Eh, Russia, Russia!!! — as deceitful as you were, so you remain! Nostalgia has led to the complete impoverishment of Russian Old Believers who returned to Rus' from South America. So, who's next?
Old Believers deceived by their historical homeland are destitute!
And this “remedy”—the Russian lie—is a good cure for nostalgia among other Russians in the diaspora.
In the Zhizdrinsky District of the Kaluga Region (the village of Ogor), there lives a community of Old Orthodox Christians who returned to Rus’ from South America.
…In our time, seeing “real” Old Believers is not an everyday occurrence. In churches on Rogozhskoye, Paveletskaya, or Bersenevka, for instance, you can see people praying in sarafans, kaftans, and kosovorotkas at any time, but you’d hardly find among them those who, without any affectation, naturally wear traditional Russian clothing every day. The recently returned to Russia brothers Murachev with their families are those “authentic” keepers of the Old Faith who have survived to our day, as if stepped out from the pages of Leskov and Melnikov (Pechersky). They are a miraculously preserved link of unbroken generations, conveying to us the undamaged spirit of deep antiquity.
Today this community, consisting of two families, is destitute and in need of help.
Ogor is a large village located about 350 km from Moscow along the E101 highway (Moscow – Bryansk – Kiev). Population: several hundred people. The former kolkhoz here went bankrupt long ago, the fields are overgrown, livestock given away for debts, no machinery.
The Old Believers live on the outskirts. Joseph Murachev’s family arrived first. Now a second family lives in the neighboring house — that of his own brother, Terenty, with his wife and seven children.
…Our first acquaintance with the Murachevs began in June. A good friend read about them on the internet and suggested going.
our first visit:
They greeted us warmly. True, they apologized profusely that the dwelling was poorly settled and unkempt. The houses of the two families are opposite each other, about twenty meters apart (just cross the “street”). The condition of the houses is far from satisfactory; the men have patched up what they could, but, of course, it would be better to build new log houses. But there is no talk of that yet due to lack of funds.
Joseph and Terenty with their sons wear homespun belted shirts; true, out of necessity, they sometimes put on modern clothes — evidently someone’s donated jeans, work overalls, jackets. Wives and daughters wear sarafans or long dresses. It’s a joy to look at the rising generation of the Murachevs. A striking contrast with today’s “teenager” style. Young lads in shirts with belts, girls in sarafans — modest, respectful to elders, yet at the same time economically efficient. In everything one feels the traditional patriarchal Russian decorum: while we conversed with the heads of families, the youth were clearly curious, but without the parents’ approval no one dared open their mouth (yet there was absolutely no “intimidation,” only a natural propriety instilled from infancy). Particularly impressive were the beautiful elder daughters: through their entire appearance shone chastity and modesty, and at the same time, a regal dignity. Yes, and a detail: when strange men enter the room, they immediately try to leave, only the lads remain (so it was on the first visit; on subsequent ones, when we got better acquainted, they began to treat us as their own, and the girls shunned us less).
Before the family sits down to dine, one of the elder daughters reverently makes three bows from the waist before the icon, after which she solemnly spreads a tablecloth on the dining table and serves the food. The household is governed by sacredly kept Old Orthodox traditions; everyone’s faces are very bright, completely “unmodern.”
One thing is disheartening: these obedient and pious children clearly don’t get enough to eat… But more on the bad later.
Regarding the Faith: as one can understand, the Murachevs belong to the Old Believer Chasovennye (earlier I had never personally met representatives of this confession). However, the Murachevs’ relations with the local population are very good: Joseph did clarify, though, that “we do not go celebrating feasts with them” (as I understood, he meant joint carousing, to which any celebrations nowadays are reduced), but they are always ready to help neighborly in any matter. In general, it must be said that the Murachevs completely lack any aggression or intolerance toward the “worldly”: yes, they cannot pray together, but they make this understood without any defiance (as often happens with our zealots). They are disposed very benevolently toward everyone. Of the dominant church, understandably, they keep away, yet I heard Joseph say that they are nevertheless glad that after many years of godlessness in Russia, many churches have opened where the Word of God is proclaimed. Later, in my presence, Terenty spoke very warmly of the villagers, who, he believes, have preserved a kind Christian attitude toward others.
They’ve already found a useful application for the settlers’ basic skills: the Murachevs bake bread at home (the flour, however, is not yet their own),—they bake for themselves, as they’ve been accustomed to all their lives from childhood, but for our corrupted locale, such baking has become a masterpiece; so, once Terenty presented a loaf as a gift to a certain official, who on occasion treated an acquaintance entrepreneur who keeps a shop in the area; the entrepreneur tried it and became very interested; he met Terenty and offered to bake bread for his shop. He did not refuse. In this way, they joined the local micro-economy and began to receive a small additional income. Recently, Terenty managed to buy ten laying hens very cheaply, which, of course, became a significant help for a large family.
