As the sun sets on Jehovah’s loyal ones in the western city of Kaliningrad, it is already rising 11 time zones to the east on the publishers on the Chukchi Peninsula, just across the Bering Strait from Alaska.

Russia, officially termed the “Russian Federation,” is not a country of one nation or one people. As the name suggests, it is a federation of nations, a mosaic of tribes, tongues, and peoples, each with its unique culture. Our narrative begins in this vast ethnic, linguistic, and religious mosaic, not the democratic Russia of today, but the Russian Empire of over one hundred years ago, then ruled by a czar.