Chapter 2

Augusta and Militza Escape to China

On arriving [in Harbin] all that I saw before me from the station was a sea of mud, deep
thick swamps, which did duty for roads, a few houses in the distance and a certain amount
of scaffoldingIs this the place that launched a thousand ships?
Hon. Maurice Baring

A
ugusta Nizkovsky knew that her husband, Father Valentin, was living near
Harbin in Manchuria as a result of a letter she had received. She does not
indicate in her Autobiography if the letter had been from Father Valentin or
from some other person. Militza Valentinovna Shoshin, Augustas surviving
daughter, has a good memory of this period and was able to augment her
mothers autobiographical record. Not surprisingly, the two accounts are not
always the same

Militza Valentinovna Recalls a Tragic Journey

Militza Valentinovna remembers her mother being directed to a list of names

on a notice board in Tumin, Siberia. This list gave them the first clue, as to where
her father was located and that he was searching for his family.

My mother was a teacher and had been trained in Tobolsk. She taught all subjects in many
towns and villages both in Siberia and in Manchuria. My father and my mother were
married in Tobolsk and had two daughters before the Revolution broke out in 1917. The
youngest daughter did not survive the journey across Russia with my mother and me. One
night when there was fighting my mother had to hide in a cemetery and in the morning my
sister was dead. When we reached Manchuria there was a war going on and a friend said
Augusta take your daughter and go away. When the bombing began the Chinese put up
their umbrellas and tried to run from the bombs. 1

Augusta and Militza Travel from Yalutorovosk to Fuljarzd

Augustas Autobiography states that Father Valentin was living in a place called
Fuljarzd. 2
When school was finished for the year we left Yalutorovosk for the east. When we reached
Chita3 we were chased out of the train. Mila 4 was about eight years old at the time. We
stepped outside and did not know what to do. We were finally approached by an official
who advised us to go to have photographs made and then go to the Chinese consulate. On
arrival at the consulate we were warned that we must leave for China that day. We were
given a visa at the consulate which cost about 14 rubles. We returned to the train station
and saw several Manchurian officials who were in Chita to do their shopping. The trains
were without steps but once we were aboard an old woman shouted at us to sit here. An
 official finally seated us properly. The train left Chita at 4 PM and arrived at (our destination)
in Manchuria the next day at 12 noon.5

Reunion with
Father Valentin

At the station in
Fuljazrd an official
gave a Chinese man
some money to take
us to the church where
Father Valentin lived.
One of the residents of
the house in which he
lived took us to him.
Father Valentin was so
overcome when he
saw us that he
screamed with fright
as though he were
crazy.6

Militza
Valentinovna
Recalls her
Father

I didn't know my
father at all as
he had left not long after I was born. My mother used to show us a picture of a man who
was my father but she called him a good friend. She was afraid that if she was identified as
married to a priest it might not go well for her. When I finally met my father in Harbin I did
not know him at all because I was so young when he left. - I was for a long time very shy
with him. My father was well liked and highly respected. He was a very good-looking man
and a young girl fell in love with him and used to come confessional just to see him. After a
while he would no longer hear her confession. Once when I was visiting in Australia I met
an old man who knew my father. He came up to me and said Are you not Valentin's
daughter? He thought that I looked like my father. This man went on to say, your father
saved my life.7

Augustas Introduction to Fuljarzd

Augustas Autobiography describes her first encounter with Russians who had
been outside the Soviet Union for some time. We began to take tea and some
of the residents of the house asked us how life was in the Soviet Union. I
suggested that they should go there and live a while, as some were later to do. 8
 Journey to Harbin and Life in
Fuljarzd

After a few days in Fuljazrd we left for

Harbin where we wanted to buy some
clothing. We found this difficult as we
were not accustomed to the fashions.
We purchased a dress without trying it
on and, of course, it didnt fit. We also
bought a hat but it was dreadful. Even
after making exchanges nothing fit
properly. I eventually made some
alterations for Milichka.9 We were not
used to being cheated and everyone
could see that we were from the
USSR. However, we were not cheated
again. Father Valentin was being paid
only three dollars a month so we gave
up the room in which he lived and
lived on the street. In the church I sold
candles and rang the bells which were
in the window at Christmas and
Easter. I also decorated the church
with flowers.10

Father Valentin is
Transferred to Hailar

During the winter Mila fell ill with scarlet

fever and so an orderly from the hospital carried her there on his back. Immigrants did not have
the right to use the hospital so to see her I had to look through the window. After two years I went
to see the Archbishop myself and he transferred father to Hailar 11. Here he was the second priest
and taught religious studies. During the summer I obtained a position in a kindergarten in
Fuljarzd.12

