Moravsky N.V.

Tubabao Island. 1948–1951

The last refuge of Russian Far Eastern emigration

Москва: Русский путь, 2000

Contents

INSTEAD OF A FOREWORD...................................................................................................................................2

FROM SHANGHAI TO TUBABAO..........................................................................................................................2

WHAT THEY WROTE ABOUT THE EVACUATION....................................................................................OF 4

CONSTRUCTION, LIFE AND POPULATION OF THE "TENT CITY"............................................................9

RELIGION, CULTURE, EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT....................................................................16

СКАУТЫ....................................................................................................................................................................21

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.....................................................................................................................................................28

ON THE WAY TO A NEW LIFE.............................................................................................................................31

TUBABAO - SAN FRANCISCO: TRAVEL DIARY.............................................................................................33

END OF CAMP..........................................................................................................................................................38

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Instead of a foreword
The Chinese Red Army's offensive against nationalist troops in northern China in 1948
forced many Russian immigrants living in Hankou, Beijing, Tianjin, Tsingtao and other cities of
the country to move to Shanghai urgently. Their move to Shanghai and the installation there for
temporary residence in the former French barracks at Ruth FRelunt was handled by the UN-
affiliated International RefugeeOrganization (IRO).). ( I will use the same abbreviation in
Russian, i.e. IRO, mainly because it is often used in Russian-language sources to which I refer).
In view of the fact that the ultimate goal of the Chinese Red Army offensive was to
capture the entire country, including, of course, Shanghai, the IRO asked the governments of
several countries of the free world to provide temporary shelter to the refugees who were in the
hostel on Ruth Frelunt, as well as Russian immigrants and persons of some other nationalities
who lived permanently in Shanghai. The only State to respond to the IRO's call was the
Philippine Republic, which had provided an uninhabited part of the small island of Tubabao,
located at the southern tip of Samar Island and connected with it, for a temporary settlement of
refugees from China. While the Philippine Government provided shelter to the refugees, the IRO
took over the organization and cost of evacuating them from Shanghai and keeping them on
Tubabao, as well as their further resettlement. Initially, the Philippine Government limited the
stay of refugees to Tubabao for four months, but subsequently extended it several times. Some
refugees have lived on Tubabao for more than two years.
The main sources for this essay were newspaper reports and articles in English and
Russian languages, my personal memories and related documents related to the stay of refugees
on Tubabao, collected by my late friend Alexei Knyazev, which was kindly provided to me in
January 1996 by his widow, Evgenia Iosifovna Knyazeva, who lives in San Francisco.
The essay was first published in No. 4 in 1997 and No. 5 for 1998 by the literary-
historical yearbook "Russians in Asia", edited by O.M. Bakic at the Center for the Study of
Russia and Eastern Europe at the University of Toronto.

From Shanghai to Tubabao

While the seven hundred and fifty refugees of1who were in the hostel at Ruth Frelunt
were under the administrative control of theIRO and were organized to evacuate upon arrival in
Shanghai, the corresponding work to evacuate The Russian emigrants-Shanghai began only in
December 1948. I lived in an area whose evacuation headquarters was in Russian officer meeting
at Ryu Lafayette. «десятниками» as well as their luggage were collected and taken to the
wharf. The head of the convoy was the head of our evacuees, consisting of five hundred and fifty
people, and the responsibility for the evacuation of all Russian emigrants-Shanghai, in
cooperation with the IRO, fell to the chairman of the Russian Emigrant Association of Shanghai,
Grigory Kirillovich Bologov.
The evacuation of refugees from Shanghai to Tubabao began in January 1949 and ended
in early May, shortly before the Chinese Communists came to Shanghai. About five and a half
thousand men are men, Two old passenger steamers, Hwa-lien and Cristobal, took six
Shanghai-Manila-Tubabao flights together, and a third vessel, Haven, sailed the same route and
took four of the last four refugees on 20 May 1949.
The above-mentioned vessels carried an average of five hundred people per flight, while
American transport planes, which made thirty flights from Shanghai to Tubabao via Manila,
could accommodate fifty people 2.. Таким образом, по воздуху из Шанхая на Тубабао было
доставлено около полутора тысяч человек, а морским путем свыше четырех тысяч.
Hwa-lien, which was among the five hundred and fifty refugees, and I, He left Shanghai
on February 4, 1949, and this was his second flight to Tubabao. Here for a moment it seemed to

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me that I got to the heavens of the earth: the cloudless azure sky, the mirrored sea surface, the
fresh breeze, the serene silence. A group of Filipinos in uniforms, customs officers, security
officers and other officials, boarded the plane. If I saw me at the entrance to the bay
metaphorically called paradise, then there was the very embodiment of hell: everywhere from
under the water sticking out the charred remains of the burned in battle American and Japanese
ships.
In manil Bay we stood for 24 hours and reached Tubabao on February 11 попро 3.There
was already another steamer with refugees on the raid, "Cristobal" because of the shallow water
neither "Hwa-lien" nor "Cristobal" could not dock on the shore. Every thing we played was
greeted withfriendlyapplause.
The day after our arrival and after the Christobal unloading, it was our turn to unload
under the scorching sun. In the role of riggers were men like me - young or relatively young (I
was then 25 years old), and most importantly - physically strong and hardy. From the hold we
loaded the luggage in the net and with the help of a crane lowered it on the boats moored to us.
Having landed, at first I could not comprehend the realities of the surrounding
environment, too it was unusual: tropical heat in February, coral coast, jungle, among which
lined wooden coconut palms with long and bizarre leaves on the crowns. However, despite the
shock caused by contact with the exotic reality, I, like all those who came with me, had to
immediately begin to make a new life in a new place. Finding my belongings in a pile of
unloaded luggage on the shore, I, with the help of my close friend, Gennady Shuisky, dragged
them to his future shelter - an old tent.
We spent the first few days queuing waiting to fill out detailed questionnaires for
Philippine customs, immigration authorities, intelligence and counterintelligence если таковые
имелись. Кроме того, каждого тубабаовца взвешивали, фотографировали, измеряли его
рост и снимали отпечатки пальцев4agencies.
The camp was under curfew: on weekdays we had to be in our tents by ten o'clock 5in the
evening, and on Saturday and Sunday - to eleven.
----------------------------------
1 This
figure is taken by me from the letter-report of the scoutmaster A.N. The letter of the report, dated May 7,
addressed to the senior Russian scout, Oleg Pantyukhov, who lived in 1949 г1996 гПапка Князева. the United
States.
2
See: A l e x e y e v V . Memories of Tubabao / Russian Life. San Francisco, 1995. 13 Sep.
3
См.: Memorandum from Scm. A.N. Kniazeff to Camp Director J.F. Fennell. February 14, 1949. (Папка
Князева.)
4
См.: PI Gov't Working with IRO to Aid Samar Refugees // North China Daily News (далее сокращенно —
NCDN). February 16, 1949. Ксерокопии вырезок из «NCDN» и других газет, включая русскоязычные,
издававшиеся в Сан-Франциско, мне предоставила О.М. Бакич, которая их получила от Патриции Полански,
библиографа по России Гамильтонской библиотеки Гавайского университета.
5
См. об этом также: L o r e n z o . Letter to the Editor of the NCDN // NCDN. April 21, 1949.

What was written about the evacuation

The evacuation of Russian refugees from Shanghai to Tubabao was paid a lot of attention
«North China Daily News by the Shanghai-based north ChinaDaily News,a daily
newspaperpublished in Shanghai. Like other English-speaking sources, the term "white
Russians" was often used in relation to Russian emigrants, as well as other Anglo- and Russian-
language periodicals, mistakenly referred to the refugee camp in the Philippines as "Samar."
One of the earliest references to the expected evacuation of Russian refugees from
Shanghai was published « by TheAssociatedPress from Geneva on 26 January 1949.

