Brilliant History – Fading Into Obscurity

by William M. Rozinkin

Today, few travelling on Highway 3A from Brilliant to Ootischenia across the Kootenay River notice the concrete foundation on the rocky bluff overlooking the river. Fewer still know or recall its history. In the following article, reproduced by permission from the Nelson Daily News (March 2 & 6, 1995), long-time Kootenay resident and historian William M. Rozinkin (1923-2007) documents the history of the “Besedushka”, the stately “retreat house” built for Peter “Lordly” Verigin by his followers in 1922. In the quiet atmosphere of its location, the Doukhobor leader spent time writing and meditating. However as Rozinkin recounts, the destruction of the building by arson in 1924 heralded decades of strife and factionalism within the British Columbia Doukhobor community.

For many years motorists travelling on Highway 3A from Castlegar through Ootishenia and across the Kootenay River bridge at Brilliant saw the old Doukhobor bridge upstream to their right, while to their left are settlements of Brilliant. Slightly to their left but straight ahead, they also could see Verigin’s Tomb and a cement foundation directly below it. Today motorists can also see a newly constructed Brilliant Intersection road as it sweeps below the tomb and the cement foundation.

This new road, costing almost $4 million, now joins the new bridge across the Columbia River leading to the city of Castlegar and the Celgar Pulp Mill giving an alternative route to motorists who otherwise would have to travel through Ootishenia. This new road and bridge were opened to the public late last year at a cost of about $28 million.

Today no evidence remains to suggest or remind motorists that Brilliant was the headquarters of the Canadian Doukhobor communities of The Christian Community Of Universal Brotherhood that had about 90 communal villages in British Columbia and settlements in Alberta and Saskatchewan. There is no doubt that with the passing years interesting Brilliant history is also fading into obscurity.

Nonetheless, Brilliant’s past includes Verigin’s Tomb and the old bridge whose histories are briefly recorded while the cement foundation remains forgotten. It, indeed, also has a unique place in the pages of this region’s history.

View from near the “Besedushka” overlooking Brilliant and Ootischenia across the Kootenay River, 1924.  British Columbia Archives A-08737.

After the Doukhobors moved to the Kootenay and Columbia regions from Saskatchewan in 1908, their determination to succeed with hard work brought forth almost amazing results.

By living and working communally under the leadership of Peter Lordly Verigin, in less than a decade they transformed the forested wilderness into village settlements with orchards and gardens around them. They also built a wooden pipe plant to manufacture water pipes for domestic needs and irrigation along with sawmills, planer mills, flour mills, linseed oil plants and a jam factory to serve the villagers of Brilliant, Ootishenia, Pass Creek, Glade, Shoreacres, Slocan, and Grand Forks.

In Grand Forks where purchased lands included some cleared with small orchards, they built a brick factory to produce quality bricks for all their needs along with occasional shipments to the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company in Trail, B.C.

The main administrative office was in Brilliant. It was also here that the famous Kootenay-Columbia Jam Factory was located along with a towering grain elevator, fruit-packing shed, a retail store, Mr. Verigin’s residence and other buildings.

In late 1920 Mr. Verigin asked his nephew Vasily Lukianovich Verigin and his family to move to Brilliant from Shoreacres to help in maintaining his residence there. Their family consisted of Vasily, his wife Margaret, three daughters, Fanny, Lucy, and Margaret, when they moved into a house on the hillside overlooking Brilliant. Also living with them were their grandchildren, Andrew, Peter, and Johnny Semenoff whose mother Nastia (their first daughter) had passed away earlier in Shoreacres, and their father, Andrew, was away occasionally for extended periods of time to work on community projects.

Vasily and Margaret’s second oldest daughter, Mary, was married to John Fedorovich Masloff and resided across the river from them in Ootishenia.

With flourishing communities organized and growing in development, its members decided in 1921 to express their appreciation to their leader — president Peter Lordly Verigin for his administrative and religious guidance.

The following year, in 1922, this was done with construction of a small, ornamentally designed house on a solid, almost flat-surfaced rock overlooking the settlements and lush orchards of Brilliant and Ootishenia along with a grand view of the sparkling waters of the Kootenay River as it races to join the rushing currents of the Columbia River near Castlegar, about a mile downstream.

The house was specially designed to accommodate the space on the rock. It was about 23 feet long and almost 17 feet wide and with a veranda on cement pillars around it, the house appeared much larger. Construction of the building was neatly finished and painted white with blue trim and the veranda elegantly decorated with an interlaced ornamental fret work as it embraced the beautiful house. It was the pride of the community craftsmen.

Approaches to the house followed a well arranged walkway with flower beds on either side that led to concrete steps leading down to the main entrance below, while around the house, rock walls were built to form benches filled with earth in which beautiful flowers and lawns adorned the immediate surroundings.

The house had a full basement that was divided into two rooms and its solid rock floor also served as a base for the brick chimney. It had a separate outside entrance and a window on the west side.

Peter “Lordly” Verigin’s retreat house in Brilliant, British Columbia. ISKRA.

With Mr. Verigin’s main residence near the business section of Brilliant proper below, this new house on the hillside above was used by him as a place where he met special visitors and friends and a place to rest and relax. Some of his writings were done there in the quiet atmosphere of its location, at times late into the night.

The house was located almost on the same level of the hillside and a short distance from the home of Vasily Lukianovich and his family who looked after the new building with its colorful gardens. The family also maintained an apiary of no less than 60 beehives for the communities.

More than ever, during that period in the 1920’s life in the communities honoured with pride Peter Lordly Verigin’s slogan, “Toil and Peaceful Life”. Under his administration, not only did they show exceptional accomplishments needed for their daily lives, they also were on the threshold of retiring all their financial debts.

Among occasional problems that occurred in the villages, most were resolved with tolerant appeals for common sense and understanding. There were also occasions Lordly Verigin was asked to help with advice.

At times a disrupting threat to the villagers came from a small group of people who broke away from The Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood a few years after the Doukhobors arrived from Russia in 1899 to settle in Saskatchewan. Among the Doukhobors this group was commonly called “nudes”. Later they became more known as Freedomites.

These people, whose closest residence to Brilliant was three miles away in Thrums, often harassed the villagers by disrupting their meetings with heckling and stripping nude. Many times Mr. Verigin would help his members to manually escort these nudes from their meetings after they forced their way inside.

A small Freedomite settlement in Thrums was alongside several farmers among whom were some (Independents) who left the communities through disagreements. Although some farmers befriended the Freedomites, they were shocked to see three Freedomite women that lived nearby, quickly disrobe and standing stark naked to watch an airplane fly by in 1919.

It was Sunday, April 20, 1924, after attending a morning prayer meeting Vasily Lukianovich and his wife were enjoying their usual Sunday rest with their children when suddenly they heard a loud female voice singing by Mr. Verigin’s house. They all ran to the vacant house to search for the intruder and found a nude Freedomite woman, who they recognized, hiding behind a linen drape hanging on the veranda.

They pleaded with her to leave in peace and return home to Thrums, but she refused to leave. With fears she would damage the house, they sent word to the villages for help. Their neighbours arrived with a team of horses harnessed to a wagon, loaded the female intruder on it and took her home in Thrums.

When Vasily Lukianovich and his family went to bed that same Sunday night after a very disturbing day that appeared to have ended peacefully, they did not expect a loud hammering on their door after midnight and hear a loud voice yelling that Mr. Verigin’s house was on fire. It was a guard from Brilliant, Nikolai Lebedoff, who saw the flames spreading through the house and rushed there to try help save it. They ran to the burning building and with garden hoses poured water on the blaze while more people from nearby villages came running to help, without success.

With the frightful fire so close to their house, the children were terrified. And as the light from the nearby flames shone through their windows and flickered brightly on the walls and floor in their house the terrified children began to fear their own house would also be attacked by arsonists. Their fears rose to helpless panic, and in desperation to at least save some family valuables, 12 year old Lucy, their second youngest daughter, grabbed her father’s special box that contained valuable correspondence and writings they all treasured and with it she ran to hillside bushes to protect and hide it.

The flames from the burning house on the hillside were visible for miles around when suddenly it was discovered that the Brilliant school and two Ootishenia schools were also in flames.

The following day it was noted that the three schools and the house were set on fire at about the same time, indicating that several terrorists had done it.

The three schools were valued at $1,500 each while the value of Mr. Verigin’s house was estimated at $2,500. Not included in the house value was fine furniture and irreplaceable books, correspondence, writings and other personal items. Heirloom rugs alone were valued at more than $600 in 1924.

The night before this happened in Brilliant a school in Grand Forks was set a fire but was saved before fire spread.

While these unfortunate events were happening, CCUB president Peter Lordly Verigin was away on business on the prairies. Following the fires he was notified and immediately he returned to Brilliant.

Another view of the “Besedushka” in Brilliant, British Columbia prior to its destruction by arson, 1924.  British Columbia Archives, Koozma Tarasoff Collection.

While community Doukhobors with emotion condemned the Freedomite terrorists and vowed not to let them enter their settlements for any reason whatsoever, Mr. Verigin studied the situation, and four days after these attacks, he sent an appeal to the Premier of British Columbia John Oliver for assistance to stop Freedomite attacks on schools and community property.

In his letter dated April 25, 1924 he wrote the premier: “Last Sunday night towards Monday morning, April 21, a lot of buildings were burned in the Doukhobor Colony at Brilliant, namely three schools and a small house of mine which was built on a rock about two years ago with beautiful architecture.”

In his lengthy letter Mr. Verigin explained that since the arrival of the Doukhobors to Canada in 1899 “different opinions were formed in the Doukhobor Society result of which three parties came out.” Almost in detail he addressed many differences of these parties. Describing the parties he said the first party was under his control and carries the name of The Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood. “. . . This party is upkeeping the principle, religion, and customs which the Doukhobors I have had in Russia.”

The Second Party he pointed out are “the people who left the Doukhobor Society (to become independent farmers) and have accepted the homesteads in the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta and became British subjects.”

Describing the Third Party that became more known later as Freedomites, he said: “The Third Party, although very small in number that left the Doukhobor Society under the name “Nudes” are absolutely anarchists acknowledging no moral laws, desire to work nothing, hatefully looking on all the cultured progressive arrangements …”

Such party is under suspicion are the ones who is setting fire amongst Doukhobor Colonies in British Columbia.” “… I have decided to bring to your notice and respectfully ask you to remove this party from nearby community settlements otherwise these people are threatening to start burning the good arrangements as possessed by the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood. I am very much surprised that the setting a fire to schools had been started sometime ago and the government does not take any steps whatever in order to punish the guilty ones …”

Further in his letter he pointed out that, “There will be about 20 or not more than 30 of such people who are living around the Community Colonies.”

Mr. Verigin concluded his letter with these words: “If the government will appoint an Inspectorate to pick out the “Nudes” or in other words anarchists, I will give exact list of names and surnames of such people. I beg to remain with the hope that you will take quick action on my report. Respectfully yours,
(Signed) Peter Verigin, President”

Upon receiving Mr. Verigin’s letter desperately asking for protection against the Nudes’ (Freedomites’) violent attacks on schools and buildings in the Doukhobor communities, it is not known how the 67 year old B.C. Premier John Oliver planned to respond although he apparently viewed the trouble with Freedomites as “incomprehensible”.

What is known is he and his Liberal party were heavily involved in preparations for an approaching provincial election less than two months away. That election on June 20, 1924 saw all campaigning political party leaders defeated including John Oliver although his Liberal party won enough seats to form a minority government.

To return as head of the B.C. Liberal Party and Premier of the province, Mr. Oliver ran in a by-election in Nelson where he defeated a local candidate. Harry Houston, and triumphantly returned home to Victoria to remain as provincial premier until he died on August 17, 1927 from incurable cancer.

Today it appears the only historical evidence of that fateful day of April 21, 1924 is found in Mr. Peter Lordly Verigin’s letter in the provincial government archives and the surviving concrete foundation just below Verigin’s Tomb and above the newly constructed road of the Brilliant Interchange as seen daily by motorists travelling north across the Kootenay River bridge between Ootishenia and Brilliant.

Writer’s Note: A lot of information for this story came from my wife’s (Lucy) grandparents Vasily and Margaret Verigin’s family members.

The Doukhobor: A Community Race in Canada

by Victoria Hayward and Edith S. Watson

In 1918, writer Victoria Hayward (1876-1958) and photographer Edith S. Watson (1861-1943) received permission from Peter ‘Lordly’ Verigin to visit the Doukhobors in their communes in Saskatchewan and British Columbia.  The women spent much of the next three summers with them in 1918, 1919 and 1920.  They shared the Doukhobor way of life and recorded that life, through written word and photograph.  Afterwards, the traveling companions published an account of their experiences in the book, “Romantic Canada” (Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada, Ltd., 1922). The following excerpt contains their observations about Doukhobor communal life.  The accompanying photographs are reproduced by permission from “Romantic Canada”; from “Working Light: The Wandering Life of Photographer Edith S. Watson” by Frances Rooney (Carleton University Press: 1996); and the Nellie Voykin private collection.  Together, they capture glimpses of the Doukhobors rarely seen by the outside world.

In the Russian Doukhobor settlements of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia, the Canadian West houses the Community-life of a curious religious sect. Through them it may be said that Canada is perhaps the only country in the world outside Russia having a very intimate living, human-interest acquaintance with the Slav on the land the only country presenting an opportunity to study him in his daily life. And what pictures this life does make! Not even Old Russia has just such pictures, for although the Doukhobor is Russian the religion of these peasants in British Columbia gives them a certain distinction and grace of their own, shearing the elements of coarseness from even ordinarily coarse work. Indeed a rare dignity attends the individual Doukhobor as it attends the transaction of all work and all business involving the people of one “village” with those of another.

In a Community door yard, Brilliant, BC, c. 1919.  Photo by Edith S. Watson, Romantic Canada.

As religion is the foundation on which the very existence of these people is laid; as it was religion which brought them into existence as a separate people; as it was the source of all their difficulties with the government of the Czars, and as it was the immediate motive which brought them to Canada “the Promised Land” some twenty years ago, it is necessary here very briefly to touch upon the chief item of the Doukhobor Faith. And this can best be done by giving an example.

Romance seems to have reached idealism indeed when one of these peasants here on the uplands of a British Columbia valley meeting another on the highway, lifts his hat and makes a ceremonial bow a bow arresting and almost Eastern in its slow dignity. The habitant of Quebec is hardly so solemn in making his obeisance to the roadside calvary. Yet these men are in a hurry, too. Work presses.

Questioning them as to this ceremonial greeting brought out the fact that the Doukhobor believes first of all that Jesus is actually a living presence, alive in every human being! All other articles of the Faith it appears are merely the natural sequence of this condition. One man bows to the Christ-spirit in the other, rather than to the man himself. He bows in reality exactly as the habitant, man or boy does to the beautiful thing that is symbolized by the roadside Cross. Life is a Universal brotherhood, to the Doukhobor hence the Community idea in which all share alike. Peasants often lay hold of many elemental facts and ideas of religion and holy things as to which other people are, for some reason, more timid. There is the world-famous example of the peasant rendering of the “Passion”, at Oberamergau [Germany].

The Doukhobor community owns a large commercial jam factory, but each housewife likes to make her own jam and dry her own fruit, BC, c. 1919.  Photo by Edith S. Watson, Working Light.

The Doukhobor talks about Jesus with the sweet simplicity of a child. A swift shade of surprise, as quickly gone, flits across the gentle face of any of them that you question as to how they get along without such institutions as poor-houses, old peoples’ homes, asylums, jails, etc. They tell you the idea of “the Spirit of Jesus in all men”, simply lived, prevents all the sins of the Decalogue and so renders these institutions unnecessary. For this reason, they explain, they object to military service because they believe that in killing a man they are killing Jesus. They go even further, claiming that even the taking of animal life for food is contrary to the spirit of God, and therefore sinful ; so that they are vegetarian not because they think vegetables more wholesome, but because they know meat and fish can only be achieved by the destruction of a life. In this matter their belief is carried out to the letter. Some of the old folk even now find it difficult to kill flies. And it was only after a long time and many inroads on the precious grain that they could be induced to kill rats and gophers.

Legally the Doukhobors have now exchanged the name “Doukhobor” for a name in English. They call themselves in all business dealings “The Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood Ltd”. “Doukhobor” is, strictly speaking, their religious name, only.

Peter ‘Lordly’ Verigin instructs group of BC Doukhobor men who arrived in Verigin, SK to assist with the harvest. Photo by Edith S. Watson, Working Light.

Neighbors however will always call them “The Douks.” Brilliant, Grand Forks and Verigin, their three outstanding settlements, are worth in the neighborhood of five million dollars; and approximately eight to ten thousand persons abide in these settlements, the largest successful “Community” settlement in the world. Its success, as against many another attempt at Utopia that has failed, is undoubtedly due to the fact that it is founded on a basis of simple religious faith rather than either a colonization scheme or a business trust.

In the settlements, the houses are set up in groups of twos. Local wit aptly calls these “the twins”. The Doukhobors themselves call these groups “villages”. Each village contains anywhere from thirty to fifty people who are apportioned a certain amount of land for culture. The women in these villages take a hand in all work, at home and in the fields.

An apple paring bee, Brilliant, BC, c. 1919.  Photo by Edith S. Watson, Working Light.

Stepping through the big Russian gateway into one of the yards, or all of them, reveals an almost interminable series of tableaux of heroic significance. Women with sieves in hand play them, full of seed, millet, etc., above their heads as dancing-girls the tambourine, in an effort to scatter the chaff on the breeze. Under their feet tarpaulin is spread to receive the grain or the seeds. From some doorway an old woman appears, with a broom of dried twigs, and brushes up a circle or a corner whereon to lay a mat. Laying aside the broom, she disappears around some corner to return with voluminous apron stuffed with beans in the pod. Sitting down on the mat she begins to belabour the beans with a billet of wood. Thus the shelling is accomplished. Two women appear carrying a plank between them. Presently they come again with a tub of apples already cut, and these they carefully spread to dry on the plank already brought. A mother appears out of a door, plotok (kerchief) on her head, a cup in hand, and begins to feed from the cup a little boy, with bread-and-milk, in which there is a dash of mustard. Other women are picking over tomatoes on the porch-floor. The cook for the week appears in the doorway of the great community-kitchen, seeking a momentary rest for her eyes, so long centred on her pots and pans with their contents, in the life and scenes going on in the yard. In the sun an old grandfather warms himself as he amuses his old age with making wooden spoons. Over there, two boys with their heads together are making a pair of nut-crackers by hammering two long wire nails into shape. Everywhere, there are flowers.

When the tasks in the yard are completed the women repair to the fields; or, on other days the field work comes first.

Polly Kanigan holding daughter Nellie, c. 1919.  Photo by Edith S. Watson, Nellie Voykin Collection.

Note stamp mark of Edith S. Watson on back of photo. Nellie Voykin Collection.

Here is a group of women in a field of sunflowers, some passing from plant to plant plucking the seed-discs into their aprons and carrying them to a group of women and children sitting about a big mat. This scene resembles some religious festival, the women and girls with white plotoks on their heads and sticks in their hands beating, on the reverse side of the seed-plate and the seeds falling, like a rain, in a drift on the old tarpaulin.

Sunflowers seeds are the peanuts of this people, unaccustomed, as they are, to candy. Shy children met on the highways, overcoming their shyness, and falling into step by your side, offer you little handfuls of sunflower-seeds drawn from their stuffed pockets.

And when men or women go on long journeys afoot they always take with them a supply of these seeds to munch by the way. As one chats with the sunflower harvesters, the bright figures of the clover-seed gatherers flit in the upland-climbing clover fields; and among the leafy green on the mile-stretching orchards of plum, apple and peach are to be seen the carts, the pickers and the boxers all working together like bees in a hive.

