Russian speaking gathering of Friends held in Tbilisi, Georgia - October 2023
In mid-October I travelled to Tbilisi to attend a gathering of Russian speaking Friends organised by Friends House Moscow (FHM). The gathering was planned around an FHM board meeting and included additional days for talks about work supported by FHM, about Quakers in the region and some excursions. It was a rare opportunity for Friends in this part of Europe to meet in person, and in particular to meet with Russian Quakers. It was also a great opportunity for me to practise my somewhat rusty Russian!
There were about 30 people present in total from Armenia, Britain, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and the USA. Other’s joined via Zoom for some of the talks.
The core event took place on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th October. On the Saturday we heard a number of talks about AVP, work with refugees and reconciliation work. I was also given the chance to say a little about EMES.
The AVP work, supported by FHM, has continued since the war began in Ukraine. They have also run summer camps for Ukrainian children in Romania. One of the AVP trainers fled Odesa when the war began and now works with Ukrainian refugees in Germany. In addition to their AVP work they are all involved with psychosocial support for traumatised children. One of them spoke very frankly about her experience of the war and ended by saying she would rather live free in a country at war than under Putin’s regime.
We then heard from a number of other projects supported by FHM including support for Ukrainian children in Prague, an art therapy project in Moscow, work supporting refugee children in Armenia, and the work of a school for refugee children in Estonia.
The final talks of the day were about workcamps, both in the past and future plans. This was seen as one way that Quakers could help rebuild Ukraine in the future and we were told that peacebuilding starts now, by preparing ourselves for peace.
It was a really rich afternoon and at times it felt optimistic and at other times exceedingly pessimistic. We were left with the thought that peace without justice can kill people and values. We were also challenged to think of Russian as a language of peace. It was at times uncomfortable to have my pacifist values challenged by people living in a war.
On Sunday we heard from 5 different Russian speaking Friends about their experience of being a Quaker in Russia or Georgia. There are effectively two Quaker groups in Russia, Moscow MM which meets weekly on Saturdays in person (and in fact continued to do so throughout Covid lockdowns), and the online Russian speaking worship organised by FHM – this meets two or three times a month on zoom. Friends attending the Russian speaking online worship come from various parts of Russia and also from other countries. We heard from some Friends who found Quakers online (via the comprehensive quakers.ru site managed by FHM) during the past few years – some had never met each other in person or attended an in person meeting for worship. One had discovered Quakers through her work at a history of religion museum in St Petersburg. It was an interesting session and a powerful reminder of the strength and value of online Quaker worship for some Friends. We also heard from a Russian soldier living in Georgia who had fled the army as he did not want to fight in Ukraine.
After this Georgian Friends joined us and we held meeting for worship with them. It was an intense, emotional and very gathered meeting for worship. I felt that it was a real privilege to be there with that group of people. I was also able to meet with other members of the Tbilisi worship group the next morning and visit the flat that they meet in for worship.
The whole event was run bilingually in Russian and English. Russian is still a useful language in that part of the world, but it is also very clear that people who are not Russian at times speak it begrudgingly. In some cafes in Tbilisi we were asked by younger waiting staff to speak English rather than Russian when ordering, although on other occasions there were no issues with speaking Russian. It seems that Putin may be slowly killing off Russian as an international language.
Michael Eccles, EMES Executive Secretary
