The Evicted Carpatho-Rusyns: A Once-a-Year Orthodox Liturgy in Kuzhbei | Transcarpathian Region 07.07.2015

The Orthodox liturgy takes place once a year in the Carpathian Mountains, where the village of Kuzhbei (then Mizhhirsky district) used to be. The inhabitants of this village were Carpatho-Rusyns, an ethnic group known as Verhovintsi. After the occupation of Subcarpathian by the USSR, the mountain village's inhabitants were evicted to the village of Soimy (rusyn: Соймы). Until recently, there was only one house where people lived, along with the Orthodox Church. Today, the village is completely deserted, but once a year, the Orthodox Church holds a liturgy where all the evicted residents and people from the surrounding villages gather.