A Religious Experience and the Move to Harbin

In 1929, Soviet troops invaded Manchuria. 13 At this time an icon in the home of a certain
person was renewed.14 I took it home and a service was performed. During the service it
seemed to me as if John Bogoslov 15 was flying through the sky. I fell to my knees and
screamed to everyone to fall to the ground. In the morning trains arrived to evacuate
anyone who wished to escape from the Bolsheviks. Father Valentin remained behind but
Mila and I went to Harbin. On the train there were three classes of tickets but we were only
allowed third class. I seated Mila and then I went to the Post Office which I found closed,
however, a man opened it for me. When we arrived in Harbin everyone was met by
relatives but no one met us. I took a carriage to the hotel where the manager met us but I
didnt have any money. I had brought with me a silver samovar which my father had given
us when I got married and this I gave to him. At the hotel I met an acquaintance from
Kahichar and she took me for a ride on the street car to show me the church. When I
entered the church Father Yevgeni was giving a memorial service for his wife. I went up to
 him and explained what had happened and why I was in church. He took us in and the next
day Father Peter Rozhestvensky obtained a place in the school for Mila so her year was
not wasted. Father Valentin arrived after a week had gone by. He had been driven by a
mullah.16 He was given a post as the third priest in the village of Modjagou 17 where he was
to teach religious studies at the pedagogical school. Mila was transferred to this school
when she had completed her courses. During the summer she studied with a teacher and
in the fall took an English language course.

Militza Valentinovna Recalls Harbin

The sequence of events is not entirely clear, as Militza Valentinovnas

recollections do not always correlate exactly to her mothers Autobiography. It
must be assumed that by the time the move to Harbin took place that Father
Valentin was no longer lost. There may be some confusion of recollection in
Militzas account which suggests that Father Valentin was first located in Harbin
rather than Fuljarzd.

Harbin was a half a day by train from Fuliardi [sic] where my mother and I were living.
When we arrived in Harbin we slept in a house where all the street people slept, for a
week. They took us in. At that time we didn't know that my father was in Harbin. When we
found him he was living in a place like a garage that was next to the church. After the
church accepted that this was his family we shared a house with two other people. One
was the conductor for the choir. Our family had two rooms. We were very poor. - My mother
didn't work in Harbin but she was always helping women who were having difficulty. She
was very hard working. Once when I came home after a bad day at school and went past
the room where my mother was speaking to a woman she called me back and made me
come in and say hello. 18

There were very few cars in Harbin and if we wanted to go somewhere we went by horse
and buggy. These were used as taxis. - My father was so well respected as a priest that
when I went to different places people would say there is Father Valentin's daughter. It was
a mark of respect. Once when a gypsy stole some things, when he learned that they
belonged to Father Valentin he returned them. Another time when five students
disappeared my mother went to a fortune teller and this woman looked at her cards and
said the students had been murdered. My mother took this information to the police. Once
my father had to carry on his back a dead man to a cemetery and dig his grave. 19

Most of the children who went to our school were, like me, very poor. We did not have
enough clothing to keep warm in the winter so we used to wrap our feet in newspapers.
School was very strict and we were not allowed ever to be late. We always said prayers
before classes and it did not matter if you were Chinese or Jewish or Russian. Everybody
said the same prayers. The teachers in our school were all Russian. Next door to our
school there was a monastery for nuns. Sometimes we had to go there and pray with them.
Once when we left this place we were all laughing and we had to go back and stay on our
knees for a long time as a punishment. I have a friend in Vancouver "Vera" who also went
to this school. She remembers much more and has good English. - Her mother was the
Militza and Augusta Nizkovsky c.1924
Militza Valentinovna Nizkovsky ca.1926
Militza Valentinovna Nizkovsky c. 1932
Militza Valentinovna Shoshin
Harbin ca. 1930 - 1934
Militza Valentinovna Nizkovsky
High School Documents
 Principal of a girls school. When I graduated from this school on the 21st of June 1934 I
was presented a small bible by the director, as were all of the students who graduated. 20

