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Last Days of the Georgian Doukhobors?
by
Mark Grigorian
Squeezed out by their Armenian and
Georgian neighbors in southern Georgia, the remaining members of the
Doukhobor religious sect are planning on returning to the land of their
forefathers. The following article by Mark Grigorian, foreign correspondent
in Gorelovka, Georgia, originally appeared in the Caucasus Reporting Service
produced by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting,
www.iwpr.net.
Reproduced by permission.
A large loaf of white bread, which our
hostess had just pulled out of the old Russian stove, was lying on the table
surrounded by cheese, tomatoes and sour cream. Suddenly a bottle of `samogon',
strong Russian homemade alcoholic brew, appeared from nowhere as if by
magic.
`Oh no, don't pour me any,' 75-year-old Aunt Niura protested in
embarrassment but took the glass and immediately pronounced a toast. `To
your health! If your health is strong, then everything else will follow. But
if not...' She was interrupted by her neighbour Nastya, `I just wish
that God keeps at least a handful of people here. Because if everyone
leaves, what will become of all of this?' `Let's drink to our dear little
corner, to our mountains...'
 That
little corner is the village of Gorelovka in the mountains of southern
Georgia, home to some of the last members of the Dukhobor sect to remain in
the country. Sadly, they may not last long. Almost all have close relatives
in Russia and almost all are planning to emigrate. Only fifteen years ago
Dukhobors inhabited eight villages, but today the community, which once
boasted some 7,000 people, shrank to less than 700.
Dukhobors (the Russian word means `spirit wrestlers') are ethnic Russians,
representatives of a rare Christian Orthodox sect expelled to the Caucasus
in the mid-nineteenth century. They do not recognise the church or priests,
but believe that each man's soul is a temple. Dukhobors do not worship the
cross or icons and they reject the church sacraments. They believe that
Jesus Christ transmigrated into God's chosen people - the Dukhobors. The
life of every Dukhobor should serve as an example for others because love
and joy, peacefulness and patience, faith, humility and abstinence, reign in
each believer.
In the late 19th century, having become acquainted with the ideas of the
great writer and pacifist Leo Tolstoy, the Dukhobors refused to serve in the
Russian Tsar's army. And in 1895 they famously collected together all their
weaponry and set fire to it. `The Dukhobors put all the weapons into one big
pile and lit it up,' said Tatyana Chuchmayeva, leader of the Dukhobor
community in Georgia. `When the government called in the Cossacks, they
stood around the fire holding each other's hands and sang psalms and
peaceful songs. All the time the Cossacks were flogging them with whips.'
Many of those who burned the weapons were punished and around 500 families
were exiled to Siberia. However, Tolstoy managed, with the help of English
Quakers, to organise the resettlement of Dukhobors to Canada where they were
spared military service. Many others stayed in Georgia and survived all the
tribulations of the 20th century.
However, life under independent Georgia has proved the biggest test. Two
censuses conducted in 1989 and 2002 show that of 340,000 Russians that lived
in Georgia in 1989 less than ten per cent - about 32,500 people - remained
there thirteen years later. Other ethnic minorities also left.
 Fyodor
Goncharov, chairman of the Gorelovka village council, said that the first
wave of emigration occurred in 1989-1991 when the extreme nationalist Zviad
Gamsakhurdia was leader of Georgia. About half of the Dukhobor population
left the region.
In the late 1980s, the Merab Kostava Foundation was set up in Tbilisi with
the stated aim of making Georgians the dominant ethnic group. They focussed
strong attention on the southern province of Samtskhe-Javakheti, where over
90 per cent were ethnic-Armenians and the rest, with few exceptions, were
Russian Dukhobors.
The Merab Kostava Foundation bought about 200 of the Dukhobors' houses and
gave these to Georgians. Clothes and funds were provided to the new
arrivals.
However, the experiment failed. `They could not endure our living conditions
and ran away from here after one year,' said Konstantin Vardanian, a
journalist from the local town of Ninotsminda. `During the first winter they
heated their houses with coal and firewood that the foundation had left for
them. Then, after they ran out of coal, they lived in one room of the house
and pulled up floors in the other rooms and burnt them in stoves. When
spring came they all left.'
