continued:
“Everybody turned this fascinating story down for the same reason: it would look like pro-American propaganda and will be sure to cause a sour reaction from the Russian government,” the author said.
From Vladivostok the boat, a Japanese cargo boat rented by the Red Cross for the rescue, docked at San Francisco, the Panama Canal, New York, Brest andHelsinki.
The children who made the journey kept their travels a secret. That famous St. Petersburg choreographer Leonid Yakobson was one of them, only came to light after he died, during Lipovetsky’s research.
“They were afraid to mention it and many of these children eventually suffered in some way or another,” said Lyubov Krokhalyova, daughter of Leonid Danilov, who made the journey. “Some of them just weren’t trusted because of this exposure to Western life, some were denied the right to get higher education.”
Lipovetsky said the Russian ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, a friend of Yakobson, was astonished to hear that he had been one of the wandering children.
“She just didn’t believe it at first,” he said. “She said Yakobson would have told her. But we received a written confirmation from Yakobson’s widow that he was there. And it was then already that he demonstrated an ability for dancing: one of my heroes recalls an episode “Everybody turned this fascinating story down for the same reason: it would look like pro-American propaganda and will be sure to cause a sour reaction from the Russian government,” the author said.
From Vladivostok the boat, a Japanese cargo boat rented by the Red Cross for the rescue, docked at San Francisco, the Panama Canal, New York, Brest andHelsinki.
The children who made the journey kept their travels a secret. That famous St. Petersburg choreographer Leonid Yakobson was one of them, only came to light after he died, during Lipovetsky’s research.
“They were afraid to mention it and many of these children eventually suffered in some way or another,” said Lyubov Krokhalyova, daughter of Leonid Danilov, who made the journey. “Some of them just weren’t trusted because of this exposure to Western life, some were denied the right to get higher education.”
The story began in the spring of 1918, when Petrograd authorities decided to send children from the starving city to safer and warmer places. Eight hundred children, aged between 7 and 15 years old, left for the Urals.
However, by the time they were to return home, White general Alexander Kolchak’s troops blocked the railway in Siberia, making the trip impossible. The children faced a hungry and cold winter.
American Red Cross volunteers working in Siberia found out about the plight of the children, and started plotting a rescue plan. After they discovered that taking the train to St. Petersburg was not an option, they took the bold decision of arranging a detour by sea.
Lipovetsky compares the story to the Arabian Nights.
“You can tell a new episode every night, and there will be no end to the story,” he said.
Lipovetsky wrote his book as a semi-fictional account.
“The writer chose the most difficult genre for his novel,” said Alexei Gordin, head of Azbuka publishing house, which has published the book. “In a documentary you simply list the facts. Writing fiction is more entertaining but fiction is a rather ‘irresponsible’ genre. But in semi-fiction you not only have to stick to historical truth, you need to reconstruct people’s feelings without insulting anybody’s memory.”
Several children died during the journey.
“The first two children, a little brother and sister, died while on the train in Siberia,” Lipovetsky said. “It is difficult to watch over 800 kids, and during a train stop they ran away, ate some poisonous berries and died.”
A girl died after she was bitten by a tropical fly when the boat was crossing the Panama canal. A boy was killed during an accident with a U.S. soldier’s gun.
“There were several deaths but children were dying by hundreds in starvation-stricken Petrograd,” Lipovetsky said.
Upon arrival in Petrograd in 1921, the children and their parents had trouble recognizing each other. One mother looked for a specific birthmark to recognize her son. One girl refused to accept that an emaciated woman was her mother, Lipovetsky said.
Vladimir Pozner, head of the Russian Television Academy, called the book a literary and historical epic of heroism.
The question I would have is Could some of the Stories about Russian Emigrants passed down in families... of Children coming across the Sea be from this amazing piece of reality. I posted this in Russian History because it is actual History.
