Photograph: Synagogue

European Jews

Minsk province, city Pinsk

1882-1884

Art Department of the State Russian Museum

Albumen print

5,5 x 9; 6,5 x 10,5

РЭМ 5391-31

From the album “Views of the City of Pinsk.” Today, Pinsk is a district center of Minsk Province… The civilian population of today’s Pinsk consists of Christians and Jews… The Jews are subdivided into traditional ones, i.e. Talmudists or “old believers” as they call themselves, and Hasids, also known as Kitaevtsy (Chinamen) and jumpers… The Jews of Pinsk are extremely strange Jews. For instance, there are hardly fewer educated people among them than among Odessa’s Jews. Many of them have been abroad several times, they run large trade businesses with Europe, they speak several European languages, there are even philosophy students among them, but nevertheless they do not show any desire to appear as Europeans... On the contrary, they are proud of their “old-fashioned attitudes.” They wear long coats down to their ankles, side-locks, and velvet yarmulkes; they do not eat meat at a Christian table; they do not drink many common sorts of wine; they not only strictly adhere to all the rites prescribed by teachers of Judaism, but even have retained, in the strangest manner, many superstitious rites that cannot be seen in Berdichev, or in Belaya Tserkov, or in any other capital of the Jews… (N. S. Leskov, “From a Travel Diary”).