“Here, in Bolivia, the Old Believers perfectly preserve the Russian language”

This is just a photojournalist's dream: the jungle, "many, many wild monkeys" and against this outlandish background - she, a blue-eyed girl in a sundress and with a blond braid to the waist.

And here is the village, where blond boys in embroidered shirts run through the streets, and women always put their hair under shashmura - a special headdress. Unless the huts are not log, but instead of birch palm trees. Russia, which we lost, was preserved in South America.

There, after long wanderings, the Old Believers found refuge in their desire to preserve the faith and life principles of their ancestors. As a result, they managed to save not only this, but also the Russian language of the past centuries, for which, like a treasure, linguists go to South America. Senior Research Fellow at the Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Olga Rovnova recently returned from another, already the ninth expedition to South America. This time she visited Bolivia, in Toborochi village founded by the Old Believers in the 1980s. The linguist told the Russian Planet portal about the life of the Russian language on the other side of the earth.

Tell us in a nutshell, how did the Old Believers end up in South America?

Their ancestors fled from Russia in the late 1920s and early 1930s to China from Soviet rule. In China, they lived until the end of the 1950s, until they began to build communism there and drive everyone to collective farms.

The Old Believers again took off and moved to South America - to Brazil and Argentina.

Why did they move to Bolivia?

Not everyone was able to take root in Brazil on the lands that the government allocated to them. It was a jungle that had to be uprooted by hand, plus the soil had a very thin fertile layer - hellish conditions awaited them. Therefore, after a few years, part of the Old Believers began to look for new territories. Some went to Bolivia and Uruguay: here they were also offered jungle plots, but the soil in Bolivia is more fertile. Someone found out that the United States is also selling land in the state of Oregon.

They sent a delegation for reconnaissance, they returned with the most favorable impressions, and some of the Old Believers moved to Oregon. But since the families of the Old Believers are large and they need a lot of living space, they eventually went from Oregon to Minnesota and further to Alaska, where a certain amount of the Russian population has long lived. Some even went to Australia. The proverb "The fish is looking for where it is deeper, and the man - where it is better" is very suitable for our Old Believers.

What are they doing in their new places?

In Bolivia and in Latin America as a whole, agriculture. In the village of Toborochi, where we were this year, they grow wheat, beans, corn, and in artificial ponds they breed Amazonian pacu fish. And you know, they're good at it. Labor on the ground gives them a good income. Of course, there are different situations, but mostly Latin American Old Believers are very wealthy people. In the United States, the situation is slightly different - there, part of the families work in factories and in the service sector.

What is it, the Russian language of the Latin American Old Believers?

It is a living dialectal Russian language that was spoken in Russia in the 19th century. Clean, without an accent, but this is a dialect, not a literary language. There is a rare situation: linguists are well aware that in the case of emigration, people lose their native language already in the third generation. That is, the grandchildren of those who have left usually no longer speak the native language of their grandparents. We see this in the examples of both the first and second waves of emigration. And here, in Bolivia, the Old Believers perfectly preserve the language: the fourth generation speaks pure Russian. This time we recorded a boy of 10 years old. His name is Diy, he studies Spanish at school, but at home he speaks a Russian dialect.

At the same time, it is important that the language of the Old Believers is not preserved. He is alive, he is developing. True, in isolation from Russia, it develops in a different way. In their speech there are a lot of words borrowed from Spanish. But they build them into the system of the Russian language - lexically, morphologically. For example, they call a gas station "gasoline" from the Spanish word gasolinera. They do not have the phrase "agriculture", so they say to themselves: "We are engaged in agriculture, we are agriculturalists." And these borrowings are mixed in their speech with obsolete words that are no longer found in our language. For example, their tree is a forest.

This situation is typical for all Old Believers living in South America. While in the USA or Australia the situation is reversed. There, the second generation is completely switching to English. For example, if a grandmother lives in Bolivia, and a grandson lives in Oregon or Alaska, then they can no longer communicate directly.

And why is the Russian language better preserved in South America than in North America?

There is a general trend: the richer the country, the stronger the influence it has on the Old Believers - both economic and linguistic.

In the same Oregon, women are involved in economic activities. As a rule, they work - in the service sector or in production. And, of course, they themselves actively learn the language of the host country. Children go to an English-speaking school, watch TV in English. The native language is gradually disappearing.

Not so in Latin America. The task of making money lies entirely with the man. Women are not required to work and therefore have less contact with the local population. The task of a woman is to run a household and raise children. They are not only the guardians of the hearth, but also the guardians of the language.

The locality where the Old Believers live is also important. Here, in Bolivia, the Old Believers live in their village, completely in their own environment. Their children attend a school where they are taught in Spanish, but what is typical: in both Bolivia and Brazil, the Old Believers are trying to build a school in their village - often with their own money - and agree that teachers would go to them, instead of send children to a strange village or city. Therefore, the children are constantly in the village, in which - with the exception of the school - everywhere they speak only Russian. By the way, rural women are the guardians of dialects in Russia. Men lose their dialect much faster.

Still, the dialect of which particular area do the Old Believers speak?

Basically, they took with them the language of the area from which they fled abroad. For example, in Estonia, on the shores of Lake Peipus, live Old Believers who once came from the Pskov region. And the Pskov dialect is still traced in their speech.

The Bolivian Old Believers entered China through two corridors. One group came to Xinjiang Province from Altai. The second group fled from Primorye. They crossed the Amur and settled in Harbin, and there are differences in their speech, which I will talk about a little later.

But what is interesting is that both Xinjiang and Harbin people, as they call themselves, in their bulk are Kerzhaks, descendants of the Old Believers from the Nizhny Novgorod province. Under Peter I, they were forced to flee to Siberia, and the dialect of the Nizhny Novgorod province can be traced in their speech.

What is this dialect?

