ALASKA

Pratt Museum
3779 Bartlett Street
Homer, AK 99603
(907) 235-8635

Items from the nearby Old Believer village of Nikolaevsk include adult and children’s clothing, handmade furniture, homemade soap and candles, game pieces from bone, and a number of artifacts connected to weaving: most notably a floor loom and a backstrap card-weaving loom with a belt in progress.

Consortium Library Archives and Special Collections (University of Alaska Anchorage/Alaska Pacific University)
UAA/APU Consortium Library, Suite 305
3211 Providence Drive
Anchorage, AK 99508
(907) 786-1849

The Archive’s holdings include two items of interest: two audio cassette tapes (HMC-0192) of the 1975 and 1979 naturalization ceremonies for members of Kenai Peninsula Old Believer communities.

ALBERTA, CANADA

End of Steel Heritage Museum and Park
Box 686, Hines Creek,
AB T0H 2A0
Intersection of Highway 64 and Highway 685
(780) 494-3522 (Office); (780) 835-7827 (Bookings)
hinescreekmuseum@gmail.com 

Open-air museum of historic buildings relocated to a small park includes the “Pohaboff House”, a log house built in the 1930s by local Old Believers. While the basic architectural features of the house appear intact, few of the present furnishings have any connection to the Old Believers who lived there. The museum maintains a collection of newspaper obituaries of local residents published from 1961 to the present which includes some Old Believer names. (2003)

Fairview Pioneer Museum
Fairview No. 136
AB T0H 1L0
Located one kilometer North of Fairview on secondary Highway 732, at Cummings Lake Turnoff
(780) 835-2632
fairviewmuseums@gmail.com

This hospitable local history museum houses school records from Ranger District #4535, which was attended by many of the Hines Creek/Fairview popovtsy Old Believers. The 13 registers, dated from 1936-1949, provide demographic information including birth dates, years of schooling, and names of parents for all students, along with the occasional report card and administrative memo. In 1936, 27 of the 37 pupils’ names were distinctly Russian (and probably Old Believer). By 1949 the student body had shrunk to 12, with 8 possessing Russian names. (2005)

Fairview Public Library
10209 109 St.
Fairview, AB T0H 1L0
(780) 835-2613
librarian@fairviewlibrary.ab.ca

Library holdings include back issues of Fairview’s local newspaper—The Fairview Post—from 1950 to the present. Much of the run is also on microfilm. Paper copies of the Post’s predecessor—Northern Review—are available for 1923, 1930 and 1933, with some gaps. These titles constitute the local press covering the Hines Creek/Fairview group of popovtsy Old Believers. No index available. (Note: Provincial Archives of Alberta has The Fairview Post 1940-1982; Northern Review 1929-1933.) (2005)

Grande Prairie Public Library
9839 103 Ave #101
Grande Prairie, AB T8V 2H3
(780) 532-3580
info@gppl.ca

This is the regional public library which covers the Hines Creek area. The Isabel Campbell Room houses local genealogical materials, a clippings file on local history, and local history association publications. The indexed microfilm of the Grande Prairie Herald 1913-1997 includes references to local churches. (2003)

Provincial Archives of Alberta
8555 Roper Road
Edmonton, AB T6E 5W1
(780) 427-1750
paa@gov.ab.ca

The Archives lists among its newspaper holdings two local papers from the Fairview/Hines Creek area: The Fairview Post 1940-1982 and the Northern Review (1929-1933). (2005)

Royal Alberta Museum
9810 103a Ave NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 0G2
(825) 468-6000

The Cultural Communities program (formerly Cultural Studies, formerly Folklife) maintains a collection of media and artifacts collected 1982-1986 in the Chasovennye community of Plamondon (Berezovka), Alberta by David Scheffel and David Goa. The media holdings include 230 photographs and 205 slides of the community. Artifacts consist primarily of costume (bridal wear, everyday clothing, burial material) and other household and religious textiles. Books and a few religious items (candles, crosses) are also included.

OREGON

Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archive (CRBEHA)

This online archive, the product of a collaborative project between Washington State University Vancouver, the Idaho State Historical Society, Oregon Historical Society, Washington State Historical Society, and Washington State University Pullman, includes several items from the Oregon Historical Society collection, a number of them difficult to obtain elsewhere. They include pamphlets, open letters and public announcements by Brother Ambrose Moorman on Old Believer matters; a 1973 report by John Hudanish on the state of the Old Believer community in Woodburn, a copy of the Manual for Educators of Russian Old Believers in Oregon, and more.