Yes, I forgot to mention an important circumstance: Joseph and Terenty’s children have started going to school in Russia. This controversial decision, of course, did not come easily to the Old Believers, and, by the way, led to a deterioration in relations with many relatives. On subsequent visits, conversations touched upon this topic, and Terenty shared with me this reasoning: “We must either flee to the forests, to the monks – there, yes, no schools; but if we are living in the world, among people, we must study, without this it’s impossible.” The children like school. I had been thinking with apprehension: how would the young Murachevs fare among modern “progressive” youth? It turned out not so bad.
The rural “worldly” peers turned out to be quite friendly and tolerant of the newcomers’ “oddities.” Moreover, the school in the village of Ogor is extremely small: for example, in the 9th grade only four people study. True, it’s not easy for the Murachevs to study: they try very hard, but the lack of all previous foundational knowledge takes its toll. 17-year-old Katerina Terentyevna, who enrolled “for the first time in the 9th grade,” would very much like to successfully pass the Unified State Exam (EGE), but sadly realizes that chances are slim… As God grants, and the main thing is that one can always take comfort in the fact that the true education – the ability to read Scripture and liturgical books, to sing Znamenny chant, etc., which the Murachevs were taught from childhood – is worth incomparably more.
The congregational prayer at the Murachevs’ is held for the time being in Joseph’s hut, before a still quite modest icon corner. They hope in the near future to obtain from the municipal authorities and repair a neighboring empty hut and make it into a prayer room. The brothers did not bring liturgical books and icons with them (which is sensible, considering the value of these books and icons against the backdrop of our criminal reality); they stocked up by making a couple of trips to Moscow, to Preobrazhenskoye and Rogozhskoye. Icons and crosses are mostly copper castings. The books are also all familiar: modern editions of Joseph’s Horologion, Hexaemeron, Psalter, etc. I asked how my new acquaintances sing during services; Joseph demonstrated to me the Irmologion (irmoi) acquired at Rogozhka – naṛechny. We opened the book at Tone 4; I began to hum “Having crossed the Red Sea’s deep,” Joseph immediately joined in, and his son also joined; they sing confidently from the neumes in the naṛechny style, but at the same time quite differently from Rogozhka and Mikhailova Sloboda, using distinctive additions and melodic features. Then an episode occurred that well characterizes the preserved worldview of “true” Old Believers: I wanted to record the Murachevs’ singing on a dictaphone and asked Joseph to sing something else. However, he then, begging pardon, refused, explaining that according to their beliefs, liturgical text must not be fixed and reproduced “like some kind of radio.” “Forgive us, but that’s what our grandfathers instructed us.”
… After the first visit in June, we began to visit Ogor periodically; my friend and I took turns going, trying to be of some help.
So, I’ve told about the positive aspects, now I’ll move on to the sad.
As is customary among the Old Orthodox, the Murachevs, upon arriving in Ogor, wanted to begin active economic activity. They are experienced farmers, on first-name terms with any agricultural machinery. They intended immediately to take several dozen hectares of arable land and set to work on a grand scale, to breathe new life into the dying and alcohol-ridden hinterland… However, here they very quickly found out that “there is not here.”
People who arrived from across the ocean, lacking start-up capital, naturally required some assistance at the initial stage. And that’s where they ran into a brick wall.
Here I will allow myself to digress briefly from the Murachevs of Ogor and talk in general about a serious problem that is now clearly visible. This problem concerns all current Russian “returnees” to Russia. But I will now speak specifically about the Old Believers with their particular specificity.
So, outside Russia (and the territory of the former USSR) live thousands of Russian Old Orthodox people, whose fathers and grandfathers were forced by persecution to leave their homeland and seek salvation abroad. These people, unlike the “intelligentsia” emigration of the first half of the 20th century, are very steadfast in preserving their national and cultural identity. Moreover, for any state they are very valuable human resources in socio-economic terms: they are hardworking, enterprising, prolific, and law-abiding. In their midst, such vices as drunkenness, drugs, and preoccupation with politics are practically completely absent. In the countries of South America, Russian Old Believers have provided many examples of excellent farming and enjoy well-deserved respect.