Doukhobor children lending a hand at watering the garden, Brilliant, BC, c. 1919. (l-r) Masha (nee Kanigan) Jmaeff, Nellie (nee Kanigan) Voykin. Photo by Edith S. Watson, Nellie Voykin Collection.

Note stamp mark of Edith S. Watson on back of photo. Nellie Voykin Collection.

Everywhere children accompany their elders, naturally imitating with their tiny fingers the tasks of the larger hand. Thus, quite easily, the children learn, and, learning, look upon work as pleasurable. A Doukhobor child is seldom or never told to do any especial task. They simply fall in, of their own accord. The Douks are very gentle with their children and a child is as free to speak, and is listened to with as much courtesy, as an elder. This applies in “church” as well as in the daily life.

The flowers growing everywhere in the dooryards and in every little pocket of soil here and there on the edges of the orchards and flanking the vegetable gardens, are explained, when one happens on the bee-hives in some sheltered nook of more or less every “village”. The Doukhobors place honey on the market and it is a stand-by on the home tables.

The interior of the “twins” presents no fewer pictures than the yards and the fields. The kitchen and the living room occupy all of the ground-floor. The kitchen is always a large room. In the middle of it stands an enormous brick oven wherein are baked innumerable loaves of brown bread. These loaves are always round and, for size, put to shame the “big loaf” of Quebec. After the bread is done, the pans are lined with straw, and, filled with fruit, are replaced in the cavernous mouth till the oven is full. Thus pears and apples are dried for the home-table. The dining-table is a long board resembling a giant carpenter’s bench and painted an art-red, standing across one end of the big room. Long benches serve the big table in lieu of chairs.

Doukhobor communal village, Brilliant, BC, c. 1919.  Photo by Edith S. Watson, Working Light.

The chief stand-by on the Doukhobor menu, as seems to be the custom with peasants everywhere, is soup. In this respect one is carried back to the habitant table of Quebec. But here the soup is solely vegetable, fat being supplied by butter which makes this Russian borsch more delicate in flavour than la soupe of the habitant. Butter is the one Doukhobor extravagance.

Pancakes, with jam or honey, boiled millet-and-butter, sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, big slices of the Russian brown bread, all sorts of vegetable pies, beets, carrots, cheese, little triangles blanketed in a pastry of millet or a mixture of brown flour and white, make up one of these vegetable meals, all being completed by unlimited draughts of Russian tea sweetened and flavoured with raspberry or black-currant jam. The women take turns at the cooking, a week at a time, and as there are usually six or seven women in each village, no woman is worn-out at the stove, but each has a six-week interval before the wheel of time brings her turn round again.

In this time her spare moments are filled with knitting, making rugs for her room, spinning and weaving, and embroidering her own or her children’s plotoks or kerchiefs. The Doukhobor women are especially clever at all work of this kind, showing exquisite taste in the selection and blending of colours in their rug-making. Occasionally one of the older women brings out to show you, a Turkish rug which she wove, in conjunction with a Turkish woman, at the time, when, by the Czar’s decree they were banished to the wild parts of Southern Russia bordering on Turkey; in the hope, perhaps, that the Turks would put them to the sword. Instead, it seems the women of each side took to making rugs together.

Domesticity. Photo by Edith S. Watson, Romantic Canada.

In the threshing of straw into a fine powder, to help-out in feeding horses and cattle, a peculiar kind of instrument is used, consisting of a board, its under-side teethed with sharp stones. This instrument the Doukhobor men tell you they learned how to make from the Turkish men, so it is evident that the men of both sides fraternized, as well as the women. It seems strange indeed to happen on these things in Western Canada, until we remember that Romance knows no political or racial boundaries; that there is a great sisterhood in spinning and weaving, in embroidery, in rug-making, and in home-making everywhere.

No phase of this Community life is more Russian or Tolstoyan in appearance than the great threshing-floor, in the centre of the Settlement, at Brilliant, B.C.

The action of threshing is like that of a chariot-race, with the driver on board the drags, and the horses racing in pairs, one behind the other, round and round the large, circular earthen floor, in which the dust of the flying chaff arises and half conceals horse and driver, passing in a whirl. Ten minutes of this and the man in charge signals a halt. Each horse is then given a bucket of water and a new driver takes the place of the old. These drivers are usually mere boys, entering into the race with all a boy’s excitement in the sport.

Doukhobor women winnowing, Brilliant, BC, c. 1919.  Photo by Edith S. Watson, Romantic Canada.

While the horses are resting, the older men come out with pitchforks made from forked branches cut in the woods, and shake up the chaff, the heavier wheat falling to the bottom. After the race has gone on for several hours or until all the grain has escaped from its tiny straw-sack, these men pitch the chaff to one side, and the wheat is swept up and carried off in the big carts, to store in the community-granary till it goes to mill.

Early in the morning of a Sunday when daylight still leaves the shadows deep under the fruit-trees in the orchard, and the grass is wet and the air full of the dewy freshness that only melts with the sun, the Doukhobors may be seen a figure or two at a time stepping lightly under the apple-trees, clad in their homespun suits of bleached linen, the men in their Russian blouses and bareheaded, the women in full skirts, and tight “bodies” with snowy plotoks on their heads, all barefooted, all converging upon the church. Inside, gravely bowing, the men range down one side of the empty
room and the women line up on the other. In the centre of the aisle between, stands a table always supplied with a little dish of salt, a loaf of bread, and a jug of water, the three elements that are the Trinity of life. In season, these three simple elements are supplemented by offerings of a plate of the most perfect specimens of tomatoes, a plate of the finest peaches, another of the largest plums, a full-grown watermelon, and a bunch of asters. This dash of colour against the simple purity of the white linen suits of the congregation is indeed effective.

Masha Kanigan at her spinning wheel, c. 1919.  Photo by Edith S. Watson, Nellie Voykin Collection.

Note stamp mark of Edith S. Watson on back of photo. Nellie Voykin Collection.

The Doukhobors are very fond of singing, and this carries one back to the daily life in the “villages”. For at almost every meal the Doukhobors, in addition to saying a solemn “grace”, end the meal with the singing of old religious chants. At the evening meal in particular the singing is never omitted. It is worth while going among these people just to listen to this sweet community part-singing gathering in volume as it goes rolling through the miles of the “Valley of Consolation” caught up from village to village, and borne away on the romantic wings of the dusk enfolding the mountains, the rushing river and the orchards.

The garments of linen worn as the ceremonial dress at these early Sunday morning services, are the offering upon the altar, as it were, of the epic of flax. The Doukhobor women though “Doukhobor” in religion are Russians in their knowledge of flax. This knowledge is their own special contribution to Canada. Other wheat-wizards there are, other masters of mixed-farming, other specialists in stock, others who would find them children at the fishing. Perhaps no Doukhobor has ever been a sailor, (because this is a strictly earth-loving people) but nowhere else in Canada is the complete story of flax, from the seed to wearing of the woven linen, to be come upon, without moving outside a settlement! Flax knowledge is the Doukhobors’ gift to Canada but up to this time, apparently, there has been no attempt to employ these people as
Flax-teachers.

Pulling flax, Verigin, SK, c. 1919.  Photo by Edith S. Watson, Working Light.

In the fields at Verigin one comes upon the figure of a woman stooping over and seizing in her strong hands a full handful of the tall plants. These she pulls and ties with a twist of green into a sheaf. “Flax must be pulled”, she tells you. In response to inquiry as to the quality and length of the fibre in this Canadian flax, she raises herself to rest awhile, and drawing a wisp through her fingers says half-reminiscently “Oh, good, vera good. Vera long fibre.”

The British Columbia woman “rets” her flax in the river. And she keeps the swift current from running away with her precious plants, by weighing them down with the rounded river-stones, the smoothed product of the ice-age. These smooth stones serve the Indian-woman as pestles for the stump-mortar wherein she grinds her corn, and this Russian woman turns them to service for anchoring her flax, as though they were made to order. A week or ten days and the flax, now clear of all wood-fibre, is given the final washing and then carried up the steep bank of the river to sway in the wind, the while it dries on some “village” clothes-line. After this it comes into the hands of the heckler and the spinner, in every odd moment between drying fruit, picking beans, winnowing seeds, gathering aprons full of ripened millet and the thousand and one tasks the hand finds to do on these almost self-supporting farms.

Washing flax in the Columbia, Brilliant, BC, c. 1919.  Photo by Edith S. Watson, Romantic Canada.

The spinning-wheel is as common in every household here as in Quebec. Indeed, in the big yards, one often happens on several women at their wheels, while indoors, other women are sitting at the big handmade loom that their husbands have concocted of the B. C. cedar log. The Russian flax-wheel appears smaller than the wheel of de laine in Quebec. But its whirr and blurr of action is no less musical and rapid, and its measure of spun thread as long. The only difference between the spinners of the East and West is that the Russian woman spins flax and her habitant sister wool.

The Doukhobor woman is also a spinner of wool but as yet the keeping of sheep on the Doukheries is in its infancy.

The Russian woman’s flax-wheel is light so that she can easily take it under her arm, spinning here or there, as she wishes, indoor or out. In the heat of the midsummer day, when work in the fields is only pursued early in the morning or in the late afternoon, you find her spinning in her bedroom or on the porch. Or she sits out of doors among the flowers abloom in her dooryard enjoying the blossoms and the shade thrown by peach-trees laden boughs bending, a symphony in fruit, to lay themselves across the heart of their Earth-mother. Indoors, the blur of the flying shuttle hums a minor accompaniment to the song of the bees busily planing from flower to flower, gathering up the nectar, that, as honey, is later to come to home tables. Then some morning the bolt of linen is finished, the linen that will, with ordinary care, long outlive the women whose industry has brought it into being.

Notes

For more Doukhobor writings and photos by Victoria Hayward and Edith S. Watson, see Doukhobor Farms Supply All Needs, reproduced from their 1919 newspaper article (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, November 22, 1919) which examines the agricultural self-sufficiency of the Doukhobor community in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

Special thanks to Corinne Postnikoff of Castlegar, British Columbia for locating and submitting the Nellie Voykin collection of Edith S. Watson prints.

Memories of Orchards and Raspberries at Raspberry Village, British Columbia

by William M. Rozinkin

In 1932, Community Doukhobors established a village settlement across the Columbia River from Castlegar, British Columbia. Situated near a large communal raspberry plantation, they named it Malinvoye, meaning “raspberry” in Russian. It was considered a “model” village in layout and construction. The following article by Kootenay resident and historian William M. Rozinkin (1923-2007) recalls memories of orchards and raspberries in the community known today as Raspberry, British Columbia. Reproduced by permission from ISKRA No. 1844 (December 17, 1997). Photos by Greg Nesteroff.

It was soon after Peter Chistiakov Verigin arrived in Canada from Russia to accept the leadership post of the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood in 1927 that the Doukhobor community acquired a forested area near the Robson ferry landing for a new village settlement. The new brick village was to be known as the Raspberry Village. It would stand looking across the Columbia River at Castlegar.

Before village construction began, land clearing was well under way and in 1929, men and teen-aged boys started planting fruit-tree saplings on the newly cleared land. Gradually, the trees of the forest were replaced with fruit trees that would, in time, mature to bear apples, pears, peaches, apricots, cherries, and sour cherries, along with several varieties of berries for the community.

Raspberry Village as it looks today.  It is one of the few survivors whose history can be linked with memories of the early years of Castlegar, Robson, Brilliant and the Robson-Castlegar ferry. Photo by Greg Nesteroff.

After the trees were planted, they were watered by dozens of teenaged girls who came from Brilliant and Ootischenia to help. For several days they carried countless pails of water from the Columbia River to give each newly planted young tree a full pail.

Nastia Ivanovna Masloff of Ootischenia, who was one of the teenagers at that time, still remembers how she worked with her many friends, carrying water for the young trees. Mr. Verigin was in charge of the whole operation, while Gaston Pozdnikoff supervised their work in the new orchard, she said. It was after days of labour that the project of planting and watering came to an end.

On the final day, Mr. Verigin invited all the working girls to come to Brilliant and all of them together — the girls, Mr. Verigin, and Mr. Pozdnikoff, walked from the place of their work close to the Robson ferry landing, to the courtyard of his residence where Brilliant villagers had prepared a nice supper for all of them. It was served outdoors on two long tables specially set for the occasion.

After the meal was finished, Mr. Verigin gave an inspiring speech that stressed the importance of the need for cooperation among people to work together. When people work in harmony, together they can accomplish great things in life, just as you have done during the last several days, he said, and thanked them for their dedicated hard work.

Mr. Verigin, who was the president of the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood, also explained the important need to enlarge the community orchards and showed his gratitude for their help as he walked around the tables and gave each girl a five dollar bill. Mrs. Masloff recently recalled the planted orchard, the supper, and the five dollar bill he gave her and her friends. “He suggested that we could buy nice clothing for ourselves with the money, which we accepted with sincere gratitude. It was during the Canadian Depression years and five dollars was a lot of money,” she said.

Following the construction of the village in 1932, that was named after the raspberry plantation nearby, several families with their children, from Brilliant, came to live in it and take care of the orchards, gardens and berry bearing bushes and plants. They were: Peter Relkoff family, Fred Relkoff family, William Makortoff family, Peter Makortoff family, William Sherstobitoff family, and Mike Sherstobitoff family. William Evdokimoff family also came to stay for a short period of time.

The new village also had a new water system that used wooden pipes made in the community’s wooden pipe factory located in the industrial complex of Kamennoye in Ootischenia, along the shores of the Kootenay River. Those pipes served the village for many years and irrigated the orchards that the teen-aged girls first watered by carrying pails of water from the Columbia River.

Close-up of the right (east) Raspberry Village dom. Photo by Greg Nesteroff.

In 1967 I visited 88-year-old John J. Popoff, who had worked in the wooden pipe factory and 78-year-old William A. Makortoff, who was living in the Raspberry Village at that time, along with Peter A. Reibin (79), who worked on many community projects, and they all agreed that the water pipes used for the water supply line from the Pass Creek intake for the village were indeed the last ones made at the factory at the beginning of the 1930’s. This factory began its operations in 1915, just 11 years after the first wooden pipe factory was built in Canada. It ceased operations in Kamennoye after all community water works were completed to about 90 villages.

With its good water supply the village provided agricultural work for its residents, who not only grew farm produce for themselves but also took wagonloads of fruit to the Brilliant fruit packing house, along with cherries, plums, peaches, apricots, raspberries, strawberries and other berries to the Kootenay-Columbia Jam Factory, also in Brilliant, where jam-making facilities were doubled from twelve jam-making kettles to twenty-four kettles under Mr. Verigin’s administration.

But those were the hard years of the ’30s marked with great unemployment that gripped Canada and became known as the times of the great Canadian Depression that also affected the CC of UB income which fell drastically. Adding to this hardship were the Freedomite attacks on community property which increased at this time. Among these attacks, under the darkness of night, was the bombing of the Brilliant water-line in 1932, the year families with children were moving into the new village. Many other depredations included their destruction of the Grand Forks CC of UB Jam Factory in 1935, and later, a sawmill and planer-mill in Glade, both of which were important revenue producing operations.

It appears all this contributed in its own way to the collapse of needed financial support for the survival of the Doukhobor communities of the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood in 1938-39. Events that followed subsequently led to the B.C. Government Land Settlement Board offering all former CC of UB property and lands for sale back to interested community residents, after it was subdivided into lots and parcels.

The years that followed saw the Raspberry Village with its orchards, buildings, and lands being acquired for private individual ownership, just like the rest of the community lands and buildings in other regions and districts. Construction of homes in the Raspberry subdivision started in 1962 when Alex A. Pereverzoff and his wife Nancy were first attracted to that area and started to build their home for their family of four children. Shortly after, Sam and Pauline Kalesnikoff followed them and purchased land for their family home.  Other homes followed and each one was connected to the original village water-line. As needs and problems grew, it was necessary to replace the old water system. To meet their needs, homeowners in the subdivision organized themselves, and had another pipeline built to bring water from another source. Today more than one hundred homeowners identify their homes as being in the Raspberry Village subdivision.

Close-up of the left (west) Raspberry Village dom. Note modified front entrance. Photo by Greg Nesteroff.

The brick village itself also saw changes when it was bought by private individuals and remodelled to accommodate living and care facilities for the aged and infirm. It served those who were in need of this care for several years before closing its doors.  George W. Rilkoff is one of many who lives in that area and remembers the orchards, raspberries and gardens that used to grace those many acres. After living there for more than 30 years, he saw many changes, including fruit trees removed to make room for new homes, and said that today only a few fruit trees survive from the original orchard.

Recently I visited Alex Petrovich and Nellie Petrovna Verigin whose home is near the village. When Nellie was eight years old, she came with her parents, Peter and Martha Relkoff, to live in the newly constructed village in 1932. There were four children in that family, Helen, Peter, Laura and her. Today she remembers life in that village, the orchards, the fertile land above the village with its plantations of raspberries, strawberries, and rows of black currants, along with large vegetable and watermelon gardens.

Everybody, including children, worked hard, especially when berries ripened in the summer. Often, within hours of picking the fresh-ripened berries, special wooden pails were filled with them and delivered by horse and wagon to the Brilliant Jam Factory, because berry and fruit freshness contributed greatly to the exceptional quality of the jam, she said. She also added with a smile, that it was not uncommon for them to sing folk songs and happy hymns while working, for it added a bit of fun to the work.

The village also had a small fruit-packing shed. When fruit ripened it was packed into crates and taken with other farm produce on a remodelled light delivery truck to be sold door-to-door in Trail. Andrew Abetkoff and Mike Sherstobitoff usually took care of this work. While most of the fruit was taken by wagon to the CC of UB packing house in Brilliant for shipments to prairie markets, this small venture brought additional revenue for the Doukhobor community that was striving to meet its mortgage and tax payments during those years of unemployment.

Nellie Petrovna Verigin also recalled her school days that saw all her school-aged friends walking a mile on the gravel highway to the new Brilliant brick school on the corner where the Pass Creek road meets the highway.

With Peter Chistiakov Verigin being a strong supporter of education, construction of this school by the CC of UB began immediately after the Raspberry Village was finished. It had two classrooms and, between them, private living quarters for the two teachers. When the school opened its doors in 1934, the two teachers, Margaret MacDonald and Eileen Horswill, were there when pupils from Brilliant and Raspberry Village filled the two classrooms to study in grades that ranged from one to eight.

On the way to school, village children had to walk past rows of raspberries, also grown for the jam factory. These rows stretched from the highway bridge that was across the Pass Creek to the Pass Creek road junction, just below the school. This plantation was looked after by Brilliant community residents. Today, the only reminder of those raspberries that grew there is a sign that indicates the first exit from the highway to the residential homes that are just below the school. It reads, Raspberry Road.

It was 21 years after the village was built that its residents had a special celebration. The happy occasion was the wedding of John Ivanovich Verigin and Laura Petrovna Relkoff, on June 27, 1953. The wedding ceremony began at the bride’s family residence in the village and continued at the groom’s home in Brilliant, where hundreds of well-wishers and guests celebrated the happy occasion. (The ceremony was duplicated at the official Sirotskoye residence in Grand Forks on the next day, Sunday, June 28, 1953.)

For their close friends the wedding was a result of a budding and binding love that blossomed and saw the bride, who grew up in the Raspberry Village, marry the groom who was the grandson of Peter Chistiakov Verigin, under whose guidance that village was built. Both of them had attended classes in the Brilliant School that has since become more well-known as the Raspberry School.

Rear view of the original Raspberry Village doms facing south towards Castlegar. Photo by Greg Nesteroff.

