"The Long Journey Finally Ends"

This two-page spread was part of a 1972 National Geographic story on what was then the four-year-old village of Nikolaevsk.

THE LONG JOURNEY FINALLY ENDS

MAY 2012

On June 19, 1975, the list before the court contained the names of 59 adults. The members of four extended families—the Reutovs, the Martushevs, the Kuzmins and the Basargins—accounted for more than 40 of the names, all from the village of Nikolaevsk, and all of them about to become citizens of the United States.

A special U.S. District Court session in the gymnasium of the Anchor Point School had become a naturalization ceremony for this band of former Russian dissidents, the oldest of whom had embarked more than 50 years earlier on a round-the-world trek in search of a safe, productive and permanent home. Those elders had traveled more than 20,000 miles across three continents; however, their long exodus had had its true beginnings more than 300 years earlier, when the

Old Believers await the naturalization ceremony.

ancestors of these villagers had refused to accept the religious reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Now they were about to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States and receive hearty congratulations from Alaska dignitaries as well as U.S. President Gerald R. Ford.

Three years earlier, in the pages of the September 1972 edition of National Geographic, the founding of the tiny then-four-year-old village of Nikolaevsk was documented by the words of Homer resident Jim Rearden and photographer Charles O’Rear. The photos depicted a rough-hewn rural existence that seemed nearly to be an anachronism and belied the turmoil and travails behind the village’s very existence.

Nikolaevsk sits about nine road miles due east of Anchor Point on the southern Kenai Peninsula and is populated largely by Old Believers, adherents to the path set forth by their dissident ancestors. Currently, its population is about 300, but at its peak it contained about 500 residents. In more recent decades, some of the Old Believers have abandoned village life completely, some have moved to other Old Believer communities in the Lower 48, and some have splintered off into even smaller and more remote southern-peninsula communities of their own—Voznesenka, Razdolna and Kachemak Selo.

The Trouble Begins

In the 1650s, the Russian Patriarch Nikon attempted to reform the rites of the Russian Orthodox Church to bring them back into line with the Greek Orthodox tradition, from which Russian Christianity had originated nearly 700 years earlier. The Orthodox who refused to conform to Nikon’s edict called themselves the Staroviertsi, or “Old Believers,” but Nikon called them heretics. Peter the Great excommunicated them from the church.

The Old Believers spent generations being persecuted and worshipping in secret, and in 1907 about 40,000 of them moved into the more isolated countryside of southeastern Siberia. They lived in relative peace, working on homesteads and farms, until the rise of the communism in 1917 forced the concept of collectivism upon them and drove them into further isolation.

Some of the group settled in China’s undeveloped frontier in Manchuria, where Pimen Yakunin, one of the early residents of Nikolaevsk, captured or killed Manchurian tigers in order to eke out a living. In the 1972 National Geographic article, Rearden records one of Yakunin’s exploits: “’There were wild boars, deer, bears, and tigers,’ he said, rolling up his sleeve to show me vivid scars left by the claws of a young tiger he captured. ‘My dogs cornered it, and I was clawed while pinning its head down with a big forked stick. After the capture I sold the animal to a zoo. I caught or killed about 40 tigers, altogether. Once a tiger stalked me; I turned and shot him just as he leaped at me.’” Yakunin sold the parts of dead tigers as ingredients in Chinese medicine, and he did the same with other animal body parts, such as antlers.

Image of a woman cutting hay near her home in Nikolaevsk--from
the 1972 National Geographic article.

It was not an easy life, but the Old Believers prospered for nearly a quarter-century until the communist takeover of China. Over the next decade or so, about 2,000 Old Believers moved to Hong Kong with aid from intergovernmental agencies and the World Council of Churches. From there, in 1958, the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration helped them settle in Brazil, where the World Council of Churches provided 6,000 acres of land at Curitiba, about 200 miles southwest of Sao Paulo.

But life in Brazil—although relatively free of persecution—suited the Old Believers poorly. The soil was difficult, many crops failed, and some of the Old Believers worried that the political tide in Brazil was on the verge of turning against them. With the help of the Tolstoy Foundation—established by Alexandra Tolstoy, daughter of the famous Russian novelist, for the preservation of Russian culture in America and the broadening of cultural awareness among Russian youth—many of the Old Believers settled next in the Woodburn area of Oregon, about 30 miles south of Portland.

Again, however, the cultural fit was poor.

Old Believers do not smoke, shave, drink hard liquor, use birth control, or drink tea and coffee. They also have dietary restrictions, and they live with numerous cultural practices that are far different than those of the “outside” world. In Oregon, surrounded by modern American temptations, they “found their cherished convictions under assault,” according to Rearden. And so, once again, they began to look elsewhere. One small group, consisting mainly of a few large families, decided to explore Alaska for a new and more remote area in which to resume their “old way” of life.

