Growing up Russian in China: A Historical Memoir

By Tatiana Erohina

The central motif of this unique historical memoir is the life of the authors family in
Dairen (now Dalian) during the Japanese occupation, then the Soviet occupation, and,
finally, under the Chinese Communist Government. Ms. Erohina gave the background
of the historical events which affected the lives of the Russians, the Chinese, and the
Japanese during the Second World War and the postwar years.
She explains why the Russians lived in China, and how they not only preserved their
culture and language but contributed greatly to the fields of science, music, and
literature. Some lived there at the turn of the 20th Century as businessmen, and many
came to Manchuria (now Northeast of the Peoples Republic of China) during the
railway construction, which was a branch of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The majority,
however, came as refugees fleeing from the Bolsheviks during the Civil War that
immediately followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Th e Civil War split the people
into the Reds, or the Bolsheviks, and the Whites, who apposed them. The authors
grandparents were among the refugees.
Ms. Erohina described her familys move to Shanghai in 1954 as a transit point for the
departure from China, and gave a detailed account of its early and postwar years, and its
impact on the lives of Russian migrs. Then, followed the familys journey as refugees
by sea from China via Hong Kong and many ports from Singapore to South Africa, and
then to Brazil. She touched upon their life in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1950s, and then their
trip to the United States in 1958 where the family fi nally settled.
Author: Tatiana Erohina is a retired college language instructor. She was born and raised
in NE China, lived in Brazil, and came to this country in 1958. She has an M.A. in
literature from Ohio State University. When she retired, she wrote her unique historical
memoir Growing Up Russian in China. She lives in Southern California.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462055937

Tatiana Erohina

Tatiana Erohina is a retired college language instructor. She was born and raised in NE China, lived in Brazil, and came to this country in 1958. She has an M.A. in literature from Ohio State University. When she retired, she wrote her unique historical memoir Growing Up Russian in China. She lives in Southern California.

Book preview

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

EPILOGUE

In memory of my family and all the people who suffered and vanished in the Soviet concentration camps, in the Japanese prisons and their biological experiments, and in the Chinese Communists’ humiliating torture and prisons.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This book would not be possible without the help in proofreading, advising, and some information given me by a few of my friends. I owe my gratitude to my cousin Sophia Tagios, to my childhood friends Tatiana Serebrova and Ludmila Bartecka, and to older generation friends from my hometown Natalie Giusti, Natalie Roger, and Natalie Voss for giving me advice and information which I did not remember. I express my deepest gratitude to my good friend Russ Williams and my old time dearest friend Georgette Van Sickle for proofreading. Many thanks to Mary Jane Roberts for her initial professional advice, and my special gratitude to SongLi for his kindness and for helping me with the photos and publication of this book.

INTRODUCTION

Against the background of the defeat of Japan in occupied China following World War II, the author, a member of the émigré Russian community in her native Dairen, Manchuria (now Northeast China), relates how she lived through the transformation of the peaceful city she knew as a child into one of revolutionary change.

The memoir is written in a direct and spontaneous style, which engages the reader in the story first, of a young child, prior to the family’s decision to leave China in 1954, and then of a school-girl in her late ‘teens.’ It is interwoven with solid information about historical events, or their repercussions, through which the author moves.

Besides the victorious Communist takeover by the Chinese themselves, Dairen went through a symbolic reversal of its military history. In 1945 the city was occupied by the Soviet Army, the successor of the Czarist forces who were defeated and pushed out of the region during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Whether this benefited the émigré Russian residents, who fled Bolshevik Russia during the revolution, is a moot question. At all events, with a commemorative nod to the past, the Soviet army provided a stately funeral for the old émigré Red Cross nurse who served in the Czarist Army during the Russo-Japanese War.

Still, the response of the Chinese and Soviet military to the plight both of the Chinese and Russian civilians was uneven. Many were obliged to work, either helping the Russian authorities with the Chinese language, or state stores and utilities. They also established schools for the children of the military to which émigré children had access.

By contrast, the attitude of the Japanese colonial authorities, at least for some time before the start of the war, and the war itself, was tolerant, and people were mostly left to their own devices, so long as they didn’t exhibit Communist leanings—strictly enforced—so that the author’s childhood years were spent in harmonious family and neighborhood relations, in a traditional Russian lifestyle. Easter was observed with all the religious and culinary customs, and popular folksongs and dances were organized for children in the Dairen Russian Club.

Taken as a whole, Growing Up Russian in China provides a very lively panorama not only of individual lives but also of contemporary historical events which indirectly played a part in the immediate destiny of both China and Russia. Besides the Boxer Rebellion, which illustrates the Chinese frustration with the dominance of foreigners in their land, there was the tragic defeat of the last-ditch effort under Admiral Alexandr Kolchak to crush the Communists, who imprisoned and executed him.

The defeat of the Russian Czarist Army in Siberia illustrates the importance to the émigré Russians of the multi-ethnic city of Harbin in Manchuria. It was not only an established pre-revolutionary economic center but also a safe-haven for thousands of fleeing soldiers of the defeated Czarist Army. Earlier, the city was equally a safe-heaven for the Orthodox Church and other religious centers, of a host of educational institutions, and a very varied and rich cultural life, including theaters, operas, and an abundance of printed material.

This ability of the thousands of Russian émigrés throughout China, left to their own devices, to find ways to survive insolvency, political vulnerability, stateless status, and often poverty, should shine as a magical testament to the fact that given the right opportunity in China, between the 1920’s and early 1930’s, to build a viable and flourishing society, the people of Russia were second to no one.

The situation in Dairen was similar in the close-knit character of the Russian community and its activity in the Russian Church and Club. There were also a number of Russian-owned stores, a good school system, a lady dentist and Russian-run dairy in Kakahashi, one of the city’s numerous beach suburbs—the destination of many a vacationer from Harbin and Shanghai.

