Russians in China
This caused a massive brawl by the inflamed local Uyghur populace against the Russians on the pretext of protecting Muslim women because anti-Russian sentiment had built up.
[10][11] When the White Army was defeated in the war against the Bolsheviks, many Cossacks and other refugees fled to Xinjiang under the lead of General Ivanov.
[14] Besides damage done by previous European explorers, White movement bandits escaping from the Russian Civil War were responsible for vandalizing much of the Buddhist art at the Mogao Grottoes.
[16] Near the Chinese New Year Eve of 1933, the capital Ürümqi was besieged by Ma Shimin's units during the Battle of Urumqi (1933), Jin Shuren formed the 2nd Guihua Cavalry and repulsed them.
Several Jin dissenters persuaded Pappengut and Antonov to launch a coup d'état, and they occupied the city defense command on the afternoon of April 12.
[26] In the summer of 1934, when the war ended pro tempore, Sheng retracted the Guihua Headquarters, and selected about 500 Russians to form the 6th Cavalry to quarter at Ürümqi.
During the Ili Rebellion, American telegrams reported that the Soviet secret police threatened to assassinate Muslim leaders from Ining and put pressure on them to flee to "inner China" via Tihwa (Ürümqi), White Russians grew fearful of Uyghur Muslim mobs as they chanted, "We freed ourselves from the yellow men, now we must destroy the white.
The Red Cross and World Council of Churches learned of the Old Believers' plight and came to their aid, helping them gather in Hong Kong and prepare for resettlement.
[citation needed] One group aboard a ship stopped for a few days in Los Angeles, California, which since 1905 had been the center of a large community of Spiritual Christians from Russia.
The Pryguny who recently immigrated via Iran rushed to the port and offered to host the Old Believers at their homes and prayer halls.
Later, once settled in South America, the elders used these addresses to contact potential sponsors, and eventually came to Los Angeles, with recommendations to go north to Oregon.
While the region is naturally separated from Manchuria by the Khingan, it is quite open to Russian territory across the Argun as the river freezes in winter and presents many fords and islands even in summer.
[33] While soils on the left Russian bank of the Argun are poor, those in the Trekhrechye are fertile, enabling agriculture as known in Russia proper.
While the Russians erected Cossack posts (ostrogi) in the Transbaikal region, the Qing dynasty was for a long time not interested in development of their side of the border.
Since the 1870s, Cossacks began grazing their cattle on the Chinese side, first along the Khaul river which is closest to Russia, only a day's ride away from the Russian settlements.
After the revolutionary turmoil of 1911, China struggled to reassert control of the Hulunbuir area which was partially achieved in 1915, fully only in 1920.
Four waves of immigrants might be distinguished: firstly, the Cossacks which had lived on the Russian side on the Argun and now settled down on the Chinese side; secondly, other refugees of the civil war from the remainder of Transbaikal, many hoping to return soon; thirdly, the largest wave of refugees from Soviet collectivization, starting in 1929 (known as the tridtsatniki '1930-ers'); and lastly, laid-off employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which was run largely by Russians up until that time.
Chinese authorities attempted to assimilate the emigrants in the 1920s by introducing passports, raising taxes, prohibiting Orthodox feast days.
The villages were grouped around long straight streets and consisted of blockhouses made of larch wood, facing south, with ocher-painted floors.
With regards to traditions, people would e.g. strew flour into their hallways nine days after Easter and check the next morning whether their dead parents had returned.
[39] During the Soviet intervention for the Chinese Eastern Railway, the Red Army led punitive expeditions into the Tryokhrechye in August and September 1929.
Japan permitted a certain degree of cultural autonomy for minorities like the Russians, mainly to counter the numerically dominant Han Chinese in their new puppet state, Manchukuo.
The BREM organized local propaganda and indoctrination, especially for Russian youth, and the celebrations for March 1, Manchukuo's national holiday.
Having lost their livelihoods, and with most of them widowed, Doihara forced the women into prostitution, using them to create a network of brothels throughout China where they worked under inhuman conditions.
"[56] The children of these women were tested in ways similar to their parents, with specific emphasis on determining how longer infection periods affected the effectiveness of treatments.
When survivors were determined to no longer be useful for experimentation and were complaining of illness, staff told them they would receive a shot of medicine, but instead executed them with potassium cyanide injections.
[57]: 323 The small Russian community beyond the Argun drew a disproportionate interest of Japanese imperial researchers: ethnographers, anthropologists, agronomists.
[58] They idolized the Cossacks and their way of dealing with the harsh climate, drawing potential conclusions for the settlement of Japanese in Manchuria.
[59] With the Soviet invasion in 1945, the secret service (NKVD) entered the area and arrested about a quarter of the male population, especially the larger number of the tridtsatniki, which were deported to the Gulag.
Most of them were repatriated to the Soviet Union over the following years, with the last significant wave going to Kazakhstan from 1955 to 1956; Chinese farmers took over the vacated areas.
