyote skins hanging on a store wall – each had brought someone a $25.00 bounty. Coyotes chased bad little boys, I’d been told, but they didn’t seem so scary now.

On one Hillmond trip Bob spooked a deer with a good rack of antlers. He chased it across the road right in front of us and got a futile but good workout. This was near the Allen’s and I’d always watch hard when we passed their place. They were reputedly a “rough bunch” but I never saw anything untoward. One of the Allen girls later became a policewoman in Edmonton so I guess they weren’t so bad.

Frank, Agatha, Roger and cousin Joan Perverseff photographed in Saskatoon in 1935.

We used to have dances in Tangleflags School. I don’t recall that much about them. I’d sit on Mother’s knee. I remember once that she wore a black dress. There was other entertainment -singing, mostly. Frank was a regular in this department and always got a lot of applause when he sang old favorites like Climb Upon My Knee Sonny Boy and My Wild Irish Rose. Mother didn’t like it when some woman would go up and congratulate him.

That was one thing about Agatha. She was possessive. If Frank even looked at another woman, it upset her and she’d let him know about it. When I look back now, it seems she carried her distrust of other women to extremes. I’m convinced she’d only have been happy if Frank were actually rude to them. She was strong willed to the point of being dictatorial sometimes no doubt thinking her education (allowedly good for a woman of her time) had prepared – nay entitled – her to tell others what to do. In our realm she decided the course of events, exerting her will in everything except farm finance. Frank made it clear when they married that he would “wear the pants in the family” when it came to money matters, and he did.

Living on a farm we may have lacked some city life niceties but there were still refinements. Agatha had a piano to play and was middling good on our tennis court even sometimes beating Jack Hickman who was no slouch. The one thing Mother seemed to enjoy most in life was talking philosophy. Having Alfred Abraham, a student minister stay with us one summer, gave her unlimited opportunities. The poor young cleric must have grown weary of fending off her intellectual parries.

That was something else about Agatha – her intelligence. She had a fine memory and a mind able to manipulate and exploit what she had learned. She may not have been a genius, but I think she came closer to that than most of us. One has to wonder if there isn’t a grain of truth in the old straw that genius stands next to madness; if not Mother’s quick mind had become a nursery where paranoia took root and grew.

Lorna’s death broke Mother, who became convinced that the Tangleflags farm was cursed. There was nothing for it but to move to Haralowka where her folks would help us make a new start. This running away from a situation of growing torment became a pattern as Agatha’s paranoia worsened. A new setting initially worked wonders but in time her nerves would start bothering her and the cycle would repeat itself. Frank resisted the idea of selling out and moving but Agatha’s will prevailed. The farm auction went well enough but we had to rent our land which didn’t sell. It was now the beginning of October, 1935, and with our house empty, we slept the night at Dubay’s. The next day our Model T Ford car carried us into a new life chapter.

A young Roger launches a flying model airplane he built.

Leaving the West Saskatchewan farm he had built up out of the wilderness and the people he had come to know so well was a wrenching experience for Father. Even though the Perverseffs welcomed us with open arms and open hearts and even though they would have helped us make a fresh start with land and equipment, Frank was sorely troubled. Nurturing a growing independence and self-reliance, he’d become a successful pioneer farmer in Tangleflags—made it on his own; was what the English so prided, a self-made man. And now the thought of accepting charity (for that’s how he saw it) was too much.

Then there was Mother’s affliction. Temporarily at bay in the first weeks in Haralowka, the paranoia that tormented her would return. Frank may not have known then the precise medical term for what she had but he knew the toll it took—how miserable it made life for Agatha and those around her.

There was more. Word came from England that his Mother was dying and his Father was seriously ill. Everything, it seemed, was conspiring against him. Separation resulted with Frank going to England and Mother’s restless spirit soon taking her to California.

Haralowka

Now nine years old, I entered what I call my Russian phase, experiencing Doukhobor/Russian culture in Haralowka as an unuk (grandson in Russian). Meanwhile, Mother sampled work life in California, first as a day nurse to a Mrs. Strictland, next as governess to a Hollywood movie director’s daughter, then as personal assistant to Madam Boday, a Los Angeles dowager. In turn she became a confidant to Julia Edmunds, a leader in the Oxford Group movement, then a teacher at Harding Military Academy where a fellow teacher was nominally a prince of the long since deposed Bourbon family. Prince Bruce de Bourbon de Conde was then simply a commissioned U.S. Army officer. Like Agatha, Captain Conde had an adventurous spirit and after World War II service in Europe, ended up as an administrator in the Arab Emirates where intrigue brought him to an untimely end.