The executive committee of the International Refugee Organization decided on Wednesday-

against Chinese objections - to evacuate 6,000 white Russian refugees in Shanghai. Many refugees

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 fear for their safety under the rule of the advancing communist armies.
The representative of China, Dr. By Nan-yu, argued that white Russians were not in danger
from the Communists and therefore should be left in China.
The refugees will be transported to a temporary settlement on the Philippine island of Samar,
where they will remain until resettlement 1..

In an editorial commenting on the post, theNorth China Daily News expressed extreme
bewilderment at the statement made by a representative of nationalist China in By Geneva. In
addition, the mass exodus of Russian emigrants from Shanghai predetermined the inevitability of
the capture of the city by Chinese communists and undermined the support of the local
population of Chinese nationalists. их надлежит оставить в Китае» (курсив мой.
"N.M.),Dr. By Nan-yu made it clear that, taking advantage of the defenselessness of Russian
emigrants in China, Chinese nationalists felt By entitled to forcibly hold them in Shanghai.
At first, after the evacuation of the first groups of refugees from Shanghai to Tubabao,
they were not reported because the Philippine authorities censored Tubabao's letters and
newspaper reports and demanded that all correspondence of the arrivals be conducted in English.
It was not until February 10, 1949, that «the North China Daily News published the belated first
message of Max Rosentul, his former employee, now a refugee, who arrived by plane with the
first batch of evacuees from Shanghai to Tubabao on January 19. Everyone lives in tents for two,
four or twelve people, and the hospital, offices and storage facilities are housed in prefabricated
barracks made of corrugated iron. , boilers for boiling water and tents. Rosentool ended his
report with a mention of the continuing shortage of hand and trench tools, fresh water and
electricity2..
Two days before Rosentul's report to the «North China Daily News, another Shanghai-
language newspaper published an article with four images of the Tubaba camp reflecting its
tented life and primitive living conditions. There are many problems, but enthusiasm and
resilience are winning."3. The article prompted an indignant letter to thenorth China Daily News,
signed by Samarca, accusing the IRO of incompetence and claiming, on the basis of the author's
information, that the camp was not well-maintained, that he did not have adequate medical care
and medicine, and that those who had arrived were suffering from dysentery and other tropical
diseases. "The IRO was created for us refugees," concluded her letter, . “"Samark,"”, and it is
the IRO's duty to serve us, not to turn us into "pioneers" of the Far East."4
In the following front-page article, theNorth China Daily News countered with Samarke,
pointing out, in particular, that the situation of the refugees on Tubabao was better than that of
citizens of Western Allies interned by the Japanese in Shanghai during World War II, and that
the IRO "cannot arrange afternoon tea or provide them with exquisite porcelain dishes, Inresponse
to an editorial, a second letter fromSamarki claimed that the newspaper had misinterpreted her
words, as well as a letter from a prominent French lawyer and Shanghai old-timer, Paul Preme,
who knew shanghai'Russian s Russian migrant colony well.

Sir! Without denying the unsaltable difficulties of the situation of white Russians in Samara, you in
the recent front line tried to help them grieve and, perhaps at the same time, divert public attention
from the unpleasant issue. Your response to Samarca was harsh.
You are, of course, quite right, noting ironically that the IRO cannot arrange afternoon tea for the
Samaritans or provide them with exquisite porcelain dishes from which to drink it; but none of the
refugees in Samara thought or thought about it, for they had sold, even less than a piece of bread,
their porcelain and other household items. But are they really wrong, trying to draw the attention of
the nations that have taken care of them, the lack of water, the dysentery and tropical diseases, the
lack of medical care in Samara?
When you compare Samaritans (or Samaritans) with allied citizens interned by the Japanese, this
comparison is far from perfect. Allied citizens, as citizens of countries at war with Japan, were its
enemies. This was the international reason for their internment. But are white Russians enemies of
America, England, France or China? On the contrary, they are considered to be "entitled to the
assistance of the IRO and are under the legal protection of the United Nations" (see IRO passport).

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 Instead of one passport, they seem to have a collective passport of all the United Nations. From an
international point of view, they should enjoy the protection and assistance of all nations. Is it
possible to believe in such a way that, having so many mighty patrons, they still have to live in
tents, eat poorly, not be able to correspond freely and receive money from abroad? Is the world so
small that the United Nations, led by a generous America, could not find a better place for these
people than this uninhabited land? And how can we explain that they cannot enjoy the same
freedom and privileges that the Chinese have afforded them for so many years without restriction?
I ask the Emigrant Committee (meaning the Russian Emigrant Association. - N.M.)and the IRO
not to treat this letter as a polemical attack.
Dr. Paul Preme
Shanghai, February 17 . 1949 г6

I, who have lived in the Tubabao camp for almost two years, largely agree with Dr.
Preme's opinion, although I do not forget that without the help of the IRO and the Philippine
government, I would not have been able to get out of Shanghai in a timely manner and build a
new and prosperous life in a free country, America.
Preme's letter was met with a response not only in Shanghai, but also in San Francisco,
where, translated into Russian with small abbreviations, it was published in a local Russian-
language newspaper. The newspaper's employee, who reported and translated Preme's letter,
received a clipping from theNorth China Daily News with a letter from a friend from Shanghai
who was perplexed about the dissemination of rosy information about Tubabao7in the
UnitedStates.
In the failure of the evacuation of Russian refugees from Shanghai were a bloodthading
interest of local Soviet circles, spreading alarming rumors about the situation on Tubabao. The
Shanghai pro-Soviet newspaper News of the Day, whose editor and publisher was Vasily
Chilikin, a former Russian immigrant who became a Soviet citizen, repeatedly wrote about the
troubles waiting for refugees in the Philippines. One article on the subject stated that refugees
would be divided into three categories, the first of which will be refugees from the Baltic States,
the second - утверждение, которое газета пыталась, видимо, связать с эвакуированным в
первой группе беженцев на Тубабао католическим священником византийского обряда
отцом Андреем Урусовым8. Russian emigrants, and the third - former Soviet citizens.
In addition to intimidating Russian emigrants with imaginary or genuine difficulties on
Tubabao, local Soviet circles decided to embezzle the property of the emigrant hospital in
Shanghai on the grounds that it belonged to the Russian Orthodox Brotherhood and therefore
should be transferred to the Russian Orthodox Mission in China, which by that time had passed
into the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Soviet side sued the case in a Chinese
court, which did not have time to rule before the occupation of Shanghai by the Chinese Red
Army, so that the property of the hospital of the Russian Orthodox Brotherhood on Tubabao
failed9.
Meanwhile, on February 4, 1949,г «North China Daily News»: the. ИРО сочла
присутствие Бологchairmanofthe Russian Emigrant Association of Shanghai, Grigory
Kirillovich Bologo, rushed to thePhilippines.

In accordance with the decision of the executive committee of the REA (Russian Emigrant
Association. - N.M.)and in response to repeated proposals of the IRO, I have to immediately leave
for the island of Tubabao.
It is very difficult for me to tell you this news and it is even harder to part with you, but it is my
duty and your interests to demand that this step be taken for the benefit of the whole community.
During my absence, my deputy, Mr. Fedulenko, will be acting chairman, while members of the
committee, Gentlemen V.N. Digo, J.P. Gordeev, V.V. Krasovsky and V.A. Reyer, Secretary of the
Committee and sufficient staff of experienced and reliable staff will remain in the Office of the
Association and its various departments in order to ensure the successful completion of the current
evacuation.
I will keep in touch with you, keep a close eye on what is happening here and protect your

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 interests. Difficult problems await me there. It is necessary to re-establish the inner social life of
the camp. Order and exemplary discipline must be observed in the camp by Russian emigrants. Full
cooperation with IRO representatives and local authorities must be ensured. I will do everything in
my power to help bring this evacuation to a successful end.
Preliminary work here is complete, and I have every reason to assure you that the evacuation will
be completed soon.
I ask you to remain calm and disciplined and to help in this difficult matter in the interests of all
of us.
I look forward to our emergency and joyful meeting.
May God bless you all and bless your difficult, noble and honest path 10..