Local Armenians were alarmed by the Merab Kostava project and one result was
that the Armenian Javakh Committee, founded to fight for Armenian rights in
Javakheti, also began to buy houses from Dukhobors - just to keep them out
of Georgian hands. `It was some sort of competition, really,' Vardanian
said, with Armenians and Georgians vying for the same houses in Dukhobor
villages.
At first, Armenians enjoyed being neighbours to the Dukhobors. `Akhalkalaki
people always preferred to buy butter, cheese, curd cheese and other dairy
products from Dukhobors,' remembers Karine Khodikian, a well-known Armenian
writer originally from the local town of Akhalkalaki. `It was a sign of
respect for them, their cleanliness and tidiness.' But after the collapse of
the Soviet Union, Armenians got envious of the Dukhobors and their
apparently orderly, calm lives. `Armenians saw that the Dukhobor community
in Gorelovka was self-sustaining, they said that Canadians Dukhobors helped
it,' Vardanian said.
 Armenians
from mountain villages, where living conditions were much worse than in
Gorelovka, began to move into the houses purchased by the Javakhk Committee
and to buy land. They were joined by immigrants from Armenia who used to
live in the city of Gumri and its neighbouring villages - a region almost
entirely demolished by the 1988 earthquake. Relations between the Dukhobors
and these newcomers was far worse than with their old neighbours.
Enterprising Armenians opened small shops and started producing sour cream,
butter and cheese, traditional Dukhobor products. They purchase milk from
the Dukhobors, but the latter are very unhappy with the buying prices.
`Armenians buy milk in our village,' said Goncharov. `Then they make cheese
out of it, take it to Tbilisi and sell it. They pay us only 30
tetri for a litre (about 15 cents), while we have to pay 70 or 80 tetri just
for one litre of fuel.'
Dukhobor villager Sveta Gonachrova said that her neighbours were frightened
by the incoming Armenians, `You step outside and get punched in the face.'
Vardanian believes that antipathy between the Dukhobors and Armenians is not
the only reason Dukhobors are leaving, but `it contributed'. This new wave
of emigration has found help from the Russian authorities.
In December 1998, Russia's then-prime minister Yevgeny Primakov signed a
decree on assistance to the Georgian Dukhobors and the Russian parliament,
the State Duma passed a special resolution on the group. The International
Organisation for Migration helped with the resettlement, while Georgia's
emergencies ministry provided buses.
In January 1999, community leader Lyuba Goncharova led a large number of her
community on a journey whose final point of destination was the Bryansk
region of Russia. Many of those left behind are now seeking help from the
Russian embassy in Tbilisi to go and join them.
The remaining Dukhobors say they are worried by Georgia's new president,
Mikheil Saakashvili, whom they see as a Georgian nationalist. There are also
rumours in the community - denied by Georgian officials - that all
non-Georgian schools will be closed. `Saakashvili's rise to power scares
everyone,' said Chuchmayeva. `Everyone is panic-stricken. People see what is
happening in (South) Ossetia and feel scared,' she added in a reference to
Saakashvili's attempts to restore central authority to that breakaway
region.
 `Now
they are talking about making all schools switch to the Georgian language...
And that scares people. They are terrified that main subjects in schools
will be taught in Georgian from 2006 and our children will not be able to
study.'
Georgia's minister for refugees and migration, Eter Astemirova, told IWPR
that `the main reason they are leaving, as far as I know, is due to problems
with the local Armenian population. There is no basis to their worries about
the Georgian language or schools'. Astemirova said the Georgian state was
entirely neutral in the affair. Dukhobors are not helped `to leave or to
stay', she said. `If there is a problem, we will try to address it. ... So
far, I don't know, because we have no information about Dukhobors.'
The cultural attache of the Russian embassy in Tbilisi, Vasily Korchmar,
said another reason for the Dukhobors' desire to leave is the difficult
economic situation in Georgia and its tense relationship with Russia.
Gonachrova agreed that tradition counted for nothing as this community made
up its mind. For young people in particular life is better in Russia than in
Gorelovka, `We are sorry to leave, but what can one do? There are [proper]
conditions for young people in Russia. Discos and all sorts of amusement. We
have nothing.'
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