A decade after 18,000 Mennonites left their homes in South Russia (today’s Ukraine) in the 1870s, heading westward to North America, more than 140 families consisting of about 1,000 people looked to the East for divine opportunity in Uzbekistan.

The loss of their cherished military exemption in 1870 motivated most emigrants from the Russian Empire. But in the typical Mennonite retelling of migrations to Central Asia in the 1880s, the mystery and intrigue of end-times prophecies often shroud the primary motivation and make Claas Epp Jr. the central figure.

Most recently, Sofia Samatar pulled Epp to the center of her widely acclaimed 2022 memoir, The White Mosque. It is not surprising that she should choose the charismatic and colorful Epp as the key personality of her story. But writing in a 1913 Mennonitische Rundschau article a few months after Epp’s death, Uzbek migration leader Emil Riesen made the case that Epp was not the spark plug nor the movement’s organizer.

In the village of Ak Metchet, Uzbekistan, today, Mennonites — who lived there from 1884 to 1935 — are remembered for nonviolence, harmony with Muslim neighbors and craftsmanship. Locals know nothing of the Mennonites’ internal debates over leadership, power and the timing of the Second Coming.

I returned Sept. 30 from a tour to Uzbekistan managed by TourMagina­tion. This was my sixth visit since Bethel College professors James C. Juhnke and Sharon Eicher led an exploratory tour in 2007. They opened new doors that continue to surprise, enrich our understanding and strengthen relationships between modern Mennonites and host communities in Uzbekistan.

Imagine our surprise when the family of Sunnat and Sofia Karimov gave us a spirited welcome Sept. 23 to Zirabulak, known to 1880s trekkers as Serabulak. Children with flowers and young adults playing instruments greeted us at this village where 140 years ago a ragtag bunch of wagon-training Mennonites enjoyed villagers’ generosity.

In the winter of 1881-82, villagers shared their mosque, Kyk Ota (Green or Blue Grandfather). Three or four families lived in the mosque, which became the sacred venue for 21 baptisms, several funerals and a double wedding. Minister Jacob Toews performed the marriage ritual for his son Heinrich and Anna Wiebe and for her brother Bernard, who married Katarina Graewe.

Our host Sunnat Karimov told us his ancestor killed a fatted goat to celebrate the occasion — an expression of Muslim and Uzbek hospitality. The research of Donna Kampen Entz on this tour and that of writer/translator Irene Plett in South Surrey, B.C., confirmed the identities of the two couples.

Making yet another connection to Zirabulak history, tour member Harold Fast identified his family’s experience there. His great-grandfather’s uncle Gerhard Fast was among the trekkers that fall and winter. Gerhard and Katherina’s infant daughter Agnetha died from “black smallpox” and on Sept. 21, 1881, was buried in the cemetery behind the mosque. To honor Fast, Karimov presented him with a traditional robe and cap, then embraced him as a brother.

We learned that when Mennonites moved on to Bukhara that spring, Karimov’s ancestor uncovered the Mennonites’ money he had buried for safekeeping and hired a village rider to deliver it by back alleys at night to prevent theft by Russian soldiers. Moreover, the ancestor added his own money to the hidden treasure to “help them along.” Why? Because caring for aliens and strangers is the teaching of the Prophet and a common Uzbek practice.

The past is important here, but so is the future. Changes are in the making. The area fronting the mosque has been upgraded and groomed. A much larger mosque is rising next to it to accommodate the growing village and increasing number of pilgrims seeking the healing waters of the ancient Sufi mystic of Kyk Ota. The current mosque will be preserved as a historical monument.

After visiting the famed Silk Road cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, we reached our destination, the walled inner city of Khiva and the nearby site of Ak Metchet, the former Mennonite village.

Inside the fortification, we visited the Mennonite Museum, met the new administrator and greeted its aging founder, Azat Karimov, who with James Juhnke, now Bethel professor emeritus of history, and the late educator and historian Robert S. Kreider forged a partnership with Kauffman Museum in North Newton, Kan. Karimov moves slowly, with cane in hand.

Eight miles south of Khiva, we encounter Ak Metchet, where for half a century (1884-1935) Mennonites lived in harmony with Muslim neighbors. Here also, surprising changes are afoot. A new sign with text in four languages celebrates peaceful coexistence. New fruit trees flourish. A new shelter protects us from the blazing sun.

The several structures that once housed Soviet youth campers have been revitalized and decorated to serve as a preschool. Yet to come are a museum, hotel, restaurant and more. Yes, it is becoming a tourist destination.

And, yes, I have mixed feelings. The development is changing the landscape. It will monetize the experience of Mennonites who once thrived here. It will also be a permanent telling of the story, more attractive than the single water well, the only remaining sign of Mennonite presence.

The once-living remnant, a pear tree we looked for each time we came, is dead. The cemetery of some 50 graves has been farmed over. The houses Mennonites built are no more. The whitewashed schoolhouse and a meetinghouse, labeled the white mosque, are gone.

A local entrepreneur, manager of a company that has purchased the site for development, is the enthusiastic promoter of the project. “We will keep telling this important story,” he assures us.

After 51 productive years, the Mennonite settlement of Ak Metchet came to a dramatic end on April 15, 1935. The people had refused multiple orders to form a collective farm. Ten leaders had been imprisoned, tried and sentenced to death. 

When trucks arrived to transport the 10 families to exile, women led a vigorous protest. With their children, they flocked to the trucks, filling the cabs and truck beds, lying prone on the ground in front of the tires and chanting, “All or none! Take all of us or none of us!”

The drivers walked away, but in a few days the Soviets returned with enough vehicles for them all, including the 10 leaders, whose sentences were changed to hard labor. A barren plain in Tajikistan awaited the Ak Metchet Mennonites. 

And now, another door has opened for me with the invitation to explore the site of the desolate Village No. 7 in Kumsangir, Tajikistan, south of the capital city of Dushanbe and a few miles north of the Afghan border. Many died there under harsh conditions. But some survived, including Traugott Quiring and Sarah Quiring, whom I interviewed in 2010 in Bielefeld, Germany. What stories remain among those who now live in this place of exile?

John E. Sharp of Hesston, Kan., is a retired Hesston College history and Bible professor, now leading TourMagination tours to Uzbekistan and Europe and writing a history of the Arthur, Ill., Amish settlement.