Rearden picks up the story here: “In 1967 four full-bearded Russian expatriates arrived on the Kenai, seeking land for their people and information on Alaska living. They [were] looking for a way to escape the temptations and distractions of modern America…. The four inspected and bought a square mile of wilderness from the state. ‘They walked every foot of that section,’ a farmer who accompanied them told me. ‘They found the springs, the best places to build, and located the best timber.’ The first four houses were built in 1968—lonely, raw cabins in a vast spruce forest. Electricity was brought in by the local cooperative, and more families arrived.”



Icon image of St. Nikolas from the Russian Orthodox Church in Kenai.

They paid $14,000 for the land, and they dubbed their new community Nikolaevsk after St. Nikolas, the patron saint of their church.

At the end of the his article, Rearden quoted 83-year-old Grigory Martushev, who posited a final comment on the achievement of the Old Believers finally finding a permanent home: “I have been running for 40 years,” he said. “At Nikolaevsk I stop.”

With a Little Help from Their Friends

In the gym that day, the 59 Old Believers and most of the rest of the village residents wore their finest and brightest garments, their “Easter clothes,” according to a Betzi Woodman story in the Anchorage Daily Times. The style of dress was largely reminiscent of life in Russia 300 years earlier, back when their troubles and their hope for a safe new home began.

The fulfillment of that hope culminated in the Anchor Point gym, but first they required the assistance of Kenai Peninsula Community College, some dedicated advisors, and a retired military man.

In 1974, Ilarion Polushkin, the mayor of Nikolaevsk, wrote to Clayton Brockel, the director of the college, and requested assistance in obtaining adult education classes in the village, with the goal of teaching willing villagers the requirements of citizenship via the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Since the college had dedicated itself since its inception to providing adult education wherever it was needed on the Kenai Peninsula, Polushkin’s letter led to classes, which met two evenings each week, beginning in January 1975 and concluding in April. Classes were taught by Bob Moore, who later became the principal of the Nikolaevsk school, and by Joy Strunk (now McMahill).

Bob Moore (standing) works with Old Believers studying for their citizenship exam. (University of Alaska Anchorage image)

According to The Kenai Peninsula College History, by Lance Petersen, the educational efforts were also assisted by Joe Lowrie, district director of the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization in Anchorage. Lowrie, who facilitated the whole project through the college, made sure that Moore and Strunk had sound advice, plus access to textbooks and films in both English and Russian versions.

At first, about 40 Old Believers, including 10 women, were enrolled in the classes, but at times there were as many of 60 present. Although only a few spoke any English in the beginning, most could by the time of the ceremony, according to the Times story.

After all the decades of running, the years of building a new home, and the months of preparation for citizenship, the Hon. James A. von der Heydt presided over the naturalization ceremony, which included messages of welcome and congratulations from the president, U.S Rep. Don Young, and senators Mike Gravel and Ted Stevens.

Pres. Ford’s message began, “There are certain unforgettable moments in everyone’s life—moments that we treasure as long as we live. I hope that for you this is one of them. It is my pleasure to welcome you most warmly to citizenship in the United States of America.”

Later he added, “The American experiment goes on. You are now a vital part of it.”

Stevens likened the Russians’ struggles to those of early American colonists: “You, like the pilgrims of 1620, have traveled far in your search for religious freedom. I am hopeful that you have at last come to the end of your journey and am confident you will flourish here in Alaska.”

Retired Brigadier General Benjamin B. Talley, a North Fork Road neighbor who became the Old Believers’ closest friend and most trusted counselor, began helping the residents of the fledgling Nikolaevsk from the moment they began carving their home out of the wilderness. At the naturalization ceremony, Talley narrated the story of the Russians’ struggles to build their new home, and after the ceremony, at a celebration back in the village, Nikolaevsk residents raised a toast of braga and singled out Talley for special recognition.

In addition to Talley’s narrative, those assembled heard from Mrs. Milo Fritz, who presented welcome cards and the flag code from the Daughters of the American Revolution, and from representatives of the Homer Elks Lodge who presented each new citizen with an American flag.

James Demetri Sourant of the Anchorage Bar Association, whose parents had been born and educated in Russia, told the Nikolaevsk residents that they shared a common bond since his parents had also immigrated to the United States. He then gave the official welcoming address to the Old Believers in both Russian and English.

Further, according to the Times story, Sourant reminded the Old Believers of the moral obligation to be responsible citizens and charged them to be informed and intelligent voters. He said their self-reliance was necessary “as a personal example to keep the spirit of America alive.”

And Kiril Martushev, according to an article in the Cheechako News, “responded in halting but expressive English” to Sourant’s address: “It is a long time that we have been looking for a place like this in the world where we can live our own life and be free in our belief in God. We have found such a place in the United States and especially in the state of Alaska.”

School children comprised part of the Old Believer contingent
at the Anchor Point naturalization ceremony.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, a group of Old Believers sang three old Russian songs, and a group of about 15 school children led the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Then guests were invited back to the village for a feast to celebrate the accomplishments of citizenship, and the toasting and storytelling—less than 700 miles from the part of Russia where the Old Believers’ trek had begun—stretched well into the night.