Crowdsourcing Rusyn places in the US

Rusyns may not be a well-known ethnic group, but we have quite a presence if you know where to look. This is especially evident in the Northeastern US, where many onion-domed churches were founded by Rusyn immigrants in the late 1800s or early 1900s.

I always look for Rusyn sites when I'm traveling, and have seen quite a few Facebook posts asking for Rusyn points of interest in Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA), for example. After a quick poll to gauge interest and participation, I started a collaborative Google Map that we could use to map Rusyn places in the US. In under a week, we already had an impressive collection of points on the map!


Data in this map is organized into several layers:

• Rusyn Places in the US - This is the layer most people will view and/or edit. 
• Blue points indicate a Rusyn place of interest
• Brown points indicate a Rusyn-style wooden church (more on that later)
• Former Rusyn Places in the US - This layer contains places that have a Rusyn history and have been repurposed, closed, or demolished.  
• Gray points indicate a place that is no longer used by Rusyns, but still has significance (architectural, cornerstone, etc.)
• Black points indicate a place that no longer has any Rusyn significance or has been demolished. These points still provide context for the extent of a former Rusyn community 
• Needs More Info - This layer includes places that are too vague to be useful or may be Rusyn but aren't confirmed (by sources or colloquial knowledge). 
• Red points were identified either during my review of newly added points or in my own research, and require additional digging. 
• Rusyn Places in Canada - This layer includes two Rusyn-style wooden churches in Canada because they were too interesting to leave off the map, and are very close to the Northeastern US.
• Russian Brotherhood Organization Lodges (-1959) - This layer includes towns that had a RBO lodge before 1959, as listed on the Rusyns of PA blog. This layer provides places for me to investigate for additional Rusyn communities and places that I may not have found otherwise.
• Green points are placed on the town, as these lodges often didn't have addresses of their own and met in churches or other businesses.
  

Findings

Not surprisingly, churches and cemeteries are most of the mark we've left on the US over the past 136 years*. I did find some fun things though:

• Monuments (a giant Campbell's Soup can signed by Andy Warhol, a statue of baseball player Stan Musial)
• Roads named for individuals or an entire group of people (Lemko Way, Olyphant, PA)
• A park (named for former Manville, NJ mayor George Papawick)

Of course, Rusyns need their pirogi, so I included a number of Eastern European restaurants in Rusyn areas, along with the famously Rusyn Baba's Pirogies in Brooklyn, and a future Rusyn restaurant in Johnstown, PA.

Take one look at the map and you'll notice that most of the Rusyn places in PA are in NEPA or near Pittsburgh. There are a significant amount of Rusyn places in NJ and OH as well. I also learned more about a number of Rusyn outposts in less likely places, like Hartshorne, OK and Brookside, AL. Rusyns migrated from the Northeastern US to Hartshorne and Brookside for job opportunities in the mines.

The most exciting find though, is a number of Rusyn-style wooden churches in the US and Ontario, Canada! Who knew?!? Here's the list, so far:

If you know of any that I missed, please comment below!

Idea for a Road Trip

I'm still stuck at home, trying to stay safe during a global pandemic. I'm not sure when I'll get to do this road trip, but I can dream... I used MapQuest's route planner again and came up with this route. I can visit all of the Rusyn-style wooden churches in the Northeast in 26 hours of driving!


I excluded the two in Ontario, Canada, since Canada is not letting Americans (or any other foreign nationals) in during the pandemic**. I also excluded the church in Georgia, because it is so far from the rest of the churches. I'll have to save that for another trip.

Sources

I cited my sources in each point on the map. If there's no comment in the map point, it was a suggestion by someone in the Facebook group, or was added by a user. For further reading, check out these links:

• Rusyns of Pennsylvania blog
• Kubek Project blog
• Carpatho-Rusyns Everywhere Facebook Group  
• Lemko Rusyns and Friends (Лемкы-Русины з приятелями) Facebook Group

* St Michael's in Shenandoah was the first Rusyn church in the US. It was built in 1884 and demolished in 2015. The congregation still exists, and has a newer church building that they've used for many years.
** I don't blame them. The US has some work to do, as infection numbers are skyrocketing again.

Norwegian Stave Churches

As part of my recent trip to Norway last August I was fortunate enough to visit a number of stave churches. I'm not going to provide a lot of background information here; you can find that on a number of other websites.  So for now we'll just say that stave churches are medieval wooden church buildings, and though there used to be 1300+ scattered around Norway, there are only about 30 that remain today.