And so, beginning in the early 2000s, the new Russian authorities, alarmed by the country’s deplorable demographic situation, suddenly recalled such a valuable personnel reserve. They began actively inviting South American Old Believers to Russia. They could have completely ignored these appeals – they live quite comfortably in a foreign land, and most importantly, no one persecutes them for their Faith. However, in the hearts of these people, of course, there always secretly lived a longing for the abandoned homeland, a yearning for their roots, for the earth where the ancient piety of Holy Rus’ once flourished, which they have carefully preserved for centuries… And therefore, the insistent invitations found fertile ground.
As I now understand, Russian diplomatic missions in South America are entrusted with special «inviting» tasks. At least several cases of Old Believers coming to the Russian Federation known to me occurred as a result of communication with Russian ambassadors «on the ground.» That was also the case with the Murachev brothers. Russian diplomats work as follows: they travel around Old Believer villages and actively advertise the notorious «State Program for Assisting the Voluntary Resettlement to the Russian Federation of Compatriots Living Abroad.» Before unsophisticated people unfolds a mesmerizing picture of a distant homeland, where finally smart and honest rulers have come to power, wanting to do everything for its revival and prosperity; the returning hardworking Old Believers are awaited there by mountains of gold, rivers of milk, and banks of jelly.
As a result, many began to prepare for a long journey. They sold property, prepared for a flight across the ocean, for the start of a «new life in the old place.» They would land, descend the gangways, and… encounter a reality far removed from what the smooth-talkers from diplomatic missions had promised them.
How events can unfold later is well illustrated by the story of the Zaitsev family.
Perhaps this case is the most deplorable. Of course, compared to it, the situation of the Murachev brothers in Ogore is so far more favorable.
Their story in brief is as follows. Joseph’s and Terenty’s grandfather in the 1930s, together with his family, fled the persecution of the godless abroad: initially to China, then to Latin America. This continent became a refuge for many Russian Old Believers. They settled, built, established households. Local authorities valued the hardworking settlers; most importantly, there was no persecution for the Faith. However, the elder Murachev always remembered his historical homeland; dying, he bequeathed to his children and grandchildren: if they call you back to Russia, do not think twice — drop everything and go.
The call came in the 90s, when the mentioned program began to be implemented.
… Terenty in Bolivia had 600 hectares of land and several tractors and combines. He did not live in poverty. But he always remembered the grandfather’s bequest. When the invitation came from Russian diplomatic officials, the rich farm was sold for next to nothing, basically abandoned.
When the question of choosing a specific region for living arose, they chose Primorye — where the older brother Ulyan had some connections. Incidentally, not all of Terenty’s relatives proved so respectful of the grandfather’s posthumous will. Many did not wish to part with a calm life; the decision to move caused serious conflict within the Murachev clan. The remaining relatives even tried to intimidate and forcibly keep those who decided to leave. There were also unscrupulous, unchristian actions: for example, Terenty, leaving Bolivia, gave a power of attorney to his close relative to sell the remaining property and send the money; alas, Terenty was deceived in his expectations and left the American continent with practically nothing.
They arrived and immediately faced a host of problems. The mentioned state program is full of good abstract wishes and declarations. Perhaps the only real thing in it is the so-called relocation allowance — a sum of money paid to the migrant. The sum varies from 40 to 120 thousand rubles depending on the region. It is obvious to any «Russian» that the sum is paltry; starting, for example, a serious agricultural project with it, if you have a large family to support — is laughable.