Since it was about Bologov, let me say a few words about him. Grigory
KirillovichBologo came out of the people and was a Cossack officer during the Civil War. In a
speech to voters uttered with sincerity and uplift, he promised to defend the interests of Russian
emigrants-Shanghai, expressing confidence that they will remain convinced anti-communists and
overcome the difficulties that stood in their way.
Thanks to hard work, organizational skills, patience, tact and flexibility, BoloMr.Ov
managed to cope with the evacuation of Russian emigrants from Shanghai, reduce the
inconvenience of their stay on Tubabao and facilitate their resettlement to other countries.
In the abovestatement, Bologo says, that he was forced to leave Shanghai for Tubabao "in
response to repeated IRO offers." In response to the refusal of the Kluge Philippines,a Senior
Official, When he wastold to disembark the passengers, temporarily stopped unloading his
luggage, prevented Kluge from boarding on Tubabao and sent him to Manila.11.
--------------------------------------
1
То Evacuate Local White Russians (АР, Geneva) // NCDN. January 16, 1949 . Пер. с англ. автора.
2
См.: R o s e n t o o l M . Conditions in Refugee Camp Described Samar// NCDN. February 10, 1949.
3
Daily Flights of Refugee Planes Start, February 8, 1949 (статья из англоязычной газеты; источник
неизвестен). Пер. с англ. автора.
4
S a m a r i a n . Refugees or Pioneers?: Letter to the Editor of the NCDN // NCDN. February 10, 1949 . Пер. с
англ. автора.
5
A Complaint: Editorial // NCDN. February 14, 1949.
6
P g e m e t P . Samar: Letter to the Editor of the NCDN // NCDN. February 17, 1949. . . . . . .
Ред. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
..............................................................................
................................
7
См: News from Shanghai about Russian refugees taken to the Philippine island of Samar.
8
См.: J.P. Two Thousand Soviet Papers Returned // NCDN. January 28, 1949.
9
См. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (an article from a Russian-language
newspaper published in San Francisco; the source is unknown).1949 г
10
G.K. Bologoff Summoned to by IRO Samar// NCDN. February 15, 1949. Пер. с англ. автора.
On Bologov's flight from Shanghai to the Philippines on February 4, see: Half of the Russians left:
Situation in Shanghai, February 11 . (an article from a Russian-language newspaper published in San Francisco; the
source is unknown).1949 г
11
I attended a meeting with Bologov at a Russian officer meeting in Shanghai when he talked about the Kluge
Shanghai Evacuees Due Manila February Manila NCDNincident. February 19, 1949.

Construction, life and population of the "tent city"

When our group of refugees arrived in Tubabao, the IRO camp administration was
already largely formed there. On February 9, 1949, the first head of the camp, American J.-F.
Fennell, under whose direction the office worked, was located in one of the barracks of the
administrative center of the camp. The office included: the financial department under the

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guidance of the American E. Papp, the medical department led by Dr. Chinese Khan, the supply
department under the supervision of another Chinese, Tsunga, and the technical department,
headed by Oleg Miram. All of the above,such persons, with the exception of Miram, were
appointed to their posts by the IRO General Office in Geneva, and Miram, an engineer and
Russian expat, was invited to work for the IRO administration in the camp itself. He flew from
Shanghai to Tubabao on 19 January 1949, led by the first group of refugees consisting of forty-
eight men, engineers, technicians and skilled workers.
These two groups of refugees found themselves in the wild jungle, where there was no
shelter, no roads, no kitchens, no toilets, no showers, no electricity, no sufficient supplies of
drinking water, no other conditions necessary for the normal existence. The first two groups
arriving in Tubabao were to somehow secure their own existence and prepare for the settlement
of four hundred and ninety-two refugees from the steamer Hwa-lien, which was to arrive on the
island on the first flight on 24 January1..
Returning to the question of IRO employees in the camp, I would like to note that, in
addition to Miram, over time, several more refugee workers have appeared in the IROoffice,
including Frida Blasch, I.I. Prelovskiy, Moses Katz andothers.
All the men in the camp were employed, women were housework, worked in shifts in
common kitchens, served in various offices as typists and secretaries, and nurses at the hospital.
At first, all worked gratuitously, but later began to receive a small monetary reward, which was
spent on small expenses. All the jobs were to varying degrees related to the maintenance of the
camp's inhabitants.
The IRO administration in Tubabao divided the camp into areas, and in its final form
there were fourteen districts, each of which at the time of the largest population of the camp
lived on average more than three hundred people. The districts were not equal in area because of
the different topographical conditions and were marked by numbers depending on the time of
their formation, i.e. those who arrived at the beginning lived, as a rule, in the first district, and
those who arrived in the end - in the fourteenth.3.
The three districts - the fourth, the eighth and eleventh - in addition to their digital
designations have come to be called "scouting," "presidential" and "musical," as its name
suggests, as its name suggests, as its name suggests, as its name suggests, as its name suggests,
as its name suggests, as its name suggests, as its name suggests, as its name suggests, as its name
suggests, as its name suggests, The majority of the population of the "scout" district consisted of
scouts (members of a youth organization for boys and girls) and theirв families.
To ensure policing, the camp was home to its own police force, consisting mainly of
middle-aged men, many of whom were former members of the cadet corps or members of the
Shanghai Foreign Concessions police. The officers wore protective-colored shorts and short-
sleeved U.S. military-style shirts. There was a red bandage on the left sleeve of the shirt. They
had a tropical helmet, also khaki. U.S. military boots were completing the police outfit. There
was a small prison at the police station, and an arbitration court was set up to deal with the
camp'slawsuits..
Tropical heat on Tubabao gave way to tropical downpours, and sometimes typhoons hit
the island, one of which the camp poet Olga Skopichenko dedicated the following stanzas:

The ocean was clocotal and grumbled. The abyss of the sea rose
To grips with the heavens, and ragged clouds rushed
A whirlwind across the sky. And the water width rising,
A terrible yellow storm carried away into the lead.

As anticipation... first, black, ragged clouds

From somewhere in the south to the star-studded,
The palm trees were a little fluttering in anticipation of the storms of the non-dominant,
The jungle seems to be stronger, more menacing, more closely intertwined.

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 I did. Raised the stormy sea to the island on a grand scale,
He threw a whippy, angry, prickly stream of rain.
The crowns of palm trees, like huge brooms, swayed with fear.
The wind tore and twisted, no one, sparing nothing5.

On Tubabao it was necessary to adapt not only to the tropical climate and vegetation, it
was necessary to protect themselves from creatures: venomous snakes, scorpions, centipedes-
skolopendr and many mosquitoes. Nights on Tubabao were, fortunately, cool, but sleeping at
night without mosquito netting was impossible, and the bites of venomous snakes, scorpions and
centipedes were sometimes fraught with serious consequences. I remember how my neighbor in
the double tent Vladimir Krakowtsev at night in his sleep accidentally stuck his left hand from
under the mosquito net and he was stung by a skolpendra. After a few days in the hospital, he
was discharged, although he was severely weakened, and soon died of a heart attack.
Krakowtsev's death came suddenly, on a sunny morning: he was lying on his bed, and I was
sitting on my own - the distance between the beds of step two - suddenly he rose, looked at me
intently, took a deep breath, twitched, became pale mauve, and with dead eyes fell down.
I was lucky enough to avoid being bitten by snakes, scorpions and centipedes, but like
many others, I did not escape the mosquito fever that threw me into the heat or in the cold for a
few days. It took a long time to recover the forces damaged by the fever.
As mentioned above, the camp housing was tents of various sizes все обитатели лагеря,
численность которых в момент их наибольшего скопления достигала пяти тысяч
четырехсот семидесяти человек6 - double, four-seater, twelve-seater, twenty-seater. .
Недаром Тубабао мы прозвали «палаточным городом».
Tents and camping beds, which IRO provided the inhabitants of the camp, remained with
the U.S. Army after the war. Used tents in some places rotted and therefore leaked, but sufficient
stock of tarpaulin allowed either to build a "double roof", that is, to hang a piece of tarpaulin
over the tent, or just to patch it. The tents were set up by physically strong men, and this was the
last stage of the work to provide shelter for the arrivals.

