Caucasus Roads
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 Hairpin
Bends on a Road Near Erivan [Erevan]Erivan [Erevan] stand over three thousand feet above sea-level and from it the road winds down in long zigzags to the vale seen in the distance with harsh-featured hills dominating it on each hand. At the end of the road, eighty miles away, is the town of Kars, which is now a part of the Turkish Republic, though formerly it belonged to Russia. [Most Jumpers and Molokans who immigrated to America, fled from the Kars area due to the Ruso-Turkish war, predjudice, and economy.] |
 Village
of The Molokans Or Quakers [Molokans and Jumpers are NOT Quakers! This is the village of Voskresenovka, now Lermontovo, identified by Ion Berokoff and reproduced between pages 18-19 in Pilgrims of Russian Town by P.V. Young, 1932, reissued, 1967, reprinted 1998.] In contrast to the many war-devastaed villages are the near orderly ones of the Molokans and Jumpers who refused because of their religious beliefs to have any part in the fighting [of the Russo-Turkish War]. The Molokans [and Jumpoers], or Molokane [Pryguny] [also Molokani, plural form in Russian], are similiar to the Quakers in their simple mode of life and in their practice of mutual help. They call themselves "truly spiritual Christians." (Photo: Near East Relief) |
 "In the mountainous districts, the houses
are built on
terraces, but
in the more prosperous places they are made of rough stone or baked mud
and often have large wooden balconies around the first floor, and
roofs of undulating red tiles. The houses of the rich are often very
beautiful,
especially those which are decorated with colored glaxed tiles,
indicating
the Persian influence.
"We may see now and then a neat orderly village and we learn that these are colonies of Germans who early in the nineteenth century started to the Holy Land because they had heard that the end of the world was near. They traveled so slowly that agents who had been sent in advance came to report to them that all was not as they believed in Jerusalem and so they stayed where they were. They cultivated the land as they had done in Germany and built their villages on the German plan and retained their German language, although they have learned Russian and some have learned Georgian. [These Separatists and Harmonists prophesied the 2nd coming of Christ in 1836 on Mount Zion and influenced many Germans and Jumper in the south Ukraine, Milky Waters region, as they traveled south from Germany. (Read more at: Hoffnungstal - 1848 Village History.) Their influence stimulated the formation of the Jumpers (Pryguny) among Molokans who report a "great outpouring of the Holy Spirit" during the same time and place. (Read more at: Russians' Secret, Chapter 12.) Once in Georgia, the Harmonist leader changed the location of 2nd coming of Christ from Mount Zion, Palestine (now in Israel), to be on Mount Ararat, Armenia, which affected the beliefs and behavior of Jumpers led by Maksim G. Rudomiotkin. A sub-group of Separatist were Chilists, lead by Jung-Stilling. Berokoff reports in chapter 5: "...the book with a religious theme that enjoyed the widest popularity and even reverence among the elders previous to the publication of The Book of Spirit and Life in 1915, was a book on a mystical subject written by a German writer, Stilling Jung. ... concerning God's chosen people, their wandering from place to place in Europe and finding eventual haven in the Near East."] "One may see also villages where the Molokans [and
Jumpers] reside.
These people
belong to a sect of the Russian Church comparable to our Quakers. They
derive their name from the custom of living on milk (moloko), in
Russian)
on fast days. The Molokans have no organized priesthood." Sources:
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