A Trip to the Mission in Magadan

by Peter Schafer, Diocese of Monterey

Some 12 years ago when I was at Holy Eucharist Parish in Corralitos, I heard Father David Means give a talk about Mission to Magadan. The Mission is an outreach of the Archdiocese of Anchorage to the Catholic church of the Nativity of Jesus in Magadan, in far eastern Russia. Father David is an American who joined another American priest, Father Michael Shields of Anchorage in his calling to “Go Pray in the Camps.” The unique characteristic of the city of Magadan is that it existed first as a Concentration Camp or GULAG, where Joseph Stalin sent innocent prisoners, usually foreigners from Soviet satellite countries to perform slave labor. After Stalin’s death and the subsequent dismantling of the Camps, the prison population, soldiers, and those involved with the infrastructure became the City of Magadan.

I was so drawn to the ministries of the Church of the Nativity, especially their outreach to the Repressed, that I wanted to visit. To my surprise, Father Michael, the pastor, said yes. I wanted to interview the Repressed, the survivors of GULAG and their families. In addition, I wanted to see firsthand all of the parish activities, Magadan, the Camps, and the Russian people and culture. For three weeks in September and October of this past year, that wish came true.

The day after I arrived, we harvested potatoes. Yes, Russians eat a lot of potatoes. I had potatoes prepared 20 different ways in 20 days, mostly in delicious soups. We also had a lot of fish, especially salmon. These two staples were homemade. Father Michael did not spend money on himself or the staff frivolously. He saw donations as a gift from God which he always used prudently but always shared with the poor. I learned that fruit was expensive (almost as expensive as here) so I would buy bananas almost every day for the staff and those visiting the Church at lunch or tea time. It was a big hit and 2-3 or even 5 kilograms of bananas would be devoured in one day. Eight dollars for bananas was not really affordable in a place where a poor person’s income would be about $160 per month.

Above Magadan, the Mask of Sorrows is a constant reminder to all of the sad history of the camps and of the young lives stolen from the unfortunate victims. With the help of two American priests and an American Daughter of Charity, Sister Jean Marie Williams, I was able to interview several of the Repressed.  

Branislava Klemavitchute, one of the bravest survivor’s I met, spent eight years in the camps cutting wood at temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees. She made a rosary out of bread crumbs, and hid it from the guards.  

Sofiya Kononenko built roads and dug ditches for 10 years and was proud to be the cleaning lady for the mayor of Magadan. Although most Repressed have little and live in one-room apartments called Khrushchev’s (after Nikita Khrushchev), they were very gracious hosts. Sofiya insisted that I take two cloths that she had hand embroidered to give to my wife.  

82-year-old Anna Petrichko was part of the Ukrainian roundup and spent part of her nine years of imprisonment working in a munitions factory. She agreed to have her picture taken only after changing her scarf.

Each of these survivors had a different story, but each story was one of suffering and terror. Invariably when I would ask them “why” they were arrested, punished, or tortured, they had no answer. After several interviews, I realized that there was no answer. They were tortured because the repressive Stalinist regime had the power and the desire to do so. One of the worst torture treatments discussed by the Repressed was the use of Ice Caves as torture chambers. Four prisoners would huddle on a wooden pallet inches above solid ice. When one would die, the body was moved to the outside of the pallet to insulate those on the inside. When I asked why the prisoners were not simply shot to death rather than slowly tortured to death, the answer I got was that it was done to harden the guards.

The priests spend the first and last hour of each day in front of the Blessed Sacrament. This is the spiritual fuel they use to minister to the people of the “Camps” where alcoholism, abortion, and broken marriages are the norm. During my visit, I witnessed the baptism of two children both of whom had been rescued from abortion through the intervention of Fr. Michael and the Nativity of Jesus Parish. The fathers of both children had abandoned her when she made the decision to keep her children. In Magadan, life is tough, and men are afraid of mouths they may not be able to feed. Now, the Parish will have to help the young, abandoned mother with financial support.

I met the Daughters of Charity, associated with the Church of the Nativity, who have recently volunteered to help the poor in Magadan. It is a special “arrangement” of one American nun and three Polish nuns. They bring a special love of the poor and a new “humanization” to Magadan where life has not counted for much in the past. They witnessed a healing of one young lady who could not even look at or talk to her mother who was dying of throat cancer. After cleaning up the mother and the house, the daughter was able to sit down and talk to her mother. The following morning mother passed away full of the love that the sisters had brought to her.

One of the most precious moments I experienced was with the children of Ola, a small town about one hour from Magadan. Once per week the children gather at an apartment building where the chapel and classroom are located. No adults brought them. Probably, no adults even cared. The children simply walked there by themselves and brought the very young ones along with them. The children stayed for Mass following bible school. It was probably the highlight of their week and I could see in their eyes the trust they had in Father Michael.

One Sunday, Fr. Milosh and Sisters Beata and Malgorzata invited me to go hiking with them along the beach. One the way, I found a rock in the perfect shape of a heart. I have often thought, if that rock could talk, what stories it could tell. The ships full of slave laborers that docked there. The death marches. Those abandoned to die along the way. The courage of the prisoners and an occasional kindness from a guard. The excitement when Stalin finally died. The mass exodus from the Camps and the economic hardships for the survivors. The even greater hardships at the collapse of the Soviet Union. All those stories up until the time I picked it up. If only rocks could talk. I believe finding that rock was God’s way of telling me that His Heart is in Magadan. Yes, God is everywhere. But in Magadan, among the priests and sisters and people, I found Him to be more present to me.