Historical Background - Harbin - 1895 - 1932

In the late 19th Century Japan and Russia

struggled for control of Manchuria, a rich and
strategically important region of north-western
China. In 1895 following a war with China Japan
tried to seize the Liao-tung peninsula but was
blocked in this endeavour by the intervention of
Russia, Germany and France. From 1898 to
1904 Russia was dominant in Manchuria. It was
during this period, as a result of an alliance with
China, directed against Japan, that the Russians
built Harbin, the naval base at Port Arthur, and
the Chinese Eastern Railroad. In 1905, after
victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5),
Japan took control of Port Arthur and the
southern half of Manchuria, limiting Russian
influence to the north where the city of Harbin
was located. In 1931-1932 Japan occupied all of
Manchuria at a time when Chinese military
resistance, drained by civil war, was weak. The
seizure of Manchuria was, in effect, an unofficial declaration of war on China.
Manchuria became a base for Japanese
The Last Emperor of China
Pu Yi
aggression in North China and a buffer region
freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.co for Japanese-controlled Korea. In 1932, under
m/.../ i227.html the aegis of Japan, Manchuria became
Manzhouguo, a nominally independent state
ruled by a puppet emperor called Pu Yi.
In the 1930s the city of Harbin was located at
a great T formed by the lines of the Chinese Eastern Railway. The western line
ran from Harbin to connect with the Trans-Siberian line that eventually reached
Moscow and Western Europe. The eastern line ran between Harbin and
Vladivostok. The perpendicular of the T went south to Changehun, and there it
joined the Japanese owned South Manchurian Railway, which ran south through
Mukden to Darien, an ice free port, on the Pacific Ocean. Russian influence in
the city of Harbin had grown with the construction and operation of the Chinese
Eastern Railway. Following the Revolution of 1917 the Chinese and the Soviets
struggled for control of this strategic connection to the Pacific. The White non-
Soviet Russians who maintained and operated the railway, as well as thousands
of other Russians who had fled the Soviet Union in the years following the
Revolution were caught in the midst of this struggle. The occupation of the region
by the Japanese in 1932 only made matters more complex.
 Street Scene in Harbin - c. 1925
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/. ../pictures_in.htm

Trans-Manchurian Express in Harbin

http://www.transsib.ru/Photo/Old/old-98.jpg
Harbin - The Russian Town on the Sungari

Of all centres of Russian emigration the town of Harbin was undoubtedly the
most peculiar.21 It was a Chinese town in Manchuria, on the Rivers Mondiago
and Sungari, although it had Russian jurisdiction until the Revolution, while in
theory remaining part of China. After the Revolution of 1917 the Chinese
continued to allow the local Russian population to operate the railway, as it was
important to the economy of Manchuria. For all practical purposes the frontier
between China and the Soviet Union was closed in the years following 1917 but
a few trains were allowed to cross the border, thereby allowing a flow of Russians
who wished to escape the Soviet Union to enter China. As a result of this
movement of population Harbin became a large and important Russian city.22

. The population grew very quickly and many new buildings were built. A lot of
businessmen settled there, and opened up trade links with China and Japan. There were
several banks and many rich people. It was more like an old colonial settlement that stayed
on after the Empire had fallen.23
Although the town was very closely connected with the railway, it became increasingly
important as a general commercial centre. It was also a considerable centre of Russian
culture: there was a very good symphony orchestra, an excellent opera, three Russian daily
papers, several magazines and a constant succession of visiting lecturers, performers,
soloists and so on. It was so active largely because it was totally isolated and cut off from
Russia; there was only China to the south and Japan to the east. It you realize how very
European Russian culture was; Harbin seemed like an island of civilization. 24
Harbin consisted of three towns: the old town (Stari Harbin), where the
Russians settled when they began construction of the railway, the New Town
(Novi Gorod) or railroad town with the Chinese Eastern Railways offices, as
well as clubs and higher class residences. There was also the Pristan or Wharf
located near the Sungari River. Here could be found the banks and various over
commercial enterprises. It is estimated that by 1949 Harbin had over eighty
churches most of which were Russian Orthodox. The churches were the only
high buildings in Harbin standing out like unnaturally gorgeous flowers among
the low buildings.25Most of the fine residences were gardened villas while the
labouring classes lived in row houses in the poorer parts of town. In spite of
being a railway town Harbin boasted wide lawns surrounding tastefully low villas
and streets and parks shaded by trees and abounding in flowers during its short
summers.26 The existence of such fine gardens was unusual in a town located
300 miles north of Vladivostok.
To the foreign eye Harbin was, however, not the Paris of the Far East.

