Então fiz mais uma tentativa e descobri que - Door From The Other Side por Vladimir Mikhailov (1974) (Дверь с той стороны, В. Михайлов). Parece que foi publicado apenas em russo. A única descrição em inglês que encontrei em Unseen Continental European SF Classics :
...a hard SF space opera with strong new-wave elements. Interstellar travel has its problems which the crew of the spaceship 'Whale' find out when coming out of a hyperspace jump they find that all the atoms of their craft and themselves have become antimatter. So changed, they cannot return to Earth and so set out to find an anti-matter star system. This then is the setup, but the story is equally one of the socio-psychology of small, isolated communities.
É exatamente isso.