I will have to tell you literally in a couple of words about Russian dialects. There are two large groups of dialects - the Northern dialect and the Southern dialect. The most famous differences in pronunciation are as follows: in the north they “okayut”, and in the south - “akayut”, in the north the sound [r] is explosive, and in the south it is fricative, in a weak position it is pronounced like [x]. And between these two dialects there is a wide band of Central Russian dialects. They are very colorful, but each took something from the Northern dialect, and something from the Southern. For example, the Moscow dialect, which formed the basis of the Russian literary language, is also a Central Russian dialect. It is characterized by a southern "akanye" and, at the same time, a northern explosive [r]. The dialect of the South American Old Believers is Central Russian, but it differs from Moscow.

They also “kayat”, but from the northern dialect they took, for example, the so-called contraction of vowels, that is, they say “So beautiful girl”, “I took such a beautiful girl as my wife”.

Are there differences in language among different communities of American Old Believers?

There is. And these differences are due not to who lives in what area now, but to which part of China they left for America. Although their speech is very similar, there are still features in the speech of the Xinjiang people that make Harbin people smile. For example, the Xinjiang people say [s] instead of the sound [ts]. Instead of a chicken, they have “syplyok”, “sar” instead of a king. And [h] they pronounce as [u]: son, kennel, shopkeeper. It hurts the ear a lot, especially at the beginning of communication. And the residents of Harbin, who do not have all this, consider their speech to be more correct, more similar to Russian. In general, it is very important for the Old Believers to be aware of their closeness to Russia.

By the way, what do the Old Believers think about our Russian language?

They are very worried about him. They do not understand many words that have appeared in Russia in recent years. A typical example, we were in the same house, and there relatives from Alaska came to the owners. One of them asks what language is spoken in Russia now. In Russian, I answer. “What kind of Russian language is this if they call a kufayka sweater!”

The Old Believers are not fond of TV, but they still watch Russian films, and then they start asking me questions. One day they ask me: “What is a mistress?”. I explain to them, and they say: “Ah! So this is our "boyfriend"! Or a girl who loves to cook, after looking at our culinary forums, asks me what cakes are - “I know cakes, and pies, but I don’t know cakes.”

Indeed, it would seem that the Old Believers should avoid all these modern technologies, but do they even use the Internet?

It's not encouraged, but it's not forbidden either. They use modern equipment in their work: they use John Deer tractors and combines in their fields. And at home - Skype, with the help of which they keep in touch with their families around the world, and also find brides and grooms for their children - in both Americas and in Australia.

I just wanted to ask about marriages, because closed communities are characterized by closely related unions and, as a result, an increase in genetic problems.

This is not about old believers. Without knowing genetics, their ancestors established the rule of the eighth tribe: marriages between relatives up to the eighth tribe are prohibited. They perfectly know their pedigree to such a depth, all their relatives. And the Internet is important for them in order to find new families in the conditions when the Old Believers settled all over the world.

However, they also allow marriages with strangers, provided that they accept the faith and learn the prayers. On this visit, we saw a young man from the locals who was courting a girl from the village. He speaks very interestingly: in dialectal Russian with a Spanish accent.

And to what extent do the Old Believers themselves speak Spanish?

Enough to live in the country. As a rule, men speak the language better. But when I went into the store with one of the women and realized that my Spanish was clearly not enough to communicate with the saleswoman, my companion turned out to be a very lively translator.

What, in your opinion, is the future fate of the Russian dialect language in South America? Will he live on?

I would very much like to come to them in 20 years and see what their Russian language will become. Of course it will be different. But you know, I have no worries about the Russian language in Bolivia. They speak without an accent. Their dialect is extremely tenacious. This is a completely unique combination of archaic and innovative. When they need to name a new phenomenon, they easily invent new words. For example, they call cartoons the word "jumping", garlands of light bulbs - "blinks", a headband on the hair - "clothes". They know the word "loan", but they themselves say "to take on payment."

Old Believers very widely use metaphors to refer to new objects or concepts. For example, I show a boy to a tree in their village - it's a big tree with large fragrant bright red clusters of flowers. I ask: what is it called? “I don’t know, my sister calls me a lilac,” the boy answers me. Other flowers, a different fragrance, but a similar shape of clusters - and here's a lilac for you. And they call tangerines "mimosa". Apparently, for their round shape and bright color. I ask the girl where her brother is. "Fadeyka something? They'll clear the mimosa." Vaughn, peeling tangerines ...

Knowing nothing about such a science as sociolinguistics, the Old Believers in Bolivia do exactly what needs to be done to preserve the language. They live apart and demand that in the village, at home, only Russian be spoken. And I really hope that the Russian language will be heard in Bolivia for a long time to come.

Interviewed by Milena Bakhvalova

Many Russians are now interested in the question of how to obtain Bolivian citizenship. The acquisition of a second citizenship is an issue that worries many residents of our country today. And it's not just about moving or the opportunity to have an indefinite vacation outside of Russia, it's about business immigration.

View of the capital of Bolivia - La Paz

Latin America is a promising direction. It is clear that the best countries for immigration are here, Panama. But it is quite difficult to obtain citizenship of these countries, and it cannot be done in a short period of time (except in this country it is carried out in an expedited manner).

The location of the countries of South America on the map

Due to the fact that citizenship is a complicated procedure in these promising countries, one should pay attention to a country like Bolivia.

Citizenship of Bolivia actually gives a lot of advantages that a little dedicated person does not even know about.

Bolivia and Spain have an agreement providing for dual citizenship for residents of these countries(if desired, a citizen of Bolivia in an accelerated mode, in about 2 years, maybe, therefore, with all the ensuing consequences).

There is a real opportunity to live in this country. Bolivia is not an expensive country by Russian standards, and even a person with a small amount of capital will be able to settle down comfortably here.

Average price of basic products in Bolivia

If we talk about the cons, then the Bolivian passport does not belong to the so-called good travel documents. Bolivians visit almost all countries of the world on a visa.

