Many travelers often call Bolivia one of the most attractive and interesting countries: here you can find unusually beautiful places, strange-looking plants and animals. Everyone who comes to Bolivia certainly becomes hostage to their own unforgettable impressions. But what actually awaits someone who decides not only to travel through the impressive surroundings of Bolivia, but also to stay in a country that is often called the “Tibet” of South America.

To begin with, I would like to note that about 50% of the total population are Indians, who have preserved most of their folk traditions until the 21st century. They don't care high tech and many signs of civilization - they feel quite well without hot water and a comfortable toilet. This is precisely why you can often find statements that Bolivia is a country where a high percentage of the population lives below the poverty line and does not have a stable income and access to the basic benefits of a developed state. But for many Bolivians, it is enough that they have a roof over their heads, arms and legs to work and food to eat.

Bolivia is a country with a developed industry, but a low standard of living - any foreigner with a sum of several tens of thousands of dollars can freely plunge into a rich life by local standards.

Bolivia is also known to many thanks to coca growing freely throughout the country. It is grown in entire plantations and is freely sold and bought literally on every corner. It is believed that chewing coca leaves has a tonic effect on the entire body, although all tourists are strongly advised to be as careful as possible when consuming coca, especially in the highlands. In addition to the fact that coca is grown under absolutely legal conditions, drug production in this country is one of the most profitable activities, albeit still a shadow branch of the Bolivian industry.

About adaptation in Bolivia

It is interesting that those few who, having visited Bolivia as a tourist traveler, seen enough of its beauty and decided to settle here for permanent residence, subsequently regret their choice. Although this does not mean that it is really difficult to exist normally in this country, it is not for nothing that there is a proverb “everywhere it is good where we are not,” and tourism and emigration should not be confused.

The Bolivians themselves, despite the very significant number of emigrants who have settled here since time immemorial, are not very fond of visitors. Among such striking examples are the Old Believers, who preserved the traditions and customs of their Russian ancestors, creating their own tiny states on the territory of Bolivia, which Bolivians sometimes even perceive as foreign, often without even looking at the places of their settlement.

For the indigenous inhabitants of this country, both the Mennonites, the Old Believers, and the Japanese are strangers who, for a strange reason, live on the territory of Bolivia. By the way, for example, Old Believers, having a Bolivian passport, and therefore citizenship, speaking Spanish, often giving work to people around them and participating in the economy, do not consider themselves Bolivians, so this attitude towards them is quite natural.

A true Bolivian, in fact, can be considered one who, among other things, was born in Bolivia and loves the country in which he lives, rightfully calling it his homeland. Moreover, it does not matter at all what color his skin is - there are quite a lot of “white” indigenous people in this country.

Today's immigrants often say that even after years of living legally in Bolivia, they feel more like tourists than residents. Negative factors and difficulties of adaptation in a new country include the fact that many Russians complain of bouts of disgust and discontent. It is possible that the reasons for such an attitude may seem insignificant to someone, but this is only until the time you plunge into such things yourself.

Living in La Paz, many emigrants remember bread sold in vacuum packaging in their hometowns and countries - in Bolivia you can often see an unpleasant picture when splashes of mud from puddles fly onto lying bread, exhaust fumes from rudimentary buses, and dirty the hands of a loader literally throwing loaves of bread onto pitiful-looking counters.

Discourses on poverty in Bolivia

As mentioned above, Bolivia and Bolivians in particular cannot be called poor. In this context, this word is somewhat inappropriate, if only because there are practically no starving people among them.

Travelers unfamiliar with the local way of life may be amazed by the fact that a completely beggar-looking bombshell with a pot in his hands can afford to go into a restaurant to taste hot soup. By the way, it should be noted that there are practically no beggars here, or they look quite wealthy - with gold teeth and a lot of tasteless jewelry.

In Bolivia, even the poorest Indian family allows itself the first, second and third courses at the table. Of course, this does not mean that they live well, but if a person is not hungry, then his existence can perhaps be considered acceptable.

A feature of the “common people” (that is, the majority, since in Bolivia the majority of the population is a category of people belonging to the middle class - they are neither rich nor poor) is that in ordinary Everyday life they look bad because of their shapeless, patched and dirty national clothes. Here it is not customary to dress up when going to the market. All the best clothes and jewelry are saved for the carnival - then brocade skirts and other attributes are fished out.

The same applies to elementary living conditions– electricity, hot water, toilet in the house, etc. Not every peasant who is able to improve his living conditions will do this. For a Bolivian, this is not usual, and therefore not necessary.

Another thing that speaks in favor of Bolivia is that most of the buildings are fundamental brick structures with a good roof and windows. Here you will not find shacks built from scrap materials (cardboard, plywood) and more reminiscent of doghouses than normal housing for a civilized person. True, along with this you will not find supermarkets or megacenters.

As one Russian emigrant who lived in Bolivia for more than three years said: “I returned to Russia with a light heart and soul. I rejoiced at this event like a child. I thought that after living in Bolivia, my old life would seem like paradise. But I was bitterly disappointed and suddenly I was drawn back...to the land of color, vivid impressions and too simple-minded inhabitants.”