We started cutting down the jungle thickets and burning it all. The presence of strong, sticky, red
clay covering rocks and corals, the basis of the island, hindered rapid progress and tired in walking
and cleaning roads, places for tents and grooves around them, in order to divert water, pouring
abundantly from the sky day and night. The improvement moved very slowly and became
noticeable only by the end of the fourth month of our stay here 7.

Men also had to dig rectangular two-meter pits for latrines - separately for men х and 3
мwomen.
Building material for kitchens, In each ofй the fourteen districts of the camp there were
two latrines (for men and women), a kitchen, a boiler room and a pantry for storing food. Under
the canopy are six large kerosene ovens, very roomy boilers and pots, another kitchen utensil -
all this the American army handed over to the IRO for unnecessary. divided the finished food
into portions and distributed it to the inhabitants of the district. In addition to the main cook and
her assistants, three men worked in the kitchen every day: one of them lit the ovens and adjusted
the fire in them, while the other two, jokingly called "kitchen men", carried large boilers with hot
soup and pots with a second dish and sweet, as well as doing other work, which required
physical effort. Three shifts, each in the same line-up, were on duty in the kitchen of the seventh
district every three days.
The kitchen of the seventh district, where I once worked as a "kitchen man", received
daily fresh bread for all the inhabitants of the district and about fifteen kilograms of fresh meat
(along with bones). Such a quantity of meat was clearly not enough for individual meat portions
for three hundred-plus inhabitants of our district, and therefore soup was cooked from meat with
bones, potatoes and canned vegetables. The remaining soup-boiled bones with pieces of meat as
a reward for good work were given to the men who helped in the kitchen, and they were happy

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to stroke and suck them. The second dish was cooked from dry foods (most often pasta) and
some canned food; sometimes the sweet gave rice porridge with raisins. Dinner was a repeat of
the same lunch. Breakfast was not supposed at all, but from time to time we received additional
rations - cans with some canned goods. At first, we were often fed a canned product called
"hash" for lunch and dinner - ground meat with vegetables and slices и of potatoes.

In order to understand why the Funeral took place, it should be remembered that the khashem
campers were fed for quite some time; some of the jars with it were swollen, and the product was
spoiled, so our "D.P." (in English, the abbreviation of the words"displacedpersons" often ached ...
After the "Burial of the Hasha" the camp chief, Captain J.L. Combs, who was present at the
conversation by the fire, stopped issuing the hash, and the campers sighed more freely, fresh
produce appeared8.

No one on Tubabao was starving, but the food was not tasty and was not nutritious,
which was especially acutely felt by children and teenagers. To feed the children something
better and more delicious, mothers as much as possible prepared for them on the primus food
from additional rations or bought from Philippine trays of products. In the tropics there is a great
need for something spicy, and therefore one of the most popular spices in the camp was the spicy
American sauce Tabasco, which the lucky ones who received it in parcels from the U.S., gave
food.
During the distribution of lunch and dinner in front of the kitchen there were queues -
each with their own dishes, most often with empty cans, which could be obtained in the kitchen.
Raw water was not suitable for drinking, and therefore each district had its own boiler.
Ours adjoined the kitchen - the same canopy, only much smaller. From the river, the water
trucks filled the canisters with water, passed them on a chain to a truck, which then delivered
canisters and water trucks to their district boilers. Everyone needed boiled water.
After a while, we laid water pipes from the river on our own and began to pump water
into the camp. There is no need for water trucks - saving labor! We were provided not only with
drinking water, but also with water for washing, washing and other needs. It was to put on
slippers or something like that, so as not to cut their feet on the corals on the shore and at the
bottom of the ocean. Of course, it was also necessary for washing laundry - of course, by hand.
Because of the climate and the difficulty of keeping clothes in the right conditions, our
costumes and dresses were often molded and sprawled. Leather city shoes also deteriorated. Due
to frequent rains and clay soil, at best sprinkled with pebbles, the most practical shoes were
wooden pads, which craftsmen made themselves. And practical everyday clothes for both men
and women were light shirts with short sleeves and shorts.
Shortly after the camp was established, a group of our electricians built a power plant and
provided electricity throughout the camp, even in each tent, and another team of specialists
organized a hospital. Here is what about the hospital, about its staff and about the regime there
recorded by A.N. Knyazev on July 7, 1949:

The IRO hospital on Tubabao was founded in the first days of the arrival of the first groups of
refugees from Shanghai. The composition of the hospital staff is the following: chief physician Dr.
N.A. Smirnov, his assistant and deputy doctor P.I. Alekseenko (internal and children's diseases),
Dr. Dadai-Dadayevsky (internal, sexually transmitted and on-the-knee diseases), Dr. V.G.
Sakharov (surgical, women's and obstetrics), Dr. A.A. Mikheev (internal and child), Dr. A.A.
Ogleznev (surgical and internal), Dr. K.A. Progova (internal and pediatric), Dr. A.A. Ogleznev
(surgical and internal), Dr. K.A. The hospital's older sister is P.S. Sharapova, her assistant A.A.
Bogomolov and surgical sister S.P. Khlulnev. Chamber sisters: Aprelova, Bulgarina, Vinogradova,
Emelyanova, Goldowska, Kafarskaya, Konkina, Malyushkina, Meyerg, Mezentsova,
Lomakovskaya, Parshutto, Petrova, Pisareva, Ptaszynska, Petukhova, Skueva, Tsitovich and
Yazichkova. Plotnikova's sister is in a hospital in Gyuan. The hospital also employs paramedics:
Krayukhin, Markov and Romanovsky, and nurses: Ilyina, Markova, Scrobutova, Chernova and
Chirkova. The economic apparatus is in the hands of I.D. Danilov, he has a job in his office: R.P.

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 9

 Kandalintsev (accountant), X. In (typist) and clerk A.K. Larionov. The hospital occupies a separate
barracks divided by partitions into three wards: women's, men's wards and reception rooms, which
include a pharmacy, a department and a department for gynecological patients and a massage room.
There is a narrow passage between the beds where it is difficult to squeeze. Lunch is served after
noon and 4 p.m. also of two dishes and sweet. Life freezes in the hospital by 8-9 p.m. The sisters'
concerns continue through the night. From the opening of the hospital to June 1, 439 people passed
through the hospital9.