Citizenship can be obtained on the basis of origin, on the basis of residence in the country for 2 years. For some categories of citizens, this period is reduced to one year. Those who have:

• spouse (spouse) - a citizen of Bolivia;
• children - citizens of Bolivia;
• special education and work in Bolivia in the field of education, science, technology, industry or agriculture;
• the right to military service (or one who performs military service in the ranks of the Bolivian army);
• gratitude for services to the Republic.

What documents do I need to submit to obtain Bolivian citizenship?

To apply for citizenship, you must provide the following documents:

• foreign passport of the Russian Federation (or birth certificate of the Russian Federation);
• on the territory of the Russian Federation;
• photographs (here you will need not only standard ones, but also photographs of the right and left profiles, they are taken in La Paz, the capital of the state);
• fingerprints of both hands.

During the registration of citizenship, the person (or the whole family) must be in the territory of Bolivia. The process of registration as a whole can last from 6 to 9 months. The cost of the procedure is 50-90 thousand dollars. All RF documents must be translated into Spanish and notarized.

Pay attention to the video: preparation of documents for living in Bolivia for permanent residence.

Standard of living in Bolivia

All interested people are concerned about the following questions:

• real estate in Bolivia: prices, possibilities of buying, renting;
• what language do Bolivians speak and who are they;
• transport in Bolivia: how best to move around the country, how much it costs to buy a personal car, how much gasoline costs;
• work in Bolivia for Russian immigrants;
• prices for food, clothing, personal items, medical treatment, utilities.

It is clear that life in Bolivia is a little like a fairy tale, because Latin America is still not North America. On the other hand, knowledgeable people have long called this country Latin American Tibet, since it is very isolated from the rest of Latin America, and this, oddly enough, is a big plus. In the neighborhood of big Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, there really is not much good.

The population of Bolivia is Indians and mestizos. Moreover, in terms of the number of Indians, Bolivia is the leader among Latin American countries. They speak a mixture of local dialects and Spanish. The official language is Spanish.

Typical Indians of the country

Public transport in Bolivia is poorly developed, and not everyone has personal cars.

Although you can buy any model, prices in Bolivia are low by European and Russian standards. Gasoline is cheap, but the roads are not very good. The best choice is an SUV, especially if you live in a rural area.

Bolivia is a small country, has no access to the sea, surrounded by the Andes, so the situation with real estate in Bolivia, especially in large cities, is not easy. But a house in the countryside is quite possible to buy. It will cost (by Russian standards) not expensive.

Rental prices in Bolivia

Russians in Bolivia deserve close attention for at least two reasons. Firstly, the Russian community appeared there not in the turbulent 1990s, but back in the 19th century. Secondly, unlike other Latin American countries, Russians in Bolivia practically did not assimilate. Moreover, being citizens of this country, they consider Russia as their homeland, which they have not even seen on TV screens: after all, they do not favor TVs.

"Oh, frost, frost" under the palm trees

These women wear long sundresses, men - shirts with belts. They go down the aisle early: girls are already at 13, guys at 16; they give birth a lot, so even ten children in a family are not uncommon. The names of all are Russian, but old, which you will not hear now: Mamelfa, Agapit, Kipriyan, Inafa, Elizar.

All are peasants. They live by selling the fruits of their labor; On Sunday they rest, go to church. It seems like an ordinary Russian village of the late 19th century, but around - not fields with birches, but the Bolivian selva, and the peasants grow not turnips with cabbage, but bananas with pineapples (however, wheat is also held in high esteem).

Everyone speaks Russian clearly, without a hint of an accent, but with occasional splashes of Spanish words. The merits of the Bolivian authorities are not in this: public schools in the country are only Spanish-speaking. The family preserves and instills the Russian language, and children are taught to read not only in Russian, but also in Old Slavonic, because the main book in every family - the Bible - is written in this language. There are about 2,000 such Old Believer peasants in Bolivia. Their villages are located in the tropical departments of the country - Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Las Paz, Beni.

Despite the steadfast observance of traditions that differ sharply from the local culture, and external dissimilarity, the Russian Old Believers never had any conflicts with the Bolivians. They live amicably with their neighbors, understand each other perfectly (all Old Believers know Spanish well), but they don’t want to get close and marry only with their own, and not within the village (this is forbidden), but by writing brides from afar. Fortunately, there are enough Old Believers in Latin America.

Keeping the faith

The community was formed gradually, the Old Believers arrived in "waves". The first of them dates back to the second half of the century before last, when part of the Siberian Old Believers, tired of persecution, began to look for a place on the map where they could safely profess their faith. Such a point (or rather, a continent) was Latin America in general and Bolivia in particular. The first settlers were attracted by the fertile lands and the liberal policy of the local authorities.

If the first wave of immigrants came to Bolivia directly, then the second wave was very difficult. First, in the turbulent years of the civilian Old Believers fled to Manchuria. They seem to have taken root, a new generation was born - and then a revolution broke out already in China. I had to flee again, this time to British Hong Kong. From there, part of the Old Believers moved to Australia, and part to Brazil. Not everyone liked Brazil - they decided to move to Bolivia. But it is possible that the Russians in Bolivia are waiting for a new resettlement.

Back to the Motherland

For the first time in many years, Russian Old Believers had problems with the authorities in the early 2010s. It is not their fault: the leftist government of Evo Morales simply came to power, which took care of the fate of the Indian lands where the Old Believers live and work. Some of them thought about returning to their homeland, especially since these plans were actively supported by the Russian authorities.

In 2011, about 30 people came to Russia from Bolivia, followed by others. Contrary to forecasts, no one returned back, although it was not easy: for example, almost no one remained in the areas allocated to him, they dispersed in all directions. Will the rest of the Russians in Bolivia follow suit? Only time can answer this question.

Today, many are interested in what they were. Really interesting story.

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Recently, the Russian government has begun to actively support the return to their homeland of compatriots and their descendants who emigrated abroad. Within the framework of this policy, a few years ago, the resettlement of Old Believers from Bolivia and Uruguay to Russia began. Publications and stories dedicated to these unusual people periodically appear in the domestic media. They look like either from Latin America, or from our pre-revolutionary past, but at the same time they have retained the Russian language and ethnic identity.

