Of all the places you might expect to find active Ifá practitioners, Russia rarely makes the list. And yet here they are — a small but genuine community of Russian devotees who have taken up Yoruba spiritual practice, thousands of miles and an entirely different cultural context away from where it began.
How a West African belief system, carried first through the transatlantic slave trade and later through diaspora networks, found its way into Russian spiritual life is its own story of globalization — internet forums, international babaláwo networks, and a curiosity that apparently respects no borders.
This episode closes the season by asking what it means for a tradition to travel this far from home and still hold its shape. Is it the same Ifá practised in Òyó or Ilé-Ifẹ̀? Does it need to be? The practitioners featured here have their own answers — and they're not entirely in agreement with each other.