“GOING UP TO JERUSALEM”
These Russian pilgrims carry their food and cooking utensils with them. Undismayed by poverty and difficulties they press on upheld by their unquestioning faith
A donkey ambulance is provided in case a pilgrim falls ill on the march
For years more Russians have made the pilgrimage to the Holy Land than almost any other people on the globe. Fifty or sixty thousand of them come here every season. They are brought in by the shipload at Easter time and during the whole spring bodies of pilgrims can be seen going on foot from shrine to shrine throughout Palestine.
Many of the pilgrims land at Haifa, the most northern port of the country. From there they walk over the mountains of Galilee, stopping at Nazareth and then going on to Tiberius. They stop and pray at every holy spot and often kiss the ground where they think Jesus or the saints have trod. From the Sea of Galilee they make their way back to Nazareth, and thence go across the plain of Esdraelon and through Samaria to Jerusalem. I have seen thousands of them at Bethlehem and have met them tramping the weary road to the Dead Sea and the Jordan.
These Russians belong to the Greek Church, which owns most of the monasteries and convents of this country, and which has, all told, property amounting to millions, including some of the best real estate in Jerusalem. It has a great hospice outside the walls of Jerusalem as well as a magnificent church on top of the Mount of Olives. It has other similar institutions elsewhere, and is a great factor in the religious life of the Holy Land.
The Russians have here what is perhaps the largest hotel of the world. Ten thousand people can sleep there in a single night, and it has, besides, separate buildings for families. It is known as the Russian Hospice and lies at the west outside the city wall. It covers a space of ten acres or more and has a high wall about it.