The Russian diaspora in the Americas: large numbers, brilliance and rapid assimilation

The successful preservation of one's language and culture on foreign Latin American soil is a very rare occurrence for the Russian diaspora. In the first half of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Russian refugees and settlers moved to the New World - white emigrants, religious sectarians, seekers of a better life and refugees of the Second World War, fleeing from the return of Soviet power to the territories occupied by the Germans.

Among them were the most famous technical specialists who made a huge contribution to the development of the new homeland, for example, Igor Sikorsky, Vladimir Zworykin or Andrey Chelishchev. There were famous politicians like Alexander Kerensky or Anton Denikin, famous cultural figures like Sergei Rachmaninoff or Vladimir Nabokov. Even military leaders were present, such as the Chief of the General Staff of the Army of Paraguay, General Ivan Belyaev or Wehrmacht General Boris Smyslovsky, adviser to the famous President of Argentina Juan Peron on anti-partisan operations and the fight against terrorism. On the soil of North America, there was a center of Russian Orthodoxy, independent of communism, devoutly preserving the pre-revolutionary tradition.

Not so long ago in San Francisco or Buenos Aires Russian speech was common. Today, however, the situation has changed radically. The task of preserving national identity proved overwhelming for the overwhelming majority of Russian emigrants to the New World. Their descendants in the second, maximum, in the third generation assimilated. At best, they have managed to preserve the memory of their ethnic roots, culture, and religious affiliation, resulting in figures like the well-known Canadian political scientist and politician Michael Ignatiev. This rule is also true for the Old Believers from European Russia (merchants and townspeople), who also quickly disappeared among the population of the New World. Against the background of the common fate of the Russian emigration, the situation of the Siberian Old Believer communities in Latin America, who are now returning to Russia, seems unusual and surprising.

From Russia to Latin America: the path of the Old Believers

Latin American Old Believers are the descendants of those who fled toXVIII - XIXcenturies from the religious persecution of the Russian state in Siberia and later in the Far East. In these regions, many Old Believer settlements were created, in which ancient religious traditions were preserved. Most of the local Old Believers belonged to a special sense in the Old Believers - the so-called "chapel". This is a special compromise direction, dogmatically equidistant from both priests and non-priests.

At the chapels, the functions of spiritual leaders are performed by elected lay mentors (“until the true Orthodox clergy appear”). The conditions of life in the expanses of Siberia hardened them, forced them to live exclusively on their own farm and made them more closed and conservative than the rest of the Old Believers. If in cinema or fiction Old Believers are portrayed as some kind of forest hermits, then their prototype is precisely the chapels.

The revolution and mainly collectivization led to the flight of the Old Believers-chapels from Russia. In the 1920s and early 1930s, some of them moved from Altai to Chinese Xinjiang, and the other part moved from the Russian Amur to Manchuria, where the Old Believers settled mainly in the Harbin region and created strong peasant farms. The arrival of the Soviet army in 1945 turned out to be a new tragedy for the Old Believers: most of the adult men were arrested and sent to camps for "illegally crossing the border", and the farms of their families who remained in Manchuria were subjected to "dispossession", that is, in fact, plundered.

After the victory of the Communists in China in 1949, the new authorities began to unambiguously squeeze the Old Believers out of the country as an undesirable element. In search of a new refuge, the Old Believers ended up in Hong Kong for a while, but in 1958, with the help of the UN, one part of them left for the United States, and the other for Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Brazil. In the last of these countries, with the help of the World Council of Churches, the Old Believers received 6,000 acres of land 200 miles from São Paulo.

Exploration of South America

Ultimately, separate communities of Old Believers were founded in a number of Latin American countries. Many families of Old Believers managed to live in more than one country until, in the 1980s, most of them finally settled in Bolivia. The reason for this was the warm welcome from the government of this country, which allocated land to the Old Believers. Since then, the Old Believer community in Bolivia has become one of the strongest in all of Latin America.

These Russians adapted to South American reality very quickly, and now they treat them with unflappable calmness. The Old Believers steadfastly endure the heat, despite the fact that they are not allowed to open the body. They are already used to jaguars, they are not particularly afraid of them, they only protect domestic animals from them. With snakes, the conversation is short - with a boot on the head, and cats are brought in not to hunt mice, but to catch lizards.

In Bolivia, the Old Believers are mainly engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry. Of the most popular crops grown by them, corn, soybeans and rice occupy the first place. At the same time, it should be noted that the Old Believers succeed better than many Bolivian peasants who have lived on these lands for several centuries.

Unlike Uruguay, where the descendants of Russian sectarians live in the settlement of San Javier, the Bolivian Old Believers were able to preserve not only their religion and the way of life that had developed several centuries ago, but also the Russian language. Although some of them have gone to large cities such as La Paz, most Old Believers prefer to live in quiet villages. Children are reluctantly allowed to go to big cities, because there, according to parents, whom it is customary to listen to, there are a lot of demonic temptations.

It is noteworthy that being at such a distance from their historical homeland, the Bolivian Old Believers have preserved their cultural and religious customs even better than their co-religionists living in Russia. Although, perhaps, the remoteness from the Russian land was the reason that these people are fighting so fiercely for their values ​​and traditions.

The preservation of traditional values ​​is greatly facilitated by the fact that Latin American Old Believers do not allow their children to marry people of a different religion. And since there are currently about 300 Russian Old Believer families living there, in which at least 5 children each, the choice of the younger generation is quite large. At the same time, it is not forbidden to marry or marry a native Latin American, but he must definitely learn Russian, accept the faith of his spouse and become a worthy member of the community.