But all this changed with the end of the war, except for the availability of an excellent school system which continued until the end of Soviet occupation, and from which the author graduated. It served her well when she entered University in the United States.

Shanghai, a transit point for the family’s departure from China, receives a copious and detailed description of its early and post-war history, and the Russian emigres’ impact on its day-to-day life.

What follows is a very young woman’s wondrous experience as a refugee journeying by sea towards a new life. We see the outskirts of Hong Kong’s Kowloon, the fabulous 45-day voyage to Sao Paulo, Brazil via South Africa, and finally a three-and-a-half year stay in Sao Paulo. She arrived in Seattle, U.S.A. in December 1958, and since then, the rewards are a life’s cup of accomplishments filled to the brim.

Natalie Giusti

(nee Natalie Larioff, born in Dairen, Manchuria)

Chapter 1

MY HERITAGE

I was sitting next to my mother, who was wearing black clothes and a black veil, in the back seat of a black car. The car followed a black hearse carrying a casket with the body of my beloved, handsome daddy who died of a heart attack at the age of 38. I was only seven years old. It was early March of 1944. The day was sunny, but there was snow on the ground. It was a typical early spring day in port of Dairen in Manchuria, the northeast part of present day China, which was still under Japanese occupation. I was looking out the window and saw a group of Japanese elementary school children with their teacher stopped at the sight of our funeral procession, taking their caps off, and bowing in reverence to the dead.

Our funeral procession arrived at the church, which was built on the top of a hill as a small chapel during the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War and enlarged in the late 1920’s by my paternal grandfather, a Russian Orthodox priest. The church was not big but very beautiful with paintings of Biblical figures on the sky-blue domed ceiling as in all Orthodox churches. In our church, however, there were also angels with open wings looking down as if they were flying in the sky. I liked looking at them and imagined myself flying with them.

The church service was performed according to the Russian Orthodox tradition with a priest, a deacon, and a choir. My father’s open casket stood in the center of the church. My father looked as if he were sleeping. He was a very handsome man. At the end of the service, everybody came up to the coffin to say farewell to my father. My mother lifted me and told me to kiss his forehead. My lips touched his forehead, which felt like cold marble. It horrified me. I can still feel it.

After the service, the casket was carried to the cemetery on the opposite hill from the church. The cemetery was like a beautiful terraced garden. There were graves of Russian soldiers and seamen, killed during the Russo-Japanese 1904-1905 War, and among them were two beautiful common graves. One had a big cross on a square base that contained 287 bodies, and the other one, for the seamen, had a huge square-shaped pedestal, at the foot of which lay an iron anchor with a chain. Unfortunately, the anchor is gone. Could it have disappeared during the Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward when he wanted to develop the steel industry? At that time, everybody was supposed to give to the steel industry every piece of iron they possessed, and that included cans, woks, spring beds, etc.

My brother, five years senior to me, and I used to play in this cemetery. My favorite place was an elevated and a little isolated site at the edge of the cemetery with a small oak tree. I loved the large beautifully shaped leaves of that Chinese oak. But then, I was there saying farewell to my father. His sudden death from a heart attack was the greatest shock affecting my entire life.

Both my brother and I were born and raised in the commercial port of Dairen (now called Dalian), 27 miles west of Port Arthur on the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria (now northeast China). Our parents were born in Russia but grew up in Harbin, Manchuria.

The Russians lived in Manchuria at the turn of the 19th Century mostly along the railroad they were building. They founded the city of Harbin in May 1898 which later became the center of the White Russian émigré culture. The majority, however, about 100.000, came as refugees during the Civil War that followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The people in Russia became the first victims of International Communism. My grandparents on both sides were among them.

My paternal grandparents lived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the capital of Kamchatka peninsula, where my grandfather was a missionary priest. Kamchatka in winter had a lot of snow that covered houses to the roof. My aunt told me that tourists in the summer could not understand why theater and other announcements were at the top of telegraph poles, which made them difficult to see.

There were Koriaks, Tungus, Chukchi, Aleuts, Lamuts, and Yakuts, native tribes in Kamchatka, and my grandfather, among other missionary priests, was converting them to Orthodoxy and opening schools to make them literate. The famous Archbishop Nestor, a missionary monk, translated the Bible and had church services in their languages. The Archbishop and my grandfather used to go to a leper colony near Petropavlovsk to pray with them.

If winters were severe in Kamchatka, the summers compensated for them with the beauty and abundance of flora and fauna. Fishing and the fur industry prospered.

My Russian grandfather was born on October 8, 1871 near Moscow into a poor family with an alcoholic father and a washer woman mother. His best treat on holidays was a cookie on a stick, like a lollipop, in the shape of a rooster. However, due to his natural talent for music and a beautiful, powerful voice, he was accepted to Moscow Synodal Singing Capella. He was ordained as a Russian Orthodox priest and went to Kamchatka as a missionary in 1903. According to the Orthodox tradition, the priests had to be married before they were ordained to the priesthood. He married a beautiful woman fourteen years his junior in Vladivostok (the Far East port), and they first settled in a small town, Kliuchevskaya Sopka, near Petropavlovsk, and in 1913 moved to Petropavlovsk.

My grandmother’s father was German and her mother was Swedish. Her father could have been from the Germans who lived in Russia for centuries because my grandmother never mentioned that her father was from Germany, and her mother had grown up in Russia.

They had six children, four boys and two girls. The family led a peaceful life. The children went to school and sang in a church choir. They were also exposed to the natives’ customs, and I heard from my father and one of my aunts that they liked some kind of dried fish with a little spoiled odor which the natives considered a delicacy. Their peaceful life, however, was disrupted during the Civil War that followed the