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

I'll tell you how I got there for the first time. I accompanied tourists, we drove by car to different cities in Argentina and Uruguay. And we decided to visit the Old Believers. There is very little information about 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 a colony of Old Believers was 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. “Ahhh, barbudos!?” - they said in the first store. “Barbudos” in Spanish means bearded men. “Yes, they live nearby. But they won’t let you in, they are aggressive,” the San Javiers told us. This statement was a little alarming. But still, I figured out how to get there using country dirt roads. The Uruguayans said that the “barbudos” did not accept anyone and did 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, as you know, people are afraid of everything incomprehensible and other things. Therefore, there is no special friendship between the former Russian Sanjaviers and Russian Old Believers.

We were getting ready to hit the road in search of the village, but at that moment one of the San Javiers called out to 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 goatee came 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 a language that I had only heard in movies. That is, this is our Russian language, but many words there are pronounced differently, and there are many words that we no longer use at all, for example, they call a house “izbo”, instead they say “shibko”. They don’t say “you know”, but “you know”, “you want”, “you understand”... Instead of “stronger” they say “more powerful”. They say not “it happens” but “there are”, not “can” but “may”, not “you will begin” but “you will conceive”, not “others” but “friends”. How many, evoshny, back and forth, nearby... After talking so briefly, we asked if it was possible to see how they live there. The Starover agreed, and we went to pick up his car. We were lucky that we met him; without him, according to the diagram drawn by the San Javiers, we definitely would not have found anything. And so we arrived at the village...

When you first enter the village of Old Believers, you experience shock. It feels like you've gone back in time 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 sundress is milking a cow, barefoot children in shirts and sundresses are running 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 alien world, this allowed this piece of old Russia to survive to this day.

It is strictly forbidden to take photographs in this colony. And all the pictures that you will see below were taken with the permission of the Old Believers. That is, group, “official” photographs are possible. You cannot secretly photograph their lives without asking. When we found out why they didn’t like photographers so much, it turned out that journalists were making their way to them under the guise of tourists. They filmed them and then put them up as clowns for ridicule. One of these stupid and meaningless reports was made by Uruguayan TV with a hidden camera

Their technology is very serious. Everything is owned. There are trucks, combines, and various irrigators and 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 the 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 waste their time, but work like Papa Carlo. They own about 60 hectares, and rent about another 500 hectares. Here in this village live about 15 families, about 200 people in total. That is, according to the simplest calculation, each family has an average of 13 people. So it is, seven are big, a lot of kids.

Here are some “official”, authorized photos. Those without beards are not Old Believers - that’s me and my tourists.

And here are more photographs taken with the permission of the Old Believers by a man who worked for them as a combine operator. His name is Slava. A simple Russian guy traveled for a long time to different Latin American countries and came to work with the Old Believers. They accepted him, and he lived with them for 2 whole months. After which he still 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 has rotted and the villages are empty. Russia was so busy getting up from its knees by selling oil and gas to the 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 saw with my own eyes many dead villages along the main Russian highways. And that's impressive.

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

In Brazil, 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, near Ponta Grossa.

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

And in Argentina, a settlement of Old Believers is located near the town of Choel Choel.

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

It’s a strange feeling when you start communicating 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 somehow detached and are not interested in anything!

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

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

It is impossible to believe that all these people were born and raised outside of Russia. Moreover, 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, Russian Orthodox Christians have a mournfully tragic face when talking about God and religion. And the stronger a modern Russian believes in God, the sadder his face. For the Old Believers, everything is positive, and so is religion. And I think in old Russia it was the same as with them. After all, the great Russian poet Pushkin joked and mocked the “pop-cloth forehead,” and this was in the order of things then.

Old Believers have been living in South America for almost 90 years. In the 30s, they fled from the USSR, because they sensed the danger from a new Soviet power. And they did the right thing, they would not have survived. They fled first to Manchuria. But over time, the local communist authorities began to oppress them there too, and then they moved to South-North America and Australia. The largest colony of Old Believers is in Alaska. In the USA they also live in the states of Oregon and Minnesota. The Old Believers I visit in Uruguay first lived in Brazil. But they became uncomfortable there, and in 1971 many families moved to Uruguay. They spent a long time choosing land, and finally settled next to the “Russian” city of San Javier. The Uruguayan authorities themselves recommended this place to the Russians. The logic is simple, those Russians are those Russians, maybe together they’re better. But Russians do not always love Russians, this is our national peculiarity, so the Russians of San Hovier did not develop any special friendship with the Old Believers.

We arrived to an empty place. They began to build everything and settle in an open field. Amazingly, there was no electricity in the Uruguayan colony until 1986! Everything was lit with kerosene lamps. Well, we’ve adapted to living in the sun. Therefore, the Uruguayan colony is the most interesting, because just 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 with rockers, the land was plowed on horses, and houses were made of wood back then. Different colonies lived differently, some were more integrated into the country where they were located, for example, the American colonies. Some colonies have no particular 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 about this integration!

The Old Believers often have Old Slavonic names: Athanasius, Evlampea, Capitolina, Martha, Paraskovea, Euphrosyne, Ulyana, Kuzma, Vasilisa, Dionysius...

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

The elders zealously monitor compliance with all rules. Young people are sometimes not very motivated by faith. After all, there are so many interesting temptations around...

Therefore, old people have a difficult task to answer many questions for growing young people. 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 you live in? 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 other religious rituals?... While the elders somehow manage to answer all these questions...

Old Believers are not allowed to drink. But if you pray and get baptized, then you can. Old Believers drink brew. They prepare it themselves. We were also treated to it. 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 it!

Old Believers love to work on the land most of all. They cannot imagine themselves without this. And in general they are quite hard-working people. Well, who can argue that this is not Russia?!