Randall V. Mills Archives of Northwest Folklore
Room 453, PLC Hall
1287 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
(541) 346-3925

A repository of fieldwork collections and research materials on folklife in Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, and beyond, the Randall V. Mills Folklore Archive is well situated to hold materials relating to the Oregon Old Believers. Over the years, a good many items—mainly undergraduate projects produced for Folklore classes—have been submitted there. The site also purports to hold a variety of videotapes, audiotapes, slides, and textiles.

Museum of Russian Old Orthodox History and Culture
Our Lady of Tikhvin Center
St. Benedict, Oregon
(503) 845-3300

(St. Benedict is located within the town of Mt. Angel, Oregon)
This small, self-guided museum presents the history, faith, and religious and secular arts of the Oregon Old Believer community. Displays include traditional lay clothing, embroidery, wall hangings and hand-woven belts; another room showcases ecclesiastical clothing and objects. Timelines and maps illustrate Old Believer history in Russia and around the world. Printed material includes articles about Avvakum, explanations of icons, examples of calligraphy, photocopies of medieval Russian manuscripts, and a copy of A Short Introduction to Znamenny Chant and It’s Notation. (2003)

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR 97205
(503) 222-1741
orhist@ohs.org

There are several items of interest here. The clippings file contains about 50 articles from Oregon and Alaska newspapers, dating from 1965 to the 1980s. There are a few portraits of Old Believers in the photo file (listed under “ethnic Russian”) and some items relating to the participation of a group of Oregon Old Believers in the 1976 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife. Reports produced in the 1970s by John Hudanish (Woodburn Department of Human Resources) and Brother Ambrose Moorman (Our Lady of Tikhvin Center) give a glimpse of the early interactions between mainstream Oregonians and recently arrived Old Believers.

Valley Migrant League Collection. The Valley Migrant League provided social services to Willamette Valley farm workers in the 1960s and 1970s. It was one of the first organizations to work with the Old Believers upon their arrival in Oregon. The collection includes several years of the VML publication Opportunity News, which regularly printed articles about Old Believers, as well as a series of photographs featuring Old Believers.

Salem Public Library
585 Liberty St. SE
Salem,Oregon 97301
(503) 588-6315
library@cityofsalem.net

This is the regional public library which covers the settlement area of the Oregon Old Believers.The pamphlet file here has about 10 items listed under “Old Believers”; pamphlets, reports and clippings from local newspapers, all dating from 1973-1988. Microfilm holdings include the major Salem newspapers in their entirety from 1851 to the present. The in-house card file index to the newspapers extends from 1972-1982, with relevant entries located under “Russians in Oregon.” (2003)

Woodburn Public Library
280 Garfield St.
Woodburn, OR 97071
(503) 982-5252
john.hunter@ci.woodburn.or.us (City Librarian)

This is the public library serving the large Chasonvennye and Popovtsy community in Oregon. The Oregon Collection includes a small collection of clippings and pamphlets, as well as a print version of the materials available at Paul Wigowsky’s website Collection of Old Believer History and Traditions. The library also hosts a card file index to the local newspaper (The Woodburn Independent) which is available here on microfilm from 1894-present.. The index is maintained by volunteers — coverage is selective, but includes a names index. The subject section lists 23 articles under the heading “Russian” and one article under the heading “Old Believers.” (2003)

WASHINGTON, DC

Library of Congress American Folklife Center
The Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20540
(202) 707-5000

Library of Congress online finding aids do not always reflect the institution’s holdings: searchers are strongly advised to query the LOC staff directly. 

American Folklife Collections

Nicolas G. Schidlovsky Old Believers Collection (AFC 1987/031). Twenty-six 10-inch tapes of Old Believers’ services and religious singing, and copies of a published recording of Russian church bells and religious chant. Recorded in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., by Nicolas G. Schidlovsky, 1972-85. The collection includes seven photographs, a six-page brochure entitled “Old Believers,” and one linear inch of concordances, notes, photocopies of chant notations, recording logs, and early Slavic neumes.

Edward Keenan Old Believers Collection (AFC 1998/011). This collection consists mainly of materials related to religious music and belief. Among the items in the collection are a spiral notebook which delineates a musical notation system which is used to interpret the music in the collection, several small booklets of hymns written in Cyrillic, some Russian language lessons, and a small booklet of catechism of the Greek Old Orthodox faith. Most of the material is either mimeographed or dittoed, and much of it is in Cyrillic script. The items were largely produced in the 1950s in Erie, PA, by Rev. V. Smolakov.

AFS 25,970A2; 25,978A2-B1: Two tapes containing discussion and performances by Fr. Pimen Simon and members of the Old Believer congregation in Erie, Pennsylvania. Recorded in Jordansville, New York, 1980. (One hour and thirty minutes; RWB 6115A, 6123)