Old Believers in Bolivia are self-sufficient communities, but they are not cut off from the outside world. They were able to perfectly establish not only their way of life, but also cultural life. For example, holidays are celebrated there very solemnly with dances and songs, but with songs that do not contradict their religion. Despite the fact that TV, for example, is banned, they never get bored and always know what to do in their free time. Along with studying at a local school, where all classes are held in Spanish and where they communicate with the local population, they also study with their teachers, who teach them Old Church Slavonic and Russian, because the sacred books are written in them. Interestingly, all the Old Believers living in Bolivia speak without a Spanish accent, although their fathers and even grandfathers were born in Latin America. Moreover, their speech still bears clear features of the Siberian dialect.

Leaving Latin America

During the stay of the Old Believers in Bolivia, many presidents were replaced in this country, but the Old Believers never had difficulties in relations with the authorities. Serious problems for the Bolivian Old Believers began with the coming to power of President Evo Morales, one of the main figures of the "left turn" in Latin America and the first leader of Bolivia to visit Russia. This politician acts as a champion of the ideas of socialism, anti-imperialism and a defender of communities in which many Indian tribes continue to maintain their way of life since ancient times.

At the same time, Morales is an Indian nationalist, striving to expropriate and squeeze out all “foreign elements” from the purely Indian state he is creating, including foreigners and white Bolivians, which include Russian Old Believers. It is not surprising that under Morales "problems" suddenly appeared with the land of the Old Believers.

It was after this that the process of the return resettlement of the Old Believers to Russia intensified, first from Bolivia, and then, following their example, from other Latin American states, primarily those where left-wing populists who are members of the Bolivarian Alliance or sympathize with it are in power. Today, the Russian Foreign Ministry is helping the process of repatriation of Old Believers, although many of them prefer not to go to Russia, but to join their fellow believers in the United States.

Poorly representing the realities of Siberia and naively taking the word of domestic officials, many Latin American Old Believers found themselves in a very difficult situation at the first stage of resettlement in 2008-2011. As a result, not all repatriates remained in Russia. Nevertheless, the process of repatriation gradually improved, and today we can hope that for the majority of these Old Believers their odyssey will sooner or later end in their historical homeland.

There are polar opinions about the chapel Old Believers living in both Americas, and in Russia itself. Someone considers them archaic Russian Amish, someone sees in their communities a fragment of the departed "Holy Russia" and therefore chooses their way of life as an object to follow.

Of course, comparing the descendants of the Siberian Old Believers in Latin America with the Amish is incorrect.. Absolutely all Russian Old Believers use technology, electricity and even the Internet as needed. In the same Bolivia, none of the chapel Old Believers would have thought of abandoning tractors and combines, perhaps the only forbidden piece of equipment is the TV.

The idealization of this group of Old Believers is also not justified. The opinion of the author of this article, based on personal communication with the Latin American Old Believers, is that these people are just a cast of peasant Russia that has survived to this day.XXcentury with all its good and bad qualities. If the positive traits include diligence, an attitude to preserve one's identity and adherence to family values, the negative traits are a low level of education and a narrow outlook, which very often prevents the Old Believers of Latin America from making adequate decisions in the modern world.

Maxim Lemos, a professional cameraman and director who lives in Latin America and periodically takes our tourists to the Old Believers.

Let me tell you how I first got there. I accompanied the tourists, we drove by car to different cities of Argentina and Uruguay. And we decided to visit the Old Believers. There is very little information about the Old Believers on the Internet, there are no clear coordinates, it is not clear where to look for them, and it is generally not clear how relevant the information is. There was only information that the colony of Old Believers is located near the city of San Javier. We arrived in this city, and I began to find out from the locals where to find Russians. “Aaah, barbudos!?” - said in the first shop. Barbudos is Spanish for bearded men. “Yes, they live nearby. But they won’t let you in, they are aggressive,” the San Javiers told us. This statement is a bit disturbing. But still, I figured out how to get there by country dirt roads. The Uruguayans said that the "barbudos" do not accept anyone and do not communicate with anyone. Fortunately, this turned out not to be the case. Surprisingly, many "Russian" San Javiers don't really know anything about their Russian neighbors. And everything that is incomprehensible and different, a person, as you know, is afraid. Therefore, there is no special friendship between the former Russian San-Javiers and the Russian Old Believers.

We were about to set off to search for the village, but at that moment one of the San Javierans called us, pointing at the ATM. “This is just one of them,” he said. A strange-looking man in a green shirt lined with a rope belt and with a beard stepped out of the bank. A conversation ensued. In Russian. The man turned out to be not at all aggressive, but on the contrary, kind and open. The first thing that struck me was his language, his dialect. He spoke in a language that I only heard in movies. That is, it is our Russian language, but many words are pronounced differently there, and there are many words that we don’t use at all anymore, for example, they call the house a hut, instead of saying strongly “very much”. They don’t say “you know”, but “know”, “you like”, “understand” ... Instead of “stronger”, they say “more”. They say not “it happens” but “it happens”, not “can” but “can”, not “you will start” but “you will begin”, not “others” but “others”. How, evshny, back and forth, beside ... Having talked so sensitively, we asked if it was possible to look at how they live there. The Old Believer agreed, and we went to pick up our car. We were lucky that we met him, without him, according to the scheme drawn by the San Javierians, we certainly would not have found anything. And so we arrived at the village ...

Getting to the village of Old Believers for the first time, you experience a shock. It feels like you are in the past in a time machine. This is exactly what Russia once looked like... We enter a village, a house, in the yard a woman in a sarafan milks a cow, barefoot children in shirts and sarafans run around... This is a piece of old Russia that was taken out of it and transferred to another, alien world. And since the Russians did not integrate into this foreign world, this allowed this piece of old Russia to survive to this day.

It is strictly forbidden to take pictures in this colony. And all those pictures that you will see below were taken with the permission of the Old Believers. That is, group, “official” shots are possible. You can not without asking, secretly photograph their life. When finding out why they dislike photographers so much, it turned out that journalists were sneaking up to them under the guise of tourists. Filmed them, and then exhibited in the form of clowns for ridicule. One of these stupid and meaningless reports made Uruguayan TV hidden camera

Their technology is very advanced. All owned. There are also trucks, and combines, and various sprinklers, sprinklers.