At first I didn’t 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. And Uruguayans are called Spaniards because they speak Spanish. In general, the distance between the Uruguayans and the Old Believers is enormous. This is completely different worlds, that is why the Uruguayans of San Javier told us about the “aggressiveness” of the Old Believers. Old Believers characterize the “Spaniards” as lazy slackers who don’t 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 complaints against the Uruguayan government. For example, recently an insane law was passed in Uruguay, according to which, before sowing the land, you need to ask the authorities what can be sown there. The authorities will send chemists, they will do a soil analysis, and give a verdict: plant tomatoes! And with tomatoes, the Old Believers’ business will fail. They need to plant beans (for example). Therefore, the Old Believers begin to think about whether they should 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 advice would you give them?

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

Boundless Brazilian Rus'...

Equipment: combines, irrigators, seeders, etc., the Old Believers have their own. And the Old Believers know how to repair each harvester (which, by the way, costs 200-500 thousand dollars) 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.

Old Believers have large families. 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 doesn’t remember exactly how many, he has to count by bending his fingers. His wife is also a young and completely down-to-earth woman.

Children are not sent to official schools. It’s all very simple: if children learn the language of the country where they live, then there is a very high probability that they will be tempted by the bright life around them and will 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 a Brazilian colony, children began to go to a regular Brazilian school, which was in the neighborhood. And when almost all of the children grew up, they chose the Brazilian life instead of the Old Believers. I'm not even talking about the Old Believers in the USA. There, in many families, Old Believers already communicate with each other in English.

Senior Old Believers from all colonies are well aware of the risk of the colony dissolving into the country, and are resisting this with all their might. Therefore, they do not send their children to public schools, but try to educate them themselves as best they can.

Most often, children are taught at home. They learn to read Church Slavonic. All the religious books of the Old Believers are written in this language, and in this language they pray daily from 3 to 6 am and from 6 to 9 pm. At 21:00 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 still light.

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

Most of the photographs you see here are from Old Believer holidays, most often from weddings. Girls most often get married at 14-15 years old. Guys at 16-18. All traditions with matchmaking have been preserved. Parents should choose a wife for their son. They try to select from another colony. That is, a bridegroom from a Uruguayan colony is brought a bride from a Bolivian or Brazilian colony and vice versa. Old Believers try very hard to avoid incest. Don't think that poor underage kids are left with no choice. Formally, parents must choose, but in practice everything happens quite softly and naturally, and of course the teenager’s opinion is taken into account. No one is forced to marry anyone. Yes, you can probably see for yourself from these photographs that there is no sign of violence against the individual here.

But of course, you have a legitimate question - get married at 14 years old??? 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 the official authorities.

By the way, the Old Believers have a completely different calendar. But they also know what kind of “worldly” year it is: they must understand all the documents about leasing land, purchasing soybeans, and paying bills.

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

Do you see in the photo that everything looks like a match, in identical sundresses? The fact is that clothes and their color play a huge role in the life of Old Believers. Yellow pants - two times ku. For example, at a wedding, all guests on the bride’s side dress in one color, and on the groom’s side, in another. When a society has no color differentiation of pants, then there is no goal, and when there is no goal...

The Old Believers have houses not of logs, but of concrete, built in the traditions of the construction of the place where they live. But the whole way of life is ours, old Russian: canopy, rubble, sitting for women and children while the men are at work.

But there are still Russians inside the house! Old Believers line the inside of the house with wood. It's more alive. And they call the house a hut.

Women and girls (as females are called here) do not work on the land, but are busy with housework. They prepare food, look after the children... The role of women is still slightly downtrodden, in some ways even reminiscent of the role of women in Arab countries, where a woman is a dumb animal. Here are the men sitting and eating. And Martha with a jug, at a distance. “Come on, Marfa, bring more of this and that, and some tomatoes here and there!”, and the silent Marfa rushes to complete the task... It’s somehow awkward even for her. But not everything is so harsh and tough. You see, the women are also sitting, relaxing and using their smartphones.

The men do both hunting and fishing. Quite a busy life. And we have nature here, I’ll tell you!

In addition to beer, they also drink beer. However, I have never heard of drunks. Everything seems to be working. 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 acceptable for women. But if you really want to, then you can.

The Old Believers talk interestingly about picking mushrooms. Naturally, they don’t know about boletus, boletus and boletus. Slightly different mushrooms grow in this area; they are similar to our boletus mushrooms. Among the Old Believers, picking mushrooms is not an obligatory attribute of life. Although they listed some names of mushrooms, and they are Russian, although not familiar to me. About mushrooms they say something like this: “sometimes whoever wants to collect them. But sometimes they pick up bad ones, then their stomachs hurt...” They also have jeep trips into nature, grilled meat, and all the other attributes of picnics that are so familiar to us.

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

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

Old Believers greet themselves with the word “Good morning!” They don’t use “hello,” much less “hello.” In general, Old Believers do not use the address “You”. Everything is “you”. By the way, they call me “leader”. But the leader does not mean the main one. And in the sense that I lead people. A guide, then.

By the way, did you feel one glaring discrepancy with Russianness? What's wrong with these smiles? Do you feel that when there are photographs with smiles, something is subtly not ours? They smile with teeth. Russians usually smile without showing their teeth. Americans and other foreigners smile with teeth. This detail appeared from somewhere in this parallel little Russia.

