GuangZhou, China
2006.06.06
Privet Yurichka!
I can't believe that I am seeing these pictures! How wonderful.
You may wish to peruse the wonderful
www.rusharbin.com which is maintained by one of the emigres still living in Harbin.
As someone who has lived in Harbin recently and who adores Harbin, I can identify some of these buildings for you.
A. The two gentlemen sitting in front of a long road that leads to a Victoria looking summer building...that was the Harbin Swimming and Yacht Club...that building still exists today and serves much of the same purpose.
B. The Bridge over the Synagura River was destroyed by the Japanese during the War and has since been rebuilt. It looks remarkably like the original.
C. I believe, but I am not 100% sure, yet still I am sure, that the WONDERFUL picture of your grandmother and her friends taken together was taken in front of the doors of one of the two "pravoslavnii gimansii" that existed in Harbin. Most likely it was the No. 2 Gimnasia and this school today is the Harbin Senior Middle for the Nationalities (the building still exists).
D. When I asked some of my "harbintzii" colleagues to look at the picture, they, on the other hand, think it it appears to be the Rectory of the Pokrov Church, 266 Dongdazhi Street, Harbin. The Pokrov Church was also known as the Ukranian Church. Was your babushka Russian or Ukranian or might she have come from that part of the Empire?
E. The railroad yard which built and repaired those wonderful steam locomotives (and all of their succesors) in Harbin only very, very recently stopped manufacturing the steam locomotive series that was lanced after the War. It still exists and one can actually see some of these locomotives in the yard. They were gradually withdrawn from MOST passenger and freight service in and around Harbin but they are still in use some parts of Inner Mongolia.
F. The picture of those two houses in the country set back on a parcel is, in my opinion, in the Daoli District of Modern Harbin, on Youyi Road. This was a part of the city set aside for those Russians who arrived in the 1920s and it was located near the most wonderful Annunciation Church, a church built entirely of wood which existed until 1976 and which no longer exists for reasons well known.
This is wonderful, just wonderful...
I look forward to any other pictures that you might have.
And frankly, your grandmother definitely was a truly a "dama" - bezuslovna...
Great..
Thank again.
Alex P.