Looking down Kitaiskaya, the main street of Harbin, from one of the many balconies of the
Modern Hotel Harbin appears a rather shabby continental town. The buildings are strongly
built of stone or concrete, with tall double windows and doors ready for below-zero weather,
when the ground is frozen four feet deep for months, and the Siberian winds blow. The
signs above the stores are in Russian and the letters look as if they were turned backward.
 Dilapidated carriages are passing along the main street, and an occasional ricksha or rattly
jitney loiters by, looking for fares. The jitneys are open automobiles which carry passengers
the two miles to New Town, the administrative and residential part of the city, for three and
a half cents gold. There is a loud noise which sounds like a fire siren, but comes from a
street sprinkler. Then a clattering along a cobbled street, and there comes a black prancing
horse, harnessed in Russian style to a carriage. On the box holding high the reins is a
Russian coachman, with flaxen mustaches and a black tunic gathered and belted at the
waist. But the attractive parts of his attire are the balloon sleeves of orange, blue, yellow, or
white.

A troop of soldiers comes swinging down the street, or an armoured car makes its rounds.
Occasionally there is a glimpse of the dainty kimono of a Japanese lady. Probably she has
come to Harbin recently for the Japanese population has nearly doubled this past year;
and, like most other Japanese women, she undoubtedly loathes the place. 27
The Russians in Harbin

To the Russian population Harbin was an oasis of freedom in spite of the

fact that after the Revolution most had no citizenship in either Russia or China.
The loss of extraterritorial rights placed the Russian people of Harbin and, for
that matter, those who resided anywhere in China, directly under Chinese
administrative control and subject to Chinese law. Fortunately this brought very
few changes in the lives of the Russian residents of Harbin. The Chinese
exercised their newly found powers very cautiously limiting legislation to relatively
minor matters such as traffic regulations.

What was particularly striking was the way the towns cultural life changed. With
uncharacteristic energy the Russian expatriates set about opening new schools to meet the
needs of the newly arrived population. They began as an act of benevolence, to build
places of worship for the new immigrants. But the main reason for this flowering of cultural
activity was the sense of sudden and complete liberation, the complete absence of Red
terror.28

The great advantage experienced by Russians in Harbin was that they were
not really foreigners. Harbin was a Russian town where life could be carried on
much as it had been in Russia before the Revolution. The Chinese were a
minority group in Harbin who lived, for the most part, in a suburb called
Fundziadian. The Russian population spread out and settled themselves in a
network of small communities surrounding the main city. Former Harbiners, now
scattered all over the world, will remember their names: Modiago, Gondaevka,
the Brick District, Chinkhe, The Hospital District, Block District and even the
Cheeky Woman.29
Several Russian language newspapers were published in Harbin. These
included The Manchurian Herald, News of Life, Mouthpiece, Penny Paper and
Dawn, one of the most successful papers. It is doubtful if any of these papers
found their way into archives in China, let alone the other countries to which the
Russians of Harbin eventually relocated. This is unfortunate, as they would have
captured a fascinating slice of history from another time and another place. This
history cannot be replicated because it represented the viewpoint of a people
who had lost their mother country and were intent on recreating a new life in a
very foreign land. The former residents of Harbin are now, for the most part,
deceased or very elderly, and living in countries distant from China.
Russian cultural life in Harbin was varied and of a high quality reflecting the
education and social standing of many of the Russian immigrants. Theatre in all
its forms was very popular. Performances ranged from dramatic theatre and
musical comedy to opera. The cultural isolation of Harbin from Soviet Russia
soon demanded that performers obtain training close to home. To this end a
school called the Higher Musical School was founded which is supposed to
have started a youthful Yul Brynner on his road to fame and fortune. There was
also a circus Lazkos circus which gave performances every evening from a
permanent location.
Education also flourished in Harbin, as many of the population were former
teachers and professors. There were a number of secondary schools that offered
high school completion but it was difficult for students to complete post-
secondary training. It was not possible to return to the Soviet Union to attend
University and education in Western Europe was open only those who had
wealth. Most Harbiners did not have the financial resources to send their children
abroad to be educated. It was therefore essential and practical to open in Harbin
institutes of higher learning. A Medical School, a Polytechnic and an Institute of
Oriental and Commercial Studies with a separated legal faculty were founded in
the 1920s. Not all of these enterprises were successful but over the years a great
many students received more than adequate post-secondary training in Harbin.
Many brilliant theologians resided in Harbin during these years. There had
been a large influx of Orthodox clergy into Manchuria following the Revolution. A
number of churches were constructed both in Harbin and in communities along
the railway line. There was also a monastery and as well as a convent.