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

Old Believers quite often use the Latin alphabet for writing. But they don’t forget the Cyrillic alphabet either.

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

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

An ordinary wedding for us, our house in the background. Only two palm trunks make it clear that this is not Russia

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

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

The main writing of the Old Believers is in Latin and Spanish. But many people also know Russian.

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

There are even homemade comics on Old Believers’ Facebook pages. This one didn’t really understand him: “I love her,” “I want to hug him,” “I want to sleep!” By the way, on Facebook, Old Believers often correspond in Portuguese and Spanish. Those who in one way or another received a local education are corresponding. They were taught to write in Spanish and Portuguese. But they don’t know how to speak Russian, just talk. And they don’t have a Russian keyboard.

Old Believers are very interested in today's Russia. Many of them are grandfathers who fled from Soviet Russia 30s, they were told to definitely return to Russia when the conditions were right there. Thus, for almost a century, the Old Believers lived in foreign lands, waiting for a favorable moment to return. But this moment still did not come: Stalin began to drive the people into camps, and the main thing that was important for the Old Believers was to strangle the village with his insane collectivizations. Then Khrushchev came, who began to take away the people’s livestock and forcefully introduce corn. Then the country began to engage in various arms races, and from abroad, especially from here, from South America, the USSR seemed like 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 perked up. It began to seem that maybe this was the right moment to return. Russia turned out to be a normal country, open to the rest of the world, without exotic communisms and socialisms. Russia has, indeed, begun to take steps towards Russians living in other countries. appeared “ Government program about returning to their homeland,” the Russian ambassador in Uruguay came to the Old Believers and began to make friends with them. The Russian authorities also began talking with the Brazilian and Bolivian Old Believers, and in the end, a small group of Old Believers moved to Russia and settled in the village of Dersu, Primorsky Territory. And a Russian TV report about this:

The reporters in this report tell the official version regarding the traditions of the Old Believers. But you shouldn’t think that among the Old Believers everything is so strictly regulated and there is such an ironclad 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 being introduced into their lives. Step by step, a little bit at a time. But it’s too hard to resist...

Everything is our way! Selfie on a smartphone with lips in a bow... Still, native roots! …..Or maybe this American influence has reached here?

…no answer…

In general, it is common 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, down-to-earth, down-to-earth people. With humor, and with all the same desires and desires that you and I have. They are no holier than us. Or we are no worse than them. All good, in general.

And even though the guys grew up on another continent, everything is ours: the plastic bags, and they sit like boys...

Well, who can say that this is not a central Russian picnic?

Eh, Uruguayan Rus'!...

For several centuries, Russian Old Believers could not find peace in native land, and in the 20th century many of them finally moved abroad. It was not always possible to settle somewhere close to the Motherland, and therefore today Old Believers can also be found in distant foreign lands, for example, in Latin America. In this article you will learn about the life of Russian farmers from the village of Toborochi, Bolivia.

Old Believers, or Old Believers - common name for religious movements in Russia,
arising as a result of rejection church reforms in the years 1605-1681. It all started after the Moscow Patriarch
Nikon undertook a number of innovations (correction of liturgical books, changes in rituals).
Those dissatisfied with the “anti-Christ” reforms were united by Archpriest Avvakum. Old Believers were subjected to severe persecution
by both ecclesiastical and secular authorities. Already in the 18th century, many fled outside of Russia to escape persecution.
Nicholas II and, subsequently, the Bolsheviks did not like stubborn people. In Bolivia, three hours from the city of Santa Cruz,
The first Russian Old Believers settled in the town of Toboroch 40 years ago. Even now this settlement cannot be found on maps,
and in the 1970s there were completely uninhabited lands surrounded by dense jungle.

Fedor and Tatyana Anufriev were born in China, and went to Bolivia among the first immigrants from Brazil.
In addition to the Anufrievs, the Revtovs, Murachevs, Kaluginovs, Kulikovs, Anfilofievs, and Zaitsevs live in Toboroch.

The village of Toborochi consists of two dozen courtyards located at a decent distance from each other.
Most of the houses are brick.

Santa Cruz has a very hot and humid climate, and mosquitoes are a problem all year round.
Mosquito nets, so familiar and familiar in Russia, are placed on windows even in the Bolivian wilderness.

Old Believers carefully preserve their traditions. Men wear shirts with belts. They sew them themselves, but buy the trousers in the city.

Women prefer sundresses and floor-length dresses. Hair is grown from birth and braided.

Most Old Believers do not allow strangers to take photographs of themselves, but there are family albums in every home.

Young people keep up with the times and are mastering smartphones with all their might. Many electronic devices are formally prohibited in the village,
but you can’t hide from progress even in such a wilderness. Almost all houses have air conditioners, washing machines,
microwaves and televisions, adults communicate with distant relatives via mobile Internet.

The main activity in Toboroch is Agriculture, as well as breeding Amazonian pacu fish in artificial reservoirs.
The fish are fed twice a day - at dawn and in the evening. The food is produced right there in the mini-factory.

The Old Believers grow beans, corn, and wheat in vast fields, and eucalyptus in the forests.
It was in Toborochi that the only variety of Bolivian beans was developed, which is now popular throughout the country.
The rest of the legumes are imported from Brazil.

At the village factory, the harvest is processed, bagged and sold to wholesalers.
Bolivian soil bears fruit up to three times a year, but they began to fertilize it only a couple of years ago.

