Visit to Maksim G. Rudometkin's Clan and PrisonJohn
Novikoff and Jim Klubnikin visit Fioletovo and Suzdal Monestary
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| My name is John M.
Novikoff and I am originally from the LA area, the "Flats".
My uncle John John Klubnikin operated the original Klubnikin's Market
and Bakery where I often helped out. I
presently live in Savannah GA (for the last 33 years) in retirement
with my wife, Margot. My father Michael John Novikoff came from Kars
while my mother was Hazel Bukeroff from Guadalupe, Mexico, Baja. I
always wanted to visit my father's homeland. I visited Fioletovo, Armenia, in November of 2002 with my cousin Jim Klubnik (shortened from Klubnikin) also from LA. We were greeted and invited into the Rudemyetkin home for a visit. I took a few pictures while we were there. Why were we there? Both of us are missionaries with an evangelical church and formerly from the Molokan community in LA. Jim teaches in Kiev and Moscow while I am a volunteer missionary for a small group called the Mission for Biblical Literacy operating out of Atlanta, GA. I wanted to see one of the villages from whence my family came from. The people you see (below right) are descendants of Maksim Gavarilovich Rudomyetkin. The house they live in is the same house, I am told, that MGR lived in from the time he left prison at Suzdal monestary in Russia to come to Nikitino (now Fioletovo). I am sorry I do not have names except for the younger woman at the table. She is Evdokiia Rudomyetkina. The children in the front posing with her mother-in-law are hers, I believe. There is not a lot I can say, but it was quite an experience just to be there for the five or six hours we spent in that village. More about this trip is published on the Mission for Biblical Literacy website. Many of the articles have more to do with our work with orphans in Russia, and my Pastoral Care courses to missionaries and pastors in Armenia. In 2004, I had the opportunity to visit Suzdal Monastary the prison where MGR spent a few years. Click here to see photos of the Suzdal Monastary and what I learned there. Also read: Making Connections, by John Novikoff Published in Faith at Work, 2001 Welcome Home "... in Omsk. In the church there, I not only shared my witness, but my experience growing up in the Molokan church. I recalled that, as a little boy, I was placed on a small bench that served as a pew where I stood so that I could be at arms length for passing believers who came by, picked me up, and kissed me (the "Holy kiss"). It wasn't too bad when women kissed me but it was the men that turned me off. Why? Because they wore beards as a religious custom and it was not so much that they had a beard that turned me off, but that occasionally I would see strands of soup that was caught in the beard as they held me close. Ugh! I told this story in that Baptist church and, to my great surprise, at the end of the service about 12 men (some bearded) suddenly came forward through the crowd. Before I knew it, they embraced with a bear hug and planted a kiss right on my lips (customary male behavior in Russia)! These were some old Molokans who were giving me a Molokan welcome right on the smacker! Yes, I was at home!" The Rev. and Mrs. John Novikoff Sr. celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2002. The couple were married Nov. 16, 1952, at First Baptist Church of Woodland Hills, California. The Rev. Novikoff, a native of Los Angeles, did undergraduate studies at Biola Bible College, La Mirada, CA [now Biola University]; then moved to Oklahoma where he received his M.Div. [Masters in Divinity] from Phillips Graduate Seminary. While he was a pastor, he served with the Georgia Army National Guard as a brigade chaplain and later as a hospital chaplain. He was director of the alcohol and drug treatment clinic at Tidelands Community Mental Health Center, retiring in 1991. He was an Army and Air Force veteran. Currently he is the Sr. Project Minister for Russia/Armenia Mission for Biblical Literacy, Inc. Mrs. Novikoff of St. Louis, MO, received a master's degree in education from Armstrong/Savannah State University and worked with the Psycho-Educational Center as a special education teacher, retiring in 1990, due to a disability, cerebellum ataxia — diagnosed as SCA-6, spino-cerebellum ataxia on the sixth chromosome -- a neurological disorder that resembles MS, but is a much more severe illness for which there is no known treatment. John is her primary care giver. The Novikoffs have two sons, John Jr. of Tampa, Fla., and Andrew of Seattle, a third son, Matthew, died when he was 11. They also have a grandson. |
 Filoletovo in 2002   John and Jim  Maksim Gavorilovich Rudomyetkin's house in Fioletovo. See another photo of this house taken from the other side, where the family below is standing. (History of Caucasian Molokans and Dukhobors, by Ivan Iakov. Semyenov, Erevan 2001. Photo 5.)  Women working the fields. The main street (below).     Some of the Rudomyetkin clan   Evdokiia Rudomyetkina (center) with husband and mother |
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Molokans and Jumeprs Around the World