Eastern European community in the Tri-Cities? (Yakima, Richland: restaurant, association, rated)

[Tyrannicus]

One of my associates and I brought up the topic of my interest in Latvia- to which he mentioned that we have a small (really small) Eastern European community here. When I was little, I remember a Russian restaurant, but that's it. He also mentioned something about an event that a Russian Orthodox church who puts on a little event, but with all the searching I've done, I can neither locate the church nor find a snippet of the event. Any help?

[heymikey]

A quick look at Washington Orthodox Clergy Association - Parishes By Location showed only 3 Orthodox churches in SE Washington: Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church in Yakima, St Nectarios Greek Orthodox Mission in Pasco, St Silouan (unspecified) Orthodox Church in Walla Walla. I know St Nectarios used to have a booth at the B/F County Fair, but that's about it for my knowledge.

Sorry I'm not more helpful.
HeyMikey

[chris]

RKLIC homepage (http://www.kursa.org/RKLIC/ - broken link)

Not sure if you were looking for Latvian specific, but I figured I'd mention this as I was aware of the small Latvian community here in Shelton. Maybe there is someone there who could point you in the right direction.

[M3 Mitch]

If you include Russia in "Eastern European" then actually we have a fairly large community here. Quite a few scientists from Russia have come over on various programs and a few have immigrated here. There are also quite a few Pentecostal religious refugees from the Soviet times.

The Russian restaurant, Samovar, went out of business several years ago. It was in Uptown, where Avalanche is now.

St. Nectarios does indeed have a pretty big Easter celebration. This is Orthodox Easter, which may or may not come on the same Sunday as the unorthodox one. Sometimes there is an Easter picnic in one of the Richland parks.

Again, the area is so lightly settled that you don't really find any large community from any small country like Latvia here.