Women do handicrafts and run the household, raise children and grandchildren. Most Old Believer families have many children.
Children's names are chosen according to the Psalter, according to their birthday. A newborn is named on the eighth day of his life.
The names of Toboroch residents are unusual not only to the Bolivian ear: Lukiyan, Kipriyan, Zasim, Fedosya, Kuzma, Agripena,
Pinarita, Abraham, Agapit, Palageya, Mamelfa, Stefan, Anin, Vasilisa, Marimia, Elizar, Inafa, Salamania, Selivester.

Village residents often encounter representatives of wildlife: monkeys, ostriches,
poisonous snakes and even small crocodiles that love to eat fish in the lagoons.
For such cases, the Old Believers always have a gun ready.

Once a week, women go to the nearest city fair, where they sell cheese, milk, and baked goods.
Cottage cheese and sour cream never caught on in Bolivia.

To work in the fields, the Russians hire Bolivian peasants, who are called Kolyas.

There is no language barrier, since the Old Believers, in addition to Russian, also speak Spanish,
and the older generation has not yet forgotten Portuguese and Chinese.

By the age of 16, boys have acquired the necessary experience in working in the fields and can get married.
Among the Old Believers, marriages between relatives up to the seventh generation are strictly prohibited, so they look for brides in other villages
South and North America. They rarely get to Russia.

Girls can get married when they reach 13 years of age.

The first “adult” gift for a girl is a collection of Russian songs, from which the mother takes
another copy and gives it to his daughter for her birthday.

Ten years ago, Bolivian authorities financed the construction of a school. It consists of two buildings and is divided into three classes:
children 5-8 years old, 8-11 and 12-14 years old. Boys and girls study together.

The school is taught by two Bolivian teachers. The main subjects are Spanish, reading, mathematics, biology, drawing.
Russian language is taught at home. IN oral speech Toboroch residents are accustomed to mixing two languages, and some Spanish words and
completely ousted by the Russians. Thus, gasoline in the village is called nothing more than “gasolina”, a fair is called “feria”, a market is called “mercado”,
garbage - "basura". Spanish words have long been Russified and are inclined according to the rules of the native language. There are also neologisms: for example,
Instead of the expression “download from the Internet,” the word “descargar” from the Spanish descargar is used. Some Russian words
widely used in Toboroch, have long gone out of use in modern Russia. Instead of “very”, Old Believers say “very”,
the tree is called "forest". The older generation mixes Brazilian Portuguese words into all this diversity.
In general, there is enough material for dialectologists in Toboroch to fill a whole book.

Primary education is not compulsory, but the Bolivian government encourages all students
public schools: once a year the military comes, paying each student 200 Bolivianos (about 30 dollars).

Old Believers attend church twice a week, not counting Orthodox holidays:
Services are Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 4 to 7 a.m.

Men and women come to church in everything clean, wearing dark clothes over them.
The black cape symbolizes the equality of all before God.

Most South American Old Believers have never been to Russia, but they remember their history,
reflecting its main moments in artistic creativity.

Sunday is the only day off. Everyone goes to visit each other, men go fishing.

It gets dark early in the village, people go to bed by 10 pm.

“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 brown braid to the waist.

And here is a village where blond boys in embroidered shirts run through the streets, and women always wear their hair under a shashmura - a special headdress. Except that the huts are not made of logs, but instead of birch trees there are palm trees. The Russia we lost remains 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 preserve not only this, but also the Russian language of past centuries, for which, like a treasure, linguists go to South America. Senior Researcher at the Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Olga Rovnova recently returned from another, already ninth expedition to South America. This time she visited Bolivia, village of Toborochi, founded by 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 Russia in the late 1920s and early 1930s to China from Soviet rule. They lived in China until the end of the 1950s, until they began to build communism there too and herd everyone into collective farms.

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

Why did they move to Bolivia?

Not everyone was able to settle down 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 - hellishly difficult conditions awaited them. Therefore, after a few years, some of the Old Believers began to look for new territories. Some went to Bolivia and Uruguay: here they were also offered areas of the jungle, but the soil in Bolivia is more fertile. Someone found out that land was also being sold to the United States, in the state of Oregon.

They sent a delegation on reconnaissance, they returned with the most favorable impressions, and some of the Old Believers moved to Oregon. But since the Old Believers have large families 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 had long lived. Some even went to Australia. The proverb “Fish seeks where it is deeper, but man seeks where it is better” suits our Old Believers very well.

What are they doing in their new places?

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

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

It is a living dialectal Russian language spoken in Russia in the 19th century. Clean, without an accent, but this is just a dialect, not a literary language. This is a rare situation: linguists are well aware that in the event of emigration, people lose their native language already in the third generation. That is, the grandchildren of those who 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 10-year-old boy. His name is Diy, he studies in Spanish at school, but at home he speaks a Russian dialect language.

It is important that the language of the Old Believers is not conserved. He is alive, he is developing. True, in isolation from Russia it is developing in a different way. Their speech contains a lot of words borrowed from Spanish. But they integrate them into the Russian language system - lexically, morphologically. For example, they call a gas station “gasoline” from spanish word gasolinera. They don’t 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 outdated words that can no longer be 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 the opposite. 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.

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

There is a general tendency: the richer the country, the stronger the influence it has on the Old Believers - both economically and linguistically.