The 1899 Manitoba and Northwestern Railway Dispute with the Doukhobors

by Victor O. Buyniak

Upon arriving on the Canadian Prairies in 1899, the Doukhobors were obliged, like many other immigrants, to look for employment to supplement their income.  Railway construction was the major source of work for the majority of the able bodied men.  However, during their first summer of employment, disputes arose between the Doukhobors and railway companies, due to inadequate knowledge of each other and mutual mistrust.  This was exacerbated by those working on the Doukhobors’ behalf who had knowledge of the language, but not of the country, its laws, customs and ways of life.  The following article by Victor O. Buyniak, reproduced by permission from Saskatchewan History (40, 1987, No. 1), reveals that the Doukhobor railway workers were in practically the same position as any other new and inexperienced immigrants.  Once they became self-sufficient on their farms, they adapted to the rules and demands placed upon them and disputes with their employers ceased to occur.

By July 1899 most of the Doukhobor immigrants had arrived on the Prairies. A total of some 7,500 people settled in four colonies in what is now Saskatchewan. Some very influential individuals and organizations, including the writer, Leo Tolstoy, and the Society of Friends (Quakers), facilitated their exodus from Russia, and a number of prominent personalities accompanied the new immigrants to the land of their settlement. Among them were three men who became instrumental in arranging temporary employment for groups of Doukhobors at the Manitoba and Northwestern Railway Company in the summer and fall of 1899.

Arthur St. John, a former captain in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, was at one time in the Indian service. He resigned his commission, became a pacifist and Tolstoyan, and visited Tolstoy at his estate of Yasnaya Polyana in September 1897. Through Tolstoy he became acquainted with the Doukhobor cause, served as Tolstoy’s and the English Quakers’ envoy to them in the Caucasus, and brought the group, which was in dire material need, several thousand rubles that were collected for them by their sympathizers. The Russian authorities did not like St. John any more than they liked the unorthodox and non-conformist Doukhobors – he was arrested and expelled to Turkey for trying to cause foment among the group. Regardless of his unfortunate experience in Russia, St. John became a staunch supporter of the persecuted Doukhobors. He helped them at every occasion, interceded on their behalf vis-à-vis the British authorities regarding emigration from Russia, prepared the arrival of a party of Doukhobors in the summer of 1898 in Cyprus (their first relocation place), and, when this venture ended in failure, accompanied the Doukhobor exodus to Canada. He extended his unwavering support to the group at every opportunity in Canada, until his return to England.

Leopold Antonovich Sulerzhitsky (1872-1916), became acquainted with Tolstoy through the latter’s daughter Tatyana. He was an aristocrat but also a convinced anarchist-pacifist who had served a term in prison for refusing to take the oath in the army. He became a Tolstoyan, and together with St. John he visited the Doukhobors in the Caucasus during November 1897. Sulerzhitsky greatly facilitated the arrangements for the departure of the first shipload of Doukhobors from Batum, and accompanied them to Canada. Later he became an active associate of the Director Konstantin Stanislavsky in the Moscow Arts Theatre.

Alexander Mikhailovich Bodyansky (1842-1916), was essentially a different personality. A Russian nobleman, too, he had distributed his lands to his peasants and became a practicing Tolstoyan. He became personally acquainted with Tolstoy in August 1892. He was arrested by the authorities for spreading unorthodox religious views, and was exiled to Transcaucasia where he became acquainted with the Doukhobors. For some years he was to play a controversial role in Doukhobor affairs. From the Caucasus Bodyansky found his way to the Tolstoyan colony at Purleigh in Essex, England, but his eccentricities proved unendurable to his colleagues there. He was persuaded to leave the colony and went to Canada shortly after the arrival of the Doukhobors there. He was always full of plans and projects and tried actively to work on their behalf, although not asked by them to do so, and he helped notably to crystallize their discontent vis-à-vis the Canadian authorities. Eventually, he was asked to leave Canada, and returned to Russia.

Doukhobor railway construction crew, 1907. Photo courtesy Koozma J. Tarasoff.

In brief, these were the individuals who directed the Doukhobor working parties for the railroads in 1899. To supplement their families’ income, the Doukhobors were initially obliged, like many other immigrants, to look for employment on various outside projects. An intensive construction activity by railway companies in the Prairies was an obvious source of work for the Doukhobors during their first summer in Canada. In June 1899 Sulerzhitsky helped a group of men to contract some work for the extension of the Canadian Northern Railway line.

At first both sides were content: management, as well as the workers. The Superintendent of Immigration in the Department of the Interior in Ottawa, Frank Pedley, was quite satisfied with the reports of the Doukhobors’ industriousness, adaptability to new conditions and their work ethics. In a letter to H. Harley, the Sub-Agent of Dominion Lands, Swan River District, Dauphin, Manitoba, dated 27 October 1899, he mentions, among other things:

It is gratifying to know that Mr. Charles McDougal, the Contractor on the Canadian Northern Railway, found the Doukhobors employed by him such good labourers, and I have no doubt but that they will prove very desirable settlers for our Western Country.

Other positive testimony came from the Land Agent John Ashworth, who wrote to William Forsythe McCreary, the Commissioner of Immigration in Winnipeg, on 3 November 1899:

I also made inquiries from settlers in the districts I passed through and with a few exceptions they were quite satisfied with the Doukhobors and found them willing to work, in most cases giving complete satisfaction, in fact some preferred them to the Galicians

But everything appeared to go well only for a short time. Soon the men began to leave the work, complaining that they were able to earn very little. Sulerzhitsky, who “set out to investigate the situation,” found that at some swampy stretches of the construction the men were indeed underpaid for their work, but that the main cause of dissatisfaction about insufficient earnings was really the men’s loss of communal spirit: instead of contributing their entire wages to the community as a whole, they individually charged various expenses from their earnings for themselves and for their families. Sulerzhitsky managed to rectify the situation and the men went back to work.

But, only for a while, because friction again developed. During the fall of 1899, a group of Doukhobors, working on the Manitoba and Northwestern Railway Company of Canada’s extension west of Hamiota in Manitoba, felt that they had been mistreated by their superiors and began voicing their complaints. The leader of that particular group was Arthur St. John. Although he could easily communicate with the railway administration, the rules of employment were either not precise at the time, or he and his charges did not properly understand them. Moreover, working conditions in the swampy terrain were very hard and the pay was exceedingly low.

Since McCreary was from the start associated with the general planning of the Doukhobor migration to the Prairies, was always sympathetic to the new settlers’ needs and felt himself responsible for their well-being during the initial stage of their resettlement, their complaints and expressions of dissatisfaction about the working conditions were passed on to him first. He must have mentioned the complaints in a private letter to J. S. Smart, then the Deputy Minister of the Interior, because Pedley refers to this case in a letter he wrote to McCreary, on 23 November 1899. The letter in part stated,

… I beg to leave to say that the Doukhobors had better be given to understand that if they will not take the work that is offered them at fair wages for a fair day’s work, this Department does not propose to extend itself very much in giving them assistance during the coming year. There is no reason why the majority of the men should not, under present conditions, find abundance of work and thus be able to carry their families through the winter and be in a position to make a very satisfactory start on their homesteads in the spring. This should be made plain to them so that there will be no mistake whatever as to the position of the Department.

In December 1899 a dispute developed between Doukhobor workers and railway supervisory personnel, and the immigration officials were caught in the middle. McCreary got his information from J. S. Crerar, the Agent in Yorkton, the town nearest to the Doukhobor colonies. Apparently Crerar received a statement from St. John, registering the group’s complaint regarding the Hamiota incident. In the beginning of December, McCreary who had been notified earlier by Crerar, contacted the Office of the Engineer, Manitoba and Northwestern Railway Company of Canada, in Winnipeg, demanding an explanation.

This demand resulted in the Engineer’s ordering an investigation into the matter. The correspondence concerning this case is quite extensive: telegrams and letters from the Engineer, George H. Webster, to his Roadmaster in Portage la Prairie, Robert Walters, Webster’s communication with McCreary, McCreary’s with W. J. Pace, the Accountant to McGillivray and Company and to Pedley, and, of course, the most emotionally-charged part of the incident – the letters exchanged between McCreary and Bodyansky who was then in Yorkton.

To become acquainted with the history and the individual facts of the dispute it is best to furnish some key correspondence or excerpts from all the sides concerned. First, the point of view of the Doukhobors will be presented, on the basis of St. John’s and the workers’ relation to Bodyansky, and the latter’s interpretation of the incident. Bodyansky sent the following letter from Yorkton to McCreary, dated 16 December 1899:

It is very painful to me to say what I want to tell you, but it will be much more painful to me if I keep silent. I and my fellow-believers, the Doukhobors, we left our native land with a feeling of disgust for the cruelty and injustice which the Russian Government allows itself to practice. With the hope that in Canada, we should meet better organization and better men, in a land, where reigns the most enlightened nation, we came here, but to our great regret and disappointment our hope is far from being realized. We have met not a few people from the class which has a greater power in reality than any Government. I mean the class of capitalists, who are capable of such inhuman deeds that even the Russian government is not capable of. The latter Government behaves cruelly with its opponents, but those who bring advantages to it, many rely on its help and protection, but those capitalists, I speak of, and whose names are known to you, have shown that they are even capable of starving and freezing those “cows from whom they have taken milk.” You know Sir, what I mean. You know, that in October 150 men, Doukhobors, driven by want, consented to accept the offer of the Manitoba and Northwestern, and started off for Rapid City and Hamiota. I saw myself the way they were packed in, they were huddled up on freight cars – 75 men in a car and they were obliged to travel all the way standing up, as they were too crowded and unable to move. It is known that necessity will force a man to accept the hardest conditions. But what name deserve these people, who take advantage of the helpless condition of others to suck from them as much blood as possible? Can these people number among the civilized and enlightened nations? Can they be Christians; are they really those who are so reverent that consecrating the seventh day to God they neither allow themselves, or others, to attend to business.

The Railway Company of which I speak, did not only send the workmen like cattle – they did more than that. As you know the Company promised to take the workmen and bring them back free of charge; you know that not only the Company did not fulfill its promise, but mocked them in a senseless way. They sent them on foot in the frost over 20 miles, telling them that on the station the train would take them on. But at the station they were sent on foot again, on to another station, and these unfortunate men were doomed to walk 100 miles in the frost without warm clothes, without a cent of money and without bread! On the way they had to leave the sick and slept on the prairie in a heap of straw. When their brothers in Yorkton heard of this, we at once begged the railway company through the agent of the place to take pity on them, and then only the company condescendingly consented to comply to our request and to take up the sufferers in the train, on condition that the fare for their transport should be paid in advance. We collected amongst ourselves whatever we could and presented the money.

Another instance. At the end of November another company with Mr. McGillivray by way of sympathizing with the hard position of the Doukhobors, consented to employ 150 men. They were sent. Once on the spot they were obliged to draw themselves and to carry the supplies at a distance of 25 miles. They fell into the water, and got drenched, both they and their supplies, and finally when they reached the place of work, they found everywhere continuous woody frozen marsh. They were not asked to work per day, but per yard, on condition that they took all their supplies from Mr. McGillivray’s store. For their transport they were in debt of $8 for each man and they had not a cent to return. Just think. Sir, if it is not moral to catch wild beast with traps, then how about enticing industrious people and to take advantage of their flesh and blood, their muscular work – betray the trust of strangers, who came to this country to seek refuge and protection – all this constitutes such cruelty that I do not know what to compare it with. Just think, Sir, how many lives will be shortened through these hardships! And yet men are hanged for manslaughter and murder.

I have only reminded you of two glaring cases – as for the others just as sad, but with a small number of sufferers, they are so numerous that one might write a volume about them. Many of these cases are known to you, and more known to your subordinates.

To sum up, I must tell you that at the present moment, there are many sick Doukhobors, suffering from exhaustion and cold, and over a thousand men in the South Colony are on the verge of starvation.

The following reply was sent by McCreary to Bodyansky, dated 22 December 1899:

… It is now almost a year since the Doukhobors arrived here, and during that period I have laboured hard and earnestly to do the best I could to make these people self-supporting. In the first place, I procured the contract for those in the North Colony for clearing the Right-of-Way on the Swan River Extension. They were allowed about $13.40 per acre for this work, and still were dissatisfied, notwithstanding the fact that the same work could have been contracted for with English-speaking people at about $11 per acre; and that is the price at which it is now being done on the further extension of the same road.

I am quite aware that the corporations in this country have no souls, and that they exert every means to get the most labour for the least money out of English-speaking people as well as Doukhobors. However, we have got to take the situation just as we find it, and I think the Doukhobors have had as much fair play shown them as any other class.

Now, unfortunately, instead of encouraging the Doukhobors to get over those difficulties, and do the best they can under their adverse circumstances, St. John, as you know, is a pessimist and aggravates their discomforts and discouragements instead of cheerfully trying to get over them…. While I admit the Doukhobors have been imposed upon in many cases, I am also personally aware of many cases where the Doukhobors have acted in an extremely dishonourable manner towards employers….

Now, fortunately, some time ago I have received the complaint from Mr. Crerar about these Doukhobors having to walk from Shoal Lake. I at once sent a communication to the Manitoba and North-Western Railway people and they have answered in writing, and I beg to enclose the copy of their reply, which I trust you will either be able to refute or admit.

When your letter arrived, there came on the same day one from Mr. Pace, who is accountant for Mr. McGillivray, where 116 Doukhobors went. I enclose a copy of his reply as to their statements concerning them, which would indicate that St. John had magnified the matter very much. It was never intended that these people should go down by the day, but were to work by the yard at 17 per yard; camps to be furnished by McGillivray. My letters to St. John as well as my telegrams pointed this out clearly; and I intend asking St. John, when he returns here, whether he misinterpreted this matter to the Doukhobors – if so, it was his fault. When Mr. McGillivray came in, after the first 60 Doukhobors had gone down by the day, he said that they were so slow in their movements he would take no more on those terms. Consequently, I notified Mr. Crerar, Captain St. John and Dr. Weletchkina that no more Doukhobors could get winter work there. They seemed very disappointed, and asked me to make another effort. I did so and secured five miles of work, or about 150,000 yards, at 17 c[ents] per yard; and St. John perfectly understood it.

Now, if the Doukhobors are going to dissatisfy the Railway corporations in the manner shown in these communications, then do not be surprised if the Railway companies agree among themselves next year not to employ one single Doukhobor on all their works. Two years ago the Galicians commenced making the same complaints. The C.P.R took the matter up and told their Foreman to employ no more Galicians, and not to allow one of them to work between their rails all along their lines. I saw this was practically going to mean their starvation, because the Railway companies in this country employ most labour. I represented this to the Galicians, and they asked me to intercede to be given another chance. I saw the C.P.R. President, and he said that if they would agree to work as other men were working without continually leaving their employment and complaining without real cause, he would try them again. I then sent a letter to all the Galician Colonies, stating these facts. The consequence is that the Galicians have turned out to be better men and, as you know, are getting along well. It is surprising that some of these people who have only been in the country to a year and a half, and who came with no means whatever, have been able, out of their earnings, besides supporting their families, to accumulate five or six cows. I regret to say that they make much more progress than the Doukhobors.

One of the greatest drawbacks to the success of the Doukhobors is that some of the men in charge of them are not practical, and although they are supposed leaders, they do not know as much about work as the Doukhobors themselves. For instance, St. John, educated as a soldier, knows nothing about manual labour. How can he instruct others?

Now, the Doukhobors have got to be told, and told very plainly, that they have to take such work as is offered them and be content with the same treatment as is being given to English-speaking people. You know, if you know anything about railroading, that 17 c[ents] a yard, is a good price for station work. They can board themselves; be their own bosses, and work as they desire. What more can I do? I am about tired and sick of fighting with contractors and others in the interests of these people, and if they are not satisfied with my exertions, then I will just wash my hands off the whole lot, as there are occasions when forbearance ceases to be a virtue….

St. John will be here in a couple of days, and I intend reading him your report, and, if necessary, I will go back with him to this work, inspect it myself and take sworn affidavits from the Doukhobors themselves, as well as from the other English-speaking men working along the line, and endeavour to get at the actual facts. I trust, however, this will not be necessary….

The following letters or excerpts may serve as supporting material representing the side of railway companies and contractors. In a short letter, dated 16 December 1899, the Engineer George H. Webster asked Robert Walters, the roadmaster for a detailed explanation of the incident. He received the following reply,

Regarding the attached, Mr. Crerar seems to have only one side of the story. These men in question were kept after the rest were laid off and I arranged with St. John and the men, to stay until the work was completed and he would give them transportation to Yorkton. The men did not fulfill their promise, but quit their work of their own accord, and left me without a man to fix the track. They stopped the work-train coming in from the front, and got on her and rode to Hamiota. I arrived in Hamiota the same night from the East and saw Duncan, the Foreman, and Martin, the Interpreter, and both told me that the men would work no longer, but wanted to go to Yorkton. Both Duncan and Martin told me that the men would do just as they thought fit, work as they chose. Eight and ten of them would be in the Scrub at a time, three and four times a day. If the Foreman told them to hurry up and get ties packed and dirt cast into the tracks, they would offer him the shovel and tell him to hurry up. They told the Foreman and the Interpreter that they have nothing to do with them. I wanted these men in the worst way, at that time, and I felt as though, walking to Yorkton was too good for them. They should have been horsewhipped for leaving this work and acting the way they did. I consider them the worst lot of men I have ever had, and have had more trouble with Doukhobors and their Interpreters, this summer, than I have had with Galicians for three years. Doukhobors expect a Railway Company to nurse them and feed them with a spoon, let them do as they choose, stand, sit and lay down on the work. I consider them the most expensive men in the Railway Company ever employed and will be, until a change is made in them.

Allowed to walk to Yorkton will do them good, and if we are not upheld in this, we had better not employ any more of these men. The men were well treated by us under the circumstances. They had plenty to eat, tents and stoves, and everything necessary for their comfort at this time of the year.

This man St. John is doing a great deal of harm among these men. He is or pretends to be one of themselves, in religion and all other acts, sleeps and eats with them, advocates for more wages for them, board for less than $5.50 per week, wanted men to be boarded on wet or stormy days when they were not working, for half rate, whereas it would take a bushel of grub to fill one of these big Doukhobors. This man St. John is the most useless man I ever ran across. He will cause an endless amount of trouble among these men for some one. I have had the same kind of trouble with Galicians and I found that walking to Yorkton once or twice, did them good, and I know it will do the Doukhobors a great deal of good also. It will also have a tendency to stop them from leaving work before it is completed, same as it had with Galicians.

Regarding these men walking across country to Shoal Lake, I told the Interpreter to tell them they would get no transportation and they have better walk across the Shoal Lake and from there to Yorkton, or get tickets the best way they could. These men in question were not discharged, but the men that went away with St. John, were laid off work, and were entitled to free transportation.

Grading railway prior to laying track. Photo courtesy National Archives of Canada.

In view of this information, Webster wrote a letter to McCreary on 16 December 1899, excerpts from which are quoted below:

I am sorry to say that the general opinion of our Roadmaster and all Foreman who have had the Doukhobors employed this summer is not at all favourable to these men, in fact they bitterly oppose having to take these men on to their gangs. It is quite evident from the actions of the Doukhobors themselves, that they are labouring under the delusion, that Public work in this Country were being arranged for their special benefit and that they can desert employment and behave in any manner which seems fit.

These remarks of course do not apply to all of these men, as I have heard some of them praised very highly, but it was a very small proportion of the total number we had employed last summer.

Regarding complaint against Mr. St. John made by Walters in his letter of the 9th, Mr. St. John may endeavour to justify his action on the grounds that he is endeavouring to get as much as possible for his men, but he should not forget that the men are quite inexperienced, and until they learn to speak English and have a couple of years experience in track work, that they are not worth as much per day as men who have this experience, and it is a mistake to lead the Doukhobors to expect that they should be as well paid as more experienced men. Owing to the shortage stringency in the Labour Market this fall, we have paid these men as high as $1.75 per day, and I can safely say that at least 75% of them were not worth half that much….

