Like many today, half of Aaron’s Alaskan adventure is getting there. In 1829, Aaron Katz fled his home in the Russian ‘Pale of Settlement’ to his father in Siberia. Not a place he could survive, Aaron travels on to Russia-Alaska. In his vast journeys, he becomes a Russian Naval officer, a merchant, and one who wrestles with life and the diverse cultures of people in the Last Frontier. This is a Russian-Alaskan life and one from nearly two hundred years ago that reminds us to study for our own sake.
Beginnings
Our story begins in a small thatch-roofed house on the edge of Lutsk. In the spring of 1829, it was Russian, though newly acquired Russian land since the division of Poland. Lutsk straddles the Styr River, which flows to the Dnieper and then the Black Sea. Like many rivers in this part of the world, it watered rich farmlands with few barriers on the endless Eurasian steppe.
Chelm Street was a street behind the main road leading north to Mylushi, which followed the bends of the Styr. Along the Mylushi Road, in this part of Lutsk, one could find stone or brick homes. The few citizens who had money wanted others to know. Being set back, Chelm Street did not have such citizens as many were not citizens.
Lutsk was within ‘The Pale of Settlement.’ When Russia annexed the land, the people were a mixed bunch, but mostly not followers of Russian Orthodoxy, not citizens. Partially as a buffer, partially to assimilate, Jews were forcibly moved to the Pale. With hardly any economic prospects, life in the Pale was a struggle. The waves of poor Jewish exiles from the Russian Empire created much talk in the markets, synagogues, and homes.
Our thatch-roofed house had constant visitors. During the summers, the moter (Zelde) would sit with her friends out back under the summer kitchen awning. A well nearby was shared by her two neighbors, her milking cow, and her son (Aaron). On this north side of the house, you would hear talk. “I heard the Zemnovs are moving. This town is losing some of its best people. What are we to do?” Zelde would spend as much time as she could with her friends as her life was busy being the only parent at home.
Her husband, Joseph, had been gone for over two years. Her eldest, Joshua, had left not long after her husband, following him east. “East! G.. forbid!” Joseph followed Lord Muravyov, a Decembrist, who was lucky to be alive. Their years fighting Napoleon and occupying France had forged a lifelong bond. Lord Muravyov, who knew a thousand soldiers, picked Joseph to be by his side. It was because of Joseph’s people skills, his ability to smash through obstacles, to find solutions in the middle of disasters. More importantly, it was his ability to speak so many of the needed languages: Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, Yiddish, Lithuanian, German, and most importantly for Lord Muravyov: French.
One cannot talk about Decembrists without understanding the impact of the French, their ideals, and the years Russians, like Lord Muravyov and Joseph, spent occupying France where they were steeped in these new ideas of ‘Liberty.’ When Lord Muravyov and Joseph returned to Lutsk, they joined the new ‘Union of Salvation.’ Together, they worked their connections, spreading the ideas of ‘Constitutional Monarchy’ and the ‘End of Serfdom.’ Within time, their ideas did spread but landed them in one of Earth’s most foreboding pits of despair: Siberia.