Arriving in the village, we met one of the elders, and he told us about the life of this piece of old Russia ... Just as they are interesting to us, we are interesting to them. We are part of that Russia that they somehow imagine in their heads, with which they have lived for many generations, but which they have never seen.

The Old Believers do not beat the buckets, but work like Carlo's dads. They own about 60 hectares, and they rent about 500 more hectares. Here, in this village, about 15 families live, about 200 people in total. That is, according to the simplest calculation, each family has an average of 13 people. So it is, seven big ones, a lot of kids.

Here are some “official”, authorized photos. Those who are without beards are not Old Believers - this is me and my tourists.

And here are some more photographs taken with the permission of the Old Believers by a man who worked for them as a combine operator. His name is Glory. A simple Russian guy traveled for a long time to different Latin American countries and came to work for the Old Believers. They accepted him, and for 2 whole months he lived with them. After that, he chose to quit. He is an artist, that's why the photos turned out so good.

Very atmospheric, like in Russia ... before. Today in Russia there are no combine harvesters and no tractors either. Everything is rotten, and the villages are empty. Russia was so carried away by getting up from its knees by selling oil and gas to gay Europeans that it did not notice how the Russian village died. But in Uruguay, the Russian village is alive! This is how it could be in Russia now! Of course, I'm exaggerating, somewhere in Russia, of course, there are combine harvesters, but I have seen with my own eyes many dead villages along the main Russian highways. And it's impressive.

Let's very delicately, with great respect, look behind the curtain of the private life of the Old Believers. The photos I post here were taken by them. That is, these are official photos that the Old Believers themselves posted in the public domain on social networks. And I just collected from Facebook and reposted these photos here for you, my dear reader. All photos here are from different South American Old Believer colonies.

In Brazil, the Old Believers live in the state of Mato Grosso, 40 km from the city of Prmiavera do Leste. In the state of Amazonas near the town of Humaita. And also in the state of Parana, next to Ponta Grossa.

In Bolivia, they live in the province of Santa Cruz, in the settlement of Toborochi.

And in Argentina, the Old Believer settlement is located under the town of Choele Choel.

And here I will tell everything that I learned from the Old Believers about their way of life and traditions.

Strange sensations when you start to communicate with them. At first it seems that they must be something completely different, “not of this world”, immersed in their religion, and nothing earthly can interest them. But when communicating, it turns out that they are the same as us, only a little from the past. But this does not mean that they are some kind of aloof, and they are not interested in anything!

These costumes are not some kind of masquerade. This is how they live, they walk in this. Women in sundresses, men in shirts tied with a rope belt. The women sew their own clothes. Yes, of course, these photos are mostly from the holidays, so the clothes are especially elegant.

But as you can see, in everyday life, the Old Believers dress in the old Russian way.

It is impossible to believe that all these people were born and raised outside of Russia. Not only that, their parents were also born here in South America…

And pay attention to their faces, they are all smiling. Still, this is a strong difference between our Russian believers and the South American Old Believers. For some reason, with all the talk about God and religion, the face of Russian Orthodox becomes mournfully tragic. And the stronger the modern Russian believes in God, the sadder his face. For the Old Believers, everything is positive, and religion too. And I think in old Russia it was the same as theirs. After all, the great Russian poet Pushkin joked and mocked the "priest-oatmeal forehead", and it was then in the order of things.

The Old Believers have been living in South America for almost 90 years. In the 1930s, they fled the USSR, as they sensed the danger from the new Soviet government in time. And rightly so, they would not have survived. They fled first to Manchuria. But over time, the local communist authorities began to oppress them there, and then they moved to South-North America and Australia. The largest colony of Old Believers is in Alaska. In the US, they also live in the states of Oregon and Minnesota. The Old Believers, whom I visit in Uruguay, first lived in Brazil. But there they became uncomfortable, and in 1971 many families moved to Uruguay. They chose the land for a long time, and finally settled next to the “Russian” city of San Javier. The Uruguayan authorities themselves advised the Russians this place. The logic is simple, those Russians are these Russians, maybe together is better. But Russians do not always like Russians, this is our national feature, therefore, Russian San Jovierians did not develop a special friendship with the Old Believers.

We arrived at an empty place. They began to build everything, to settle in an open field. Amazingly, the Uruguayan colony had no electricity until 1986! They lit everything with kerosene stoves. Well, they adapted to live in the sun. Therefore, the Uruguayan colony is the most interesting, because only 30 years ago they were completely cut off from the rest of the world. And life then was really like in the century before last in Russia. Water was carried by yokes, the earth was plowed on horses, the houses then were wooden. Different colonies lived differently, some are more integrated into the country where they are located, for example, the American colonies. Some colonies do not have much reason to integrate, for example, the Bolivian colony. After all, Bolivia is a rather wild and backward country. There, outside the colony, there is such poverty and devastation, what is it, this integration!

The names of the Old Believers are often Old Slavonic: Afanasy, Evlampey, Kapitolina, Martha, Paraskoveya, Efrosinya, Uliana, Kuzma, Vasilisa, Dionysius ...

In different colonies, the Old Believers live differently. Someone is more civilized and even rich, someone is more modest. But the way of life is the same as in old Russia.

The observance of all the rules is jealously monitored by the elders. Young people are sometimes not very motivated by faith. After all, there are so many interesting temptations around ...

Therefore, the old people have a difficult task to answer the growing young to many questions. Why can't they drink alcohol? Why can't they listen to music? Why is it not necessary to learn the language of the country in which you live? Why can't they use the Internet and watch movies? Why can't you go and see some beautiful city? Why can't they communicate with the local population and enter into any bad relations with the locals? Why do you need to pray from three to six in the morning, and from six to eight in the evening? Why fast? Why get baptized? Why observe all the other religious rituals?… As long as the elders somehow manage to answer all these questions…

Old people can't drink. But if you pray and be baptized, then you can. Old Believers drink brew. They prepare it themselves. She was also fed to us. And quite persistently, according to the Russian tradition, practically pouring it inside, glass after glass. But the brew is good and the people are good, why not drink something!