The Accountant W. J. Pace sent the following report to McCreary on 21 December 1899,

Referring to that portion of Bodjansky’s letter dated the 16th instant, in reference to the men who went to work for McGillivray and Company on the Rainy River Railway, I beg to state that in regard to the statement made by Mr. Bodjansky that the men had to transport themselves and their supplies twenty-five miles, such is not the case. The men with their supplies, clothing etc., were moved to Shebandowan Lake by McGillivray & Company, and their camps were built – one camp a mile and a half and the other four miles and a half beyond the lake.

The Lake being frozen at the time, it was deemed advisable to move their supplies by sleighs this four miles and a half on the ice — on account of one portion of the ice being bad and the Doukhobors congregating round the sleigh, the ice broke and let them into about two feet of water, but there was only one Doukhobor of the lot who got at all wet. The rest of them were moved on to their camp, and were perfectly satisfied there, and are at work.

Captain St. John, the man in charge of the Doukhobors says that they are perfectly satisfied.

As regards $8 for the fare, this was agreed on before they left Yorkton.

I might say that the fifty men who came down previously are more than satisfied with the treatment they received from McGillivray & Company, and for the month of November they each averaged a net amount of $31.00.

All this prompted McCreary to write his own letter of complaint to his superior Frank Pedley. This communication is dated 22 December 1899, and it reads:

I wrote the Deputy Minister a few days ago enclosing copy of a communication I had received from the Manitoba and North Western Railway Company about a complaint as to how certain men were treated on their line. Since sending that communication I have received a long letter from Mr. A. Bodyansky, one of their leaders at Yorkton, dealing with the same subject, as well as with some men who went down to work on the Port Arthur and Rainy River Road. I beg to enclose copy of Bodyansky’s letter, as well as of Mr. Pace’s reply — the Accountant for Mr. McGillivray, the Contractor on the Prince Arthur and Rainy River, and also copy of my reply to Bodyansky.

I regret to say that no more vexed question ever came before me than this whole Doukhobor business. I do not know what the result is going to be, unless they will agree to work as other people do. Unfortunately, the public sentiment will not permit us to allow them to starve. The newspapers and others would take it up in such a way that the Government would be bound to come to the rescue, as they had to do with the Galicians two years ago. Sensational articles would appear, and special correspondents sent out, which, of course, would not be a wise policy. Certainly if we are going to have this same trouble, I would ask you to send up a man, or get one here, who would take entire charge of the Doukhobors and their management, as my time will be fully taken up with other immigration in the spring and I cannot possibly give the attention to the Doukhobor matters that I have had to do during the last year.

As can be seen from the above presentation, the Doukhobors who worked in closely-knit groups during their first year in Canada and who were directed and helped by individuals equipped with a knowledge of the language, but not of the country, its laws, customs, and ways of life, were in practically the same position as any other new and inexperienced immigrants, working in groups or individually. It takes time to adjust to new circumstances. In the initial period, mistakes and false accusations are likely to be made by both sides. Due to inadequate knowledge of each other, mutual mistrust and inborn racial and ethnic preconception are very strong during this time. The railroad continued periodically to employ the Doukhobors during the next year or so until the latter became self-sufficient on their farms. Once the situation became clarified, the men adapted to the rules and demands placed upon them, and we do not hear any more of any glaring cases of disputes with their employers.

This article originally appeared in the pages of Saskatchewan History, an award-winning magazine dedicated to encouraging both readers and writers to explore the province’s history. Published by the Saskatchewan Archives since 1948, it is the pre-eminent source of information and narration about Saskatchewan’s unique heritage.  For more information, visit Saskatchewan History online at: http://www.saskarchives.com/web/history.html.

With the Doukhobors on Cyprus

by Ivan Stepanovich Prokhanov

Ivan Stepanovich Prokhanov (1869-1935) was born into a well-to-do Molokan family in Vladikavkas, North Caucasus, Russia. After much studying and thought he converted to the Baptist faith in 1887, while retaining close links with his Molokan roots. He graduated in 1893 from the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg as an engineer. After graduation, he moved to the Crimea, where he founded a short-lived commune of Evangelical Christians. Driven by a strong sense of call to preach the Gospel to the masses, he soon gave up his career as an engineer. For three years, 1895-98, he studied theology in England (Baptist at Bristol, Congregational at New College in London), in Berlin, Germany, and in Paris. In 1898, Prokhanov travelled to Cyprus at the behest of the English Quakers to assist a group of 1,150 Doukhobors residing there. For several months, he worked among the fever-stricken settlers, assisting them with their medical, food and shelter needs, before returning to Russia in 1899. The following excerpt, reproduced from “In the Cauldron of Russia, 1869-1933: Autobiography of I.S. Prokhanoff (All-Russian Evangelical Christian Union, New York, 1933) recounts his work among the Doukhobors on Cyprus. 

In September of the year 1898, while in Paris, I received a letter from Mr. E. W. Brooks [an English Quaker industrialist and philanthropist], proposing that I should go to Cyprus to aid the Doukhobors.

I have mentioned before that the Doukhobors living in the Transcaucasus, under the influence of the Tolstoists [Tolstoyans], withdrew their soldiers from the army, publicly burned their guns and rifles and declared to the Government that they would never take up arms again. Some of the Doukhobors’ leaders were punished and they decided to emigrate from Russia.

After much negotiation Canada was chosen as the country to which they would migrate. The first party of Doukhobors, numbering 1,150 people, took ship at Caucasus, but they were held up en route because of an epidemic which broke out among them. All the Doukhobor passengers were disembarked on the island of Cyprus. There the epidemic continued.

Ivan S. Prokhanov (1869-1935)

There was on the island only one man who could act as an interpreter for the Doukhobors, Mr. [Pavel] Birukoff. but he had to leave Cyprus for some reason and return to England. Somebody was required to take his place, and the [Society of Friends Doukhobor] committee, of which Mr. E. W. Brooks was the chairman, proposed that I should go there. Count Sergius L. Tolstoy, son of the celebrated Russian writer and philosopher, came to Paris to see me on this question. I gave my consent, and in a day or so a peasant Doukhobor came to Paris from London in order to travel with me to Cyprus.

We sailed from Marseilles on a steamer of the “Menageries Maritimes” line. For the first time I voyaged over the western portion of the Mediterranean Sea and I enjoyed the experience immensely, delighting in the beautiful scenery, particularly the shores of Italy and Sicily, the groves of oranges and lemons and other things of interest.

Egypt, the Nile and the Pyramids

On our way to Cyprus the steamer called at Alexandria, where it lay for two days, and we also anchored at Port Said for two days. I took the advice of one of the ship’s officers and, with my Doukhobor friend, made an excursion to Cairo and from there to the Pyramids. At Alexandria we saw the column of Pompeus and also some remarkable orchards belonging to a rich Greek. For the first time I saw bread as thin as linen. When a servant approached our table, I thought he was carrying napkins on his arm, but it proved to be bread! The small coffee house where we dined had a veranda covered with grapes, large and very sweet.

With a feeling of awe I looked for the first time upon the River Nile and its fertile estuaries where the land of Goshen is situated. My awe increased when I beheld the Sphinx and the pyramids. We went out from the city of Cairo on hired donkeys, attended by Arab boy drivers, who ran behind, shouting very loudly. The donkeys were so small that I had much difficulty in keeping my feet from dragging along the ground.

The highest of the pyramids, as is well known, is that of Pharao Kheops. Special Arab guides took both of us and a group of other tourists to see this pyramid. We had to climb up a narrow subterranean passage, all the time ascending in the darkness. Our Arab guide was climbing ahead of us with a torch in his hand, the smoke from which was very unpleasant. The greater part of the way we had to climb on “all fours.” It was a very arduous journey.

When at last we attained our objective, the guide lighted a magnesium lamp and we saw a spacious room, much dust and flying bats. The atmosphere was stifling. It was the burying place of ancient kings. The coffins themselves, with the mummies, had been taken to a museum and we saw only the room. Of course, our impressions here were very strong! Were there not the odors of four thousand years in that cave!

The remarkable thing to me was the fact that the regular outlines of the pyramid had been preserved during forty centuries! For the first time I saw Arab Bedouins on their camels, and away in the distance the great Desert of Sahara. Sand! Sand! Sand without any end! This sight also inspired in me a feeling of awe. We returned from Cairo by railway to Port Said and again boarded our steamer.

Port of Larnaca, Cyprus, c. 1898-1899.

On our arrival at Larnaca, the port of Cyprus, I found there Mr. [Wilson] Sturge, the commissary of the Society of Friends, who was supervising all the help that was being rendered by them to the Doukhobors. He introduced me to the British Governor of Cyprus. I also saw Mr. Birukoff and I entered upon the fulfillment of my new duties.

An Oasis in the Sands of Cyprus

The population of Cyprus consisted of Turks, Greeks and Armenians. The tall and handsome figures of the fair-featured Doukhobors were conspicuous among these natives. The camp of the Doukhobors was in the interior of Cyprus. I traveled to the encampment on the back of another small donkey, like the one I had ridden in Egypt. When we left Larnaca I saw a wide, flat level of sand that became very hot from the rays of the burning sun, although it was in November. There was not even one tree and no grass. Sand! Sand!

After traveling several hours we saw at a distance a group of trees and vegetation. When we approached we found a grove of pretty palms, and also orange and lemon trees laden with their fruit. There was a small stream of water coming from the ground, and this was the reason for such luxuriant vegetation. I thought, “What a fine illustration of the living water of the Word of God, which regenerates men’s hearts!”

Among these trees we found tents and small wooden barracks, in which the Doukhobor families lived. At a distance of a few miles there was another small colony, also housed in wooden barracks.

I found the Doukhobors in a very sad condition. Most of them were ill with a strange disease, something like dysentery. A man would have blood issues, some swelling on the legs and in a few days he would die. Entering one of the barracks, I saw a low wooden platform built along one wall for the full length of the room, on which they usually slept, but on which now there were sick people lying, with some dead bodies in between them! About one hundred men and women had already died. A Russian cemetery had been made a short distance from the Doukhobor colonies.

A dusty track in rural Cyprus today, much as it appeared in 1898-1899.

Ministering to Sick Doukhobors

The doctor was an Armenian. He prescribed opium. The medicines were usually brought from Larnaca by an old man Mark, a Jew from Odessa, who spoke Russian, Greek, Turkish and even Armenian, all languages badly enough, but he was an indispensable person to the Doukhobors. He brought to them not only medicines but also small articles and all kinds of goods. Once more I was convinced that as long as our people remained uneducated they would need the services of Jews, who are always practical and energetic wherever they are.

My duties were to look after the general conditions of the Doukhobors, to secure improvements and to help them with their medicine. At once I insisted on putting into effect some measures which seemed practical and most important:

Simple Rules to Combat the Plague

  1. To remove all the dead bodies from the barracks immediately.
  2. To isolate the sick ones from those who were in good health.
  3. To keep the windows open as much as possible to secure ventilation. Usually they kept the windows closed and the air in the rooms was very stuffy and close.
  4. To keep the rooms and clothing clean.
  5. I tried to enforce upon everybody the necessity for observing many simple rules of home sanitation which were being neglected.
  6. I asked the doctor to increase the doses of opium for the sick ones, telling him that for a Russian treble quantity of medicines was required as compared with an Armenian. The doctor somewhat increased the portions and a beneficial effect was soon noticeable.

Whenever I had any free time I gathered around me the boys and girls and taught them the English language. Almost thirty years later, in 1926, when I visited the Doukhobors in Canada, one of them recognized me and said he would never forget my help in teaching him the English language.

By doing this work among the Doukhobors I attained some intimate relations with them. Mr. Sturge and Mr. Birukoff lived at the town of Larnaca, at some distance from the Doukhobors, and the latter left Cyprus soon after my arrival. Nobody really knew the conditions under which these people were living. I decided to live in their largest colony [Athalassa] and so I was able to closely observe their mode of life and to decide on means to overcome the plague and also to improve their condition.

Landscape in rural Cyprus today, much as it appeared in 1898-1899.

I Fall Ill in a Strange Country

I endeavored to banish all kinds of uncleanness and disorderliness, and gradually the condition of the Doukhobors began to improve, but I became ill myself with the same disease which was ravaging their colonies. I fell sick while in the town of Larnaca and lay in the house which had recently been occupied by Mr. Birukoff.

During my illness no one came to visit me. To become ill with a mortally dangerous sickness in a strange land, far away from friends, is a very trying experience. But the optimism of faith helped me through this time also. I did not give way to despair, but during my illness I thought a great deal about my country and my life, and I prayed to God that He might dispose of me according to His will. It was God’s will that I should recover. Gradually I began to mend, almost without any help, and at last I recovered. After this I resumed my work among the Doukhobors until a message reached us that a steamer [SS Lake Superior] was to come from England to take them to Canada.

I was asked by the English [Society of Friends Doukhobor] Committee whether I would be willing to go to Canada, but I felt that after the recovery of the Doukhobors they could very well get along without me. whereas the whole Russian people were in need of energetic workers and messengers of Christ. I felt I must return to Russia, where, although my father was still in exile and arrest might await me,  and although many others were suffering oppression and persecution, there were great possibilities for Christ.

Perhaps the call to service among the Doukhobors was the means God used to prevent my premature return to Russia during the time I was liable to be sent to exile. But now the call to return to my country was irresistible and so I declined to accompany the Doukhobors on their long journey to Canada.

My Decision to Return is Confirmed

Knowing the circumstances, Mr. E. W. Brooks and the others were greatly surprised at my decision, but I felt that it was the will of God with regard to me. Shortly after the decision had been made, a telegram came to Larnaca from my brother Vasily from Vladikavkas, calling me back home. The telegram itself surprised me more than the message, for under the conditions in Russia at that time I never thought such a message could have been sent. I took it for the voice of God confirming my decision.

After final conferences with the Doukhobors, Mr. Sturge and others, I boarded a steamer bound for Constantinople and to Odessa, and with a prayer I sailed for home. All my thoughts were directed to my poor country suffering for centuries and bound by the chains of spiritual darkness. I was ready to accept the worst things for myself if only I could be among my own people and have the privilege of preaching the Gospel to them.

Afterword

Returning to Russia in 1899, Prokhanov finally settled in St. Petersburg where he found employment in the St. Petersburg branch of the American Westinghouse Company. He now entered upon a remarkable career as preacher, writer, and leader. He reorganized the Evangelical Christians in 1908 as the All-Russian Union of Evangelical Christians, of which he served as President until 1928. He sought, without full success, to unite the Baptists and Evangelical Christians in Russia. In 1926, he travelled to North America, which included a little-known visit to the Doukhobors in Brilliant, British Columbia. In 1928, he was elected Vice-President of the World Baptist Congress. Prokhanov never returned to Russia because of the dangers there, but served the émigré Russian evangelical groups in Europe and America. He died in Berlin, Germany in 1935 and was buried there. To read the complete translated English test of Prokhanov’s 1933 autobiography online, see In the Cauldron of Russia and for the original Russian text, see В котле России.

A rare photographic record of Ivan S. Prokhanov’s visit to the Doukhobors in Brilliant, British Columbia in 1926.  BC Archives C-01547.

For More Information

For more information about the short-lived Doukhobor settlement experiment on Cyprus in 1898-1899, the factors leading to its establishment and the reasons for its ultimate failure, see: A Courteous and Well-Conducted Community by Carla King and The Doukhobors on Cyprus by Pavel Ivanovich Biryukov.

Doukhobor Immigration: The Potato Dilemma

by Victor O. Buyniak

In the months prior to the Doukhobors’ arrival in Canada in 1898-1899, the Immigration Branch of the Department of the Interior worked ceaselessly to coordinate the necessary arrangements for their settlement.  The following article by Victor O. Buyniak, reproduced by permission from Saskatchewan History (38, 1985, No. 2) deals with one aspect of the settlement arrangements: the exigency of providing foodstuffs, namely potatoes, for the vegetarian settlers arriving in large numbers on the Prairies in winter.  It documents the many tasks in which immigration officials were engaged as they worked with Doukhobor organizers and the need for cooperative effort over very long distances.  It also reflects the inner workings of a government department which played a pivotal role in the opening of the West.

The 1890’s was a decade of accelerated settlement of the Canadian North-West by new immigrants arriving in groups or on an individual basis. Many came from Eastern Europe. The mass migration of the Doukhobors occurred at the very end of the decade. Plans to transport and settle some 7,500 Doukhobors on the Prairies were finalized in 1898. The very first train carrying Doukhobor settlers was expected in Winnipeg late in 1898 or early in 1899. In preparation for their arrival, provisions had to be purchased and stored. Since the Doukhobors were vegetarians, most of the provisions were from field, garden and orchard produce. A very sizeable amount of potatoes had to be obtained and stored to last the new immigrants over the first winter and spring, including reserves for spring planting.

This paper deals with the problems encountered by Canadian officials on various levels and in various localities whose duty it was to buy potatoes beforehand at the lowest price and to arrange for their transport to future central points of Doukhobor settlement. They were also responsible for safe storage of the potatoes during the winter of 1898-99. In those years the process of obtaining, transporting and storing vegetables was much more complicated than it is now. An additional factor made the whole procedure even more difficult to carry out: the officials did not yet know for sure in which regions of the North-West Territories the Doukhobors would eventually settle. Yet sufficient stocks of provisions, situated in places easily accessible to the new immigrants, meant the physical well-being, if not the very survival, of the settlers during their first winter on the prairies. The story is reconstructed in chronological order from correspondence in the records of the Immigration Branch of the Department of the Interior of Canada, (Volume 183, file 65101, part 1, 1898) available on microfilm at the Saskatchewan Archives.

As early as 5 October, 1898, Aylmer Maude, an English Tolstoyan and friend of the Doukhobors, who headed a Doukhobor delegation during the preceding summer
and fall to visit and select the localities for their future settlement in Canada, raised the matter of food supplies in a letter to the Honourable Clifford Sifton, the Minister of the Interior.

May I further request you to give instructions to the Immigration Department, as soon as the location for the Doukhobors is definitely settled, to buy such a stock of potatoes, other vegetables & rye flour as will be required to feed 2000 people through the winter. We will pay for these things but we have neither the organization nor the information to enable us to procure them in good time and at the lowest prices.

Doukhobor group in Russia, just before emigrating. British Columbia Archives D-01139.

James A. Smart, Deputy Minister of the Interior wrote William F. McCreary, the Commissioner of Immigration, who was then located in Winnipeg, on 8 October, 1898, regarding the expected arrival of the Doukhobors and the purchasing of food supplies.

Some time ago you wrote me with reference to the purchase of vegetables in view of the likelihood of the Doukhobors emigrating to Canada before the winter, and in answer to this I advised you to purchase in the meantime a considerable quantity, leaving the quantity to your judgment.

I now have to say that since arrangements have been made with Mr. Maude he has written me asking that the Department should arrange for a stock of vegetables and rye flour to be purchased, such a quantity as would feed say 2,000 people during the winter. Mr. Maude agrees to pay whatever this supply costs, but I am very anxious that you should purchase the potatoes, as well as other supplies required, at the very lowest possible price, as I promised Mr. Maude we would assist him in this matter. It may be possible that you can purchase some of these at Brandon and also at Regina and other points where they should be stored in the meantime, but I think it well to at once arrange as these supplies will certainly be needed. As I have already intimated to you some 2,200 of these people are likely to leave Batoum, on the Black Sea, for Winnipeg in a few days so that we may expect them to arrive about the middle of November. It will therefore be necessary to arrange about the vegetables at once, but as to the rye flour I think they can arrange that themselves just as well later on.

In the meantime there arose a likelihood of a second transport of some 2,000 Doukhobors arriving in the west that same winter. In addition to making the necessary travel accommodation and settlement arrangements for this group, Smart and his officials were responsible for supplying them with food provisions. Regarding this second transport, Smart wrote Maude on 11 October, 1898:

It appears to me to be very important that you should be fully advised before leaving as to whether sufficient quantities of vegetables have been purchased to meet the requirements of these people. I do not know whether it is your intention to return to Winnipeg or not… I have sent full instructions to Mr. McCreary in consequence of your request that the officers of the Department should proceed to purchase supplies, so that purchases will be made in this connection at Winnipeg, Brandon and Regina.

