From the 1880s through to the 1930s, just an hour by horse from Khiva, lived a colony of German Mennonites, worlds apart culturally from the inhabitants around them. Various European travellers experienced their Germanic hospitality and marvelled at this little island of austere Christian values in the middle of the Khiva Khanate. As pacifists the Mennonite community had been forced to leave Prussia and had sought sanctuary in Russia until the Tsar too expected national service from them. General Kaufmann, a Russian of German descent himself, took pity on the community and arranged for them to travel to Central Asia where, he assured the Tsar, they would help civilise the newly-acquired Khanates and Emirates.

'Okh Mejid today'

Ella Maillart, a French Swiss journalist, visited the Mennonite colony in 1932, just a few years before it was forcibly dissolved. One of their Elders, Otto Theuss, explained their background to her.

'Our sect was founded in Holland by Menno Simons at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It grouped together those who believed in the doctrines of the Anabaptists, and were opposed to violence, war, and the temporal powers. Almost immediately we had converts at Zyrich and Basel. There are half a million of us around the world. These are our precepts: never touch a weapon, never take an oath, because our 'yes' must be 'yes'; and receive baptism only after truly comprehending and believing.
There was an occasion when the King of Poland had us brought from Friesland to come and drain the Danzig marshes. Later, after the revolution of 1848, military service was made compulsory for every male Prussian. Then we demanded asylum from the Tsar for about a hundred of our families. We already had Prussian colonies in Russia, but, thanks to the railway train, the last to arrive were able to bring many things from home with them.
According to our writings, we knew that our migration towards the East was not yet finished. In 1881 there was a proclamation making Russian military service compulsory throughout Russia. Then, under the protection of General Kaufmann, the Governor of Turkestan, and with the promise of new lands and guarantees of liberty and conscience, we left the Volga on July 3, 1880 to journey to Tashkent. Ten thousand of our people also set out for America!
We passed the winter near Tashkent, and some of us settled down in Aulie Ata. In 1881 Alexander II was assassinated, Kaufmann had a stroke, and nothing had yet been set down in writing regarding us.
We made up our minds to crave asylum from the Emir of Bukhara, and set off again, passing through Samarkand. Some of us saw strange customs being practised in the yurts: they were amazed to see camel flesh being eaten and that only one bowl did service for a whole gathering. To cut up a sheep, they first blow into the skin through a hole in one of the legs, and so microbes were spread.
The local begs were not of the same mind as the Emir, and to make a long story short, it was the Khan of Khiva who gave us a grant of land.
The Khan wanted the service of our carpenters, some of whom were very skilful, to polish up his floors and woodwork; through them he learnt that the Turkomans had robbed us of our cattle and horses. He sent some dziguites (soldiers) to protect us, and it was then that we were granted Okh Metchet where there were already 139 apricot trees.'

'Our beginnings here were very difficult,' recalled the retired schoolmaster of the community during Ella Maillart's visit. 'We got here with absolutely no money. We sold little lanterns of our own manufacture in the market, at eighty kopeks each, and then socks and blouses. One of us mended the Khan's phonograph. He likes transfers very much so we stuck them on all the articles of furniture we made for him. As I knew Uzbek, I was always responsible for negotiations with the officials. At the time of the coronation of Nicholas II, where he rented a palace for three hundred roubles a month. When the Tsarina asked him what he thought of Moscow, he said he felt more comfortable in his rabbit run at Khiva! The Khan liked us better than his subjects and presented us with khalats when we had to appear at his Court. He was prepared to pay me heavily if I would become a Muslim.'

The only surviving pear tree from the colony. It is still producing fruit today.

Against the odds, and with sheer grit and determination, the colony built a small Germanic village for themselves. Henry Landsdell, an English missionary who travelled through Central Asia in 1885, had been surprised to discover a community of Christians already in existence in Khorezm. By 1899, the community was well established and British cyclist Jefferson enjoyed a welcome taste of Europe, having taken a distinct dislike to Khivan society.
The reaction to the new colony by local people had been a mixture of bafflement and admiration. The resourceful Germans brought with them a whole host of skills, as yet unknown in Khiva, which included glassblowing, photography and horticulture. Their cows were reputed to give more milk than local cows and they were also the first to introduce to Khorezm the culinary wonders of the potato, cucumber and tomato, providing an alternative to an unremitting diet of plov.
They quickly gained a reputation for their scrupulous honesty, a quality that few of the local population had any desire to emulate. Their strong, stubborn Germanic streak ensured an unwavering commitment to Mennonite values and their German culture. A mystery to the local population, they would keep their own special days and turn up, all of a sudden, in their Sunday best. Despite their fastidious cleanliness they were known to enjoy pork, meat of an unclean animal, although the Khan had given them land only on the condition that they did not rear pigs for fifty years.
Feruz Khan, who granted the colony permission to settle in Okh Majit, and his son Isfandir were enamoured with European culture, having visited Russia as guests of the Tsar. Not only did the Germans make good translators, they were also faithful servants and trustworthy; a far cry from the sycophantic courtiers common in the Khan's court.
By the time Ella Christie, the Scottish explorer, arrived in Khiva in 1912, the Mennonite community was flourishing.

'The colony had been in existence for twenty-eight years, and in that time had entirely reclaimed its land from the salt marshes! There was a carpenters' workshop, where new doors for the Khan's palace were being made, and also wooden flowerpots for his courtyards, which, unlike the sober colouring of the colony, were being painted blue, yellow and red.'
Ella R. Christie, Through Khiva to Golden Samarkand, 1925

Christie, a German speaker herself, was able to communicate freely with the community, but still found their strict Mennonite values quite different from her own.

