Russian "Old Believers" in Brazil

[Sventovit]

Very good looking people, IMO. Their anthropological type is very similar to that of the Don Cossacks, and to a large extent other SE Russian groups.

Video: Russian 'Old Believer' Colony in Brazil (
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiPnQY9CFYA")

http://i081.radikal.ru/0911/50/f000201f245f.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)
http://s49.radikal.ru/i125/0911/ef/92fc82c57a8b.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)
http://s19.radikal.ru/i192/0911/3c/6c818d3f2d5b.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)
http://i074.radikal.ru/0911/de/fdc754b085de.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)
http://s51.radikal.ru/i132/0911/b3/d33587d66e96.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)
http://s40.radikal.ru/i089/0911/9d/e8b04441d1dc.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)
http://i046.radikal.ru/0911/1c/1dfcfab14471.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)
http://s51.radikal.ru/i133/0911/50/5d5b897dff4a.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)
http://s53.radikal.ru/i139/0911/35/0f1f76abbf61.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)


Compare to Brazilian TV anchor, whom I am sure our resident Baltic Russophobes will momentarily seize upon as an example of a "Russian mongrel": :-D

http://s56.radikal.ru/i152/0911/74/81c105d43348.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)

Could a Portuguese-speaking member perhaps translate part of the dialogue?

[lei.talk]

Russian 'Old Believers' in Brazil
http://www.tattoosymbol.com/images/symbols/greek-cross.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers)

[Guararapes]

We call that group as "Russos Brancos", from Santa Cruz, Paraná, and they are a nice group that deserved our protection and refugium, just another exotic group in Brazil, we have thousands of ethnic bizarrices here ;)

http://i712.photobucket.com/albums/ww130/brcity/Parana/Russos/Russos.jpg

[Guararapes]

They arrived in Brazil in 1958 fleeing from communism, they arrived via China and they were political and religious refugees. They are Orthodox Christians and they speak Russian and Portuguese. Thay are farmers and are opening new colonies in the Brazilian agrarian frontiers. They are not allowed to watch TV or listen to the local radio or music because they must keep their traditions and culture. They wear traditional clothes and in the school they have special teachers reading not only Russian but also Greek as a way to understand the old scriptures. They have arranged marriages and they import the brides from distant colonies, even from the United States. A few members have gone out of the community and have married Brazilians outside of the community.

That's it !

Another video of a colony in Mato Grosso, Primavera do Leste, a new agricultural region

1wDAmWH8l40

[kgahe]

Here's the dialogue of the first video translated to English:

Reporter: You’ll now learn about a piece of Russia here in Brazil (animated signs say “here you don’t speak Portuguese”).
Reporter: Fields of sunflowers, men with long beards, women with long dresses, rosy children; Russia is right there, in Montevidiu, in the backwoods of Goias. A Russia of modern machines and computers but of very old clothing, customs and language. The 70 inhabitants of this small Brazilian “Russia” live united by language and especially by religion. They’re all followers of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Man: We are practicing the language more because of the church and the religion as well.
Reporter: The parents of these Russians came to Brazil at the end of the ‘50s, it was the last phase of an escape that began in 1917, with the religious persecution brought on by the Communist Revolution. The Brazilian Russians live in closed groups; on this farm in Ponto Grosso, Parana, they are scared away or even irritated when they notice the presence of journalists.
Man: turn off that machine over there.
Reporter: [and] To film the religious meetings, don’t even think about it. In Goias the reception is much friendlier, but the principles remain rigid.
Man: We don’t keep televisions at home because of music, because of too many liberties on television.
Reporter: Religion is what determines clothing. Like the men’s sweaters, the belts around the children’s waists and the kerchiefs that cover the married women’s heads. But what about the language?
(Reporter asks the girl her name and is told “she doesn’t understand anything). Reporter continues: here the children learn Russian first.
Russian Man: When children are little they have a great ability to learn to speak things, so we speak Russian with the little children, and when they are a certain age they go to school and their they learn Portuguese.
Reporter: But in addition to the official school, the children attend another, very special one. In this classroom you don’t speak Portuguese. Here the children and young people from the community reinforce their Russian learning and also study Greek, which is a fundamental language to learn so they can follow the masses in the Orthodox Church. The teacher was brought from Russia, just to teach lessons in Religion, Russian and Greek. Importing teachers; importing brides. The religion determines that the marriages should be between Orthodox Russians. If there are not brides for all, they work to get them from Russian colonies in other countries.
Russian Woman: I was born in Argentina, lived in the US, and now I’m living here.
Reporter: But will this tradition endure over time?
Russian Man: The desire is that everyone will stay, but there are lots of people who already married to Brazilians, who live….who don’t follow the religion.
Reporter: And if one of the children don’t follow this commandment?
Russian Man: What can we do? I’m going to try to make…to convince them, but unhappily if I’m unable to, I mean, I’m not gonna do anything.

Source: native speaker