Russians Evangelize in Altai, Siberia - and then some!

Another edition of The Orthodox Encyclopaedia on how Russian missionaries brought not only the Gospel, but writing, schools, and hospitals to a region in Siberia on (today's) Kazakh-Chinese-Mongolian border in the 90 years before the Bolshevik Revolution...and again in the past generation. They remember Alaska, too!

The transcript includes these words from the host:

In the Soviet {era}, more was destroyed than the churches, more killed tha{n} the numerous clergymen: the seventy years of atheism broke the centuries-old tradition of the Russian missionary work. In the pre-1917 Russia, it was one of the priorities in internal policy. In 1769, the Holy Synod decreed that preaching should be made "in meekness and charity, without use of threats or persecution." The Russian missionaries always taught both through word and through their own lives. Today, the missionaries have to study the ABC{s} anew.

(PS: Did you know Siberia is mostly forest? We get the impression it's mostly frozen tundra, like extreme northern Alaska, or most of northern Canada, but it's actually mostly trees, not at all a frozen wasteland!)