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The last days of Doukhobors’ disappearing community

Mattia Vacca

A Doukhobor woman looks at the landscape near the village of Epremovka, located next to the border with Armenia.
Doukhobors at the entrance of Gorelovka’s house of prayer bow for intrucing themselves to the other community members during Easter celebrations.
A Doukhobor woman after the midnight Easter pray at the house of the prayer hall. Women and men redress themselves with winter clothes due to the freezing conditions outside.
Doukhobor women look at the food prepared the day after the Easter celebrations.
Masha, a Doukhobor old woman, gives some food to her chickens at her house farm.
Doukhobors women get out after the midnight pray before Easter celebrations in the village of Gorelovka.
A Doukhobor woman falls down in Gorelovka’s cemetery clothed of snow. The day before Easter Sunday Doukhobor women and men are used to visiting their died relatives.
A Doukhobor family visits the children’s dad grave who has recently died. The mother has strong handicaps. He did suicide. The grandmother has to make the ends meet.
A Doukhobor woman visit a dying friend at her bed in the village of Epremovka. She is one of the last member of the only Doukhobor family still living in the village.
A Doukhobor man puts the tablecloth on the living room table.
A Doukhobor woman goes out from her own house farm after having finished the work inside.
Doukhobors in Gorelovka’s house of prayer after the celebrations before the Easter Sunday.
A Doukhobor woman gives presents, traditional red eggs and flowers, to her died relative’s grave the morning before the Easter Sunday.
A car on the road from Ninotsminda to Gorelovka during a snowfall.
Doukhobor children play at the family’s house courtyard.
Doukhbors celebrate the Easter morning in the house pray courtyard.
Doukhobor women after the midnight Easter pray at the prayer house hall. Women and men redress themselves with winter clothes due to the freezing conditions outside.
A Doukhobor woman at the house of prayer.
A traditional window at a Doukhobor house.
A portrait of Masha at her house in the village of Gorelovka. She lives alone altough the old age. Her sons left Gorelovka many years ago. They decided to build up a new life in Russia.
A young Doukhobor woman looks at the phone at her family home. She is one of the last member of the only Doukhobor family still living in the village of Epremovka.
A large view of the village of Gorelovka.
A Doukhobor woman enter the house of prayer for celebrating Easter Saturday with the other community members.
The day before Eastern Sunday two Doukhobor women visit their died relatives at Gorelovka’s cemetery.
A table in Nikolaj’s house courtyard in Gorelovka.
Masha, a Doukhobor old woman, works at the shaft in her house courtyard.
A Doukhobor man work at his house farm.
A young Armenian child at his house balcony. The renowed house was a traditional Doukhobor one. The ethnic conflict is still visible in the village of Gorelovka.
Doukhobor women at the entrance of Gorelovka’s house of prayer during Easter celebrations.
Doukhobor women’s traditional dresses hung at the house of prayer hall walls.
Doukhobor women walks through the house of prayer living room during Easter celebrations.
Doukhobor women and men redress themselves with winter clothes due to the freezing conditions outside after Easter celebrations.
A Doukhobor family visits the children’s dad grave who has recently died at Gorelovka’s cemetery the day before Easter Sunday.
An Armenian child currys his horse in front of a traditional Doukhobor house.
Masha, a Doukhobor old woman, works at his house farm in Gorelovka.
Doukhobor men and women get out of the house of prayer the day after Easter celebrations in the village of Gorelovka.
Traditional Doukhobor sod-roofed homes in the village of Gorelovka.
A Doukhobor woman works over her house rooftop.
A Doukhobor man washes his cows’ manure in the farm. The collected manure will be used as combustible to warm the house.
A chicken in a Doukhobor farm.
For the Doukhobors left behind in Georgia, Tolstoy sent money to build a school in Gorelovka that still bears his name. A young Armenian daughter walks in front of the school.
A snowy landscape near the road from Ninotsminda to Gorelovka.
Masha, a Doukhobor old woman, cooks the lunch in her kitchen.
The traditional Georgian red eggs made for celebrating Easter.
A Doukhobor woman prepares food in the house of prayer fornace.
Doukhobors pray in front of the house of prayer singing traditional songs.
A view of the village of Gorelovka from a Doukhobor’s window.
A Doukhobors walks through the streets of the village of Orlovka.
Two Doukhobor children in Gorelovka’s cemetery.
Masha, a Doukhobor old woman, does farming activities in her courtyard.
A dog over the roof of a destroyed traditional Doukhobor house.
Doukhobor women walks through the paths of the house of prayer.
A portrait of the family who Masha lived with.
The Doukhobors have left Russia since Tsar Nicholas I exiled them in the 1840s. They settled their community in remote Georgian villages among the border with Armenia and Turkey at almost 2500 meters of altitude. They are a Christian sect that believed God resides within every person, rendering the need for the church and all its trappings—icons, buildings, rituals, even priests—unnecessary. These views did not endear themselves with the Russian Orthodox Church, and in 1785, an archbishop gave them the name Doukhobors, which means “spirit wrestlers”. It was an insult, but they embraced it. They believe in a native pacifism and ecological behaviuors. They founded eight villages in the distant peaks of what is now the Republic of Georgia’s Javakheti region. Although the long and cold winters, Doukhobors’ have created a fairy tale land with tidy towns of sod-roofed homes and carved wooden shutters painted in blue. In Gorelovka, once their spiritual center, there are 145 left. Few families, mostly composed by the only old person left, populate the other villages. Their ineluctable exodus north could spell the end of an entire culture. A letter the novelist Lev Tolstoy wrote in 1898 to a newspaper talks about the Doukhobors’ plight. “The government of the Caucasus has surrounded the whole rebellious population with a magic circle, and this population is slowly dying out. In some years it is possible there could be no more Doukhobors left,”. Tolstoy sent money to build a school in Gorelovka that still bears his name. Here the Doukhobors are outnumbered at least 15-to-1 by the majority Armenians who have been taken the control of the region since the fall of the Soviet Union. “We are all moving further for civilization, we have computers, phones, we are leaving abroad but press the button and all of our civilization will going to die, we will return to land. When you know where your roots are seated you are not that easy to take away from road.” Vasily Slastukhin, a community’s member, explains. But the Doukhobors’ sad future of disappearance is getting closer.

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