Russian community in Hong Kong [????- ]

Hello,

I lived in Hong Kong between 1966-1985 and my mother befriended an impoverished elderly White Russian lady called Susanna who escaped from Shanghai shortly after the Communists took power in 1949. I can remember very little else except she used to call me `Apple` (!),threw food out of an upper window for me and lived in a block of flats on the Western side of HK island.She must have been in her early 80s in the late 1970s.

i`ll try and find out more.

Rich

In his 2007 book Where Empires Collided: Russian and Soviet Relations with Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao Michael B. Share estimates the number of White Russians in Hong Kong as never more than just over 100 people (p. 93). He says its members ran ' several restaurants, tailor shops, and small food stores'. He also mentions the contingent in the Police and points to the central role played by Archpriest Dimitry Upsensky from 1934 onwards.

We can add to this the role played by Russians in the arts (George Pio-Ulski, George Goncharoff, Preorbazhensky and probably others).

I wonder if just over 100 is a little low? 

My incomplete list of Russians who were living outside the camps at the start of the occupation has about 60 names on it (including children).

On the one hand:

some of these people had probably taken the nationality of their spouse after marriage;

the list certainly includes a number of people who had become British citizens by naturalisation.

On the other hand:

half of those 60 people were granted assistance by the Red Cross in 1942 - most for living expenses, a few to go to Shanghai or Macao; the vast majority of these were women, and some or most of these would have had husbands in the camps.

The 'Papers' collected by Colin Gimson and now in the University of Hong Kong Special Collections contains a list of Russians that I think was compiled for the 1931 ten year 'super census'. By my count it gives about 190 'stateless' males and 130 'stateless' females. Interestingly there's a separate list of USSR citizens: 11 males and 9 females. One of the males is described as an 'exporter' which would suggest some trade links between Hong Kong and the USSR. One of the females was a 'milliner' which suggests she was allowed to pursue her profession. 

There would have been a lot of chopping and changing by 1941 but this supports my hunch that there were about 200 Russians (taking the word in its widest sense) in Hong Kong during the occupation.

I've found one source that states Russians were banned from the Colony for a number of years. I've not been able to validate this, nor do I know, if true, if the ban applied to Soviet citizens, 'stateless' refugees, or both.

Hi David,

I was interested to read about Barbara Mackenzie and her memoires of the Russian Jewish community in HK - do you know if she recorded an oral history I interview I could take a look at?

Thank you!

Best wishes,

Amelia