Terenty hoped that in the ancestors’ homeland his knowledge, experience, and diligence would be in demand. Back in Bolivia, diplomats had picturesquely described to him the deplorable state of agriculture in Russia. Terenty imagined how he would «make progress» in the Russian hinterland… Reality proved different. In Primorsky Krai, conditions for arable farming are poor: stony, low-fertility soil. The relocation allowance evaporated, and they failed to establish a successful farm. The promised help with housing and amenities turned out to be not at all what they had expected; instead of the promised private houses, they were put up in shabby prefabricated five-story buildings. Local authorities long fed them with promises about building materials, but the migrants never received them. Soon Terenty had disagreements with his brothers: they did not approve of his decision to send the children to school. The local population also began to show hostility. In general, soon Terenty decided to leave the Far East and move to Central Russia, where Joseph called him — Joseph had been trying his luck for a year in Kaluga Oblast. Kaluga agriculture officials seemed interested in the Murachevs’ sowing mastery, promised land and machinery. Terenty with his wife and seven children once again made a swift «dash» over thousands of kilometers. He hoped that near Kaluga he would at last find his promised land, be able to work calmly and productively… Alas, here too everything proved difficult. For normal activity the brothers needed a tractor, a truck, and a combine. They received only the tractor. The combine after some time was also temporarily obtained (on September 18, when I was there), but here one must recall the folk wisdom that a spoon is precious when dinner is due, not at curfew. Sowing and harvesting must be done on time. Initially (in spring), when it was time to sow, Joseph and Terenty prepared the plowed field and asked to be given seeds. They received them with great delay, and sowed only when the plowed field was overgrown with thick «green cover.» This already reduced the yield by an order of magnitude. By autumn, when the barley ripened and harvest time came – the same story: the combine was provided when the grain had mostly fallen or been damaged by wild boars. I will also note that they had to wait a long time for the combine because they wanted a bribe of 30% of the harvest for providing it (in the end Joseph somehow managed to negotiate cheaper). As a result, they got about 5 centners per hectare (they had expected 25). Now they are solving the problem of selling…
Blaming the administration of Kaluga Region is not entirely fair: as it turns out, the resettlement program in this region is not operational, yet the Murachevs are not being denied help—officials try to do whatever they can. So I would like to say a warm word about N.Ya. Kurbatsky, adviser to the Minister of Agriculture: thanks to his assistance, literally just days ago, the debt on the house where Terentiy currently lives was paid off. This kind deed lifted a great burden and anxiety from the family. However, officials can only offer such assistance by bypassing bureaucratic procedures, and therefore much remains impossible. There are still very, very many problems, and in the early stages, the resettlers will not be able to cope with them on their own.
By the way, I cannot refrain from mentioning the bureaucratic idiocy whose “victims” the resettlers’ personal documents became. Today they all have Russian passports. These passports were issued based on their previous Brazilian documents. And of course, our brilliant clerks meticulously followed instructions: all first and last names of the Latin American Old Believers were transliterated letter-for-letter, with no changes or additions—absolutely none! As a result, all the Murachevs, first of all, lost their patronymics (the Portuguese-language documents did not include patronymics—meaning they must not appear in Russian either!). No matter how much Terentiy pleaded, they never inserted a patronymic in his passport; it contains only his last and first name. And now, on any form under “Full Name,” he laconically writes: “Murachev T.”—and cannot state a patronymic because his passport has a dash… Secondly, the Murachev women ended up registered in the masculine form: officials… refused to decline their last names according to the rules of the Russian language. For instance, Terentiy’s wife, Kseniya, bears the family name Reutova (she did not officially change her surname upon marriage). In Portuguese, surnames are not declined by gender, and her documents showed “Kseniya Reutov”—or something of the sort. So our great passport officers decided: if it wasn’t declined in the Portuguese document, then we oughtn’t do it either! It’s forbidden to alter anything, to add a single extra letter—the Instruction forbids it! And now a mother of seven children presents her native passport, which states: “Kseniya Reutov” (!) The daughters even have a double surname (from father and mother): “Katerina Murachev Reutov,” “Olimpiada Murachev Reutov,” “Agrippina Murachev Reutov,” etc. That is, they were not allowed to bear a normal Russian surname, and now even at school, among their classmates, the Murachev girls are forced to go by a masculine name form. But the hardest hit was Terentiy’s 10‑year‑old son, who bears the ancient Russian name Varlaam. While the girls ended up with masculine surname forms, he got a feminine one! Apparently, due to a misunderstanding, the aborigines who prepared the original Portuguese document couldn’t cope with the intricate “Slavonic lettering” and omitted the final letter “m.” The result was “Varla.” Well, the Old Believers were not particularly strong in Latin script and didn’t catch it. Now it has come back to haunt them. The boy, upon receiving his Russian document, became “Murachev Reutov Varla.” And the parents could not change anything: the officials delivered the verdict—since that’s how it was written there, that is how it must remain, forever and ever, amen!
