Mennonite Weekly Review

SEREBULAK, Uzbekistan — At a Muslim mosque in present-day Uzbekistan, Johann Jantzen baptized Jacob Klaassen in the winter of 1882.

A descendant of Mennonites, left, shares pictures of her mother in her Johannesdorf home in present-day Bakai-Ata, Kyrgyzstan. With her are tour guides Marina Allayarova and Olga Shin. — Photo by John Sharp

Recently, descendants of the two men and members of a North American tour group visited that mosque, recounted the story and reflected on the uncommon hospitality of the Muslim villagers of Serebulak.

Serebulak was one stop on a May 25-June 9 tour tracing the Great Trek of Mennonites from Ukraine to what is now Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in the 1880s. The tour was similar to one in 2007 led by Jim Juhnke and Sharon Eicher of Bethel College.

Both tour groups explored the stories of Mennonite-Muslim interaction in Tashkent, Bukhara, Khiva and Ak Metchet, Uzbekistan.

In Ak Metchet, the imam prays a springtime prayer of blessing on the year’s crops. He performs the ritual on the site of the former Mennonite cemetery — recognition of the fruitful agricultural practices Mennonites brought in 1884. These positive stories have relevance for current Christian-Muslim conversations.

The tour group, organized by TourMagination, also visited the Talas Valley in modern Bakai-Ata, Kyrgyzstan, 150 miles northeast of Bukhara, Uzbekistan. This valley was the destination of the Abraham Peters wagon train from Molotchna colony, later joined by others from the khanate of Khiva.

In 1880-81, five wagon trains of Mennonites from Molotchna and Am Trakt colonies in European Russia braved hot desert sands and cold rugged mountains in the journey to Central Asia. They traveled the ancient Silk trading routes seeking a new homeland where they could escape czarist military conscription, find new economic opportunities, educate their children and prepare for the millennial rule of Christ, which they believed was imminent.

They founded several stable communities in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, where they shared new agricultural products and new technologies with their Muslim neighbors. More than a century later, Mennonites are remembered by villagers in Ak Metchet for their nonviolent practices, frugal economics and generous wages.

In the old walled city of Khiva, an emerging museum to open in 2009 will feature the culture and craftsmanship of Mennonites, who crafted windows, doors and a parquet floor for Nurullabai, a palace for Khan Muhammad Rahim II.

In the Talas Valley the memory of Mennonites is also alive. There the tour group found descendants of Mennonites — one still living in a sturdy Mennonite-built house, a cemetery with common German and North American Mennonite names, and an art museum featuring the work of Theodore Hertzen (Goertzen), a highly regarded German artist and a son of Mennonite parents. He was educated at Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and the Moscow Institutes of Art.