The Old Believers most of all like to work on the ground. They cannot imagine themselves without it. And yes, they are generally very hardworking people. Well, who will argue that this is not Russia?!

At first I did not understand why the Old Believers of Uruguay, to whom I go, call the Uruguayans “Spaniards”. Then I realized: they themselves are also citizens of Uruguay, that is, Uruguayans. Uruguayans are called Spaniards because they speak Spanish. In general, the distance between the Uruguayans and the Old Believers is huge. These are completely different worlds, which is why the Uruguayans of San Javier told us about the “aggressiveness” of the Old Believers. The Old Believers, on the other hand, characterize the “Spaniards” as lazy bums who do not want to work, suck their mate and always complain about the government and the state. The Old Believers have a different approach to the state: the main thing is not to interfere. The Old Believers also have a number of claims against the Uruguayan government. For example, recently a crazy law was passed in Uruguay, according to which, before sowing the land, you need to ask the authorities what you can sow there. The authorities will send chemists, they will analyze the soil, and issue a verdict: plant tomatoes! And with tomatoes, the business of the Old Believers will burn out. They need to plant beans (for example). Therefore, the Old Believers are beginning to think, but should they start looking for a new country? And they are keenly interested in how they treat the peasant in Russia? Is it worth moving to Russia? What would you advise them?

The theme of harvesters, irrigation, plowing and sowing occupies one of the main places in the life of the Old Believers. They can talk about it for hours!

Boundless Brazilian Russia…

Technique: combines, irrigators, seeders, etc., the Old Believers have their own. And each harvester (which, by the way, costs 200-500 thousand dollars), the Old Believers are able to repair themselves. They can disassemble and reassemble each of their harvesters! The Old Believers own hundreds of hectares of land. And they rent even more land.

The families of the Old Believers are large. For example, the head of the Uruguayan community, to which I sometimes take tourists, has as many as 15 children, and he is only 52 years old. There are many grandchildren, he does not remember exactly how many, he has to count, bending his fingers. His wife is also a young and quite earthly woman.

Children are not sent to official schools. Everything is very simple: if children learn the language of the country where they live, then it is very likely that they will be tempted by the bright life around them and choose it. Then the colony will dissolve, and the Russians will dissolve in the same way as in 10 years the Russians from the city of San Javier turned into Uruguayans. And there was already such an example, in the Brazilian colony, children began to go to an ordinary Brazilian school, which was in the neighborhood. And almost all of the kids, when they grew up, chose the Brazilian life instead of the Old Believer. I'm not talking about the Old Believers of the United States. There, in many families, the Old Believers communicate with each other in English.

Senior Old Believers from all the colonies are well aware of the risk of dissolution of the colony in the country, and resist it with all their might. Therefore, they do not send their children to public schools, but try to educate them themselves as much as possible.

Most of the time, kids are taught at home. Learn to read in Church Slavonic. All the religious books of the Old Believers are written in this language and they pray in this language daily from 3 to 6 in the morning and from 18 to 21 in the evening. At 9 pm, the Old Believers go to bed in order to get up at 3, pray and go to work. The daily schedule has not changed for centuries and is adjusted to daylight hours. To work while it's light.

In the colonies of Brazil and Bolivia, local teachers are invited to the school for children, who teach them respectively Portuguese and Spanish. But the Old Believers see an exclusively practical meaning in teaching the language: it is necessary to do business with the locals. Old Believer children play traditional Russian games, bast shoes, tags and many others, with purely Russian names.

Most of the photographs that you see here are from Old Believer holidays, most often from weddings. Girls get married most often at the age of 14-15. Guys at 16-18. All traditions with matchmaking have been preserved. The wife of the son should be chosen by the parents. They try to pick up from another colony. That is, a bride from a Bolivian or Brazilian colony is brought to a groom from a Uruguayan colony and vice versa. Old Believers try very hard to avoid incest. Do not think that poor underage children are left with no choice. Formally, parents should choose, but in practice everything happens quite gently and naturally, and of course the opinion of a teenager is taken into account. No one is forced to marry anyone. Yes, you probably see for yourself from these photographs that there is no smell of any violence against a person here.

But of course you have a legitimate question - get married at 14??? Yes exactly. And yes, by doing so they violate the laws of the countries in which they live. They noisily celebrate the wedding, after which they live together, and are considered husband and wife. And when they turn 18, they register their marriage with official bodies.

By the way, the Old Believers have a completely different chronology. But what a “worldly” year it is, they also know: they also have to understand all the documents about the lease of land, the purchase of soybeans, and the payment of bills.

By the way, Old Believers call Jews Jews. At first I thought it was their terry anti-Semitism. But then I realized that they pronounce this word without any negative at all. After all, that was the name of the Jews in the old days ...

See, in the photo everything is like a selection, in the same sundresses? The fact is that clothing and its color play a huge role in the life of the Old Believers. Yellow pants - two times ku. For example, at a wedding, all guests from the bride's side dress in one color, and from the groom's side - in another. When a society does not have a color differentiation of pants, then there is no goal, and when there is no goal ...

The Old Believers do not have log houses, but concrete ones, built in the traditions of the construction of the place where they live. But our whole way of life is old Russian: canopies, littered quarters, sitting places for women with children while the men are at work.

But there are still Russians inside the house! Old Believers sheathe the house inside with wood. So much more alive. And they call the house a hut.

Babs and girls (as female individuals are called here) do not work on the ground, but are busy with housework. They cook food, take care of the kids... The role of a woman is still a little crippled, somewhat reminiscent of the role of a woman in Arab countries, where a woman is a dumb animal. The men are sitting and eating. And Marfa with a jug, at a distance. “Come on, Martha, bring more of this and that, and let's get some tomatoes back and forth!”, and the soundless Martha rushes to complete the task ... Somehow embarrassing even for her. But not everything is so harsh and tough. You see, the women are also sitting there, resting and using smartphones.