The Philippine security service had a permanent mission to the camp. In addition to
monitoring the camps, this office played the role of an intermediate authority in the delivery and
dispatch of camp correspondence. Each morning, a Philippine security officer armed with a gun
in a jeep forwarded the chief of mail (one of the refugees appointed to the post by the local IRO
administration) to the post office in the town of Gyuan on the island of Samar. Only in the
presence of this officer the head of the camp mail was given the correspondence. The head of the
camp mail handed over the correspondence every evening after the closure of the post office,
which served as a refugee mailing and reception point, to the Philippine security office; there it
was censored and then sent to its intended destination. As mentioned above, at first all
correspondence coming from the camp was to be conducted only in English, but later we were
allowed to write letters in Russian.
Despite the fact that the main purpose of the Philippine security service was to monitor
the camp's inhabitants, the Filipinos did not abuse their power and were very correct towards us.
There were no wire fences or armed guards in the camp.
As noted, the vast majority of the camp population were Russian immigrants. Among
them was a number of former Soviet citizens, emigrants who voluntarily received Soviet
passports after the Second World War under an influx of patriotic feelings, which appeared in
the expat environment as a result of the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union. The
decision of some to move to Soviet citizenship also played a role in the disenfranchisement and
difficult financial situation of many Russian emigrants in China, as well as the futility of their
continued stay there. However, pro-Soviet sentiments began to evaporate after the repatriation to
the USSR of the first groups of emigrants. And this happened in large part because, despite
Soviet censorship, letters from returnees were leaked to Shanghai, in which they veiledly advised
their family and friends remaining in Shanghai not to follow their example. Because of this and
because of the Chinese Red Army's attack on Shanghai, many who received Soviet passports
abandoned them and joined the Tubabao evacuees.
In addition to the Russians, there were representatives of a number of other nationalities
in the Tubabaov camp. According to A.N. diary entry Prince of April 28, 1949, by that time in
the camp lived: five Austrians, seventy-five Armenians, one Bulgarian, twenty-four Czechs,
forty-one Estonian, twenty Hungarians, forty-five Latvians, thirty Lithuanians, six Germans,
sixty Poles, seventeen Romanians, five Syrians, seventy Turko-Tatar, seventy-two Ukrainians,
twelve Yugoslavs, two Frenchmen, three Italians and a10Frenchman.
Most Russian campers were under fifty years old, and within this age category a
significant percentage were for children and adolescents of both sexes. In their social and
geographical affiliation, the Russian Tubaba citizens were heterogeneous. Although almost all
representatives of the older generation were born in Russia, many of them were natives of
Siberia or the Russian Far East, including a considerable number of Cossacks. There were also
people of noble origin, natives of the clergy, burghers and dissenters, and descendants of
ancestral families were few. The Far Eastern emigration included officers, participants of the
First World War and the Civil War, as well as former pupils of the cadet corps. There were quite
a few Russian youth born in exile, mainly in Harbin or Shanghai. Indigenous Harbins were
usually older than their Shanghai-born compatriots, were more Russian in spirit and knew
Russian language and culture better because they studied at Harbin's Russian educational
institutions. Those born in Shanghai were better in English and French because many of them
attended English and French schools. By their education and lifestyle, those born in Tianjin and

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 10

Tsingtao were approaching their Shanghai peers. There were relatively few people with
completed higher education among those born outside Russia. This is due to the fact that many to
get higher education in China was prevented by the lack of funds to pay for education in
prestigious foreign institutions of higher education and the constant need to look for earnings.
There were few people with completed higher education among the Tubabaovs born in Russia.
The Russian distemper to a high extent hindered its receipt.
Among the Russians on Tubabao were several dozen people - баптистами, отличались
строгими нравами men, women and children - from the northwestern Chinese province of
Xinjiang. и держались особняком. В свободное от лагерной трудовой повинности время
они подрабатывали стрижкой волос, починкой часов и другими занятиями.
Primitive conditions of camp life and crowding - all were constantly in sight - poorly
acted on mood and behavior: malicious rumors and gossip spread, There were a lot of squabbling
and squabbling.
I do not have statistics on mortality and fertility in Tubabao, but as far as I can remember,
the mortality rate in the camp was low and the birth rate was very low.
At first, despite the difficulties of camp life, the campers were elated because they were
happy to get out of China and felt Their stay at Tubabao - as stated officially - would be limited
to four months, after which they hoped to move to the United States.

It's going to be a year since we left Shanghai to avoid falling into the hands of the Communists.
The Philippines has agreed to accept us for four months. IRO took advantage of this offer -
knowing this, we assumed that our stay would be a maximum of four months. But four months
have passed, four more are behind them, and we are still here and still in the dark - when and
where. There are now more than three thousand people in the camp who eke out their existence in
conditions that leave much to be desired: frequent rains alternating with the hot rays of the tropical
sun, and then followed by wet cool nights cause all sorts of gastric and skin diseases; chronic
malnutrition, crowded life in leaking tents, and most importantly the agonizing anticipation and
suspense of the future, all undermine the physical and spiritual forces of the campers, and, of
course, there are murmurs and protesting voices against some members of the administration and
employees of the IRO, and sometimes against the elected superiors of 11..
----------------------------------------
1
См: Russians in the Philippines (article from a Russian-language newspaper published in San Francisco; the
source is unknown).
2
See: K u m a n o v s k y A . Camp on the island of Tubabao, Philippines / Russian life. San Francisco, 1975.
18 Dec. (Prince's folder.)
3
See: A l e x e y e v V . Memories of Tubabao / Russian Life. San Francisco, 1995. 13 Sep.
4
См: Information from the diary of A.N. Knyazev. (Prince's folder.)
5
S k o p i n c h e n k o O . Typhoon / Friendly meeting of Tubabaovians 30-11-1975. San Francisco, 1975. s.1.
6
A surviving piece of an article from a Russian-language newspaper published in San Francisco (the source and
headline of the article is unknown) reads: "On Tubabao Island by April 14th, a total of 5,074 people settled." (see:
Information from the diary of A.N. Knyazev; 1949 гKnyazev'sfolder.)
7
K u m a n o v s k y A . Camp on the island of Tubabao, Philippines / Russian life. San Francisco, 1975. 18
Dec. (Prince's folder.)
8
From the Tubaba's diary of Skm. A.N. Knyazev, head of the NORS organization on the island of Tubabao,
Philippines / Friendly meeting of Tubabaov 30-11-1975. San Francisco, 1975.
9
Information from the diary of A.N. Knyazev. (Prince's folder.)
10
См. It's the same.
11
In the same place.

Religion, culture, education and entertainment

In the first days of our stay on Tubabao, Russian Orthodox clergy - priests, nuns - and

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 11

laymen began to create church life, establishing and establishing two tent churches in the camp:
St. Seraphim and St. Archangel-Mikhailovsky. In addition, the Philippine authorities loaned the
Orthodox building to the former American military church.
A few days before Easter 1949, Archbishop John of Shanghai (in the world Mikhail
Maksimovich) arrived at the camp. Bishop John was small, thin, with a dark beard and hair and
wore a simple black cassock and hood. He devoted himself entirely to the service of God and
people, combining asceticism with good practical deeds. Long before the evacuation to Tubabao,
he set up a shelter in Shanghai for Chinese orphans, who were baptized into Orthodoxy and
given a Russian secondary education and provided shelter, table and clothing. The shelter of St.
Tikhon of the city, as well as another Shanghai Orthodox orphanage , St. Olga for Russian
orphan girls, was taken to Tubabao.
The arrival of Archbishop John of Shanghai on Tubabao was an event of exceptional
importance in the spiritual life of the camp, and here is how, according to A.N. Knyazev, he was
greeted:

On Tubabao arrived Bishop John of Shanghai in a jeep and immediately proceeded to the Holy
Virgin Cathedral, where he was met by Hieromonk Modeste, the priest Father Filaret Astrakhan
and the protodeacon by his father Konstantin zhanevsky and the bishop's choir led by G.
Agafonov. The cathedral was overflowing with admirers of the Lord. After the prayer and a cup
of tea, Vladyko went to the St. Seraphim Temple, where he was greeted also by a bell ringing,
and in the temple - the proto-priest Father Athanasius Shalobanov and Father Nikolai Kolchev,
Hieromonk Father Nikolai and Deacon Father Pavel Metlenko. The choir sang under the direction
of I.P. Mikhailov. After a brief service, Vladyko went to the St. Archangel-Michael temple, and
here he was greeted by the bell ringing of the proto-priest Father Matvey Medvedev and Father
David Shevchenko with a choir led by M.A. Shulyakovsky1.