On 14 October, 1898, McCreary notified Smart from Winnipeg with regard to the arrangements being made in view of the possible arrival of this additional group of Doukhobors:

Some time ago potatoes could have been secured more cheaply but owing to the very heavy rains a great many of them have been lost, and difficulty is going to be experienced in getting the others out of the ground as the ground is so wet and it is costing from four to six cents a bushel to dig them and put them on the ground. I also believe as there is quite a scarcity, potatoes will be dear later on, and especially so next spring, so that these people ought to secure sufficient vegetables now and have them stored to last them as food till next July, and sufficient for seed next spring.

There is further correspondence regarding the matter of purchasing potatoes for the Doukhobors as McCreary wrote to Smart on 21 October, 1898:

I made strong endeavours to purchase potatoes here: secured one load at 32 ½ and one at 30 cents, but there was so much mud attached to them and they were so wet that I felt that they would not keep. Then again, the price commenced to run up, and this morning I cannot buy at less than 45. Quite a large quantity of potatoes here will never be taken out of the ground – in fact, one man who had agreed to let me have a thousand bushels at 35, but on going to his field found five inches of water over his potatoes—so he gave them up.

However, I have now made arrangements with two men, one James Flanaghan to purchase me potatoes at Portage la Prairie and McGregor at 30 cents, and another, Pace, to purchase them at that point at 28.1 have got half rate on these from the C.P.R. from these points to Winnipeg, and will make arrangements here for storing them, so that they can be shipped to any point, if necessary. I shall probably get five cars, about three thousand bushels, from these two sources.

I wrote Braun to try and purchase two or three thousand bushels at Brandon. He says they can be got there for 25 cents, but I rather imagine the quantity is limited. However, I intend running up there next week to look over the shed and the accommodations for cooking and will discuss the purchase of vegetables with him at that time. In the meantime, his instructions are to go on and purchase two or three thousand bushels at 25 cents, if he can get them, and put them in the Post Office cellar, and any other place he can get.

There is no money lost in purchasing potatoes at this price, as I am quite willing, if the Government will allow me, to take them off their hands at these figures, in fact, I could turn them over today and make money. The great point to be considered however is to get them in such places as they will keep till next spring, because there is no doubt that potatoes will then reach to $1 to $1.50 per bushel, and other vegetables in proportion.

What quantity of potatoes do you think should be purchased for food for these people till, say, next August, with sufficient for seed for the entire colony? … I was thinking it would require about ten thousand bushels for food and about six hundred to a thousand for seed. The latter would have to be kept in some cool place till next June.

Doukhobor women baking bread in outdoor ovens. British Columbia Archives E-07248.

Commissioner McCreary informed his superior Frank Pedley, Superintendent of Immigration on 4 November 1898 that it was possible to arrange with the Canadian Pacific Railway officials to transport the vegetables at half price but he could not make the same arrangements with another company. Writing to Pedley again on 16 November 1898 he outlined developments.

You are probably aware that I was instructed to buy a large quantity of vegetables for the Doukhobortsi who, as I was informed, would arrive here about the 15th November. I have already purchased between eight and ten thousand bushels of potatoes at Winnipeg, Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Yorkton and Dauphin . . . also about 15 tons of cabbage. These potatoes average probably 30 to 40 cents delivered in the warehouse here. . . . The potatoes, however, I think we shall be able to save, though it will cost a little more for warehousing than I anticipated. However, from the present outlook potatoes are going to be worth from sixty cents to $1 next March, and I think I could easily place all the potatoes I have on hand at profit.

While all these solicitations were being made by all these officials on behalf of the arriving Doukhobors, it was learned that their departure from the port of Batoum had been postponed for six weeks. As a result the first trainload of Doukhobors did not reach Winnipeg until 27 January 1899. An unexpected turn of events occurred in December 1898, when the Customs Inspector in Brandon, George H. Young, cabled Smart on 21 December: “Quantity potatoes stored in cellar public building here think require attention decaying smell through offices very bad most unhealthy for officers and presume potatoes spoiling.” McCreary was ordered to investigate and apparently the matter was taken in hand and resolved as nothing more was said about the matter.

The importance of potatoes as part of the diet of an agrarian population like the Doukhobors can be seen from continuous efforts by immigration officials to secure enough of this produce during the first year of the Doukhobors’ settlement on the Canadian prairies. On 16 May, 1899, Harley wrote to Smart from Swan River: “I have bought 50 bushels of splendid potatoes for seed here at $1.25 per bushel . . .” And McCreary wrote to Smart on 4 November, 1899:

I have already bought at Yorkton about a thousand bushels of potatoes, and I am sending to-day another carload to Swan River . . . and as they will likely use most of the potatoes which they are buying now, seed potatoes, probably 2500 to 3000 bushels, should be got there before the 5th of April…

Once firmly established on Canadian soil, the Doukhobors produced enough crops, among them potatoes, not only for their own consumption and seed reserves, but also for marketing.

This article originally appeared in the pages of Saskatchewan History, an award-winning magazine dedicated to encouraging both readers and writers to explore the province’s history. Published by the Saskatchewan Archives since 1948, it is the pre-eminent source of information and narration about Saskatchewan’s unique heritage.  For more information, visit Saskatchewan History online at: http://www.saskarchives.com/web/history.html.

A Visit to the Dukhobortsy on the Sea of Azov, 1816

by Robert Pinkerton

Robert Pinkerton (1780-1859) was a Scottish missionary of the British and Foreign Bible Society who travelled extensively throughout Russia during the reign of Tsar Alexander I. In 1816, he travelled to the Dukhobortsy living on the Molochnaya River in Tavria province, Russia. He kept a journal and recorded his detailed impressions of his visit. The following account is reproduced from his published memoirs, “Russia: or, Miscellaneous Observations on the Past and Present State of that Country and its Inhabitants” (London: Seeley and Sons, 1833). It is the earliest surviving Western account of the Doukhobor colony on the Molochnaya and provides invaluable historic insights about their way of life and beliefs. Afterword by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff.

In 1816, after having visited the tribe of Nogai Tartars that wander with their flocks and herds about the extensive steppes of Little Tartary, on the Sea of Azov, and having made preparations for supplying the villages of German colonists recently settled there with the Holy Scriptures, I purposed, on my way towards the Crimea, to see the Dukhobortsy [Doukhobors] who live on the River Molochnaya and on the Sea of Azov [collectively known as Molochnaya Vody or “Milky Waters”].

Robert Pinkerton (1780-1859).

On approaching the first of their villages on the Molochnaya, I met with a female and inquired of her where the chief person of the place resided. The answer she gave me was, “Among us, no one is greater than another”. The next person I met was a shepherd attending his flock, an old man with grey hair. I made my driver stop, and beckoned to the man to draw near. This he did, and uncovering his head, he leaned over his staff and replied to my inquiries. 

I asked the old man if he could could read. He replied, “Yes, I can read the word of life”. From this I naturally thought that he was able to read the Bible, and offered him a Tract on the Bible Society. He refused, however, to accept it, saying that he could not read our books, but only the Book of Life which he had learnt by heart. In other words, that he could repeat the principal doctrinal and moral articles of the Dukhobortsy sect. And when I touched upon some of the articles, as given in my work on the Orthodox Church, he repeated them distinctly; in others of them his memory failed him.

I stopped in a second village [Terpeniye], the capital, and without ceremony entered one of the best looking houses, requesting a glass of water. This a young man readily handed to me. After a little talk with him, I discovered that I was in the chancery, or place where the civil affairs of the sect are transacted [Sirotsky Dom or “Orphans Home”].

I told him distinctly what my object was in visiting them, and begged him to introduce me to some of their seniors. All this seemed rather suspicious to him; yet he sent for one of the Elders, who had been in St. Petersburg as a deputy to the Government, and who soon after, with several of his brethren, made his appearance. After a little talk about Senator Hoblitz and other gentlemen who had shown them kindness during their stay in St. Petersburg, they seemed in some degree to lay aside their reserve, and replied freely to my inquiries.

I took out my volume on the Orthodox Church and read to the assembly the passages which I had written concerning the Dukhobortsy, and I had the satisfaction of hearing them distinctly state their principles in the very terms there given. As soon as I began any paragraph by translating a few words, they generally gave the remainder exactly as stated in the book. The two prayers they repeated verbatim. One passage only was found to require explanation that of their “having all things in common”. This was their practice when they came to the Molochnaya, but now every family has its own private property, cattle, fields, etc. Still they have fields of corn, gardens and flocks which belong to the whole community, and the revenues of which are applied for the common benefit of the society. This is also the custom of the Mennonites, who live near them, and of other German colonists; a custom, in their case, independent of religious considerations.

Doukhobor village, Melitopol district, Tavria province, Russia circa 1816.

This extraordinary sect, the Dukhobortsy, is settled in eight [nine] villages and consists of about 2,500 souls. I saw an individual of them who had been sixteen years exiled to Siberia, for conscience sake. He spoke with great feeling, when contrasting his former sufferings with his present prosperous circumstances. He was a fine looking, middle aged man, and was returning on horseback from viewing his corn fields and flocks, country like, without his coat. They have been collected from every part of the Empire, and are entirely separated from the Orthodox Church. Indeed, it was the object of the Tsarist government, in colonizing them here, to put it out of their power to make any more proselytes to their peculiar opinions. Their neat and clean dress, comfortable looking huts, and industrious habits, their numerous flocks, and extensive and well cultivated fields, widely distinguish them from the common Russian peasantry.

Their neighbours the Mennonites and other German colonists speak well of their morals; but all complain of their reserve and shyness of character. No doubt they have been taught this by the severe persecutions to which they have for ages been exposed, and out of which they can scarcely yet believe themselves delivered. Their neighbours seem to know but little of their religious tenets. The Mennonites say they are a peaceable and industrious people, but accuse them of hypocrisy. Hence, they say, when some of their members were convicted of drunkenness, they denied the fact, and maintained that their members were all holy.

Very few among the Doukhobors appear to be capable of reading; yet their members seem to have had the doctrines of the sect instilled into them by oral instruction. These lessons are committed to memory. They have no schools among them, nor did I see a book of any kind among them. I recommended to them the Bible, and offered to supply them with it; but they refused to accept any copies, saying, “That what was in the Bible was in them also”. I told them that some of their neighbours suspected them of immoral habits, because in speaking of females and children they did not use the common expressions of “my wife”, “my child” etc. but rather “my sister”, “our child” etc. This insinuation they indignantly repelled, exclaiming, “Are we then beasts?” “But” continued they, “we are accustomed to every kind of false accusation”.

Dukhoborets – a Doukhobor man.

Dukhoborka – a Doukhobor woman.

Their whole aspect and manner of intercourse with strangers, indicates a degree of shyness and distrust which is quite extraordinary. Hence, also, their evasive answers to all direct inquiries respecting their sect. Some of them, however, ventured to speak with me freely, and with warmth, against the use of images in worship. Their assemblies for religious purposes are held in the open air, or in private dwellings, according as the weather suits. They say their doctrines are as old as the world, and they either would not, or could not, give me any particulars of the rise of the sect in Russia.

It was, doubtless, the heavy burden of superstitious ceremonies in the services of the Orthodox Church which drove the founders of this sect to reject all ceremony, and external ordinances of every kind. Many of this sect, I fear, are deists.

But we need not wonder at these indications of fear and distrust. For at the very time I visited them, as I afterwards learned, intrigues were on foot in order to ruin them, under the twofold accusation of their harbouring deserters and making proselytes.

Afterword

Between 1812 and 1822, Robert Pinkerton travelled extensively throughout Russia in the service of the British and Foreign Bible Society, a non-denominational Christian charity formed in England in 1804 for the purpose of making affordable, vernacular translations of the Bible available throughout the world. Through his indefatigable efforts, readily supported by Tsar Alexander I and the Russian nobility, the Russian Bible Society was established in St. Petersburg in 1812-1813. In the years that followed, Pinkerton assisted in the formation of dozens of local branches of the Russian Bible Society, through which thousands of Russian language Bibles were distributed to the peasantry.

Through his travels and studies, Pinkerton became acquainted with the Doukhobor religious sect. In 1815, he translated an 1805 tract about the sect, Several Characteristics of Doukhobor Society as part of his English publication of Platon’s “Present State”.  In September of the same year, he travelled forty miles north of Vyborg, Finland to the Imatra Waterfall, where he found a colony of Don Cossack Doukhobors living in exile there: Visit to the Dukhobortsy Exiled in Finland, 1815. The Scottish missionary was deeply moved by his meeting with the Doukhobor exiles, who were most thankful to receive copies of the Russian Scriptures and publications from the Russian Bible Society.

It was in this context that in 1816, Pinkerton, accompanied by a cargo of Bibles, set out to visit the largest group of Doukhobors in the Russian Empire: those living on the Molochnaya River in Tavria province near the Sea of Azov. There, he expected to find kindred spirits whom he could supply with copies of the Scriptures on behalf of the Russian Bible Society.

Pinkerton visited two Doukhobor villages on the Molochnaya. At the first unnamed village, he encountered two Doukhobors with whom he had a short exchange. At the second village, which was Terpeniye, he was conducted to the Sirotsky Dom (Orphan’s Home) where he addressed a group of Doukhobors and met briefly with a Doukhobor elder. Thereafter, Pinkerton departed from Terpeniye and travelled to the neighbouring Mennonite villages across the Molochnaya. His recorded impressions of his visit are brief, forming a random compendium of his conversations with the Doukhobor colonists and their Mennonite neighbours.

Pinkerton found the Molochnaya Doukhobors to be settled in eight villages (he erred as there were nine Doukhobor villages in 1816) with a total population of 2,500 residents. Materially speaking, his impression of the colony was highly favourable. The Doukhobors’ “neat and clean dress” he wrote, “comfortable-looking huts, and industrious habits, their numerous flocks, and extensive and well-cultivated fields, widely distinguish them from the common Russian peasantry.” In every aspect, the Doukhobors verified the opinion of their Mennonite neighbours that they were a “peaceable and industrious people…”.


View Tavria Doukhobor Villages, 1802-1845 in a larger map

The Scottish missionary noted that when they first came to the Molochnaya, the Doukhobors held everything in common. However, by 1816 the Doukhobors had abandoned communalism and distributed their property on an individual basis. Pinkerton recorded that “now every family has its own private property, cattle, fields, etc. Still they have fields of corn, gardens and flocks which belong to the whole community, and the revenues of which are applied for the common benefit of the society.” By this he meant the lands belonging to the Sirotsky Dom, the Doukhobors’ financial, administrative and spiritual centre.

Pinkerton found the Doukhobors proficiently disciplined in matters of faith and doctrine. The first sectarian he encountered was a female, whom he met on the approaches of the first village. He inquired of the woman “where the chief person of the place resided.” She answered that “among us, no one is greater than another.” The second Doukhobor Pinkerton met was an elderly shepherd tending a flock of sheep. With him, Pinkerton began a discussion of the chief doctrines of Doukhoborism, based on the 1805 tract. He found that the old Doukhobor could repeat some of the articles “distinctly”. Similarly, when Pinkerton read passages from the tract to the Doukhobors at Terpeniye, he “had the satisfaction of hearing them distinctly state their principles in the very terms there given.” They also dutifully advised him against the use of images in worship.  As these encounters indicate, the Molochnaya Doukhobors possessed a strong doctrinal unity.

At the same time, Pinkerton found the Doukhobors to be evasive in their replies to many of his inquiries. “Their whole aspect, and manner of intercourse with strangers,” he found, “indicate a degree of shyness and distrust which is quite extraordinary; hence, also their evasive answers to all direct inquiries respecting their sect.” Neighbouring Mennonites also complained of the “reserve and shyness” of the Doukhobors, which gave rise to various vague rumours and accusations about the sect. What Pinkerton and the Mennonites did not take sufficiently into account, however, was the intensity of persecution that had made the Doukhobors evolve evasion as a means of dealing with authorities or with passing strangers.

Unlike their brethren in Finland, the Molochnaya Doukhobors were now living in a completely Doukhobor setting under the dynamic influence of their leader Kapustin and the exclusivist doctrines embodied in his psalms.  They possessed the fully-developed version of the Living Book and had come to reject the Bible as an exclusive source of divine revelation.

Hence, Pinkerton’s main objective of distributing Bibles among the Molochnaya Doukhobors proved unsuccessful. He had travelled far only to find people who, when he offered copies of the Scriptures, ‘refused to accept any copies, remarking, “That what was in the Bible was in them also.”’ He had one moment of hope, when the old shepherd told him, ‘Yes, I can read the Word of Life’; however it turned out that the old man was illiterate but knew by heart the Living Book of the Doukhobors. Consequently, Pinkerton left the Molochnaya disappointed, having failed to dispense a single Bible to the Doukhobors there.  

To read more, search, download, save and print a full PDF copy of “Russia: or, Miscellaneous Observations on the Past and Present State of that Country and its Inhabitants”  by Robert Pinkerton (London: Seeley and Sons, 1833), visit the Google Book Search digital database.

Piers Island: The Doukhobor Period, 1932-1935

by A. Harold Skolrood

In 1928-1930, demonstrations and depredations on the part of the Sons of Freedom had reached a fevered pitch in Canada. Their growing activity provoked the Canadian government to punitive action. In 1931, it amended the Criminal Code making public nudity punishable by three years’ imprisonment. As a deterrent, however, the new penalty proved useless. The Freedomites were not ordinary peace-breakers; they were religious fanatics; and less than a year after the new law was passed, there were greater nude demonstrations than ever before. In May of 1932, mass parades led to the arrests of almost a thousand men, women and children in Nelson, British Columbia. Canadian authorities were then faced with the problem of finding penitentiary room for the convicted Sons of Freedom and making provision for their children. To this end, it was decided to establish a special penal colony for the Freedomites on Piers Island in the Strait of Georgia off Vancouver Island. The following is a detailed historical account of the internment of the Sons of Freedom on Piers Island from 1932 to 1935, reproduced by permission from “Piers Island: A Brief History of the Island and its People, 1886, 1993 (Lethbridge: Paramount Printers, 1995) by A. Harold Skolrood. While clearly written from the perspective of the Canadian Government, his account is not wholly unsympathetic to the plight of the Sons of Freedom, and provides fresh historical information on their incarceration. Postscript by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff.

Arrest and Conviction

In the fall of 1932, the sound of mournful hymn singing began to punctuate the stillness of the evening on Piers Island. The disruption of island serenity came from Doukhobors confined in a federal penitentiary built on the island in the summer of 1932. Some five hundred and forty-six Sons of Freedom, Doukhobor men and women, had been convicted of nude parading in the Kootenay region of British Columbia. Under a 1931 amendment to the Criminal Code, nude parading had become an indictable offense with a mandatory three year sentence.

Sons of Freedom hold open air sobranya meeting, Nelson, British Columbia, 1928. British Columbia Archives C-01407.

Towards the end of April, 1932, (Sons of Freedom) Doukhobors converged on the Village of Thrums three miles east of Brilliant. There in an apple orchard, on a bright day in May, a hundred men and women disrobed. They were soon arrested and taken to Nelson to face charges. Shortly thereafter they were joined by an additional two hundred and fifty four charged for disrobing. Small clusters of twos and threes continued to be arrested until the barbed wire compound at Nelson was soon teaming with well over six hundred Doukhobors living in tents and temporary buildings. The Federal Department of Justice faced two problems with the apprehension and conviction of the Doukhobors: where should the adult convicts be confined and what should be done with their children? The British Columbia penitentiary at New Westminster was not equipped to handle an additional six hundred inmates. These people were not the common type of criminal since their only crime was appearing nude in a society that frowned upon nudity in public places. Although they pleaded guilty, many insisted they had only broken a man-made law not God’s law. As one elderly lady is reported to have said: She was not naked, she was married to Christ and had worn the bridal clothes.

