I had no idea what to expect from Siberia. All I could imagine was a massive lake, surrounding wilderness, and trappers hunting sable on hand-made skis. I knew I would encounter Shamanism, Buddhism, and Old Russian Orthodoxy. To my surprise, I also encountered a whole lot of Jewish names on our tours of Ulan-Ude and Barguzin, and even a Jewish cemetery.
A gravestone with Hebrew lettering in the Barguzin cemetery (and a wake-up call for how rough my Hebrew has gotten)
My first reaction was, “Why? [would Jews decide to settle in Siberia]???”
The answer our tour guides gave us was, “Gold.”
The majority of Jews who ended up in Buryatia had actually been exiled there, some as early as the middle of the 17th-century from Poland during the Russo-Polish War, but once they arrived they began to establish themselves as successful merchants in the area. One such merchant was especially interesting to me, in part because he shares a somewhat rare first-name with my younger brother, Abram.
Abram Novomeisky’s gravestone in Barguzin.
Abram Novomeisky was one of the two biggest gold-mine owners in Siberia. He was a businessman, a patron of the arts, and a proponent of advancing mining technologies, and was well-respected by the people of the Barguzin Valley. When he died in the early 20th century, villagers carried his body on their shoulders 7 whole kilometers to his burial-place in Barguzin.
An interesting article about Barguzin that includes information about some of the Jews who lived there.
