Georgia-Molokans:  3 photos 1870-1890

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"Molokane." [молокане : Molokans] 
Shows 9 men posing for a portrait
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"Molokanekaia derevnia i molokane na ulitse."
[молоканекая деревня и молокане на улице : Molokan village and Molokans outdoors (on the street)] Shows 19 people — 9 men, 6 boys, 1 woman, 3 girls, and 2 cows on a village street in the snow. An Orthodox church may be in the center, far background.
The above photographs are from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery and show Molokans in the Caucasus — Georgia province near T'bilisi, 1870s. These are "collected" by George Kennan (born 1845, died 1924) probably in 1870, on his second trip to Russia, when "he explored the Caucasus mountains of the eastern Caucasus, crossing the great range three times in different places." He could have taken these photos himself on that trip or gotten them from his photographer George Frost or collaborator Nicholas Mikhailovich Iadrintsev (1842-1894). For more about Kennan, see: The Forgotten George Kennan: From Cheerleader to Critic of Tsarist Russia, by Frith Maier, WORLD POLICY JOURNAL, Volume XIX, No 4, Winter 2002/03.
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Molokans in Georgia  (Молокани в Грузии) 		At the Georgian Genealogy website, associated with the Georgian Archives, in the article "Russians in Georgia", this photo appears, titled "Molokans in Georgia" ("Молокани в Грузии", in the Russian version), showing 14 men posing. There are also 3 photos of Doukhobors, and Russian and Georgian versions of the website.

The Historian-Archivist, Ms. Ketevan Mirotadze, lists 7 references for the article "Russians in Georgia" but does not note where the photos came from. See an excerpt from the article below.
<<В 1833 году длинный вагон поезда двинулся из России в Грузию, на котором ездили россииские молокане и стремились встречать здесь своего бога. Они шли на новую землю с восторгом и весельем, пели псалмы и духовные песни. Их первая большая часть поселилась в Восточной Грузии, а именно в районах Сигнаги и Сагареджо, где в деревнях Красногорск и Ульяновка молокане насчитывали 1365 человек. Они также проживали в Тбилиси, где их число в 1902 году достигло 11,3 тысяч человек.

<<Переселяли духоборов, субботников и других сектантов в Грузию как арестантов, ненужных в центральных провинциях России. >>
 "In 1833 long wagon train stretched from various provinces of Russia to Georgia as the Russian Molokans hurried to meet God in His promised lend. They went to the new land in exultation and joy, singing psalms and spiritual songs. Their first big part settled in Eastern Georgia, particularly in Sighnaghi and Sagarejo regions, where in the villages Krasnogorsk and Ul'ianovka the Molokans accounted for 1365 people. They were living in Tbilisi as well and in Tbilisi province their amount was 11,300 people by 1902.

":Dukhobors, Molokans, even Subbotniks and other sectarians arrived in Georgia as outcasts, unwanted in the central provinces of Russia, and as migrants in search of a better life for themselves on the frontier, including being part of Christ’s New Jerusalem. The majority of sectarians who settled in Georgia were peasants, although there was also a not inconsequential number of merchants and meschanes (petty bourgeois)."


Georgia-Molokans 2001:  18 photos

In June 2001, photo-journalist Gogi Tsagareli visited Molokans in Georgia. He posted 18 photos — 9 photos of  the original Krasnogorka village mentioned above, and 9 photos of Saburtalinian sobraniia on Lvovskaya street in Tbilisi. See Tsagareli's 18 captioned photos. See his photo story without captions. In 1992, I counted 5 active Molokan congregations in Tbilisi.

Find more photos of Caucasus-Molokans in Breyfogle's Heretics and Colonizers. See photo of Molokans in the Far East, and Molokan buildings in the Blagoveschensk.
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