Down in The Wharf, at the Iversky Church, the priest Braduchan and deacon Surmeli
officiated, and the priest Chistiakov could be found in the Church of St. Sophia. The
beautiful cathedral in the centre of New Town, constructed in the old Volga style, developed
out of St. Sofias. St Sofia was in the towns commercial sector, and the Iversky Church had
once been the barracks for the border guards.30
A great many Russian were employed by the Chinese and Far Eastern Railway
or as it was now called the KVZhd. The more recent arrivals in the city quickly
established themselves in commerce opening a variety of small stores and
restaurants. There were in addition several larger industrial undertakings
including a dairy, tobacco factory and vodka factory. According to foreign
observers, the first flour mill in China was built by Russians from Manchuria. 28
As one would expect life in Harbin would not have been complete without the
opportunity to participate in sports.

Track events and horse races in the Modiago Hippodrome were very popular. Many
successful merchants kept their own stables. Sometimes they took part in the so-called
gentlemans race, where the owners themselves competed against one another in sulkies
 There was a stadium in the The Wharf where it was possible to hold an entire range of
athletic events. Bicycle races were especially popular. 31

There were also water sports on the muddy Sungari River, and even a Harbin
Yacht Club which supported sailing and rowing races.
Victor Petrov in his article, The Town on the Sungari, remembers life in Harbin
in the early years of the 1920s as an idyllic time.

It is impossible to write everything about the blessed, serene and peaceful life of the
Harbiners in one brief account. One could go on to describe how, just as in former times in
Russia, but in fact many years after the disappearance of normal life in the Motherland, a
Harbin girl, a high-school girl in white aprons with a bouquet of blue violets or soft white
lilies, would meet some slim, well-proportioned schoolboy by Churins store in New Town,
or on the Chinese Street in The Wharf, and walk for hours with him, perhaps hand in hand
for the first time, shylyAnd how, somewhere or other in the suburbs, perhaps in Modiago,
in the evening, when we were made drowsy by the heavy aroma of flowers, we might hear
the enchanting sound of a piano drifting from the open window of a modest clapboard
house.

And it is just as impossible to forget the journey along the line of the small railway stations
to the west, or perhaps the fabulous spa of Chzhalantun, the place about which they
sometimes sang softly: O Chzalantun, such wonderful views, O Chzhalantun such beauty!
or a visit to hilly Barim, with its ice-cold, crystal-clear streams, its abundant trout, and then
the unforgettable vista of hills and spurs, and of the gigantic, majestic Great Khingan.

In the twinkling of an eye I can find myself carried along the eastern line of the railway, with
its tiny stations, clean and tidy: Ertsendiandzy, Siaolin, Maoershan, the tracks winding
through the districts full of summerhouses, where Chinese children came running towards
each approaching train to sell scarlet wild raspberries, ripe and overflowing in green wicker
baskets. In my minds eye I can walk along never-ending meadows, full of orange-coloured
wild lilies saranok- into low, cool places leading into a field of fairytale blue irises. For all
this, and about much more besides in Manchuria, it would be necessary to write a whole
book.32

The Japanese in Manchuria

By 1932 Manchuria was firmly under the control of the Japanese an

occupation which lasted thirteen years. It was the view of Lillian Grosvenor
Coville, an American, living in Harbin that the Japanese occupation was an
orderly and peaceful process.

It was a thrilling time last February when the Japanese soldiers marched in through New
Town and the Chinese scuttled out. The occupation was orderly and well controlled, and the
poor Russians who ran the jitneys and street cars were astonished when uniformed
Japanese soldiers paid their fares like every one else.33
The Japanese justified their aggression to the world by stating that their
purpose was to protect their interests in the South Manchurian Railroad which
was plagued by bandits. They were not popular with either the Russians or the
Chinese and did not bring an immediate end to banditry. The supplanting of the
previous government has meant many soldiers thrown out of work, and in
Manchuria, as in other parts of China, brigandage [was] the primary
unemployment relief measure.34
We are repeatedly treated to the sound of firing across the river and the incessant buzzing
of planes practising overhead. At times they are on their way to bomb some unfortunate
town that happens to be harbouring brigands.