In Oregon, too, women are involved in economic activity. As a rule, they work in the service sector or in production. And, naturally, they themselves actively learn the language of the host country. Children go to an English-language school, watch TV on English language. 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. A woman's task is to run the household and raise children. They are not only the guardians of the hearth, but also the guardians of the language.

It also matters locality where the Old Believers live. Here in Bolivia, the Old Believers live in their village, completely in their own environment. Their children attend school where they are taught Spanish, but what is typical: in both Bolivia and Brazil, Old Believers try to build a school in their village - often at their own expense - and arrange for teachers to come to them, instead of sending children to someone else’s village or city. Therefore, the children are constantly in the village, in which - with the exception of school - only Russian is spoken everywhere. By the way, in Russia too, rural women are the custodians of dialects. Men lose dialect much faster.

Still, what dialect of what locality 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 Peipsi, live Old Believers who once came from the Pskov region. And the Pskov dialect can still be traced in their speech.

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

What dialect is this?

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

They also “akat”, but from the northern dialect they took, for example, the so-called vowel contraction, that is, they say “Such a beautiful girl,” “He took such a beautiful girl as his wife.”

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

Eat. And these differences are due not to who lives in what area now, but to what 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 residents smile. For example, the Xinjiang people say [s] instead of the sound [ts]. Instead of chicken they have “syrple”, “sar” instead of the king. And they pronounce [h] as [sch]: sonny, shchainik, lavoshchka. This is very hard on the ears, especially at the beginning of communication. And the people of Harbin, who do not have all this, consider their speech more correct, more similar to Russian. In general, it is very important for Old Believers to realize 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 appeared in Russia over last years. A typical example: we were in the same house, and relatives from Alaska came to visit 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 jacket sweater!”

Old Believers do not like television, 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 what we call a “suitor”!” Or a girl who really likes to cook, after looking at our culinary forums, asks me what cakes are - “I know pies, and pies, but I don’t know cakes.”

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

This is not encouraged, but it is not prohibited 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 family 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 the Old Believers. Without knowing genetics, their ancestors established the rule of the eighth generation: marriages between relatives up to the eighth generation are prohibited. They know their ancestry very well, to such depth, all their relatives. And the Internet is important for them to find new families in conditions when Old Believers have settled all over the world.

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

To what extent do the Old Believers themselves speak Spanish?

Enough to live in the country. Usually, better tongue owned by men. 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 smart translator.

What do you think further fate Russian dialect language in South America? Will he live on?

I would really like to come to them in 20 years and see what their Russian language will be like. 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 resilient. This is a completely unique combination of archaism and innovation. When they need to name a new phenomenon, they easily invent new words. For example, they call cartoons the word “hoppers”, garlands of light bulbs - “beagles”, hairbands - “dress up”. They know the word “loan”, but they themselves say “take for payment”.

Old Believers very widely use metaphors to denote new objects or concepts. For example, I show the boy a tree in their village - it is a large tree with large fragrant bright red clusters of flowers. I ask: what is it called? “I don’t know, my sister calls me lilac,” the boy answers me. Different flowers, different scent, but similar shape bunches - 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? The mimosa will be cleaned.” Look, he’s peeling tangerines...

Without knowing anything about such a science as sociolinguistics, Old Believers in Bolivia do exactly what needs to be done to preserve the language. They live separately and demand that in the village and at home they speak only Russian. And I really hope that the Russian language will be heard in Bolivia for a long time.

Interviewed by Milena Bakhvalova

Article in "AiF"
(Unique in that it grows from year to year without external influx)

Sundresses under coconuts

The Arguments and Facts columnist found himself in Russia, where jaguars live in the forests, pineapples are planted in gardens, and native Siberians do not know what snow looks like. And he didn’t dream it!
-Oh, are you coming to our village, good sir? But in vain. It’s so hot, and it’s so dusty, there’s so much dust standing on the path - you’ll swallow your fill! - the woman in a blue sundress spoke quickly with a clear Siberian accent, and I barely had time to understand her melodious words. Having shown the best way to get to the village, Stepanida turned and walked further, towards the coconut grove rustling with leaves. A boy standing next to her in an untucked shirt and cap picked a mango from a nearby tree and followed his mother, swatting away mosquitoes.
“Chrysanthus! - I heard a stern voice. “How many times have I told you, you fool, don’t eat manga, they’re too green, then run into the issi at night!”

“If you don’t go into the forest to pick mushrooms, there are no mushrooms, and they will eat you”

…THE FIRST Russian villages in the small South American state of Bolivia appeared a very long time ago. When exactly, local residents don’t even remember. It seems that the very first settlers arrived already in 1865 (the authorities then distributed arable land to the colonists for free), and seventy years later a whole crowd of Siberian and Ural peasant families arrived from China, who had to flee Russia after the Bolshevik revolution. Now, two hundred kilometers from the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, there are three large villages of Russian immigrants, where about two thousand people live. We drove to one of these villages - Taboroche - along a dusty road along endless Bolivian fields overgrown with Russian sunflowers.

