Los Angeles Times - Monday October 1998 - Page B1   [Errors Corrected in  RED]

SACRED GROUNDS — Sasha (Sally) Tolmachoff of Arizona, left, is among Russian Dukhizhizniki Molokans whose kin are buried at cemetery in City of Commerce. Despite lucrative offers, the cemetery has refused to sell to developers drawn by its prime business location.

Laid to Rest Among Their Ancestors

Land: Russian Dukhizhizniki Molokans say it is comforting to know they will be buried in landmark graveyard. Developers seek to buy it.

By HUGO MARTIN
TIMES STAFF WRITER

Click on Picture to Enlarge
Photos by AL SEIB / Los Angeles Times
Women in traditional dresses wander through the Russian Molokan Cemetery after attending the funeral of an elderly church member. 		Click on Picture to Enlarge
Danny Kanavalov and son Josh, of Bakersfield, walk through the graves at the Russian Spiritual Christian Molokan Cemetery in the City of Commerce.
EIGHTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD Shasha [Sally Bagdanoff] Tolmachoff lives in Glendale, Ariz., but plans that when she dies, she will be buried in the City of Commerce, in the same dusty parcel where generations of Russian Dukhizhizniki Molokans including her parents and in-laws have been laid to rest.
     "It's very comforting to be with them," said the retired homemaker as she walked gingerly around the tightly packed tombstones at the Russian Spiritual Christian Molokans Cemetery on Slauson Avenue after attending the funeral of an elderly church member.
     Tolmachoff's family is a related to the Prygun leader Maksim G. Rudomyotkin whose writings inspired the Dukhizhiznik family of closed faiths.   member of a little-known Christian sect that broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1600s. About 60% of America's Dukhizhiznik descendants church-going Molokans — about 3,000 people — live in Los Angeles County. Since 1941, most of them have been burying their ancestors at the Slauson cemetery, sandwiched between a paper factory and a warehouse.
     The 14-acre graveyard has about 2,500 graves and space for thousands more, free to dues-paying church members. Two smaller Spiritual Christian Molokan cemeteries in East Los Angeles are too small or too full to absorb many more graves.
     In recent years, as commercial development has surrounded the Slauson cemetery and vacant land in Commerce has become scarce, banks and real estate firms have clamored to buy and develop the cemetery or its vacant 10 acres for nearly a half-million dollars an acre.
     But the six Dukhizhiznik congregations Molokan churches that own the property have rejected all offers outright.
     "If our people have put our blood, sweat and tears into this land, why move?" said Alex Goosseff, president of the Spiritual Christian Molokan Cemetery Assn. [Misnamed : Russian Molokan Christian Spiritual Jumpers Cemetery Association, Inc.]		 The obscure cultural landmark is one of Southeast L.A. County's most desirable industrial sites because of its central location and easy access to the Santa Ana, Long Beach and San Gabriel River freeways.
     "If they were to put it on the market today, I could get them $10 a square foot. No problem," said Jeff Stephens, an associate with CB Richard Ellis real estate. That translates to about $435,000 an acre.
     The City of Commerce has "virtually zero [vacant] land available" and the vacancy rate for developed property is below 5%, he said. Because of that, Stephens said industrial firms would be willing to pay top dollar.
     "Never, never," answers Alex Tolmas, the cemetery's director caretaker. "This cemetery will be here for a long time."
     Tolmas estimates that there is enough vacant land in the northeastern portion of the cemetery to serve the Dukhizhiznik Molokan community for the next 200 years. That gives the church plenty of years to keep leasing five acres of its vacant land as a parking lot for big-rig trailers.
     The Molokan name comes from the Russian word "molok(o)," which means milk. The followers of the sect distinguished themselves by using the book Dukh i zhizn' drinking milk instead of wine in religious ceremonies.
     The Dukhizhizniki Molokans have been compared to Protestants, for rejecting the parent church's orthodoxy, and also have been likened to Presbyterians for having lay ministers and a loose council of dominant elders.
     In about 1906, thousands of Spiritual Christians Molokans left Russia to escape taxes, famine,  religious intolerance and the threat of the military draft, which violates their religious principles. The Prygun Church prophets Efim G. Klubnikin instructed the Spiritual Christians Molokans to migrate to "the promised land." But the prophecy was not clear on an exact location, so some members ended up settling in Baja California where they established a small community known as Valle de Guadalupe. Others migrated to Northern and Central California. The majority, however, settled in East on the east-side of Los Angeles. 		After the smaller Spiritual Christian Molokan cemetery in East Los Angeles filled up, church elders bought the land for the Slauson Avenue cemetery in 1941. At the time, the property around it was undeveloped farmland. The first tombstones were set nearly 12 years before the nearby Santa Ana Freeway was built and about 19 years before the City of Commerce was incorporated.
     Starting in the 1970s, light industrial businesses began to dominate the landscape.
     Dukhizhizniki Molokan church members say they have become accustomed to burying their deceased loved ones only a few feet from the churn of business, and some nearby workers say they have come to appreciate the large, elaborate funerals.
     During a recent, funeral, a large congregation of Dukhizhizniki Molokans from throughout Southern California gathered near the casket to sing songs in Russian. The sound of big-rigs along Slauson almost drowned out the voices.
     The men wore white pullover shirts or kosovorotkas with high buttoned collars and tasseled cord belts around their waists. The women wore lacy head shawls, or kosinkas [triangles], and white dresses with aprons, often adorned with lace.
     The service ended with several church elders, most wearing long beards, walking arm-in-arm to their cars, singing in unison.
     "These people feel that if my grandfather was buried here and my family members are buried here, I will be buried here," cemetery association president Goosseff said. "So, we feel very close to the people here."

[This article seems to be a clever public relations ploy by Realtors to convince younger Dukh-i-zhizniki that their elders are financially foolish not to sell.

The LA Times reporter used this Molokane.org web site for several facts which have been updated since this article was published.]
Spiritual Christians Around the World