While a permanent site was being sought, temporary accommodations were acquired at Oakalla Prison Farm in Burnaby. The Doukhobors were loaded into Canadian Pacific Railway coaches and taken the five hundred miles to Burnaby, there to be segregated into two wings of the prison. A few militant leaders were assigned to cells, but the majority slept on mattresses on the floor. The confinement at Oakalla provided a brief respite for the Department of Justice while it decided upon a more permanent location. A prison specifically built to serve the needs of this peculiar lot of convicts during their three-year incarceration was deemed to be the most judicious course of action.

The second problem confronting the Department of Justice was what to do with the Doukhobor children. They had paraded nude with their parents. One option open to the government was to consider them neglected children as defined under the Infants Act of the Province of British Columbia. They would then become wards of the B.C. Government under the direction of the Superintendent of Neglected Children. Upon their release from prison, parents could apply to the Court to be reinstated as guardians of their children. Parents could be required to give satisfactory evidence of their ability to resume parental responsibility.

Oakalla Prison Farm, Burnaby, British Columbia. Sons of Freedom were incarcerated here from April to August 1932 until remanded to Piers Island.

Instead the government chose to maintain the children on a non-ward basis, thus maintaining a legal responsibility between parents and their children. In other words, the government would take care of the children without formal intervention from the courts. This also avoided a court appearance for the children. However, this course of action was not without its difficulties. Since the children had not been legally assigned away from the parents, parental consent was needed before medical aid could be given to sick children. Initially many parents would not give their consent for medical treatment to be given to their sick children. Agreement was finally reached in this regard.

Arrangements for care of the children fell largely upon the shoulders of the Children’s Aid Society of Vancouver. Infants remained in jail with their mothers until they reached the age of six months. The Children’s Aid Society accepted responsibility for one hundred and nineteen children ranging in age from two months to twelve years. These children were placed in approved foster homes. The response to newspaper publicity was overwhelming, hundreds of families volunteered to take the children. In an effort to maintain family ties, brothers and sisters were placed together in a home. In general, placements in foster homes worked out well. It was necessary to change placements in only thirty instances. These changes were necessitated by the needs of some children to be with siblings, ill health of the foster mother or simply a request for a change from one foster mother to another.

Institutional care was arranged for a great many other children. Seventy-five children, ages three to nine years, were accommodated at the British Columbia Protestant Orphan’s Home in Victoria, the Loyal Protestant Home in New Westminster and the Alexandra Orphanage in Vancouver. In addition, the Provincial Industrial School for Girls took seventy-five girls and the Provincial Industrial School for Boys accepted nine-two boys. Children in these institutions ranged in age from seven to eighteen years. Private institutions received a weekly maintenance rate of $4.00 per week per child until June, 1933. It was then reduced to $3.50 per week or 51.42 cents per diem per child.

Hooper (Hooper, Ronald H.C. “Custodial Care of Doukhobor Children in British Columbia” in Hawthorn, Harry B. The Doukhobors of British Columbia (University of British Columbia, 1955)) applauds the welfare personnel of the federal government for their efforts to maintain family ties of the Doukhobor children in their custody. With advanced permission, family friends could visit the children, provided the parents of the children concerned agreed. In addition, arrangements were made to permit official delegates from the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood to enter the institutions on the authority of the Superintendent of Neglected Children, provided the parents did not object.

Freedomite camp near Nelson, British Columbia, 1929.

Efforts were made to keep parents informed on the welfare of their children. An example cited by Hooper, showed that from September 18, 1932, to April 16, 1933, the seventy-five girls in the Provincial Industrial Schools sent out a total of 1,164 letters and received 900 in reply from friends and relatives. Authorities were taxed by the heavy burden of translation and censorship apart from providing information on children who were unable or unwilling to write. For a time after June 12, 1932, Doukhobors were instructed to use English to lessen the burden on translators; however, this did not last long, and on July 21, 1932, Doukhobors were again permitted to use Russian in their correspondence. After January, 1933, monthly progress reports on each child were sent to parents in prisons in addition to letters and reports of illness.

In his analysis of the Doukhobor experiment in handling the children of the convicts, Hooper concludes:

The institutions and agency were successful in countering many negativistic feelings that resulted from the separation of families, and in preventing the experience from becoming damaging to the children’s emotional development. However, it was not within the scope of their activities to attempt a re-education program, which, if successful would have resulted only in emotional conflicts when the families were reunited. The children would have been torn between their desire to conform to the wishes and beliefs of their parents and their newly acquired ideologies.

Selection of the Prison Site

Once the Doukhobors had been apprehended and convicted, what then was to be done with them? The 1932 arrest was the largest arrest that had ever been made in Canada. The existing space at both the Federal Penitentiary in New Westminster and the Provincial Oakalla Prison Farm was insufficient to accommodate such a large number of people.

Furthermore, the convicted group was almost equally divided between male and female. Initially some thought was given to separate locations.

A minimum security prison in an area relatively isolated seemed to be in keeping with the passive nature of the potential inmates. They were considered a pacifist, non-violent people in spite of their fire bombing tactics. Zubek (Zubek, John P. and Patricia A. Solberg, Doukhobors at War (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1952)) commented:

Their errors are omissions, not commission. They fail to dress; they fail to send their children to school; they fail to register; but they have shown no physical violence.

Warden H. W. Cooper defined their passive resistance as:

a persistent and general policy of obstruction coupled with an obstinate and outwardly stolid refusal to do anything they were told to do.

It occurred to the Federal Department of Justice that an ideal minimum security prison could be built at minimum cost on one of the Gulf Islands in the coastal waters of British Columbia. Working in cooperation, The Federal Penitentiary Service, the Federal Department of Public Works and the Provincial Attorney General considered a number of possibilities. Among them, D’Arcy Island, half the size of Piers and a former leper colony, and Sidney Island were possible sites. Although D’Arcy Island, seven miles from Sidney town, had been declared safe by the federal health authorities there still lingered certain fears of the prevalence of the disease. It was heavily wooded and would have to be cleared and wells dug. A wharf was needed, and besides it had no telephone communication and little cultivated land. Sidney Island was rejected because of the expense required to prepare it and it had the potential for disagreement between private and public interest on the island.

After due consideration, Piers Island was selected because it offered a degree of isolation, yet was accessible to Vancouver Island, being three miles from Sidney, twenty-five miles from Victoria by boat and through Swartz Bay twenty-one miles by road. The shoreline on the southeast offered little obstacle for building a wharf. Furthermore some 40 acres had been cleared. There was ample water available, a proven fact from past occupancy and the intermittent farming that had occurred on the island. D’Arcy Island was to be held in abeyance for use at a later date should more space be required.

Acquisition by Expropriation

Negotiations between the Harvey family (then-owners of the island) and the Government of Canada failed to produce a satisfactory rental agreement. The government considered the asking fee excessive, and moved to acquire the island through expropriation proceedings. The federal government had the power under the 1927 Penitentiary Act, Chapter 24, Section 9, to expropriate for purposes of “a public work” of Canada a tract of land for use as a penitentiary. A proclamation to this effect was published in the Canada Gazette, September 24, 1933. When Piers Island was declared a penitentiary site, it was declared so within the Province of British Columbia under the authority of the Penitentiary Act.

This Act had some later significance in terms of the care and maintenance of the incarcerated Doukhobors’ children.

Piers Island was expropriated June 16, 1932, for a period of five years ending June 15, 1937. The penitentiary boundaries were defined as:

those certain parcels or tract of land situate, lying and being on the Province of British Columbia in the vicinity of Saanich Peninsula and known and described as Piers Island and those islands adjacent thereto, namely, Hood Island, Arbutus Island, Spit Island, Shute Reef and Peck Reef.

The expropriation order granted the federal government the right to cut and use the trees for maintenance of the penitentiary. At the expiration of the lease, the government would remove from the island buildings and other “erections and fixtures” as part of the penitentiary. The annual rental fee was fixed by the government at $420. The Exchequer Court of Canada did not concur and increased the fee to $1,400 per annum to a total of $7,000. Payment was made in two installments each year, before June 16th and December 16th, in the amount of $700 each plus 5% interest on each installment.

Plan of Piers Island, British Columbia. Note the Doukhobor penitentiary was located on ten acres in the northwest corner of the island, off of Satellite Channel.

At the time of expropriation, the market value of the 141.7 ha (241 acre) island was set at $50,000. Two parcels of land, 14.9-16.2 ha (35-40 acres) in total had been cleared, but one parcel was rapidly reverting to its natural state, while approximately thirty-five acres had been cultivated for many years, some of which was subsequently cultivated by the penitentiary authorities.

Dissatisfied with the deal imposed on them by the federal government, the Harvey estate appealed their case to the Supreme Court of Canada which began hearing on the case April 24, 1934. Cornelius Hawkins O’Halloran, who had been appointed a trustee of the Harvey Trust on July 27, 1928, acted on behalf of the Harvey interests.

The Defendant (O’Halloran) presented a well documented case in support of his claim for greater compensation for the use of the island by the Federal Government. Witnesses for both sides were queried in a mild and gentle manner on the past, present and future of Piers Island in terms of its potential with respect to:

the nature of the soil;
the vegetation – types of trees, the numbers cut and where;
the suitability of mooring bays;
the industries such as farming and logging;
the future of the island as a game reserve and as recreational property.

The appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was lost. The Judgment of the Exchequer Court of Canada was upheld. In his summary statement at the end of the 255 page Proceedings document, which reads like a description of a cricket match in its detail, the Chief Justice reviewed each argument of the Defendant and offered an explanation for his refutation of each. He concluded that although the Defendant’s claims for compensation appear “unduly extravagant and excessive” the Defendant should be reimbursed for his court costs.

The Compounds

Any work incentive program during the depths of the Depression that created useful work for some of the unemployed was welcomed. CM Dickie, M.P. for Nanaimo and the Islands, quickly announced the bulk of the labour force for the prison including tradesmen, would come from his riding and the contiguous areas of Oak Bay and Saanich. Hundreds of applications were received for work on the site and for positions as guards. The situation was rife for political favoritism and patronage. One official, W. O. Wallace, stated:

“that the fact of a man not belonging to the political party of which I am an adherent, shall not debar him from securing employment on the undertaking.”

Doukhobor penitentiary at Piers Island, British Columbia, 1934.  Note the signage on the supply wharf adjacent to the prison site. BC Archives G-00606.

Thirty-five percent of the 40-50 jobs were given to unemployed returned soldiers. The rate of pay was 40 cents per hour with a board allowance of $22 per month. In keeping with the frugality dictated by economic stringency of the day, the federal government did not intend, so it said, to be extravagant in providing the inmates at Piers with luxurious accommodation in which to languish away their time. W.C. Fatt, Acting Superintendent of Penitentiaries, advised Warden H.W. Cooper:

that no extravagance whatever must be exercised in the erection of shelters and quarters on Piers Island.

Authorization for construction was given on June 15, 1932, with building to start June 28th. T.W. Fuller was the architect, J. G. Drinkwater the engineer, and F. N. Ross the construction foreman. By November, when the first contingent of male prisoners arrived aboard the S. S. Princess Mary, the Department of Public Works had hammered together some six hundred fifty thousand feet of rough ship lap and tar paper which they obtained from Sidney Mills Limited, into sixteen buildings, eight of which were dormitories, four in each compound. Located on ten acres in the northwest corner of the island, the buildings were on foundation of wooden trestles set on concrete footings and were heated by wood burning stoves. Heated tanks provided hot water for showers and tubs. Building and yards were lit with naphtha mantle lamps.

Womens’ Compound (left facing south), Piers Island Penitentiary. Courtesy Steve Lapshinoff Collection.

The two almost identical compounds were erected 91.5 M (300 ft.) apart. Besides the dormitories, each compound contained store rooms, guardrooms and mess, offices, kitchen and dining room, hospital ward, laundry, and bathing room. A root house was located under dormitory No. 1 in the men’s compound. The men’s compound was a 183 M (600 ft.) square, while the women’s compound enclosure measured 109.8 M (360 ft.) x 155.4 M (444 ft.). A 4.25 M (14 ft.) barbed wire fence, with a three strand 45.7 cm. (18 in.) apron along the top, encircled each compound. Entrance to each compound was through a wooden gate reinforced with steel mesh, wide enough for a motor truck to enter, and was opened by a lever which a guard operated from a platform above. The officer’s quarters were in a building north of the men’s compound and the matron’s quarters were likewise located south of the women’s compound. Wooden sidewalks connected the various buildings.

Dormitory wings led off a single corridor so that one guard was able to patrol an entire dormitory. The men slept on double tiered bunk beds and the women on single cots. Both men and women were grouped according to age and assigned to specific dormitories.

Fresh water from as many as eight wells supplied the penitentiary. Gasoline driven pumps were used to fill the 113,650 litres (25,000 gallons) stave tank which provided pressure for the water system. Regular reports from the Superintendent of Penitentiaries indicated an adequate supply of fresh water.

Womens’ Compound (right facing south), Piers Island Penitentiary. Courtesy Steve Lapshinoff Collection.

Dormitories were equipped with flush toilets that utilized sea water. Because of the corrosive nature of sea water, the short period of time the penitentiary was expected to be in operation, and the extra expense to install, septic tanks seemed “unjustifiable at this time”. Consequently, raw sewage went directly into ceramic clay tile lines. The pressure tank was filled twice daily with sea water. Two separate sewer systems, the men’s – known as the western system – and the women’s – the eastern system – discharged their putrid effluence into separate bays below the low water mark. Each sewer outlet terminated in 91.5 M (300 ft.) of extra heavy 20.32 cm. (8 inch) cast iron pipe and two cast iron 45 degree elbows. They were anchored to the rocks. Regular inspection of the beaches did not always report positive results. Tidal action often brought back to the beach excreta from the sewer outlets. Engineer reports frequently noted the objectionable nature of sewer outlets near the shoreline. Depending upon the direction of the wind, at low tide the malodorous condition of the beach was something less than fragrant.

A supply route to the off-island communities was via 106.7 M. (350 ft.) walkway that led from the prison site to a 12.2 M (40 ft.) x 18.3 M (60 ft.) wharf built by the James MacDonald Construction Company for a low bid of $4217.28. Additional floats were installed for smaller craft. The M.V. Narsapur was the service boat to the penitentiary. The S.S. Princess Mary also made regular stops at the wharf as did the coastal ferry, Cy Peck, which ran between Swartz Bay and Fulford Harbor. Piling from that wharf still exist today.

Easily discernible signs, 3.6 M. (12 ft.) x 1.8 M (6 ft.) warned passersby against trespassing or mooring within 91.5 M (300 ft.) of the shore. The whole prison was under 24 hour surveillance, which meant that if the Doukhobors had any aspirations to escape, they probably would not have been able to get out of the enclosure, let alone off the island.

“For Doukhobors”; showing entrance wharf to Piers Island Penitentiary. Sketch by Lindley Crease, August 27, 1933. BC Archives G-00606.

Doukhobors As Prisoners

Who were the prisoners? How did they behave in prison? The Depression and their gradual estrangement from the support of the larger Doukhobor community weakened their economic power and moved many Sons of Freedom Doukhobors close to destitution. While many were landless, having abandoned their farms, others arrived in prison with varying sums of money sewn within their clothing.

Records indicate that the number in prison at any one time varied. Of the 570 confined in 1933, 231 were born in Russia. The prison population on Piers Island included husbands, wives, parents and grandparents bonded together by a set of religious beliefs. Never before had prison officials in Canada had such a diversified group of prisoners. Chart I shows a breakdown according to age. Chart II indicates the conjugal state and sex of the prisoners.

Chart I: Ages of Prisoners in Custody at Piers Island
Fiscal Year Under 20 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 Over 60 Total
1933 31 168 97 92 66 116 570
1934 29 153 90 88 63 108 531

Canada Yearbook, 1933, p. 1035

Chart II: Conjugal State and Sex of Prisoners at Piers Island
Fiscal Year Single Married Widowed Divorced Total Male Female
1933 88 435 43 4 570 292 278
1934 78 409 40 4 531 264 267

Canada Yearbook, 1933, p. 1035

The first group of 20 male prisoners arrived August 11, 1932. Successive groups in allotments of 30 arrived when the construction of facilities permitted their reception and accommodation. By December 22nd a total of 299 male prisoners had arrived.

The first female group of 48 arrived on a cold, foggy, wet November 7th and continued to arrive in groups varying from 27 to 48 until December 27th for a total of 280, making a grand total of 579 prisoners.

Upon their arrival, the Warden explained to the prisoners that prison life demanded prisoners perform various tasks. Prisoners were divided into groups or “gangs” of fifteen to twenty for kitchen work, general rough work and to do any specific tasks that might emerge. Apart from the cooking and handling of meat, which was done by a Chinese cook and his mess boy, the Doukhobors prepared meals from the kitchen stores. Kitchen gangs were rotated every fourteen days in the male prison and every four days in the female prison. General rough work included cutting and bringing in the wood from a plentiful supply available. Stores that arrived regularly at the wharf had to be transported to the kitchen and shore house.

Mens’ Compound (left facing south), Piers Island Penitentiary. Courtesy Steve Lapshinoff Collection.

When they arrived at the prison the Doukhobors were expected to live by the cardinal principle, “all for one and one for all.” From the outset they began open defiance of authority. They vowed “never to lift hand or foot to perform any work throughout their period of incarceration. They argued that they had been brought there against their will by the government and would do no work whatever until the government gave them ‘freedom’, which to them “meant free land without taxation and without responsibility or obedience to any form of government.”

It was not long before the first confrontation occurred and the “cold war” began. They refused to bring in any wood. Night after night they walked up and down the dormitories swinging their arms to keep warm, but the guards refused to move. When the cold had reached an unbearable point one young Doukhobor went out and brought in an armful of chopped wood. Capitulation from the rest soon followed and the dormitories were quickly heated.

The Doukhobor practice of non-cooperation or passive resistance se presented a challenge to prison officials. The prevailing practice of the day in a penitentiary where people were sent for punishment, not rehabilitation, was to use physical coercion to enforce obedience and compliance with prison rules. A number of punishments were considered applicable to the situation, but few were actually carried out. Punishments authorized by the penitentiary regulations were of no avail. It was useless to deprive prisoners of smoking, if they didn’t smoke. A restrictive diet had little effect on people who voluntarily restricted their diet to vegetables. Among the punishments tried when prisoners refused to submit to prison rules were: bread and water diet, isolation, remission forfeited, infliction of the paddle, loss of privilege, shackled, probation extended, reprimand, warnings and change of work. One penitentiary report indicated that for the year 1933-34, out of a total prison population of 531, 274 received punishment. No women in that year received any punishment. The hunger strike was a frequent protest technique, even though they never completely fasted, but would take oatmeal and water and on occasion would take only water. When the latter was threatened to be denied, they would stop the hunger strike as promptly as they had started.

Mens’ Compound (right facing south), Piers Island Penitentiary. Courtesy Steve Lapshinoff Collection.

Since many of the standard authorized punishments were inappropriate for this non-violent, non-participating group of prisoners, the Warden had to resort to his own ingenuity in getting compliance from the prisoners. He reasoned that because the imprisoned Doukhobors felt somewhat akin to earlier persecuted Christians in their perceived martyrdom, they would be disappointed in not receiving the anticipated physical abuse. He would use the Doukhobors’ own weapon of “passive resistance and quiet obstruction” against them. He instructed his staff to ignore outbursts of disobedient behavior, and not to lay a hand on them. No physical coercion would be used at any time and he warned that any guard who struck a prisoner would be dismissed immediately.