...The door of the house of the village elder Martyan Onufriev was opened by his daughter, a grey-eyed, shy beauty in a sundress. “The kids are gone. They went to the city on business. Don’t stand on the threshold, go into the hut.” A “hut” is a strong stone house with a tiled roof, similar to those built in Germany. At first, Russian men in Bolivia sawed down ivory palm trees and made houses from logs, but quickly abandoned this idea: in conditions of tropical humidity and ubiquitous termites, the home immediately began to rot and soon turned into dust. It is impossible to describe the Russian village in Bolivia in words - you simply have to see it. Dogs in kennels (which shocks Bolivians - why does a dog need a separate house?!) and mooing cows grazing in the shade of banana palms. In the gardens there are people singing “Oh frost, frost!” weeds pineapples. Bearded men in embroidered shirts, belted with sashes, dashingly drive Japanese jeeps, talking on cell phones, and girls in sundresses and kokoshniks rush to the field and back on Honda motorcycles. There were enough impressions in the first five minutes that it was hard to close my mouth.

Now they are living well, thank God,” notes 37-year-old peasant woman Natalya, who also invited me to the “hut.” - And the first time people arrived, they didn’t have tractors or horses - they used women to plow the land. Some got rich, some didn’t, but we all live together. Mama said that in Russia the poor envy the rich. And according to him? After all, God created people unequal. It is not good to envy someone else's wealth, especially if people are working. Who's stopping you? Take it yourself and earn it!

Natalya was born in one of the Russian Old Believer villages, deep in the jungles of Brazil. She moved here when she got married - at the age of 17: she got used to living, but she still doesn’t speak Spanish: “I can’t even count in their language. Why should I? So, a little bit, if I go to the market.” Her father was taken from the Khabarovsk province at the age of five; now he is over eighty. Natalya has never been to her father’s homeland, although she really wants to go. “My dad will tell you so beautifully about Russia - it makes my heart ache. Well, he says, nature is so beautiful. And you go into the forest, there are so many mushrooms, they say, and you will pick baskets full. And here, don’t go - no, no, yes, God forbid, and the jaguar narvessi - the damned ones got into the habit of going to a watering hole.”
Cats are kept in houses specifically to catch lizards.

I'LL BE HONEST - I simply didn't expect to hear Russian speech in Taboroch. As part of my work, I had to communicate a lot with the children of White Guards who grew old in France and the USA - they all spoke Russian well, but noticeably distorted their words. But here a surprise awaited me. These people, who have never been to Russia, and many of their fathers and grandfathers were born on the soil of South America, communicate in Russian in the same way as their ancestors did a hundred years ago. This is the language of the Siberian village, without the slightest accent, melodious and affectionate, replete with words that have long fallen out of use in Russia itself. In Taboroch they say “wish” instead of “want”, “wonderful” instead of “amazing”, “very” instead of “very”, do not know the words “five-year plan” and “industrialization”, do not understand Russian slang in the form of “well, damn” and “Wow.” Here, near a tropical forest entwined with vines, it has somehow incredibly preserved pre-revolutionary Russia, which we no longer remember. And the thought arises: maybe this is exactly what the Russian village would be like now (with the exception of the pineapples in the garden, of course) if October had not happened?

Six-year-old Evdokia, sitting on the threshold, plays with a grown-up kitten. - Unlike Russia, the cat, for lack of mice, catches lizards in the house. A red parrot flies past, but the girl, accustomed to them, does not pay attention to the bird. Evdokia speaks only Russian: until the age of seven, children are raised in the village, in a small home, so that they remember the language, and then they are sent to school to learn Spanish. Mothers tell their children fairy tales that are passed down from generation to generation: about Ivan the Fool, Emelya and the Pike, and the Little Humpbacked Horse. The settlers have practically no books, and where in the Bolivian wilderness can you get a collection of Russian fairy tales? Most men speak Spanish, but women, not so much. “What does a girl need to know Spanish for? - says Natalya’s neighbor, portly Feodosia. “When she gets married, the children go there, she needs to manage the housework and bake pies, and let the man plow his own field.”
“You speak incorrectly, you wear the kokoshnik crookedly, you cook bad cabbage soup!”

IN THE DAY, the residents of Taboroche can easily be found in the fields. They grow everything they can: corn, wheat, sunflowers. “The only thing that doesn’t grow in this land is what you don’t plant!” - jokes one of the bearded men sitting astride a tractor. One of the Old Believers even last year was awarded an article in the local newspaper - he harvested the largest harvest of soybeans and... pineapples. “There were those who saved some money and went to see Russia,” says Terenty. They came back so wonderful - all their eyes clap-clap. They say: in the villages of Siberia, people are starving and drinking vodka, but for some reason they can’t plow the land. I say: how can it be - there’s so much land, take it and grow bread, or else! They're too lazy, they say. What a misfortune, Lord, are these the Bolsheviks with poor Russia done! And it was also strange to him that everyone around him spoke Russian - he really couldn’t believe it. We are accustomed here that if you ask a person what is happening on the street, he will answer in Spanish. I listened to him and am also saving money for the trip - if God willing, I’ll definitely come in a couple of years.”

Russian peasants go to Santa Cruz to sell what they grow. When they arrive, they check into hotels where there is no TV or radio (this is a sin), and they take dishes with them - “so you don’t get dirty with them.” But no one leaves the village to live in the city. “I myself have six children,” says 40-year-old Terenty. “And in Santa Cruz there are many demonic temptations: nothing good will come of life there.” Sons marry Bolivian women, girls marry Bolivian women, but that’s in vain - they don’t even know how to cross their foreheads in our way.”