On Saturday, April 23, 1949, Archbishop John of Shanghai served the first Easter service
at Tubabao Cathedral, which one of the eyewitnesses of the event, T.A. Stupina, captured with
these words:

On Easter night, the road to the cathedral on the mountain was illuminated by burning flats, and the
church itself was illuminated by electric light bulbs.
From a distance the picture of spiritual beauty appeared to the eye, and a feeling of delight rose in
the soul.
Magnificently, enthusiastically, Lord John served the Easter service - morning and liturgy,
rejoiced and rejoiced heart, and it was felt that Christ himself was with us. At the dawn of the rising
sun illuminated by the rays of the nature of burning beauty. It was easy to return home - to the tents
to "break up" - because there was even a cake, and the neighbor was lucky to get testicles 2.

And here are the impressions of the already mentioned poet Olga Skopichenko about the
first Easter on Tubabao:

So, on the first day of Easter, the camp, dressed up, cheerful, for a time forgot all everyday
adversity, the churches were crowded with elegant islanders, in tents flaunted elegant tables
decorated with cakes, flowers, some especially skilful hostesses were even Easter, well, not quite
the same as usual, but still reminiscent of a real Easter. The camp streets, which we so diligently
laid out a couple of months of rubble, so as not to sink during the tropical rains, these our streets
were full of visitors. And to tell the truth, nowhere visitors had such an opportunity to make a
hundred visits in a day, as in our Tubabaov town - to each district is a hand to hand, and friends
almost the entire camp3.

On the same topic we find the following entry in the diary of A.N. Knyazev:

On Sunday night, the morning gathered full temples of both the Cathedral and other churches of the

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 12

 Orthodox and Catholic Oriental Rites. On the first day of Easter, mutual greetings for all Orthodox
residents of the camp were arranged in the tent of the Russian Emigrant Association from 10 a.m.
Mutual congratulations were attended by the Philippine authorities, led by the representative of
President Mr. Yukinio and the local Philippine administration, and mr. Kabonse, the Mayor of the
island and the village of Tubabao, arrived. Representatives of the IRO administration, Captain
Combs, the superintendent of the camp, and Mr. Bochen, and representatives of the national
colonies, were also present. He played the Russian brass band under the direction of P.F. Tebnev in
the full composition of forty-five people. The tent was decorated with IRO flags, The Philippine
Republic and Russian national flags. Thousands of Orthodox residents of the camp visited on this
day on mutual congratulations. People were dressed in city outfits: men in trousers and jackets,
with ties, and ladies in long elegant dresses. The only tribute to the tropics remained - wide-
brimmed straw sombrero ... 4

His stay at Tubabao, which lasted about three months, Bishop John devoted to meeting
the spiritual needs of his flock and getting to know our daily life. He left the camp on July 12,
1949, on his way to the U.S. capital, Washington, where he worked with the U.S. Congress to
grant Tubabians permanent residency in the United States. During his stay in Washington,
Bishop John founded the Parish of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, now known as St.
John's Cathedral, and participated in the drafting of the following "The Appeals of the Russian
Hierarchs to the Governments of the World":

Honourable: U.S. President Harry Truman, Presidents of Argentina, Brazil, the Philippines,
Venezuela, Pahr, the Prime Ministers of Australia and Canada, General McArthur, the International
Refugee Organization of Geneva and the same in Washington. The Diocesan Congress of the
American and Canadian Archdiocese, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, consisting of seven
bishops, priests and representatives of thousands of laymen, decided to apply to you to facilitate the
fate of Russians evacuated from China, who were actually prisoners on the island of Samar. Life
there becomes unbearable. The difficult season of typhoons has come, and the tents in which
people have to live, have come to destruction. The living conditions of the Camp can be assessed
by the recent fact of the collapse of the barracks intended to serve as a shelter in case of a typhoon,
and it happened on a sunny day... About 80% of those affected by tropical diseases are suffering
from tropical diseases, their forces are depleted. A sudden typhoon can destroy all the buildings of
the Camp and cause innumerable disasters to its inhabitants... If they perish as a victim of IRO
negligence and indifference of the World, the responsibility must fall on the perpetrators of this
event, which deserves to be called a crime against God and people... We, the representatives of the
Russian Church Abroad, obedient to the veses of our conscience, raise our voice and say to the
public that the last moment comes to help our compatriots in Samara... Chairman of the Congress
Archbishop Vitaly, Archbishop of Shanghai John, Secretary of the Congress Bishop Nikon 5.

On December 10, 1949, the "Conversion of the Russian Hierarchs to the Governments of
the World" was read outin all Orthodox parishes of Camp6.
In addition to Orthodox churches, the camp was located in a large tent of the Holy
Pokrovsk Catholic Church of the Byzantine Rite. Its abbot was a descendant of the Urusov
princes, father Andrei Urusov, who flew to Tubabao with the first working group of refugees
from Shanghai on January 19, 1949. Once in this group of Tubaba's pioneers, he shared their
hard physical work and hardships associated with the camp break-up. Father Andrei was no more
than thirty-five years old. Tall and slender, with a beautiful face, fringed neatly trimmed with a
blond beard and the same color of hair, he was educated, brilliantly fluent in Russian and English
and was very popular with young people. He was closely associated with pastoral activities and
work in the ranks of the camp scouting team, which he joined immediately after its formation. In
addition to educating the Scouts, he tried to provide them through his connections with the
necessary items - hats, belts, knives, backpacks, scouting literature in English, etc.
Father Andrew communicated with the Orthodox clergy, and I remember how he once in
his usual "form" - a black cassock and white tropical helmet - put a large tent for the settlement
in it a group of Orthodox nuns.

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 13

 June 17. The abbot of St. John's left the camp. Father Andrei (Urusov) was a shrine. He was sent to
Manila for treatment for the effects of pneumonia and severe overwork. To conduct Father Andrew
gathered all his admirers and friends to express to him their feelings of love and sympathy and to
wish him a speedy recovery. The farewell was touching, and it was clear that it was not easy for the
departing and seeing off1949 г7.

After his recovery in Manila, Father Andrew went to the United States, and as abbot of
the Holy Cover Church he was replaced by Father Wilcox. English Father Wilcox knew Russian
well, but spoke it with a strong accent. Before Tubabao, in Shanghai, he was the principal of The
Catholic School Of St.. Michael, specially founded for Russian children.
Baptists gathered in their prayer house tent. There was a tented mosque in the camp, and
the synagogues could not be organized, because among the small Jewish population of the camp
did not gather the necessary for a quorum of ten faithful Jewish men8.
Among the cultural events should be mentioned amateur performances, concerts and
lectures, which were most often held on a large concrete site left over from the American
military base (the base was closed in 1947). On this site, jokingly nicknamed "Red Square", a
large wooden stage was built9. . The audience came to theperformances with their chairs and
stools, which were put in rows. who was also the author of a small collection of poems published
in Tubabao called "At the Blue Sea" performed on "Red Square" and the troupe of the
choreographer F. Shevlugin, who staged "Gypsy Tabor" with the performance of the popular
romance "Samarkand".10.
The above-mentioned brass band under the direction of P.F. Tebnev, originally consisting
of forty-five people, made a great contribution to the musical life of the camp. He rehearsed the
orchestra in the open air in his eleventh, "musical" district and, in addition to performances in the
camp, sometimes went on tour to neighboring settlements. Some camp concerts were given on
the occasion of holidays or in honor of some event. Thus, in the recording of A.N. Knyazev
dated April 30, 1949, reports about the Easter concert of the orchestra, in a brief report of which
it is said:

The concert began with Taike's "Old Friends" march. A great impression was made by solos for
three clarinets (T. Patkeev, I. Reutt and G. Voronov). The concert gathered almost the entire
camp11.

