How the descendants of Old Believers who fled from the USSR live in Alaska. A PHOTO

In Alaska, there are a little more than 740 thousand people, and in addition to the Indians and Eskimos, Russian Old Believers live here. In the 1968 year, after emigration from Siberia, they built a church in Alaska, and then founded a village, Nikolayevsk.

Photo: video frame

According to "Currently,“, sermons and prayers in the American Nikolaevsk with a population of 300 people are still heard in Old Church Slavonic. Women here wear sundresses that they sew themselves, and men wear blouses and long beards.

Photo: video frame

The Old Believers were excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church at the end of the 17th century, after they refused to accept the church reforms of Patriarch Nikon, which were supposed to unify liturgical rituals and “book reference” - translations of the Holy Scriptures. After the schism, the Old Believers fell out of favor with the church and Russian monarchs. Opponents of the reform were punished with exile, and some even with death.

Photo: video frame

Photo: video frame

Old Believers is divided into two main streams: the priests and the bespopovtsy. That is, for those who have priests, and the rest. The residents of Nikolaevsk for a long time considered themselves to be bespopovtsam, but then still accepted the priesthood.

Photo: video frame

Photo: video frame

Before moving to Alaska, the family of Maria Fefelova and the community of Old Believers lived in China for a long time. But when the Communists came to power there, they fled: first to Brazil, and then to the States. In the US, the community that left China has split in two: some remained in Oregon, others left for Alaska.

Photo: video frame

“They took the children to the mountains to preserve the faith of Christ,” explains Maria.

Photo: video frame

Maria considers herself Russian, but her children already call themselves Americans. At the same time, the children of Maria were able to teach the Russian language, and with the great-grandchildren the woman cannot find a common language: they speak only English.

Work in the American Nikolaevsk bit. Men used to be engaged in fishing and shipbuilding, but now the business is declining. But in the town there is still a small cafe-shop where you can order Russian dishes, as well as buy a matryoshka or, for example, a kokoshnik.

At the same time, all attempts to convert them to another faith are nipped in the bud by the residents of Nikolaevsk: they consider only their own to be the “correct” faith.

Photo: video frame

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