Ethos Magazine Winter 2014

Old Believers—traditional dress, religious rituals, social customs—generally no longer exist in Russia. And although some Old Believers like Makar have traveled to Russia since settling in Woodburn, many Old Believers have no desire to travel to a country that they believe was rendered ungodly during the Russian Revolution.

Snegirev, whose family ended up in Canada after living in China and New Zealand, grew up in an Old Believer family that considered the only true Russia to exist within the homes of Old Believers.

“They see Russia at large as a communistic country that became atheist,” Snegirev says.

“My mom would always tell us growing up, ‘now remember, you’re a white Russian, you’re not a red Russian. Mi byelie russkie (We are white Russians).’”

Identity was more complicated than being Russian or not, however, for Old Believers in Woodburn. The ABOVE: The cupola and three-barred cross of the Old Believer Orthodox Sinziyantsi, the Harbiintsi, and Church, silhouetted against the morning sky. the Turchane, having lived and developed their own rituals in the hundreds of years before they gravitated to Woodburn, remained very aware of group distinctions. Among Old Believers, families from Sinkiang became known as the “fish”, families from Harbin were known as the “monkeys”, and families from Turkey were known as the “turkeys”.

“My mom is a sinziyantsa, she’d be a fish,” Marthushev Although Makar now understands English well says. “My dad is a harbinyets, which is a monkey, enough to carry out basic transactions around so two different cultures came together. I’m a Woodburn, Russian is his language. mutant.”

“Xarosho, vsyo vremya (It’s been good, the Particularly in the early years of the Old whole time),” Makar says of his community’s Believer community in Woodburn, these group relationship with other Americans over the years. identities became critical to how they regarded “Nothing bad has happened. We haven’t fought each other. Groups became known for certain with anyone.” personality traits and cultural peculiarities.

What this means exactly is unclear, however, Turchane families, for example, had lived in the given the limited contact older Old Believers coastal region around Izmir, Turkey, had long have with other Americans. “Nu, gavorim (Well, been keen on crab. The Old Believer families we talk),” Makar says. “But for many, they can’t from China thought crab was forbidden. speak, they don’t know much English.”

The Turchane were the force behind the What it means to communicate with most conspicuous evidence of Woodburn’s Old Americans is a bit more complex for Old Believer community—the Turkish Village. It’s Believers who were born in the United States. a neighborhood visible from the South Pacific Alex Martushev, an animated, bear-like 30-yearHighway skirting Woodburn’s east side, made old whose parents emigrated both from Brazil up of several parallel streets shooting south into and Argentina, was born in Oregon, and long fields of boysenberries and hops. Bisecting remembers it being hard to reconcile being an the Village is a street called Bethlehem Road, Old Believer with his personal history. modeled after a road from a traditional Russian “I’ve had these talks with my parents,” village. Two molenas (prayer halls) mark the Martushev says. “I’m like, look, I’m an American ends of the street—a sage-colored building with with Russian heritage. We’re actually not Russian. a shiny bronze cupola on the north end, and a And they have a hard time with that, because white hall with a muted golden cupola to the their whole identity’s wrapped up in being south. In between, the road is lined with small Russian.” houses and fruit trees and patrolled by chickens, Pieces of Russian culture have been frozen goats, cats, and Old Believers. At the heart of in time within the homes and churches of Bethlehem Road is the only Old Believer church

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When Old Believers are out in their best clothes after church, they are the most visible, radiant people for miles, and the plain-clothed residents of Woodburn regard them with looks of wonder.

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in the area with an ordained priest, the Old Believer Orthodox Church, a long, cream-colored building topped with seven brightly reflective gold cupolas.

From birth, the lives of Old Believers revolve around their church and molenas, those on Bethlehem Road and those scattered around the east end of Woodburn. When an Old Believer child is born, he or she must be baptized within eight days, during a water service in which the child is fully submerged three times. Often, an Old Believer child’s real birthday will be forgotten and the day of baptism will take its place. From then on, the child is spiritually clean, at least until he or she does something that makes them otherwise. This concept of spiritual cleanliness, or duxovnii chistoti, divides the Old Believer community from other Americans even more than the language barrier.

Standards of cleanliness mean there is a logical limit to how close Old Believers can be with other Americans who are unclean. They cannot eat from the same silverware and dishes and they cannot eat food prepared by non-Old Believers. Working primarily in construction and berry farming, some Old Believer families manage to sustain themselves mostly off of food they prepare themselves from their farms and gardens.

“We get along with the American population, we do business, but that’s where it ends,” Snegirev says. “Some will invite you to their home and stuff like that, but most won’t. They will keep that relationship a work relationship and they won’t cross those barriers.”

Of course, interactions with Old Believers can be as casual as any other. When I was allowed to visit an Old Believer named Stepan, he spoke in English with no hesitation as he served goat meat and poured us Dixie cups of his homemade braga, a sweet, dry berry wine made from blackberries and boysenberries. With a grin and a dramatic voice, Stepan recounted tank battle scenes from World War II, referring to the Americans as “we”, and laughed at the thought of his country wire-tapping Angela Merkel’s cell phone. “Hey, na nogi (On your feet),” says Stepan, motioning a friend to help him retrieve more braga from the garage.

Translation As second and third generation Old Believers are born and raised in America, it is harder than ever to instill lasting Orthodox values in their children. Though Old Believers drive, many try to keep other absorbing technologies at an arms length.

“My parents were so strict that I didn’t even have a TV ‘til I was 13 years old in the house,” says Marthushev.

Strictness is relative, though, to those related to a group of Old Believers who left Woodburn.

In 1968, they agreed that modern Oregonian culture was too corrosive, and moved to a remote area in southern Alaska to settle a new town called Nikolaevsk. Alaskan Old Believers, according to Martushev, make Woodburn Old Believers seem liberal by comparison, something he discovered years ago on a trip to Alaska to visit some Old Believer relatives.

“I was doing a lot of running, so I’m like, when I go visit, I don’t want to stop my training,” Martushev says. “I put my shorts on, my running shoes, and I go running and my aunt is all, ‘Are you crazy? Put your pants back on!’”

ETHOS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014

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