The women also engaged in “passive resistance” to the normal process of prison living. At first they refused to wash their clothes in the washroom, but when assured that it was their privilege to remain dirty, their traditional Doukhobor practice of cleanliness overcame their obstinacy. It wasn’t long before their dormitories were competing with one another for exclusive use of the washroom. One day per week was allotted each dormitory for doing laundry.

Disrobing within the prison was not a common practice of protest. However, on one occasion, several older women disrobed. As dinner time approached, a frustrated matron rushed into the Warden’s office seeking advice as to what should be done to prevent them from appearing nude at the dinner table. The Warden’s reply was “let them,” since they were trying a number of socially unacceptable techniques in prison. That evening a dozen or so were nude, while the rest remained dressed. The staff went about their business in a nonchalant manner. The anticipated order to dress did not come; instead the staff acted as though nothing unusual was happening. Dressed and undressed Doukhobor women stonily ate their meal. No sympathy stripping occurred and the next morning all were dressed. Subsequently some individual attempts were tried, but they too were ignored and the practice ceased entirely. One observer noted that an infestation of yellow jacket wasps probably was the major deterrent to disrobing, at least in the summer.

Other techniques employed by female prisoners to annoy their matrons included screaming in unison, refusing to stand still while the count was being taken, refusing to scrub the floors of their dining hall and dormitories, tearing numbers off their clothing and refusing to sew them on again. Like their male counterparts, the female prisoners would stop a protest as abruptly as they started it. A persistent activity among both male and female prisoners was singing. Both groups sang over their laundry tubs and while doing their handicrafts and other work. At times they sounded content and happy, other times mournful wails reached banshee proportions when mothers expressed a longing for their children. Often the total prison population would join the chorus of voices and when they reached their crescendo, their baleful singing could be heard on Knapp and neighboring islands. When aided by the wind, they could be heard as far away as Sidney and various communities on Vancouver Island.

Group of Sons of Freedom Doukhobor women at Nelson Gaol await departure to Piers Island, September, 1932. Courtesy Steve Lapshinoff Collection.

Singing was a means of communication between the men’s and women’s compound. Since no prison rules existed against singing, a group in either compound might begin to chant in their native Russian. Others in both compounds would join the chorus. After a few lines, they would substitute for the original word, parodies improvised for the occasion and without missing a note, they would switch from item to item conveying any news that had reached them to husbands, wives, relatives and friends. The recipients in turn would answer with advice, consolation or more news. Sometimes the total group would form a mass chorus ridiculing their guards and matrons or complaining about their treatment and inevitable persecution by the government and its agents. What amazed the guards was the way their weird songs were often sung with rich voices in perfect harmony.

Their singing would penetrate the most obscure corner of the island frustrating the staff. Ignoring them seemed to be useless, but only the continued insistence of the Warden kept the guards and matrons from interfering. The staff had no choice but to be patient and tolerate it.

Prison routine was the same in both compounds. The day began a 6:30 a.m. when the “kitchen gang” was led into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. As the Doukhobors were vegetarians, vegetables were central to each meal. Borsch made from uncooked rolled oats, mixed with beet and shredded cabbage was a popular dish even for breakfast. Vegetable were eaten either cooked or raw. Cabbage, carrots, onions and potatoe along with a variety of dried fruits, apples, prunes, apricots and raisin produced solid fare each day.

The male prisoners cultivated a vegetable garden and engaged in blacksmithing, shoe making and repair, carpentry, book and magazine binding. They also made tables and benches, wove baskets and made wooden knives and forks and ornaments. The women engaged in making dresses, night gowns, pants, petticoats, pillow slips, shawls and shirt male and female slippers, socks (male), and stockings (female). The would often decorate their drab prison garb with frills made from unravelling pieces of left over cloth, carefully tying the ends together to make thread, then crocheting this thread into lace collars and cuffs. Knitting needles were made from wire and string from unraveled flour sacks, salvaged from the kitchen. They would knit socks and mitts for themselves and the male prisoners. Some revenue was realized from such articles as baskets, magazine stands and walking canes.

Prison officials were cognizant of maintaining good sanitary conditions in prison. Dr. Watson from Kings Daughters’ Hospital in Duncan paid routine weekly visits. He regularly inspected all facilities that included dormitories, laundry, washrooms and dining halls for both staff and prisoners, and filed a written report. In addition he saw individuals requiring particular medical attention.

Sons of Freedom Doukhobor girls in Nelson awaiting relocation, May 1932. Simon Fraser University Doukhobor Collection, E.H. Patterson Materials.

Although Doukhobors were opposed to doctors and medicine, many men and women clambered to stand in the medical parade, perhaps for no other reason than for something to do. Diagnosis was difficult as medical histories were hard to obtain because the patients were more interested in questioning the doctor about their ailments, than they were in divulging their medical history. They attributed most of their current ailments to their imprisonment and harsh persecution. Prisoners requiring hospital treatment were accommodated at the Kings Daughters’ Hospital in Duncan, B. C. Three mothers delivered healthy babies in the Duncan hospital. After six months the children were placed in foster homes by the Vancouver Children’s Aid Society. Speculation abounds as to how they became pregnant while in a segregated prison, but the facts nullify the speculation as the three were pregnant when they entered prison. Contact with the men was limited to conversation during one half hour visitation period Sunday afternoon and that was from behind a short fence, three feet back from the main fence of the female prisoner compound against which the women stood while a guard strolled back and forth between them.

Throughout their period of confinement they continued to resist authority and argued over small details, but as prison routine became established, their behavior was less erratic and volatile, still the least provocation could produce a work stoppage or a hunger strike. Notwithstanding, the Superintendent of Penitentiaries reported in his Annual Report, March 1934,

that a marked change is noticeable in the attitude of these convicts. There are indications of a slight change in their habits of life, and their resistance to rules and regulations has been partially overcome.

Release from Prison

Although the Doukhobors had been sentenced to three years, none actually served the full time. The Depression had placed a drain on government expenditures; consequently, any cost savings that could be effected were utilized, with the result being the authorities were willing to release prisoners before their sentences had expired. Releases were done on a flexible basis beginning in the first summer of confinement when two pregnant women were released. Both objected to leaving.

They insisted they had been sentenced to three years like the rest of their “brothers and sisters” and they wished to stay with them. Cooperative prisoners received six days “time off per month. Some were released early because they appeared to be good prospects to return to normal living. Initially inmates were released in ones, two, and from time to time, threes. Released groups increased in size as June 1935 approached. By the time the prison closed in June 1935, about thirty men were left to be transferred to the New Westminster penitentiary for completion of their sentences.

Sons of Freedom Doukhobor children in Nelson awaiting relocation, May 1932. Simon Fraser University Doukhobor Collection, E.H. Patterson Materials.

Reunion with their children was for many a heart wrenching experience. Children had grown and changed because of the environment they had lived in for some time, and parents likewise had aged and changed. Problems of recognition and verification produced some uneasy moments for both children and parents.

The supervision of the reunion of families was done by a government appointed committee consisting of John Sherbin(in), representing the Doukhobors, F.F. Payne, publisher of the Nelson Daily News, representing the public and David Brankin, Superintendent of the Provincial Industrial School for Boys, Port Coquitlam, representing the government.

Reaction to their confinement experience varied. A rather humorous incident occurred when a group of Doukhobors were waiting, unguarded, for transportation back to the mainland.

He was a tall man, six feet six inches, ‘two ax handles across the shoulders and with the stolidity of Paul Bunyan’s ox Babe. In response to a question as to how he had been treated in prison, and had there been any brutality, the big Doukhobor smiled shyly and said, ‘No Doukhobor had tried to escape. What was the use?’ And as for brutality — and he leaned over and reached out, grabbing a five foot ten inch man nearby. This man was no weakling. The big Doukhobor held his victim by the back of the collar, slowly raised him off the ground, and with one hand held him wiggling there, and with a sweet smile said, ‘How could we rebel? We had men like this for our guards.’ The contempt in his voice, and the sarcasm in his laughter after dropping the guard was biting, onlookers tell.

The penal authorities had no plans for rehabilitation after the inmates were released. Rehabilitation expenses were kept to a minimum: prisoners were given a complete outfit of clothing, a railway ticket home and ten dollars in pocket money. Aside from these bare necessities, the ex-prisoners were destitute. They had nothing to go home to as they owned no property and what they had prior to their incarceration, including their homes, had been taken over by their community.

Sons of Freedom Doukhobor girls at Industrial School in Victoria, September, 1932. Courtesy Steve Lapshinoff Collection.

The Federal Government, for its part, felt it had completed its work. The Doukhobors had been punished and it was up to them to return to a normal life as best they could. In response to a question from M.P. Thomas Reid of New Westminster as to what action the federal government planned to take regarding the release of prisoners from Piers Island, the Minister of Justice, the Honorable Hugh Guthrie, stated that apart from transportation and $10.00, the federal government had no further responsibility. He said,

the hope is now that having served their prison terms, they may not be in future guilty of the offenses of which they were formerly guilty and for which they had served their time.

When the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors were released, other Doukhobor communities refused to have anything to do with them. They would take the children, but not the adults. They were viewed as ex-convicts, who in the eyes of Doukhobor leader, Peter Verigin, Jr., had not yet completed their full sentence, and were still the responsibility of the government.

Those originally from the Kootenay and Slocan valleys went to Krestova and attempted to begin a new life on arid and unproductive soil. Others originally from the Kettle Valley, were disembarked at Grand Forks and escorted by police to some government owned wasteland overlooking the Kettle River, where they built shacks and prepared geometrically shaped gardens. Their community beside the Great Northern Railway tracks became known as Gilpin.

The Doukhobor episode was at the height of the Depression. The government’s hurried disposal of the “Doukhobor” issue was understandable as it increasingly came under criticism for its “million dollar Doukhobor policy’. For example, it was criticized for spending 57 cents a day or $17.50 per month to support Doukhobor children while unemployed parents in society at large received $2.50 per month for child support. The total cost was estimated at 3 million dollars.

Was the cost worth what was accomplished? Did the government have any alternatives in dealing with a fanatical group such as the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors, whose initial crime was directed against other Doukhobors? It has been suggested by Woodcock and Avakumovic in their book entitled, The Doukhobors that:

“The expedient of Piers Island was successful as a means of temporarily removing the Sons of Freedom from the environment of the Kootenays, where their activities had further angered their neighbors and provoked new threats of vigilante action, but their attitudes were unchanged, in fact, their resolve to disobey the state was enhanced by a consciousness of martyrdom achieved at comparatively little personal discomfort, and a further chapter of grievance was added to the boring book of their complaints against Canadian society.”

The wish expressed by Justice Minister Hugh Guthrie failed to become a reality in subsequent years. In 1950, the federal government again built a special prison at Agassiz, B. C. to accommodate some four hundred Sons of Freedom Doukhobors, mostly men. The relatively few women involved were sent to the Federal penitentiary at Kingston, Ontario. In more recent times, a reduction in their destructive and demonstrative activities along with less media coverage has made the public less aware of them, but conflict among rival groups still remains volatile.

Sons of Freedom Doukhobor boys at Industrial School in Victoria, September, 1932. Courtesy Steve Lapshinoff Collection.

Staff

A staff list for August 10, 1933, showed a total of 59 staff members in charge of a prison population of 556. The majority of the guards, matrons, and other personnel hired for prison duty were recruited on Vancouver Island for a term of employment lasting the duration of the prison sentence given to the Doukhobors. Eight officers from New Westminster Penitentiary were transferred to Piers Island. Along with assistance from a number of R.C.M.P. officers, they established the prison. The preliminary training of staff detailed the job requirements and provided information on the peculiar nature of the prisoners. After one month probation, a new recruit was given a uniform of soft blue cloth. The winter uniform was made of wool. Beyond that, it was on the job training. The military routine used to organize and handle staff demanded rigorous physical and mental discipline which at times was strict to the point of severity and had to be executed fairly. Mental discipline was the only weapon against boredom. It, along with great patience, did not prevent the large turnover of staff.

Warden H. W. Cooper and his administrative staff at the New Westminster Penitentiary were responsible for the administration of the Piers Island Prison. Deputy Warden was L. Goss until December 27, 1933, when he was relieved by Deputy Warden I. A. Poirier, from the St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary. Ill health soon forced Poirier to relinquish the post on March 12, 1934, then, Deputy Warden L. Goss again assumed responsibility for the prison.

The work day was divided into two shifts: 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m and 6:00 p.m to 7:00 a.m. Officers were assigned to various dormitories and work places such as kitchen, laundry, dormitory and so forth. Guards and matrons ate in the same building, but at different tables. Initially guards received four days off a month, but this was later changed to one day a week. They went off duty in the evening and returned for work the next evening. Off duty staff left the island. Guards received a salary of $90 per month along with daily board and clothing.

Sons of Freedom Doukhobor boys at Industrial School in Victoria, September, 1932. Courtesy Steve Lapshinoff Collection.

Since a policy of no physical force was to be used, guards and matrons had to exhibit considerable patience in dealing with the idiosyncratic behaviour of their prisoners. This could take a variety of forms in the course of a day, including sudden outbursts of shouting, singing, work slow down and work stoppage, argumentation or fasting. But, despite these annoyances, there were amusing incidents, which for the guards, at least, broke the monotony and injected a little levity into an otherwise boring situation.

According to a former guard, staff did learn to speak some colloquial Doukhobor language. One word coined by the guards to refer to the prisoners was “Nits”, the English version of the Russian word “Nyet” meaning “No” – a word that was central to Doukhobor behaviour.

Once the sentence had been served and prisoners discharged, the guards and matrons were discharged. For a couple of years, at least, work at the penitentiary did allow some people a departure from the ranks of the unemployed for a short time during the depression.

Removal of Buildings

The leasehold interest the federal government acquired June 16, 1932, of Piers Island was for a period of five years terminating June 15, 1937. Since the last contingent of prisoners left at the end of March, 1935, the federal government no longer had a use for the island property. Negotiations were conducted with Mr. Robert D. Harvey for the return of the property to the Harvey estate. He was invited to inspect the island and submit a statement of compensation under the terms of the original contract. The federal government had its own evaluation done of the facilities and equipment. Its capital expenditure had been $108,983.47, but a report from the Chief Engineer, W.S. Lawson, estimated the value of salvageable materials to be $16,600, which penitentiary officials felt was far in excess of any damage done by constructing roads, cutting trees and piling gravel on cleared portions of the island.

Piers Island as it appears today. Note the cleared area in the northwest corner of the island is the site of the former penitentiary.

The buildings were not worth the expense to move them anywhere, but if left would be an expense to the owner and detriment to the property,

One suggestion, that if the site was left intact, it would make a more than adequately equipped summer camp resort for such groups as the Y.W.C.A., Y.M.C.A., Boy Scouts and Girl Guides or perhaps even a summer hotel.

A settlement was reached with the Harvey estate that included the balance of rental due under the terms of the original agreement, compensation for trees cut including the 270 recorded in the “tree book” and those cut haphazardly and not recorded and provincial taxes payable once the federal government relinquished its control of the island.

The restoration agreement left intact the wharf and landing and two fully serviced buildings, H-l (officers’ building) and H-2 (matrons’ building). All other buildings were to be removed, wells capped, and equipment sent by scow at a cost of $250 to the New Westminster Penitentiary for use or storage.

Until the demolition work and restoration was completed, a caretaking staff of nine was left on the island to protect the property against fire or depredations by any persons. The staff included “Acting Deputy Warden, B.S. MacDonald, an acting engineer, a clerk, storekeeper, a guard in charge of a team of horses, an engineer with license to navigate the “M.V. Narsapur”, an assistant for the “M.V. Narsapur”, and one cook. The “M.V. Narsapur”, like the tons of other salvageable material from the Piers Island prison, was taken to the New Westminster penitentiary for disposal. The remaining stable was eventually dismantled and the lumber used by some of the first cottage like H. K. Gann, who built his guest cottage out of it.

Postscript

According to the official government account outlined above, the Piers Island Penitentiary warden instructed his staff not to use physical force on the Doukhobors prisoners. However, it is important to note that surviving Doukhobor accounts allege gross abuses of the Piers Island prisoners.

For example, in an open letter published by the Fraternal Council of the Union of Christian Communities & Brotherhood of Reformed Doukhobors in 1953 (Perepelkin, Hadikin, and Jmaeiff 1953, 12-15), it is alleged that nursing mothers interned at Piers Island had their babies taken away from them to be cared for by prison staff. Less than two weeks later, when the parents were allowed to see the babies, they appeared undernourished and neglected. Two or three days later, prison officials informed the parents that three of the babies had died. They were the children of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Babakaeff, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Shlakoff and Mr. and Mrs. Fred Postnikoff. The parents blamed the government for the death of the babies.

Additional oral accounts allege that the male Doukhobor prisoners were physically beaten by the Piers Island Penitentiary staff while the children of the Doukhobor prisoners placed in the Industrial Schools were abused and mistreated – JJK.

View a list of Sons of Freedom interned at Piers Island Penitentiary. This index contains the surname, name, sex, age, place of arrest, remand prison, place of conviction and comments for each of 556 Sons of Freedom Doukhobors incarcerated at Piers Island Penitentiary, British Columbia between 1932-1935.  View a list of 357 Sons of Freedom children, whose parents were interned at Piers Island Penitentiary, British Columbia, and who were placed by the government with Independent and Community Doukhobor families between 1933 and 1935 for foster care.

Read an account of a 2008 excursion to Piers Island by Dr. Gunter Schaarschmid  of the University of Victoria to visit some of the physical features left from the penitentiary camp site, including photos.

About this Book

Piers Island, A Brief History of the Island and its People, 1886-1993 by A. Harold Skolrood (1928-2003) is a 150-page soft-cover book published by Paramount Printers (ISBN 0-9680476-0-2).  A comprehensive local history book about Piers Island, British Columbia, including detailed information regarding its: location and nature; early settlement; the Doukhobor period, 1932-1935; the cottage era; transportation and communication; governance; the Piers Island fire department; the Piers Island water system; island living; maps and more. For more information or to order copies of this informative book, contact the late author’s representatives at: hiskol@shaw.ca.

Notes from the Molochnaya, 1855

by Alexander Petzholdt

Alexander Petzholdt was a German scholar who toured the Molochnaya region of Tavria, Russia in 1855.  During his expedition, he visited the villages of Rodionovka and Terpeniye, formerly inhabited by the Doukhobors.  He found their once clean and orderly villages in a dilapidated state, and their once resplendent garden park neglected and overgrown.  Petzholdt kept detailed notes of his observations, which he later published in “ Reise im westlichen und südlichen europäischen Rußland im Jahre 1855: Mit in d. Text gedr. Holzschr. u. Kt” (Griesbach, 1860; pp. 222-223, 225-227).  Available in English for the first time ever, this translation provides the reader with a brief, rare, first-hand account of the physical legacy of the Doukhobors on the Molochnaya, ten years after their expulsion.  Translated by Gunter Schaarschmidt exclusively for the Doukhobor Genealogy Website.  Foreword and Afterword by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff. 

Foreword

Alexander (George Paul) Petzholdt (1810-1889) was a Saxon-German scientist and traveller-explorer. After studying at the universities of Leipzig, Berlin and Giessen, he practiced medicine and pharmacy in Dresden from 1838 to 1846.  At the same time, he pursued the study of geology and plant chemistry.  From 1846 to 1872, he was a professor of agriculture and agricultural engineering at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu) in the Baltic region of the Russian Empire.  During this period, Petzholdt undertook extensive expeditions throughout the Empire on behalf of the Russian Government and published a number of books based on his travels.