'One of the original wells is still in use'

'Not a ripple from the outer world disturbed the peace of its atmosphere: not a book even was visible except in the von Riesen's home, and the offers to send any were simply not accepted. The houses were mud-built, but spotlessly clean and comfortable, thanks to the care of the sad-faced looking women sewing at their doors, their hair brushed so smoothly as not even to allow a frisky curl to escape. To add further solemnity to their appearance, they were clad in black skirts, with black and white bodices, even colours being forbidden!
There was a school with about twenty scholars, seated on rough looking wooden benches, which were all they were allowed, no such luxury as desks even being permitted, and at the time of my visit the authorities were trying to find a teacher! I was promptly offered the post of teacher and organist to the colony for life. Many were the persuasions: 'You like our colony, why will you not always remain with us?' I felt that I could never make a good Mennonite, so I had to decline the proposal. A cottage had even been prepared as a further inducement, and disappointment was openly expressed that their efforts had been in vain!
A shop is run for the colony where most necessaries can be purchased, and I treasure a delightful pair of stockings softer than the finest Shetland, made from the inner hair of the goat. If only the feet of the colony ladies had been a little smaller!'
Ella R. Christie, Through Khiva to Golden Samarkand, 1925

Ella Maillart visited the colony twenty years later, after Khorezm had been declared part of the Soviet Union. Although the Khanate had been abolished, and the country was now officially atheist, life in Okh Mejet had changed little.

'I arrive bathed in sweat, rejoicing at the thought that in a few moments I shall be talking to Europeans, and make my way towards a prosperous-looking farm surrounded by yellow poplars, with white curtains in the window, where I hear:
'Maria, wer kommt dort?'
In German I ask a young man where Otto Theuss lives, prepared to be met with excited and astonished cries. Not at all: reserved, grave, and blond under his furred bonnet, he points out a group of dwellings, only a farmyard of which can be seen. Cows watched by an Uzbek herdsman drink from a roofed in spring. Two young girls take charge of me timidly. A bucketful of water, white hand basin, piece of soap, a hand towel are brought me. The kitchen table and brick stove are every whit as trim and neat as the corners of the house!
In the room the girls take off their clogs before going in. Inside is a big table and benches, an earthen stove, Bible texts on the wall, a country dresser, and two spectacled aunts knitting away in straight-backed armchairs. On a side table is the Vossische Zeitung, which takes eighteen days to make the journey.
The aunts make no attempt to conceal their astonishment.
'You came by bicycle? And alone? Weren't you afraid?'
'Ah, you've come from Kirghizia? So did I. I came from Aulie Ata where conditions were becoming too difficult for us. Some of our relatives are coming from the Volga. At present there are 340 in the colony. It makes rather a squeeze to find room for them all.!'
Supper is ready and we sit down to it. Otto Theuss utters a short prayer, in which he has the kindness to include the foreign visitor.
Here age alone matters. Even the married sons talk in low voices with a wary eye on the father. I seem a child myself again and count to ten every time I want to ask a question, as I slowly chew my food in order not to finish in front of the others. We eat boiled eggs with buttered rusks and coffee with milk in it. There is honey for the older members. The faces round me are frank and open, clean and freckled. The square foreheads reveal the obstinacy which saved the band from perishing fifty years earlier. The women have their hair parted in the centre and their plaits pulled back in a bun on the nape of their neck.
' What are the Christian names most fashionable now in Germany?' one of the women asks. 'If you knew how we should like something different from our Gretchens, Louisas, Evas, Rosas, Dorotheas!'
'Have you any Brigittes and Marlenes?''
Ella Maillart, Turkestan Solo, 1933

Maillart was curious to hear from one of the older women what impression they had left on the vastly different cultures of the Khivans and Turkomans amongst whom they lived.

''Tell me, doesn't the excellent way you run your colony set an example to your neighbours, the Uzbeks?'
'It makes no difference to them: they don't need any of the things that are so indispensable to us. There was a Turkoman who lived with us here for two years, an intelligent lad, and in the end he was talking our Platt Deutsch like one of us. Do you know what he said some days before he left? 'You are a strange and complicated lot of people: why does a person have to waste his time three times a day, washing fifteen plates, and knives and forks, when only one dish is necessary!'''
Ella Maillart, Turkestan Solo, 1933

'A Soviet camp was built on the remains of Okh Mejid which is now derelict.'

Although largely unchanged for years, shortly after Maillart's visit the community was forcibly dissolved. They were a threat to Communist ideals because they had already effectively established a community with no class inequalities, and had no need for Communist rhetoric, and so the authorities attempted to divide them and force them into separate collective farms. The community refused, and could not be divided with the usual tactics of exacerbating class conflict. As a result, some of the elders were shot, whilst the rest were deported to Tajikistan.

'A local resident whose father was born in a German-made house

Nor does their story end there. (For more details see 'The Mennonites Return'.) Today there are virtually no signs of the colony in Okh Mejid but the community's legacy lives on. Elderly inhabitants still recall the German community fondly, commenting on their honesty and hard work. They are also remembered for their craftsmanship which can still be seen. Islam Hoja used them extensively in the building of his post office and hospital and they also decorated the interior of Isfandir Khan's courtroom and Feruz Khan's Summer Palace.
To visit the remains of the former colony, take a taxi to Yangi Arik, about fifteen minutes drive from Khiva, and from there ask for Okh Mejid.

'To think I had to come to the depths of Turkestan to comprehend the power that lies in cleanliness, and the discipline of a faith.'
Ella Maillart, Turkestan Solo, 1933