At the ruins of a mansion

The Heinrich Willms mansion and starch mill. The mill is currently being used as a milk factory. Historical photos from Diese Steine: Die Russlandmennoniten, Adina Reger and Delbert Plett, Crossway Publications, 2001.

I gazed with wonder at the ruins of the Willms mansion in the former Mennonite colony of Molotshna, Ukraine. All my life I had heard of the wealth of the Mennonite people in Russia and had sensed a collective yearning for the glory that was lost. It seemed that everybody’s great-grandparents had owned a factory, a flour mill, or a large estate before abruptly losing it all in the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Now, with my feet firmly planted on Ukrainian soil, I found my elusive Russian Mennonite heritage staring me in the face and tangibly engaging my senses, my emotions and my faith.

Even in ruins, the Willms mansion remains a formidable testament to the grandeur of the past. Our tour guide, Olga, expounded on the architectural details while we – a group of 13 that included my father and siblings – gathered about in the pleasant autumn sunshine to admire the magnificent home. I imagined young women laughing in silk while their brothers and beaus rode away on spirited horses. Sunshine and joy seemed to saturate every privileged moment.

“How wonderful to return to the past and live that way,” I thought to myself. In my musings, of course, I was mistress of the place, not scullery maid.

“. . . a ballroom . . . indoor plumbing . . . 14,000 square feet . . .” Olga continued.

Somehow 14,000 square feet seemed perfectly reasonable to me, lost in sentimental reverie as I was. But when I overheard another member of our tour quietly lean over and whisper, “That’s twice the size of my house,” I was jolted back to reality.

“What does anyone need with a 7,000 square foot house these days?” I fumed to myself as I quickly did the math. “That’s preposterous! Excessive! Why, it’s positively sinful!”

No wonder

Slowly the implications of the spectacle before me started to sink in. A 14,000 square foot mansion was as arrogant in pre-revolutionary Russia as it would be in my world today. No wonder communism held such great appeal to the impoverished people who had lived so long at the short end of the stick. No wonder the glaring disparity in tsarist Russia between rich and poor, landowner and serf, and yes, Mennonite opportunist and Russian servant, had proved to be truly intolerable.

Sadly, the inequality that drove a nation to the extreme of communism a century ago remains evident in the Ukraine of today. Multi-cupola cathedrals covered in gold leaf dot the cityscapes among the endless aging apartment buildings that we, from our 21st century Canadian perspective, labelled as slums. City squares overflow with magnificent fountains and monuments, many of them constructed since Ukrainian Independence in 1991, while old women beg in public doorways because their pensions are hopelessly inadequate. Lonely villages imprison the elderly while young people flock to the cities, hoping for a better life.

“We have no work,” they told us in the villages.

“No future, no hope . . .” they said in a myriad of ways. “We are only waiting to die.”

Loss of hope

An 80-year-old woman who lives in a former Mennonite village in Russia is shown here in front of her home. Photo credit: Ingrid Koss

Olga also spoke of the loss of hope: “We were taught there is no God. Instead, we believed in the strength of communism and the integrity of our Soviet leaders. Now we know we were deceived and we have nothing left to believe in.”

All these things and more began to cloud my view of the Willms mansion. Had these things also clouded God’s view 100 years ago, looking at the Mennonites’ wealth in a land of suffering? Had God deliberately saved them from their futile materialism and I, like Lot’s wife, couldn’t help looking back with longing?

In Matthew 6:20–21, Jesus said, “[B]ut store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

We who live in one of the most privileged societies in the world must continually wrestle with the age-old question: is wealth compatible with a life of faith in Christ? Is it a distraction from godly living or a sign of God’s blessing on His people? Should we renounce materialism as sin, or should we welcome it as God’s gift and give generously to others?

Already the Mennonite presence in Ukraine is all but forgotten by the current generation. Mennonite-built churches and schools, old but sound, are now used as government offices, schools, museums, or even grain storage with no concern for the people who built them. Other physical remains literally sink into the ground from one North American tour to the next.

Will we return to Ukraine only to mourn what was lost? To set up monuments to a past golden age that never existed for the present-day occupants? Or will we have the courage to walk away from our own romanticized history and instead offer the hope of Christ in a hopeless land?

For me, the light had faded from the mansion.

Ingrid Koss is a freelance writer and a member of McIvor Ave. MB Church, Winnipeg.