In the year 1855, Petzholdt received a commission from the High Ministry of Public Education to conduct an expedition of southwestern Russia. To this end, he traveled throughout the provinces of Mogilev, Chernigov, Kiev, Ekaterinoslav, Tavria, Kharkov, Kursk, Orel, Tula and Moscow.  During his stay with the Mennonite colonists on the Molochnaya River in Tavria, Petzholdt visited several villages formerly inhabited by the Doukhobors, who had been expelled to the Caucasus ten years prior. What follows are his detailed observations about the state and condition of their former villages.

Alexander (George Paul) Petzholdt (1810-1889).

During my stay with the Mennonites on the Molochnaya River I also visited the village of Astrakhanka formerly inhabited by Molokans and the villages of Terpeniye and Rodionovka formerly inhabited by Doukhobors.

The Molokans and Doukhobors are exceptional Russian sects that in their own words “have abolished in its entirety the sensual divine service in order to find and acquire the pure spiritual Christian faith”; therefore they do not have any churches, icons, crucifix etc. Nonetheless, this search for the pure and spiritual Christian faith does not prevent the most severe moral excesses and, especially in the case of the Doukhobors, the most extensive atrocities. Because of this, the Government which has been otherwise most tolerant in religious matters had to do its utmost in order to subdue this sect. In the following I will try to supply the reader with an approximate understanding of the nature of these interesting sects. In this I will follow Haxthausen’s treatise [August Freiherr von Haxthausen, “The Russian Empire, its People, Institutions and Resources” (2 vols) (London: Chapman and Hall, 1856)] for the description of their history and matters of faith.

The time of the rise of these sects is obscure but the Molokan sect is probably older than the Doukhobor sect. The latter probably arose from, or was at least generated and inspired by, the former. At present only Russian peasants are the followers of both sects.

. . .

Concerning the Doukhobors, their name is said to go back to Bishop Ambrosius of Ekaterinoslav who in 1785 engaged in an investigation of their belief system; the name roughly means “spirit or light combatants”. While the Doukhobors adopted this name they interpreted it to mean “spirit or light wrestlers” (the Russian language allows such a double meaning); they were also called “iconoclasts”.

They appeared first in Ekaterinoslav Province but spread soon to all parts of Russia. In 1801 about 30 families settled from Ekaterinoslav with Tsar Alexander I’s permission to the right-hand side of the Molochnaya River. Since this small colony, having no enemies or oppressors, flourished very fast, Doukhobors from all regions of the Empire descended upon this area and settled there with the Government’s permission. They founded nine villages in this way and had formed a population of about 4,000 members before being exiled. The most significant of their settled villages were Terpeniye, the location of the Doukhobor leader, and Bogdanovka.

The Doukhobors’ teachings form a complete theological and mystic-philosophical system filled with magnificent views and consisting of a considerable inner cohesion.  [What follows is a lengthy footnoted quote from Haxthausen describing the Doukhobors’ spiritual teachings. After the footnoted quote, Petzholdt continues:]

Molochnaya River beside Terpeniye village, much the same today as when Alexander Petzhold visited it in 1855. A Panoramio photo by Matryoshka

When the Doukhobors had resettled to the Molochnaya in 1801, their leader Kapustin, whose origin and former life are completely obscure, introduced a complete community-held property management system. The fields were cultivated collectively in accordance with his arrangement, the harvest was distributed to all, storage facilities were set up for hungry years, etc. Various industrial branches developed, gardens were laid out and soon put the young villages into a most prime condition. However, when after Kapustin’s death his son, Larion Kalmykov, took over the leadership of the Doukhobors with its ensuing gravest excesses and atrocities, the Russian Government stepped in.

In 1834 a commission was set up that completed its investigation in 1839. As a result all Doukhobors were exiled to the Caucasus. In 1841 the most aggravating heads of households and their families (800 persons) were exiled, in 1842 another 800 persons followed, and in 1843 finally the last 900, thus 2,500 persons in all [in fact two more groups of 900 persons each were exiled in 1844 and in 1845]. Only those who, realizing their erroneous ways, converted to the correct belief and entered into the womb of the Orthodox Church, were allowed to stay in their villages as the owners of their lands. Crown peasants from other regions, Little Russian and Great Russians [Ukrainians and Russians], were resettled into the vacated villages, e.g., to Terpeniye and Rodionovka etc. I therefore did not find Doukhobors any longer when I visited these villages in 1855.

Concerning the condition of these villages at the time when I saw them, it seemed to me that their condition was better under Doukhobor management than now; this is certainly true of Terpeniye where one can still sense the former prosperity that has now gone to ruin. Terpeniye is situated on the right side of the Molochnaya on the high embankment of that small river – the village stands out due to its beautiful park that was created and carefully tended by the Doukhobors. Especially coming from the Mennonite colony Altona, one can see Terpeniye from afar due to its high location on the slope of the mountain range of younger tertiary limestone that extends along the Molochnaya.

The shaded and cool park beckons the traveler of the steppe already from far away. Since this plantation is the oldest in the area we naturally also find the tallest trees here. This Doukhobor park setting is very romantic and bestows on Terpeniye a special attractiveness because it does not have the pedantic regularity of the Mennonite park settings that significantly prevents one from getting the impression of being in a forest. In addition there is the God-given presence of water that wells forth everywhere from the limestone mountains and that was used by the Doukhobors in the irrigation of the park land on the slope but mostly speeds uninhibitedly and with a murmur towards the Molochnaya in the shade of leafy trees. Simple benches had been installed everywhere and beckon us to sit and linger. There is the most magnificent view from the highest point of the park onto the steppe. This contrast is apt to place the beauty of this locality into the best of lights. Because of such an abundant source of excellent fresh water, which is lacking all around, a cold-water spa had been built that, however, lacked patients and of course also a physician when I visited the place. Instead, the place was heavily populated by all sorts of song-birds that had taken refuge to this oasis. At least to my taste these birds formed a hundredfold substitute for the disgusting activity as we usually find it in a West European spa.

Historic photo of local Russian and Ukrainian residents at the garden park at Terpeniye, 1905. At the time of the photo, it was still recalled that Doukhobors had established the park a century earlier.  Photo courtesy Alexander Chukhraenko.

After ascertaining that it was going more and more back to the wild after the Doukhobors could no longer tend to it, the garden park in Terpeniye has become the responsibility of the overall Mennonite supervisor of the administration of the Berdyansk crown model plantation.

Afterword

In his tour of Tavria province in 1855, Alexander Petzholdt visited two of the villages formerly inhabited by the Doukhobors: Terpeniye, situated on the right bank of the Molochnaya River; and Rodionovka, situated at the confluence of the Tashchenak River and the Molochnaya River estuary. The Doukhobors themselves no longer lived in the villages they had founded, having been exiled to the Caucasus region ten years prior. Nevertheless, the physical landscape of the Molochnaya still bore their imprint, and their memory was still kept by local residents.

Petzholdt reiterated the ‘official’ position – documented by Haxthausen – that the Doukhobors were exiled to the Caucasus because of undefined crimes and excesses committed while they lived on the Molochnaya; however recent historical scholarship has cast doubt on the veracity of these accusations. Petzholdt probably included this as a nod to his benefactors, the High Ministry of Public Education, to ensure the further financial backing of his expeditions. These comments are counterbalanced, somewhat, by Petzholdt’s own observations about the industry, efficiency and hard work of the Doukhobors, as well as the “magnificent views” and “considerable inner cohesion” of their spiritual beliefs.

The German scholar wrote disapprovingly about the physical state of the villages he saw. Under Doukhobor management, the villages had been clean, orderly and in “a most prime condition”. However, a decade later, the former prosperity had now “gone to ruin” under the habitation of Crown peasants from other regions and the villages had become dilapidated. Petzholdt noted with particular disappointment how the once-beautiful garden park at Terpeniye, a veritable “oasis” on the steppes, created and carefully tended by the Doukhobors, was now neglected and overgrown. Petzholdt is one of very few writers to make reference to the Terpeniye springs and park.

This would not be Petzholdt’s only brush with the Doukhobors.  In 1863-1864, while touring the Caucasus, he would meet a convoy of Doukhobor teamsters in the Tiflis district hauling freight to the German colonies. He would also visit the Doukhobors living in the Borchalo district, where he observed their living conditions and way of life. For more information, see Doukhobors in the Caucasus, 1863-1864.

Petzholdt’s writings are among the few, rare sources of published information about the physical legacy of the Doukhobors on the Molochnaya after their expulsion to the Caucasus. As such, his work is a useful contribution to our understanding of this little-known period of Doukhobor history.

To read more, search, download, save and print a full PDF copy of the original German text of Alexander Petzholdt’s work, Reise im westlichen und südlichen europäischen Rußland im Jahre 1855: Mit in d. Text gedr. Holzschr. u. Kt (Griesbach, 1860), visit the Google Book Search digital database.

Doukhobors in the Caucasus, 1863-1864

by Alexander Petzholdt

Alexander Petzholdt was a German scientist and traveller-explorer who toured the Caucasus region of Russia in 1863-1864. In Tiflis district, he met a convoy of Doukhobor teamsters hauling freight to the German colonies. Later, he visited Doukhobors living in Borchalo district. Petzholdt kept a journal and recorded his impressions of these encounters, which he published in “Der Kaukasus: Eine naturhistorische so wie land- und volkswirtschaftliche Studie (ausgeführt im Jahre 1863 und 1864) (H. Fries, 1866). Available in English for the first time ever, this exclusive translation provides the reader with a remarkably rare and detailed first-hand account of the Doukhobors during this little-known, little-studied period of their history. Translated by Gunter Schaarschmidt for the Doukhobor Genealogy Website. Foreword and Afterword by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff.

Foreword

Alexander (George Paul) Petzholdt (1810-1889) was a Saxon-German scientist and traveller-explorer. After studying at the universities of Leipzig, Berlin and Giessen, he practiced medicine and pharmacy in Dresden from 1838 to 1846.  At the same time, he pursued the study of geology and plant chemistry.  From 1846 to 1872, he was a professor of agriculture and agricultural engineering at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu) in the Baltic region of the Russian Empire.  During this period, Petzholdt undertook extensive expeditions throughout the Empire on behalf of the Russian Government and published a number of books based on his travels.

Petzhold first discovered the Doukhobors in 1855, while on an expedition of southwestern Russia for the High Ministry of Public Education.  During his stay with the Mennonites on the Molochnaya River in Tavria, he visited the villages of Rodionovka and Terpeniye, formerly inhabited by the Doukhobors, who had been expelled to the Caucasus ten years prior.  The physical landscape of the Molochnaya still bore the strong imprint of the Doukhobors; however, the German scholar found their once clean and orderly villages in a now-dilapidated state, and their once-beautiful garden park in Terpeniye neglected and overgrown.  For more information about Petzholdt’s expedition, see Notes from the Molochnaya, 1855.

Eight years later, in 1863, Petzholdt received a commission from the Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich, Governor of the Caucasus, to conduct an expedition in that province.  There, in the German village of Marienfeld (now Sartichala) in Tiflis district, he encountered a convoy of Doukhobor teamsters whom he mistook for Germans because of their well-built wagons, good horses, German harness, German clothing and cleanliness. “I offered the first carter a cheerful good morning; the man looked at me with surprise and gave no answer. I was told that they were not Germans but Doukhobors who, before being exiled to the Caucasus, had been long-time neighbours of the Mennonites in the Molochnaya area and had learned alot from the Germans.”  They were Doukhobors from the Akhalkalaki district.

The following year, in 1864, Petzholdt travelled from Tiflis via Katherinenfeld (now Bolnisi) to the Doukhobor village of Bashkichet (now Dmanisi) in Borchalo district, which he visited twice.  He also visited neighbouring Doukhobor villages in the district; while he did not mention them by name, these would have been the villages of Karaklisi (now Vake) and Ormasheni (now Kirovisi). What follows are his detailed observations of the Doukhobors of Borchalo district – their state and condition of life.

Concerning the Russian colonies of the Doukhobors and Molokans, one can find these in many areas of Transcaucasia. Even though only a few of these colonies are located in favourable areas, almost all of them are found in such an excellent condition that the traveller is fond of recalling his visit there: he remembers having made the acquaintance of industrious, orderly, and intelligent people.

It is well known that the Doukhobors and Molokans are Russian sectarians that [allegedly] engaged in acts of violence of the grossest kind. The latter is true in particular of the Doukhobors. Such [alleged] acts of violence aroused the justified displeasure of the government and led to the sectarians’ exile to the Caucasus.

Earlier they had inhabited a number of villages on the Molochnaya River in Tavria province in the immediate vicinity of the estates occupied by the “Mennonites on the Molochnaya”. The sectarians thus enjoyed the great advantage of learning from the Mennonites, who served as their mentors. The sectarians lived in this area in great wealth as everyone who had the opportunity of getting to know them testified. I myself had seen their deserted villages in the year 1855 and can only agree that the people who had lived there were efficient and tidy.

Alexander (George Paul) Petzholdt (1810-1889).

But, as I already indicated, various [alleged] excesses on their part forced the government that was otherwise very tolerant in religious matters to take severe measures against these sects. As a consequence of these measures, all Doukhobors and a large part of the Molokans were exiled to Transcaucasia in the years 1841 and 1842. Only those who saw their wrong ways and converted to the correct faith by entering into the bosom of the Orthodox Church, were allowed to remain in their old settlements and in the possession of their estates. The deserted villages were resettled with crown estate peasants from other areas (Ukraine, Central Russia) while the exiled were assigned land in various areas of Transcaucasia for the establishment of new villages.

Since they had been sent to the Caucasus as a punishment, it goes without saying that they were not assigned the most fertile lands; on the contrary, they received in part very inhospitable areas and were forced to adjust to the conditions as well as they could. Those Doukhobors who were assigned their future place of residence in the plains of the Western part of the Akhalkalaki district near the Turkish border were worst off: this area is situated almost 3,000 feet above sea-level, traversed by low mountains that receive an early snow-fall, is only open towards the Turkish side, and gives the impression of a dead wasteland. The Doukhobors in the upper part of the Mashavera Valley [in the Borchalo district] had a somewhat better deal, as did the Molokans in the Shemakha district and on Lake Gokcha (now Sevan); the Molokans in the Bambak (now Pambak) Valley between Delishan and Alexandropol had the best deal.

The Doukhobor village of Bashkichet (now Dmanisi), much the same today as when Petzholdt visited it in 1864. A Flickr photo by AutumLilee.

I myself was able to view only the sectarians’ villages located in the Bambak Valley, on Lake Gokcha, and on the road between Nukha (now Shaki) and Shemakha as well as the villages on the upper part of the Mashavera River [in the Borchalo district]. I was unable to view the state of the Doukhobor colonies in the Akhalkalaki district in person since I did not get there during my Transcaucasion travels. I only saw Doukhobors of the latter area on the road.

At the beginning of these remarks I have already praised the condition in which I found the Doukhobors in Transcaucasia, and I will refrain from any further details. As far as I was able to observe, they are efficient, hard-working people who keep their entire household in good order. With the kind of skill and obedience that is innate in the Russian personality, they have adjusted as well as possible to their new conditions which are after all quite distinct from their previous ones. They pursue farming and cattle-raising both of which support their needs. However, the Doukhobors of the Akhalkalaki district had been assigned a most unsuitable settlement area where neither farming nor cattle-raising was worth while, and they therefore had to resort to other sources of income. As I have already stated, I did not visit their villages. And so it is with great interest that I read the description of the living conditions of these Doukhobors by an anonymous author. Indeed, I may be permitted to relate the most essential details of this interesting treatise in an excerpt because our ‘Anonymous’ has lived with these people for a longer period of time and became accurately acquainted with their doings.

Doukhobors living in the mountain lowlands of Borchalo district enjoyed a more moderate climate, fertile soil and better growing conditions than their brethren settled in Akhalkalaki district highlands. A Flickr photo by Rita Willaert.

After first describing the location, the so-called Dukhobor’e (land of the Doukhobors), our Anonymous writes:

[What follows is a lengthy quote from the anonymous article, The Dukhobortsy in Transcaucasiain the Baltic journal Baltische Monatsschrift (Volume 11, Riga: Jonck & Boliewsky, 1865). The quote begins in the section “Geography and Climate”, second paragraph and ends at the end of the section “Customs and Practices”, with many omissions in between.  After the quote, Petzholdt continues:]

When I stayed in [the town of] Akhaltsikhe, the Doukhobors, especially those from the villages Goreloye and Spasskoye, pleaded with me to come to them and to convince myself that they had been allotted too little land. They were hoping that I could intervene with the authorities in Tiflis to give them more land and especially land suitable for pasture. They stressed that they had already made that request many times but there had been no results. Unfortunately, I was unable to accept their call. Considering all the facts supplied by the above Anonymous, one would wish that the authorities would offer these people the means to pursue cattle-raising and thus to be able to support themselves by other means than the ones they have available now.

View Doukhobor Villages in Georgia, 1841-Present in a larger map

Afterword

In his tour of the Caucasus, Petzholdt found a population of 7,000 Doukhobors living in thirteen colonies, namely one (he erred as there were three) in the Borchalo district; four in Elizavetpol district; and eight in Akhalkalaki district.  He only visited those living in the former, and not the latter two districts.  He also found a population of 23,000 Molokans living in thirty-eight colonies, namely six in Tiflis district; five in Elizavetpol district; seven in Novo-Bayaset district; two in Alexandropol district; and eighteen in Baku province – of the latter, eight were located in the Shemakha district, three in the Shusha district, and seven in the Lenkoran district.

Petzholdt noted that the Doukhobors were assigned insufficient, barren lands in very inhospitable areas of the Caucasus and were forced to adjust to the conditions as well as they could.  Those assigned to the mountain highlands of the Akhalkalaki district, a “dead wasteland” situated almost 3,000 feet above sea level, were worst off.  By comparison, those assigned to the lowlands of Borchalo district, situated at a lower altitude with a more moderate climate, fertile soil and growing conditions were somewhat better off. 

Petzholdt wrote approvingly of the Doukhobors as an “industrious, intelligent, efficient and hard-working” people whose character and whose “clean, orderly and excellent” villages reflected the influence of their Mennonite mentors. At the same time, he admired the skill and obedience “that is innate in the Russian personality”, which enabled the Doukhobors to adjust as well as possible to the adverse geographic and climatic conditions of the Caucasus.  

Nonetheless, Petzholdt reprimanded Doukhobors, Molokans, and Germans alike: “they live in isolation and keep to themselves so that it is not surprising that they have not yet been able to exert a noticeable influence on their environment.” He went on to quote from Karl Koch’s book, “Wanderungen im Orient” (Weimar, 1846-1847) which states: “Concerning the Doukhobors and Molokans (of the Shemakha district): “Like the German colonists, the influence of these industrious people on the original inhabitants of the area is by far not as benevolent as one might think. Unfortunately, they refrain from socializing with people of different persuasions and even the mere touching of one of their vessels by one of the latter is enough grounds to throw the vessel away.”

Petzholdt reiterated the “official” position that the Doukhobors were exiled to the Caucasus because of undefined crimes and excesses committed while they lived on the Molochnaya River in Tavria province; recent historical scholarship has cast doubt on the veracity of these accusations.  This was probably included as a nod to his benefactor, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich, Governor of the Caucasus, to ensure the further financial backing of his expeditions. It is counterbalanced, somewhat, by Petzholdt’s adjuration to authorities to provide the Doukhobors (particularly those of Akhalkalaki district) with sufficient land to support themselves by means of cattle-raising; at the time they derived their only means of income through cartage – the transport of goods by horse and wagon for hire.

Petzholdt’s writings are among the remarkably few sources of detailed, published information about the Doukhobors in the two decades following their settlement in the Caucasus.  As such, his work is a valuable contribution to our understanding of this little-known and little-explored period of Doukhobor history.

To read more, search, download, save and print a full PDF copy of the original German text of Der Kaukasus: Eine naturhistorische so wie land- und volkswirtschaftliche Studie (ausgeführt im Jahre 1863 und 1864) (H. Fries, 1866), visit the Google Book Search digital database.