Crime Waves and Savage Fads From History That Were Just Unnatural

5. Leo Tolstoy and Canada’s Nudist Russian Terrorist Cult

Russian Doukhobors, or “Spirit Warriors“, were a pacifist and anti-materialist Christian sect that formed in the seventeenth century. Their belief that a divine spirit resides in everybody raised eyebrows. What raised eyebrows even higher was their penchant for nudity to emulate Adam and Eve, a tendency to swap wives, plus a notion that nobody has any right to worldly goods. The result was centuries of persecution. Officials especially detested the Doukhobors’ pacifism, which led them to refuse conscription into the Russian military.

The persecution’s intensity waxed and waned over the years, and ranged from beatings to imprisonment to exile to death. In the nineteenth century, the Doukhobors won over Leo Tolstoy as a patron, but his patronage was not enough to shield them. So early in the twentieth century, they emigrated to Canada in search of religious freedom. Unfortunately, they morphed in Canada from an odd sect and into a dangerous one, famous for mass nudist protests, and infamous for arsons on a massive scale and one of Canada’s weirdest crime waves.