On 5 May, in honor of the visiting French mission, the Tebnev Orchestra gave a concert
consisting of works by French composers, and on June 26 of the same year he performed in
honor of the high-ranking IRO official from Geneva, Thomas Jamieson12..
On June 8, 1949, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of A.S. Pushkin,
an evening dedicated to the great Russian writer took place on Red Square. Professor I.A.
Puzyato gave a report on Pushkin's personality and work and Professor M.P. Golovachev with a
report on the importance of Pushkin in our day. Several hundred people were present, awarding
the speakers generous applause to13. Before the evacuation to Tubabao Pucyato taught Russian
history at the Shanghai Commercial School and lectured on the same topic at the Russian
commercial institute of Shanghai. Putsyto was small, quiet and modest, while Golovachev was
tall, colorful and eloquent.
The camp also hosted a relaxed, crowded meetings, reading and discussing reports. I
remember one such meeting, at which the speaker was a former naval officer, captain of the
second rank P.I. Fomin. Interestingly and objectively Fomin told how he, as part of the naval
ranks of the Siberian flotilla under the command of Admiral J.K. Stark, first came to the
Philippines in early 1923. Stark's flotilla arrived in the Philippines after the red-painted capture
of Vladivostok in November 1922. At first the flotilla evacuated from Vladivostok to the Korean
port of Genzan, but soon after went to Shanghai. The flotilla, which left Genzan for Shanghai,
had twelve ships carrying 3,000 men, including civilians and cadets from the Siberian and

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 14

Khabarovsk Corps. On the way to Shanghai, the flotilla was caught in a storm, two of its ships
sank, and with them died14. several dozen brows.век. В Шанхае флотилии не разрешили
остаться, и ей пришлось отправиться в Манилу. Но до отъезда из Шанхая Старк, несмотря
на протесты местных властей, высадил на берег гражданских лиц и кадет
With his naval team and her families, Stark arrived in Manila, where the U.S. military
command met a flotilla of military honors and allowed officers and their families to come
ashore. However, a few days after arriving in Manila, the sailors who remained on the ships,
demoralized by the loss of their homeland, the heavy sea campaign, hardship and tropical heat,
staged a revolt against their officers. Immediately there were pro-Soviet local lawyers who
offered free services to rebellious sailors. But the revolt was eliminated, and the old, rusty ships
were sold to Chinese buyers. Stark divided the money from the ship sale among the crew
members, most of whom left the Philippines because they could not find work there and stay
permanently. Some participants of this epic, including Fomin himself, returned to Shanghai,
where they settled.
The camp sometimes celebrated anniversaries that matter only to a certain group of
people. For example, on November 26, 1949, the military organizations of the camp celebrated
the day of the St. George's cavaliers, and a few weeks later the annual celebrations of the
Siberian Cossack army and the 1st Siberian Emperor Alexander I of the Cadet
15
Corps werecelebrated.
Journalism on Tubabao was expressed in the rotational way of the following newspapers:
1) the weekly "Tubabao knows", from May to August 1949, fifteen issues were published; 2)
"Anti-Communist Collection" edited by A.V. Skripkin, as far as is known, published five issues,
all in 1950; 3) "Our Voice" edited by M.S. Artamonov, came out ten issues, all in 1949; 4)
"Tubabao does not know" - scouting humorous newspaper in Russian and English, published
three issues in November 1949, the editors of the newspaper were assistant scoutmasters G.
Savitsky and V. Shulyakovsky; 5) "Weekly Review" edited by An. Nogayova, came out five
numbers - Nos. 1 and 2 in 1949 and Nos. 3, 4 and 5 in 1950.
Two newspapers on steamships were also published in a rotatorary way, taking refugees
from Tubabao to their new home countries: 1) Scouter, three numbers on the steamer "Marin
Jumper" edited by scoutmaster O. Levitsky (on this steamer refugees were traveling to South
America, the port of destination - Paramaribo in Suriname); 2) "Our Herald"
("OurHeraldRussian") Haan" on his way from Tubabao to San Francisco from January 7 to
January 25, 1951. Fifteen rooms were published, the16. last one was a souvenir.
In addition to the camp newspapers, we got our hands: the «Manila Times and local
Russian newspapers, which sometimes came in the mail from San Francisco, and from Germany
the newspaper "Syova" on Tubabao was Anatoly Konovets, and after his departure to Australia -
writing these lines.
One of the most urgent tasks facing the administration of the camp was the establishment
of a school for children between the ages of five and fourteen, which at first constituted a
significant percentage of the population of the tent city. The school was founded on February 18,
1949, and was originally held at a scouting ground in the Fourth District. But in May of the same
year she moved to a wooden barracks in the seventh district. In his diary entries A.N. Knyazev
writes about this school:

The staff of teachers in 20 persons works both in school and in kindergarten, where children spend
the morning without interfering at home to their parents. The soul of the school is its founder Frida
Vasilyevna Blasch. She also insisted on the establishment of the so-called "Food Point" where
children receive a special diet of the most nutritious foods, such as 17. milk, pinta butter (grated
peanuts), fruit, etc.

At the end of my stay at Tubabao, in the fall of 1950, I taught at this school. By then, it
had become apparent that most of those remaining in the camp would be resettled in the United
States, and therefore the teaching was focused on the study of the United States - its history,

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 15

geography, culture - and the knowledge of the American version of English.
Finishing this section of my essay, I want to mention that for the entertainment of the
campers the same "Red Square" sometimes turned into a dance floor: from the loudspeaker
sounded jazz music in gramophone recordings, to which we danced. Another kind of
entertainment was American movies, free of charge demonstrated first in the open air, and then
in a wooden barracks. From the films seen there, I remember one, based on the escape of the
cryptographer Igor Gudzenko from the Soviet Embassy in Canada after World War II.
For a change of scenery and rest, the campers went when the money came to the nearby
Philippine restaurant to eat and drink local beer or a cocktail of Coca-Cola and gin brand
"Hinebra San Miguel".
----------------------------
1
Information from the diary of A.N. Knyazev. (Prince'sfolder.)
2
S t u p i n a T . A . On the path of Far Eastern emigration (Dedicated to Tubabakov). (Prince'sfolder.)
3
S k o p i c h e n k o O . At the Blue Sea... / Russian Life. San Francisco, 1988. 17 Aug. (Prince'sfolder.)
4
Information from the diary of A.N. Knyazev. (Prince'sfolder.)
5
In the same place.
6
См. It's the same.
7
Там же.
8
См.: L o r e n z o . More News from : Letter to the Editor of the NCDN Samar// NCDN. April 21, 1949.
9
In the same place.
10
Information from the diary of A.N. Knyazev. (Prince'sfolder.)
11
Там же.
12
См. It's the same.
13
См. It's the same.
14
См: P e t r o v V . Shanghai on Wamp. - Washington: Published by the Russian-American Historical Society,
1985.S. 17-18.
15
См: Information from the diary of A.N. Knyazev. (Prince'sfolder.)
16
См. It's the same.
17
Там же.

Scouts
Before I begin to describe the activities of the Scouts on Tubabao, I want to clarify that
the English word "scout", in the literal Russian translation "scout", means in this text
"pathfinder," "observer," "researcher." I would also like to note that the term "leaders" here
refers to girl scouts, and not in the sense adopted in the former Soviet Union "pioneer leaders."
Now let's move to the island of Tubabao, where during the period of the greatest influx of
refugees from China, when there were about five and a half thousand, the camp team of Russian
Scouts united more than four hundred boys and girls, boys and girls1.