The men are engaged in hunting and fishing. Quite a busy life. Yes, and we have nature here, I'll tell you!

In addition to brew, they also drink beer. However, I have not heard of alcoholics. Like everything is in business. Alcohol does not replace their life.

Here are collected photos from different colonies. And each of them has its own rules, somewhere tougher, and somewhere softer. Cosmetics are not allowed for women. But if you really want to, then you can.

Interestingly, the Old Believers talk about picking mushrooms. Naturally, they do not know about boletus, boletus and white. Slightly different mushrooms grow in this area, they look like our butter mushrooms. Picking mushrooms from the Old Believers is not a mandatory attribute of life. Although they listed some names of mushrooms, and they are Russian, although they are not familiar to me. About mushrooms they say something like this: “sometimes someone who wants to collects. Yes, but sometimes they gather the bad ones, then the stomachs hurt ... ”. And trips in jeeps to nature, and grilled meat, and all the other attributes of picnics so familiar to us, they also have.

And they even know how to joke. By the way, they also have a sense of humor.

In general, you see for yourself, the most ordinary people.

Old Believers greet with the word "Healthy!". Neither "hello" nor "hello" they use. In general, the Old Believers do not have the address “You”. Everything is on "you". By the way, they call me “leader”. But the leader is not in the sense of the main one. And in the sense that I drive people. Guide, so be it.

By the way, did you feel one striking discrepancy between Russianness? What's wrong with those smiles? Do you feel that when photos with smiles, something is subtly not ours? They smile with teeth. Russians usually smile without showing their teeth. Americans and other foreigners smile with their teeth. Here is a detail from somewhere appeared in this parallel little Russia.

Although you probably noticed even in these photos how many people have positive on their faces! And this joy is not feigned. Our people have more than some kind of longing and hopelessness.

Old Believers quite often use the Latin alphabet for writing. But the Cyrillic alphabet is not forgotten either.

For the most part, the Old Believers are wealthy people. Of course, as in any society, someone is richer, someone is poorer, but on the whole they live very well.

Here, in these photos, mainly the life of the Brazilian, Argentinean and Bolivian colonies. There is a whole report about the Bolivian colony of Old Believers, where the rules are not as strict as in the Uruguayan colony, and filming is sometimes allowed there.

Our usual wedding, our house in the background. Only two palm trunks make it clear that this is not Russia

Old Believer youth loves football. Although they consider this game “not ours”.

Do the Old Believers live well or badly? They live well. In any case, the Uruguayan and Bolivian Old Believers live better than the average Uruguayans and Bolivians. Old Believers drive jeeps for 40-60 thousand dollars, they have smartphones of the latest models ...

The main written language of the Old Believers is in Latin and Spanish. But many people know Russian too.

But there are many restrictions imposed on the Old Believers. Televisions are prohibited, computers too. Yes, and about phones, the Old Believers say that it's all from the devil. But it's okay, there is. Televisions would also appear, but they are not needed. The Old Believers got used to living without them for many generations, and no longer understand what they are for. Computers are prohibited in some colonies, in others they are used. Yes, and in modern smartphones there is mobile Internet ...

There are even homemade comics on the Facebook of the Old Believers. This one did not really understand him: “I love her”, “I want to hug him”, “I want to sleep!”. By the way, on Facebook, the Old Believers often correspond in Portuguese and Spanish. Those who somehow received a local education are enrolled. They were taught to write in Spanish-Portuguese. And they don’t know how to speak Russian, only to speak. Yes, and they do not have a Russian keyboard.

The Old Believers are very interested in today's Russia. Many of them were ordered by their grandfathers, who fled from Soviet Russia in the 1930s, to return to Russia when conditions were right. So, for almost a century, the Old Believers lived in foreign lands in anticipation of a favorable moment for returning. But this moment did not come: Stalin began to drive the people into camps, and most importantly, what was important for the Old Believers, he strangled the village with his insane collectivizations. Then Khrushchev came, who began to take away livestock from the people, and forcibly introduce corn. Then the country began to engage in various arms races, and from abroad, especially from here, from South America, the USSR seemed to be a VERY strange and exotic country. Then perestroika began and poverty set in in Russia, and finally Putin came ... And with his arrival, the Old Believers started up. It began to seem that perhaps the right moment had come to return. Russia turned out to be a normal country, open to the rest of the world, without exotic communisms and socialisms. Russia began, indeed, to take steps towards Russians living in other countries. A “state program on returning to their homeland” appeared, the Russian ambassador to Uruguay came to the Old Believers and began to make friends with them. With the Brazilian and Bolivian Old Believers, conversations also began with the Russian authorities, and in the end, a small group of Old Believers moved to Russia and settled in the village of Dersu in the Primorsky Territory. And this is a Russian TV report:

Reporters in this report tell the official version regarding the traditions of the Old Believers. But there is no need to think that the Old Believers have such a strictly regulated, and such an iron routine. To reporters and various visitors, visitors whose reports can be found on the Internet, the Old Believers tell how it SHOULD be. But in order for this to happen, people must not be people, but machines. They try to stick to their rules. But they are living people, and the American infection in the form of globalization and other dirty tricks is actively introduced into their lives. Step by step, little by little. But it's hard to resist...

Everything is ours! Selfie on a smartphone with lips in a bow ... Still, native roots! …..Maybe this American influence got here?

…no answer…

In general, it is customary to think that any orthodox believers are incomprehensible and very strange people. I don’t know how strongly the Old Believers believe, but they are absolutely normal, earthly, their own people. With humor, and with all the same desires and desires that we have with you. They are nothing holier than us. Or we are no worse than them. All are good in general.

And even though the guys grew up on another continent, but everything is ours: both plastic bags and sitting like a kid ...

Well, who will say that this is not an average Russian picnic?

Oh, Uruguayan Russia! ...