A nine-year-old learns quickly and I was soon able to speak Russian with Grandmother at an elementary level – things like, “I’m hungry”, “I wish to have water”, “shall I fetch the eggs”, “where are we going?”, “When do you want me to get the cows”, “give me”, “here”, “I want to sleep”, and (I remember ruefully now) “please give me money”. I later became friends with a second cousin named Sam “Sammy” Perverseff. His family lived a quarter mile east of us and in the winter time I would ride to school with him on his horse-drawn stone-boat. Sammy introduced me to a lot more Russian, mostly words and phrases embracing life’s seamier side. A few years older than me, taller, and good-looking, Sammy was something of a Don Juan.

My Aunt Marion was still at home when we arrived in Haralowka, but her days there were numbered, for an Edward Postnikoff was courting her and they soon married. Edward was a likely young man but poor as a church mouse. Courting wasn’t all that easy then. He had to peddle the twenty-some miles from Petrofka on a bicycle to see Marion. But he had the right stuff and with a little help from Grandfather, became a successful farmer in the district.

Roger playing baseball at Jarvis Collegiate in Toronto in 1941.

Great Grandfather William and Great Grandmother Elizabeth had lived contentedly together in their little cottage. Since Elizabeth passed away soon after we arrived, I barely got to know her. Agatha, who looked after her the last while, said she was a very wise and practical woman. To the extent that the goodness of parents can have a bearing on the way their children turn out, William and Elizabeth were truly good people and John, their son and my Grandfather, bore excellent witness to that.

William suffered through his loss and carried on. Friends came initially to commiserate and later to visit. Grandfather Samirodin with his bristling, Russian Cossack-like moustache was one who came regularly. Well into his eighties, he would walk the three miles across snow-laden fields to our place and he and William would greet each another with kisses on each cheek and traditional words praising God. His advanced age walking prowess bore testimony to the health benefits of a lifetime diet of borshch and other Doukhobor staples and the rigors of good, hard work in the outdoors.

In 1937 I stayed a short while with my Uncle Jack (Dr. J.I. Perverseff), Aunt Anne, and their daughters Joan and Dorothy at their Avenue V South home. For the brief time I was in Saskatoon I attended Pleasant Hill School. It was a short walk from Uncle Jack’s and one day as I passed the Hamms (Uncle Jack’s neighbors) their German Shepherd grabbed my lunch and trotted off with it. Mrs. Hamm saw this and brought me a couple of sandwiches in a big basin. The Hamms may have been poor folk with rough edges, but I’ll always remember Mrs. Hamm as a good-hearted woman.

The Principal at Pleasant Hill School was Sam Trerice. It happened that the Trerices were friends of Mother’s and had spent a summer holiday with us in Tangleflags. Fortunate that was for me, because I soon got into a school fight that Sam, himself, broke up. The other poor fellow was grabbed by the ear and hauled off for rough justice while I went scot free. The lesson I learned from this experience was that in life it wasn’t so much what you knew (or did) but who you knew that counted.

We didn’t have television back in the “Thirties”. About the only time one listened to the radio was to hear the news. I was too young to be interested. We did have fun, though. In winter kids would get together to play street hockey or “shinnie”; in summer, cowboys and Indians. This latter activity was eminently fair and politically correct. Some days more Indians got killed; other days, more cowboys.

Roger and his Haralowka buddy Sammy Perverseff, a second cousin.

I was soon back with my Grandparents and attending Haralowka School. Muriel Borisinkoff, Sammy’s cousin, taught there and it wasn’t long before I discovered how good she was with the strap. Big Paul Greva and I were having a dustup about midway between the school and the barn when Bill Samirodin, a school trustee, drove up to fetch his daughter. Paul and I ceased hostilities and stood like innocents watching as Bill drove by. But it was too late. He had seen us fighting and amusingly commented to Muriel about her unruly pupils. That really stung a hard taskmaster who prided herself on her discipline. Summoned to the school, Paul was strategically in tears and I tried to feign innocence as we entered the side door. The situation was bleak. With tears streaming down Paul’s cheeks, Muriel took out the wrath she would have devoted to him on me – along with my share. In time the strap was outlawed in Saskatchewan schools, but I can attest to having intimately known its application before that happened.

If kindness was a Perverseff trait, then I was blessed. William and Lucille treated me like a favorite son. They fed me well and clothed me warmly. On Saturdays I would get the huge sum of 25 cents to spend in Blaine Lake where folks from the country gathered to buy groceries, attend to other matters, or just visit. I would go to town with John and Lucille or with Sammy and his folks. Later, a Tallman elevator man put a bare bicycle together for me – bare because it lacked handlebar grips, fenders and a chain guard, but it was transportation. Grandfather paid seven dollars for it and I surely got his money’s worth.

Life wasn’t all fun. I had to fetch the cows, help milk, turn the cream separator, and churn the butter. I’d also gather the eggs, carry wood to the house, help clean the barn and do other sundry chores. Sometimes when I was out in the yard around sundown, I would hear Grandmother whistle in an odd way. It was to keep the vadema (bad spirits) away, she said. I don’t know if it worked but I never saw the need for it myself.