Rasputin Island

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXVIII, Issue 3482, 16 August 1937, Page 7

Rasputin Island

THE LAST RUBBIAN MONASTERY. One of the most curious colonies in the world to-day exists on the Island of Valamo, at Lake Ladoga, in Finland, just over the Russian border. The "Island of Rasputin," as it is called, is an interesting relic of the old Russia. Among the most distinguished features of ancient Russia the realm of the Tsars, were the innumerable monasteries. Homes of those strange beings, the bearded monks, in their tall caps of the Greek-Oriental cult havens of refuge for the entire devout and religiously-minded population of Russia.

It was quite usual for anyone be he wealthy lord or humble peasant, to repair to one of these monasteries for months at a time, and often to stay there altogether, to become one of the bearded fraternity, or go forth into the land to preach like Rasputin, the Mad Monk, who swayed the destinies of Russia and perhaps of the world in the last years of Tsardom. One must be acquainted with the life of these monasteries, with the type of their monks —religiously fanatic, ignorant, grasping, suggestive personalities—and of their tremendous influence upon the population, to understand the part that Rasputin played in the history of Russia.

The Soviets have done away with all this. No more can one meet bearded monks, in their characteristic tall hats, long robes and wide girdles, complete with equally characteristic dirt, oh country roads and city streets. Of the many hundred famous wealthy monasteries not one remains—or rather only one—-a remnant of Ancient Russia just beyond the reach of the Soviets in fact under the Soviets' very nose just over the borderline between Russia and Finland.

The borderline divides Lake Ladoga of which we have learned in geography primers that it is Europe's largest sweet water lake into a Russian and Finnish half. And just a few miles from the border, on the Finnish side of that huge inland sea, is the Island of Valamo, a strange and independent little community—the last refuge of ancient Russia, in the world.

Ancient indeed, for the Monastery of Valamo was founded in the 10th century A.D. by two monks Sergei and Herman —who probably were just as bearded, Just as unkempt and just as Rasputinnisb as the two hundred and thirty who live to-day on the little domain that was left to them because the borderline between Finland and Russia was drawn just where it was, and not a few miles further to the West.

In the little harbor of Sortavalla, on the Finnish shore of Lake Ladoga, a small steamboat, the "Sergei," puffs up to the landing-stage every morning. It is manned by the strangest crew one could imagine. The man who punches a hole in your ticket looks like Rasputin incarnate; he is a monk of Valamo. So is the captain, the mate, the midshipman, the stoker —all are bearded monks, for the steamer belongs to the community of Valamo, where every permanent inhabitant is a monk.

The steamer takes two hours and a half to cover the distance of forty kilometres which separates the Finnish shore of the lake from Valamo. Pinland takes no particular interest in the island because its inhabitants are Russians. Soviet Russia is at no great pains to avail herself of it because it is a haven of Tsarist refugees. And thus "Valamo has become what it is—a sort of No Man's Land, a living memory of by-gone days. The Monastery of Valamo is extremely wealthy. The monks* account at a bank in Helsinki shows a balance of seventy million marks, but that is only a fraction of the immense fortune contained,in the church and in the vaults of the monastery. The tourist trade adds an increasing income to this hoard.

“What is the destination of all that money?’' queried an inquisitive tourist on a trip to Valamo. “The time will come when God and Russia will be in need of it,” was the quiet reply. The one remaining Russian monastery is biding its time until it can help to turn the country once more into a land of Rasputins.