How Russian Cult Leader Vissarion, The 'Jesus Of Siberia,' Came To Power

May 2024 · 2 minute read

The Guardian has a nice collection of snapshots from Vissarion's commune, aka "Sun City." The commune looks precisely how you'd imagine: white-robed followers, rustic and hand-built homes, portraits of Vissarion on every wall gazing benignly, and so on. His followers would need portraits, however, because as Vice's 2011 exposé reveals, Vissarion lived away from most of them in a mountain chalet dubbed the "Adobe of Dawn." Like pilgrims, commune dwellers would trek hours up the mountain, singing and playing flutes, passing identity verification checkpoints, just to see Vissarion descend very slowly to a little pavilion with a microphone and deliver a sermon. Then he'd return to his collection of right-hand people, one of whom used to drum in a boy band during the Soviet era, as All That's Interesting notes.

This is all part of the appeal, though. No Vissarionite would ever see their master pick his nose, cough, go to the bathroom, get hungry, etc. He'd appear like a divine vision and then recede. At the same time, Vissarion's followers had the opportunity to craft a pastoral utopia complete with wandering baby goats, hand-grown vegetables, hand-woven blankets, no money or store-bought products, clear gender and work roles, all within a pristine bubble where nothing echoed but the voices of believers. In the Vice exposé, Vissarionites repeat the same thing again and again: "The teacher" gave them answers to all of their questions; the teacher removed all doubt; the teacher gave them a place to be happy. 

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