Those Who Return

Oksana and her daughter-in-law pose with their sons after the harvest.

The village of Dersu lies beyond the Ussuri River. In order to get to this lost village in the taiga you need a good all-terrain vehicle; a wooden barge if the water hasn’t frozen over; more than a day to make the trip from the nearest inhabited town; and lots of faith in God.

To protect themselves from the influence of the outside world, Russian Starovery (староверы), or Old Believers, choose to live in the most isolated, wild, and inaccessible places. “The fewer people there are, the closer we are to God,” they explain. Some call them the “Russian Amish.”