Consequently, life in Harbin is full of excitement and suspense. One always feels that
something is about to happen, and generally it does. The miniature forts of sandbags
there is one on our street corner-left over from the February occupation by the Japanese,
the ever-present soldiers, the camouflaged tank filled with Japanese soldiers, which makes
its silent rounds at night, and the fact that our apartment house is protected by three private
guards, on duty day and night, add to the interest of life. 35

The Great Flood of 1932

In August of 1932 the waters of the Sungari River rose to flood level and
inundated the whole of the lower part of Harbin. This natural disaster quickly
spread to Fundziadian, the Chinese part of town, where hundreds if not
thousands lost their lives. It took over three months for the flood waters to recede
only to be followed by a cholera epidemic caused by sewage water
contaminating wells and the town water system. The flood paralyzed rail traffic,
and in spite of some effort by the Japanese to control the situation resulted in
large numbers of homeless people, both Russian and Chinese. To stop the
spread of cholera the Japanese ordered all inhabitants to be inoculated.

This was a thing which terrified every Chinese to his very soul and caused all Russian
doctors to be swamped by people clamouring for inoculation. The Japanese sent police or
soldiers with doctors from house to house and from room to room, and when the inmates
could not produce a signed certificate of inoculation they were immunized on the spot. On
important street corners every passer-by was stopped. If he did not have the desired
certificate with him he was requested to roll up his sleeve and have two shots in his arm at
once ! No argument at the point of a gun.36
If flooding and cholera had not been sufficient hardship for 1932 the Japanese
occupation proved for many Harbiners to be the final straw. For most Russians
life became intolerable under the Japanese. It was perhaps easy for Lillian
Colville, an American with a passport, to say that the Japanese assault on the
city had been orderly and well controlled. She, no doubt, left the city not long
after she wrote her article for The National Geographic Magazine.

The Russian Exodus from Harbin

By the mid 1930s the Russians began to desert Harbin in droves, leaving for
the south, mainly for Shanghai where they could place themselves under the
protection of the foreign concessions. When the railway rights were sold in 1935
most Russians who been employed in this enterprise either went to the Soviet
Union or gave up their Soviet citizenship and became refugees. Only a very few
remained in Harbin and in 1945 most of these people were removed to Soviet
labour camps.
 Of Russian Harbin virtually nothing now remains. Of the previous population of two hundred
thousand there were no more than forty people [by 1982]. Harbiners.are now scattered
across the whole world; with sad and nostalgic memories of their life in Harbin and the days
of their youth.37
The Russians departed but they left behind their beautiful churches, their clubs,
villas and dachas. They left behind wide boulevards and cobblestone streets.
They left behind a unique city Harbin, a little bit of old Russia set deep in the
heart of China.38

Endnotes Chapter 2
1
Interview with Militza Valentinovna Shoshin., April 6, 2001, Conducted by Robert W. White.
2
This not on the map by this name but it is a small railway station on the Chinese Eastern Railway route which
passes through Harbin in Manchuria. The name currently used is probably Fulaerji.
3
Chita is a station on the Trans-Siberian Railway. It is from here that the southern route of this railway enters
Manchuria. In 1918 it had a population of about 53,000 and was by Siberian standards an important city.
4
Militza Valentinovna Shoshin was the surviving daughter of Augusta Nizkovsky.
5
Augusta Constantinovna Nizkovsky, Autobiography, 1 June 1967.
6
Ibid.
7
Interview with Militza Valentinovna Shoshin.
8
This may be sarcastic but it is not clear from the text.
9
Militza Valentinovna Shoshin.
10
Autobiography, 1967.
11
Hailar or Hailaer as it is indicated on some maps is located about 700 kilometers west of Harbin on the main
railway line.
12
Autobiography, 1967.
13
Soviet forces invaded Manchuria in support of Soviet claims to the disputed Chinese Eastern Railway; they
withdrew after Chinese acceptance of the Soviet position regarding the railway.
14
This is a process where an old icon becomes like new, possibly, as a result of divine intervention.
15
A Russian saint.
16
A Moslem cleric.
17
There is no modern record of this village.
18
Interview with Militza Valentinovna Shoshin.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
21
Michael Glenny and Norman Stone. The Other Russia (London, Faber and Faber, 1990), p.200.
22
Ibid., 204
23
Ibid.
24
Ibid.
25
Ibid., 205.
26
Far from Home (Harbin), http://www.han-yuan.com/shudian/far/far2.htm
27
Lillian Grosvenor Coville, Here in Manchuria, The National Geographic Magazine Vol. LXIII, No. 2 (February
1933), p. 234.
28
Glenny, The Other Russia, p. 220.
29
Ibid., 207.
30
Ibid., 213.
31
Ibid., 214.
32
Ibid., 216.
33
Coville, Here in Manchuria, p. 244.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid., 255.
37
Glenny, The other Russia, p. 220.
38
Ibid.