Of Moscows and Missionaries

Just a stone’s throw from our offices here in Vermont is a little town named Moscow. Well, perhaps “town” would be stretching it a bit. But there is a reduced speed limit. And a general store where they sell tshirts pointing out that the local population (354 souls) is rivaled by the number of deer and moose.

Moscow, Vermont has nothing to do with how Russian Life ended up being published out of Vermont’s capital city. It is all just an interesting coincidence.

The town, which rests on the Little river, was founded back in 1886. It was just a sawmill then. And it seems that local residents, which included plenty of immigrants from Europe, would be called to town meetings by someone banging on the two-storey high bandsaw at the mill. The sound reminded some present of the broken tsar’s bell in Moscow (from which some immigrants came). The name stuck.

At the Moscow General Store, they have heard that the original Moscow is celebrating its 850th anniversary this month, but find it hard to get at all worked up about it. It is pretty much the same story at the other Moscows in the US.

Out west, in Moscow, Idaho, Merv Raquet, business editor at the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, said that his town of 18,000 also has no plans to celebrate the original Moscow’s birthday. But then the town, founded in 1890, is not closely tied to its ancient namesake. In fact, Moscow was not the town’s first name. “Originally it was called Hog Heaven,” Raquet said, “then Paradise, then Moscow. Hog Heaven was apparently because the pigs traveling with settlers were quite fond of rooting for the camus root in the area.” Now, the camus root is all gone and the area is big on lentils. If you eat lentil soup, chances are the fixings came from Moscow — 98% of the US’s lentil supply comes from the area surrounding Moscow, Idaho.

Interestingly, representatives we spoke with in the other American Moscows, in Pennsylvania, Kansas, Michigan, Texas and Tennessee, all seemed to find the prospect of Moscow’s 850th about as exciting as lentil soup...

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Meanwhile, three years ago, the Orthodox Church in America established a mission in Montpelier to serve the growing Orthodox community in the area. The new church, named St. Jacob of Alaska, after the first American Orthodox Saint, now serves some 40 parishoners in a nice, second-floor space above a former donut shop.

In contrast to mission activities of American churches in Russia (which Mikhail Ivanov has covered so well in our lead story), the St. Jacob church in Montpelier has evoked little notice and no antagonism. Some might argue that this is because we Americans are used to the presence of many different religions in our midst and don’t give new churches a second thought. We are so permissive. So accepting. Perhaps.

Or perhaps not. It is easy to blame the Russian antagonism to western missionaries on a lack of openness in Russian society. It is much harder to look American arrogance in the face and wonder why protestant churches need to send missionaries to convert a country that has a thousand-year history of christianity.

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Speaking of looking in the mirror. I would like to recognize two real assets of Russian Life. First is photographer Sergei Kaptilkin. Since September of 1995, rare has been the issue of Russian Life without one of his superb photos. And, as the result of his labors on the Lena shows (page 16), he was the perfect choice to send on this Siberian mission.

We received a threat in the mail last week about the second asset ... A subscriber said, if we ever stopped running Survival Russian, he would stop subscribing. Well, Mikhail Ivanov’s widely praised columns will continue as long as his creative juices flow. What is more, we will be releasing a volume containing two years worth of Survival Russian next month. While we don’t expect to sell any copies via the Moscow General Store, they are expected to sell quickly, so reserve your copy now!

p.s. We hope you like the redesigns we have made to the magazine!