…On the whole, after several trips to Ogor, it is now obvious to me that the Murachevs’ situation must be regarded as calamitous. Harsh trials may await them this winter; the family has practically no cash. In recent weeks, the Murachevs have been applying for social benefits (for unemployment, for having many children, etc.). They will receive paltry crumbs, but even that matters to them now. However, the application process itself involves overcoming a serious obstacle: they have to travel to the district center, the town of Zhizdra (40 km away), and each such trip delivers a crushing blow to their meager budget. The brothers currently have no personal transport; until recently the bus between Zhizdra and Ogor ran twice a week, and now it has been cancelled altogether (!); hiring a taxi costs 600–1000 rubles…
And there are many, very many trips. For example, Terentiy traveled to the employment office in Zhizdra with his wife and son. There they are told that to receive benefits they must open a savings book and obtain a pension insurance certificate. They go to Sberbank—there it turns out that 20‑year‑old Denis Murachev (Terentiy’s son) has an expired passport (the kindly uncle‑officials, when they issued the long‑awaited Russian passport to the young man several months before his 20th birthday, forgot to warn him about the expiry period). The Murachevs rush to the passport office—but it is closed today, come back tomorrow… So yet another trip is in the cards. Alright, Denis pays another 600–1000 rubles the next day, arrives, writes an application, pays a “late fee” of 1500 rubles—but they don’t issue the passport the same day! Come back next week. Denis goes home realizing that even the next trip for the passport won’t be the last: opening a savings book requires a registration stamp in the passport. And he can only get that stamp at the administration of the village of Ogor. Meaning, next time Denis arrives in Zhizdra for his passport, he won’t be able to go to Sberbank with it: he’ll have to return to Ogor, get the stamp, then travel to Zhizdra yet again. Thus, in one week, the young man spends several thousand rubles in order to apply for a benefit of 800 rubles a month…
…Yes, now the Murachev brothers are attempting to register as peasant (farm) enterprises. That is the next leg of the bureaucratic relay.
On my last visit, Terenty shared that he is not buying any groceries at all now – the family is living off past stocks of rice and flour, and all available money is set aside to pay for trips… It’s good that their diet includes eggs from their hens, and the Murachevs can afford chicken meat only on major holidays… Last week, Terenty took two of his daughters to the clinic: some ailments, they did cardiograms. I immediately thought the cause was malnutrition. And sure enough: after talking with the therapist, the little girl said the doctor advised them to eat “cattle meat.” “But we only eat chicken, and the doctor says chicken weakens the heart.” And you can guess from the girls’ appearance: excessive pallor and thinness. And as Terenty later let slip, they haven’t eaten “cattle meat” (i.e., beef or pork) since they left Brazil… (By the way, Iosif’s children look better.)
Terenty Murachev’s words sound like a bitter reproach to all of us: “I don’t understand. The government invited us for progress, to sow large fields, and now it has forgotten about us.”
Last week, Terenty encountered a new serious difficulty. For further paperwork, they need an official translation of the original documents for the children (birth certificates issued in Brazil); well, when they were brought to Moscow to the appropriate institution, it turned out that the documents have serious flaws. They were issued there with some irregularities, missing consular legalization and something else. How to overcome this obstacle is still unclear, but it’s already obvious that the problem is serious and could cost a lot of time and money. Once again, they face the heaviest paper red tape; yes, I forgot to mention that Terenty and his wife Ksenia write in modern Russian with great difficulty – in the jungles of South America they learned only Church Slavonic
grammar…
…I think if we help this family in the early stages and subsequently do not create artificial obstacles, there is no doubt – the Murachevs will get back on their feet and live wonderfully. They are the type of people who won’t perish anywhere – a type of ancient Russian plowman, laborer, conqueror of dense forests and boundless expanses that has survived to our day. They could, as the saying goes, be dropped from a helicopter into the taiga – and there they would survive, clear a space, build a log house, plow virgin soil, and put down roots. It is precisely such people who settled our vast lands in past centuries – from the monk-disciples of St. Sergius to the keepers of the Old Faith who fled persecution… However, the paradox of our time is that it is in some ways easier to survive in the taiga, because there are no heavy bureaucratic chains that bind the worker hand and foot. The Murachevs could, like Mikula Selyaninovich, plow with a plow and reap with a sickle, and thus feed themselves in a medieval way. But why should they do that when they have excellent modern agricultural skills and want to apply their knowledge for the benefit of society? They only need to be given this opportunity.
Фото: Полина Ерёменко/PublicPos
So, if anyone has had the patience to read my scribblings to the end – I appeal to everyone to help this community. If the government does not want to remember them, we need to show that Russia – Rus’ – is still alive and is not limited to the state alone. There were always kind people in Rus’, Christians, who were not indifferent to others’ misfortune. Help can be very diverse. It would be great, for example, if someone with connections in power structures dealing with finance or agriculture could be found. For example, an affordable loan could help Iosif and Terenty get on their feet – such a loan is only possible with the assistance of the authorities in power. Assistance with transportation would be a significant help in the current conditions – simply taking the Murachevs to the district center again at the right time when they are filing some papers or receiving benefits. You can help with food – a large family always has a shortage of meat, fish, fruit (though delivery also requires a car and time)… If someone would like to contribute in monetary terms – here are Terenty’s savings book details:
42307.810.2.2212.0027347 — Murachev Terenty
Current needs:
Flour, sugar, vegetable oil, washing powder, rice, meat.
Our contact email address: [email protected]
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