The Great Trek of the Russian Mennonites to Central Asia, 1880-1884, Fred Richard Belk, 1976

this to be a bad omen. Three days passed and nothing hap- pened. Then eight days after the encounter, on September 8, seven sword-carrying soldiers arrived to inform them that they did not have permission to trespass on Bukharan soil and must return to Russia immediately. Even though a noon meal had been prepared, their wagons had been disassembled, and a young child, Anetha Fast, had died that very morning, the officers insisted impatiently that they pack up without delay. Fires were extinguished, the Fast child was gently placed in her parents wagon, and wheels were thrown hurriedly and haphazardly into the wagon.’ Then the officials, their swords and turbans glinting in the sun, personally escorted the wagon train back across the border to the small Sart village of Serabulak. In- congruous with their harsh expulsion of the emigrants, the soldiers delighted in giving the small children candy. Ordering the local natives to treat the Mennonites well, they returned to the bek to report. Forced to return to Russian soil the brethren set up camp in gloom and despair. Promptly the next morning, two brethren went the eight miles to Katakurgan to consult friendly Russian officials about their plight. The sympathetic officers, knowing that it was now illegal to receive them after their determination to leave and their signatures having been affixed to documents in Samarkand, tried to placate them with stories of a tract of neutral land that might be- come their home. This tract lay along the border between Bukhara and Russian Turkestan and belonged to two Samarkand mosques. Here, they suggested, the Mennonites could live peacefully in a ““no-man’s- land” unmolested by Russia or Bukhara. Promising the two Menno- nites that they would approach officials in Samarkand about arrange- ments, the Russian officers excused themselves, and the men returned to Serabulak. After conferring with the entire group, it was decided not to rely solely upon the Russian officials but to send their own delegation to Samarkand. On September 20, Hermann Jantzen, Gerhard Esau, and Cornelius W. Penner left for the Russian Embassy in Samarkand to draw up a contract or lease agreement. Prior to their departure, they had learned that the khan of Bukhara must also agree to any lease or contract. Since he was gone on a trip, the Russian officials, they thought, could notify him later. While the three men were absent on their mission to Samarkand, those remaining in Serabulak were No-Man’s-Land: Between Khan and Czar 119 notified that the khan had said they would not be permitted to cross into Bukhara border territory under any circumstances; they would be shot if they tried to trespass in his country. He did not care what the Russians decided about them. '! Despite this attitude of the khan of Bukhara, the representatives of the Mennonites concluded a lease agreement in Samarkand. With- out consulting the khan, the landowners and t