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Pilgrimage of West Siberian Residents to Palestine at the end of XIX – beginning of XX century
DOI of the paper: 10.15382/sturII201461.73-90
Abstract
The article elaborates upon organization and stages of pilgrimage of West Siberian residents to Palestine at the end of XIX — beginning of XX century. The author makes an attempt to show the motives behind the pilgrimage, as well as organizational and household challenges. The article outlines some details of Siberians’ stay in Russian courtyards in Jerusalem and describes fi nancial situation enabling the pilgrims to travel to Palestine and back. The study is based on personal sources describing the impressions and experience the Western Siberians had when visiting the Holy Land. The author concludes that Russian pilgrims would usually spend about half a month at the Russian courtyards and that the accommodation, catering and living conditions of their stay were quite adequate at the beginning of the XXth century. It is noted that the number of pilgrims from West Siberian provinces at that period reached several dozen people a year. Social and age compound of pilgrims is described. The article outlines local peculiarities of pilgrims, such the predominance of men, including a small number of indigenous residents of Siberia. It is noted that the vast number of pilgrims were farmers and elderly people. The article shows some examples of pilgrims sharing their impressions and spiritual experience with family members, relatives, friends and neighbors after returning to homeland. The paper demonstrates the contribution of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society to improvement of pilgrimage routes and services to pilgrims during the above mentioned timeframe. Despite the fact that those the pilgrimages didn’t become a widespread phenomenon, they seized to be something of an extraordinary nature.
Keywords
Palestine, The Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, pilgrimage, Western Siberia, Jerusalem, Russian courtyards, paperwork, travel expenses, travelling conditions and motives, transportation
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