Russian Refuge: Religion, Migration and Settlement on the North American Pacific Rim

In 1987, when victims of religious persecution were finally allowed to leave Russia, a flood of immigrants landed on the Pacific shores of North America. By the end of 1992, over 200,000 Jews and Christians had resettled in a land where they had only recently been considered the enemy . Russian Refuge is a comprehensive account of the Russian immigrant experience in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and British Columbia since the first settlements over two hundred years ago. Susan Hardwick focuses on six little-studied Christian groups - Baptists, Pentecostals, Molokans, Doukhobors, Old Believers, and Orthodox believers - to study the role of religion in their decisions to emigrate and in their adjustment to American culture. The book also has narratives from 260 personal interviews.