Bolivian, as well as other men and women, in principle can marry residents of Russian villages, but under one condition - they must cross themselves into the “Russian faith”, dress, read and speak Russian. There were two such marriages in total, and both fell apart. The Bolivian girl who “married” a Russian guy could not stand the constant clashes with her mother-in-law: you wear the kokoshnik crookedly, you speak Russian incorrectly, you cook bad cabbage soup, and you don’t pray to God diligently. As a result, the young wife ran away, and the husband, to the delight of his mother, went to Uruguay for a Russian bride. Another Citizen of Bolivia (by the way, the Aimara Indian, who married a Russian girl, was accepted in Taborocha, “black, like a black man, as a cattle, could not find a lighter girl, but later his divorce with his wife condemned:“ ““ ““ ““ “ Avon, they already have five children - they sit on benches, wiping snot. If you make a waste, be patient, and don’t leave the woman with them.” But such “international” weddings are rare, which is why almost all the villagers of Taboroch have blue eyes, potato noses, freckles all over their faces, and the hair on their heads is brown or wheat. Alcohol (even harmless beer) under strict ban, smoking too: but during all the time in the village not a single person became an alcoholic and died from lung cancer. But the craving for civilization takes its toll - some peasants secretly keep small portable TVs under their beds, which they watch at night with the sound muted. However, no one admits this openly. On Sunday, everyone always goes to church and reads the Bible at home with their children.

“Why be afraid of a black cobra? Hit her head with a heel and that’s it.”

ABOUT twenty families recently moved to Bolivia from the United States. “It’s difficult for the Americans for the Russians,” explains former Alaska resident Elevferiy, stroking his beard. - They have everything built so that all Americans are there, they wash us away. Many of our children no longer speak Russian, although they are all baptized and wear embroidered shirts - it’s simply unfortunate. So we came here so that the children don’t start speaking American and don’t forget God.”

None of the residents of Taboroch, born in Bolivia, Brazil and Uruguay and holding national passports, consider these countries to be their homeland. For them, their homeland is Russia, which they have never seen. “Well, I was born in Bolivia, well, I’ve lived here all my life, so why am I a Bolivian? - Ivan is surprised. “I am a Russian person, a believer in Christ, and I will remain so.” The settlers never got used to the amazing heat (plus 40 degrees in the Santa Cruz area in January): “What a horror! You’re standing in church on Christmas Day, praying, and the floor is all wet, and everyone’s sweat is flowing.” But they ask with interest about snow: what does it look like? What does it feel like? You can’t describe how you feel when you explain to your descendants of Siberians about snow and frost, and they look at you with round eyes and repeat: “It can’t be!” No tropical diseases affect Russian peasants anymore - among the very first settlers who drained the swamps in the jungles of Bolivia and Brazil, there were many deaths from yellow fever, but now, as the residents phlegmatically say, “we don’t even see that fever.” Only mosquitoes irritate us, but we fight them the old fashioned way - we drive them away by fumigating them with smoke. Dangerous snakes, including a black cobra that spits venom, crawl from the jungle onto the village ruins. But the Old Believers easily deal with them. “What about the snake? - Chrysanth, chewing a mango, boasts again in secret from his mother. “If you hit her in the head with a heel, that’s it.” Ivan’s wife, 18-year-old freckled beauty Zoya (her home village is in the state of Goiás in Brazil), also talks about poisonous reptiles with Olympian calm: “The window in our hut broke, and my dad was too lazy to cover it with a pillow - and so they say, it’s hot . So through that hole the cobra will jump onto the floor at night! I hit her on the head with the handle of a broom and killed her.”

About modern political life in Russia, the settlers know little (you can’t watch TV, you can’t go on the Internet - that’s also a sin), but they heard about Beslan and served a prayer service in the church for the repose of the souls of “the children killed by the infidels.” They feel their homeland in their souls. The owner of an optical salon in the center of Santa Cruz, a former resident of Kuban, Lyuba told me how settler Ignat came to see her and she showed him a photo album published in Moscow about Russian nature. Not at all surprised, Ignat shrugged and said: “It’s strange, but I’ve already seen all this. I always dream about churches and fields at night. And I also see my grandfather’s village in a dream.”

…IN Lately Russian colonists began to leave Taboroche - land rent became more expensive. “We are like gypsies,” Feodosia laughs. “Soon enough, we’ll film and go.” New land they rent further south, across the river - it’s cheaper there, and the corn they grow is taken to sell to Brazil. Having been forced to leave Russia for various reasons, these peasants built themselves a new island of their old, familiar life in exotic Bolivia, creating here their own Rus' with coconut palms and jaguars in the forest. They do not hold any grudges or anger towards their homeland, they do not wish it any troubles, thereby radically different from many modern Russian emigrants. Having preserved their identity, language and culture in the depths of the Bolivian jungle, these people remained truly Russian - both in character, in language, and in their style of thinking. And there is no doubt that these small islands of old Russia in Latin America will exist in a hundred or two hundred years. Because people live there who are proud of being Russian.

THE MOST Russian villages are in Brazil: about ten, about 7 thousand people live there. Russian settlers first appeared in South America in 1757, founding a Cossack village in Argentina. In addition to the above countries, there are now Russian Old Believer settlements in Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay. Some of the settlers also left for Africa, creating Russian colonies in the Union of South Africa and Rhodesia. And here " white emigration"1917–1920 was almost completely “eroded” - very few of the descendants of the 5 million (!) nobles who settled in Paris at that time bear Russian names and speak Russian: according to experts, this happened due to the fact that the Russians in Paris they lived “uncompactly”.

Georgy ZOTOV, Taboroche - Santa Cruz
"Arguments and Facts" original with pictures here.