Any good blog needs a map, so here's a map of the remaining stave churches:

View Stavkirker in a larger map
The stave churches I'll be discussing in this post (ie: the ones I visited) are:

• Hopperstad
• Øye
• Hegge
• Høre
• Lomen
• Reinli 
• Gol

Hopperstad
My group was driving from Bergen to Vang when we saw our first stave church.  We were on a pretty tight schedule, so we didn't get to go inside.  I quickly purchased a book about stave churches, took a few photos, and hopped back in the van.  Onward.







Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopperstad_Stave_Church
Year Built: 1131 (Source: stavkirke.info)

Øye
Before setting out on our activities of the day, we decided to stop by the Øye stave church.  Located just outside of Vang, where we stayed at the Bøflaten campground for a few days, I was hoping I'd finally have the opportunity to go inside one of these awesome structures.  Unfortunately, the Øye church was closed that day, so we could only admire it from outside.  Still impressive!





Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Øye_stave_church
Year Built: Around 1200 (Source: stavkirke.info)

Hegge
The stave church tour continued for part of our group (the injured few), while the rest of the group hiked Besseggen.  On our self-guided tour (ie: geography nerds in a van with a map!) we found the Hegge stave church, which features a carved figure that resembled the Norse god Odin!  Hegge is just one of many stave churches which incorporates pagan and Christian elements into a single building.  We struck out again; Hegge was not open for tours on the day of our visit.



Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegge_stave_church
Year Built: 1216 (Source: stavkirke.info)

Høre
Next up on the self-guided tour was the Høre stave church.  The next day, with the entire group present, we returned to Høre.  I gave a short lecture to my classmates on stave churches, their history, their preservation, and their geography in the cemetery beside the church.  There is no better place to learn about and discuss such structures.









Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Høre_stave_church
Year Built: 1180 (Source: stavkirke.info)

Lomen
The last stave church in the area was Lomen.  The road to the church was a little tricky to find.  A few wrong turns and iffy multi-point-turns on narrow roads and private driveways, and we figured out where to park.  The church had beautiful carved portals around the entrances.





Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomen_stave_church
Year Built: 1192 (Source: stavkirke.info)

Reinli
FINALLY, a stave church we can tour!!  Our guide was an older Norwegian woman, who shared some of the church's history with us.  There is an old manual organ from the 1800s, and our guide actually let two people from our group play it!  Then she proceeded to sing us an old Norwegian folk song, a cappella, so we could hear the acoustics of the building.  Incredible!  Back at the church's office/store she let us hold the church's original key from the year 1023.  A replica is used to open the church today.











Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinli_Stave_Church
Year Built: 1326 (Source: stavkirke.info)

Gol
Gol was much less impressive after our tour of Reinli.  There were no awesome Norwegian ladies singing folk songs to us at Gol, and there were TONS of tourists.  I find it interesting that the Gol stave church was moved from its original location to the Norsk Folkemuseum / Norwegian Museum of Cultural History in the late 1800s, after its original village replaced it with a more modern church, and the King purchased it with the intent of preserving it.  Since the church is in a museum, rather than a historic building being preserved within a small community, I felt more comfortable taking interior photographs.  I did take photos in the Reinli stave church, but I was a little uncomfortable doing so.  Anyway, here are my photos from Gol:









Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Stave_Church
Year Built: 1216 (Source: stavkirke.info)


Odds and Ends

The UNESCO site references 1300+ stave churches that have been "indexed".  I'd love to map the locations of former stave churches, but I can't find much information on the buildings or their locations.  When UNESCO says "indexed", I think they may be referring to sites mentioned in a collection of sources (folk stories, old literature, etc), rather than an actual list that someone has compiled of these sources.

As we visited each stave church, I searched for the oldest headstone I could find.  I was hoping I'd find something from the 1300s, but the oldest headstones were from the mid- or early-1800s.  What's the deal?! Apparently, Norway lets you have your cemetery plot for free for 20 years.  Someone (family, estate, friend, organization) needs to sponsor it after the 20 years are up, or else they'll reuse it for someone more recently dead.  While it  may be a creepy thought, this article brings a lot more creepy thoughts to mind: Grave Problem, Nothing is Rotting in the State of Norway.