Aleksey Knyazev was the head of the Tubabaov Scouts, a man of mature, with solid life
experience. The first half of his life was spent in China: there he was born and went to school,
where he graduated from Harbin andthe PolytechnicInstitute,where he got married. And on the
island ofTubabao, and finally in San Francisco, where he also worked for many years in the
specialty, retired and died in 1993. : high forehead, sharp nose, small mouth, neatly trimmed
antennae and glasses in the frame.
In 1948, Knyazeva and a group of refugees from Tianjin were taken to Shanghai IRO. In
Shanghai, refugees from Tianjin, Hankou, Beijing, Tsingtao and other Chinese cities were settled
while waiting to be evacuated to Tubabao in the former French barracks at Ruth Frelunt. Here
around Knyazev united about twenty-five young people, who at the request of the IRO

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administration, which ran a hostel on Ruth Frelunt, donated to help the seven hundred and fifty
refugees stationed there, almost exclusively Russian-speaking. This assistance was mainly
expressed in the fact that the youth of the Knyazev team registered refugees by filling out english
questionnaires for them, which were necessary for their stay in Shanghai and for departure from
there. Due to their knowledge of English, and sometimes even Chinese, these young people acted
as interpreters in the relations of refugees with the police and customs, and some of them, those
that are older, were engaged in unloading,transporting and loading luggage, were on duty at the
hostel and held various kinds of events: friendly evenings, conversations and even arranged a
meeting of the New, 1949.
At the end of January 1949, Knyazev, at the head of a group of forty-two people, flew
from Shanghai to Tubabao, and here is what he tells about this journey:

On January 30, 1949, at 4.15 a.m., Skymaster-101 took off from Shanghai airfield to Samar,
Philippines, carrying the "13th group" of the future "D-Pi" (the abbreviation of the English words
"displacedpersons"- among which was a cadre of leaders and senior scouts of the NORS, who
had already organized the camp of IRO in Shanghai, in the former barracks. The group arrived in
Manila at 11.10pm, passed the so-called "screening" (checking documents- N.M.)and a brutal
personal and luggage inspection, and the next day, i.e. on January 31, again flew on another
"cargo" (cargo- N.M.)aeroplane to the island of Samar, where it arrived at 9 a.m., again passed
through the inspection and on buses was delivered to the island of Tubao, which is connected by
the bridge. Landing in the pouring rain, the Scouts moved tents, pegs and racks to the designated
areas of the group in the jungle and began to install them for the whole group, as no one but them
could not do it. In order to put up tents, it was necessary to first clear the jungle, and it was not
easy, but by the evening they were delivered for all... 2

When Knyazev arrived with his group on Tubabao, there were already six hundred
refugees, including about fifty children and teenagers, among them from idleness some engaged
in the arbitrary cutting of bamboo and bananas, which caused complaints of Filipinos. This was
one of the reasons why the IRO camp administration asked Knyazev to take on the task of
organizing and educating younger youth - boys and girls, boys and girls. Based on Russian
Scout practice, as 90% of the camp's inhabitants are Russian.
The basis of the organization of the Russian Scouts were twelve Scout laws, requiring the
Scouts to be faithful to the Lord to God, faithful to the Motherland - Russia, obedient parents
and superiors, to be honest, truthful and modest, to be comrades for all, brothers and sisters of all
other scouts and friends of animals. Helping your neighbor" diligence, self-reliance, personal
responsibility and hygiene were all considered an integral part только своими идеof scouting
ethics and practice.
Scouts wore khaki uniforms, simple and practical: boys - shorts or long trousers; girls -
skirts; and both - shirts and caps or wide-brimmed hats; uniforms complemented scouting tie.
Ties were of different colors: senior leaders, scoutmasters and their assistants, wore green ties,
scout instructors - blue, and the rest of the scouts - orange. Each link had a triangular orange
flag with a black silhouette of its symbol - a beast, a bird or a flower. In general, the appointment
of staffs was varied: for example, the Scouts used them to build a signal tower or to turn them
into a stretcher. that was followed by the answer "Always ready!" The patron of the Russian
Scouts was St. George the Victorious, and their emblem - a white lily, because on sea
compasses it denotes the north as a symbol of the right way.
The history ofRussian scouting dates back to 1909,When the Staff Captain, later Colonel
of the Russian Imperial Army Oleg Pantyukhov founded an organization of Russian scouts in the
Tsar's village.иAfter the evacuation of the White Armyfrom Crimea, O.I. Pantykhov founded the
first foreign detachment of Russian Scouts on the island of Prikipo near Constantinople, now
Istanbul. Once in exile, the leaders of the Russian Scouts tried to prevent the denationalization of
Russian children, emphasizing the need to use and be proud of their native language and customs
and creating conditions for their communication with each other. wherever they were born and

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 17

lived, Russia has always been and has always been the motherland.
At Tubabao, the first scouting leaders who helped Knyazev to organize the squad were
assistant scoutmaster O.E. Levitsky, former brother V.V. Alexeyev, scout instructor K.P.
Yakovets and old scout D.G. Kobelev (the bonfire brothers were one of the categories of scouts,
and the old scouts were called senior scouts). They immediately started work and on February 2,
1949, held the first bonfire. Since there was no electricity in the camp, the fire passed in the dark,
even without lanterns, and therefore only those who knew scout songs by heart could sing them.
As mentioned, the fourth district of the camp was nicknamed "Scout" because it was
home mainly to families with scouts. Shortly after the founding of the district, a playground was
set up and a stage was built, where various scouting events were held. As new groups of refugees
arrived from Shanghai, the camp's scouting team grew rapidly, greatly facilitated by the fact that
many parents, not knowing what to occupy their children in camp conditions, encouraged them
to join the organization.
On February 20, 1949, the first team training camp took place on the scouting ground of
the fourth district. By this time, four Boy Scouts had already formed, boys from fourteen to
nineteen. And one "bunch of chicks" of six people - girls from seven to fourteen years old.
On May 1, 1949, the Tubabaov brigade solemnly celebrated the 40th anniversary of
Russian Scouting. The celebration began in the morning on the Scouting Ground of the Fourth
District with physical loading, prayer, flag raising and reading scouting laws. Then the brigade
marched to the Virgin Church for the anniversary service. And at 7.30 pm, again on the scouting
ground, lit a fire, which came more than five hundred people. Scout songs were performed at the
fire, a congratulatory message from O.I. Pantyukhov, a senior Russian scout living in the United
States, and the head of the camp J.-L. gave speeches. Combs and the chief of staff. The bonfire
ended with the singing of the scouting anthem and the descent of the flag.
Scout bonfires were held every Sunday, and anyone could attend. On solemn occasions
the bonfires began with a special ignition ceremony, which was held as follows: some scout lit a
small fire with a torch - a pile of chips folded by a pyramid, Eleven other scouts, each with their
own torch, alternately lit eleven other small bonfires on the perimeter of the large fire. Naturally,
young people were attracted to the camp, and parents came to the fires to admire their pets. ,
which I cite below, were written by the famous Harbin poet Alexei Achair (A. Gryzov):

In the east of dawn, it's time for us to

To leave the fire.'
Everyone who sleeps, get up, get up,
You see the sky's brightening edge!

Above the noisy cedars is light,

Darkness is deaf, night darkness is gone.
We waited until morning.
In the east of dawn, we have to go.

In two hands, in twenty hands, in two hundred hands

Let's break up in a circle.
Visiting people to help them in their work,
To support in unbearable need.

Everyone with everyone as close as a brother,

Where there's one, there's a whole squad,
And the work is arguing around
And not in two, but in two thousand hands3.

(The first and second verses are repeated at the end.)

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 18

 Scout bonfires were usually held in Russian language, but most Scouts also spoke
English, so the bonfire, set up on September 10, 1950, in honor of the U.S. consular mission that
arrived on the island was almost entirely in English. The highlight of the program was the
performance of American songs and the reading of English-language poems. That evening, the
author of these lines recited president Abraham Lincoln's famous speech after the Northerners
won the battle for Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War.
In the first days of the Tubaba's brigade, A.N. Knyazev, using the international character
and traditions of scouting, appealed to the Philippine Scout organization with a request to
provide Tubabaev Scouts with the necessary equipment: uniforms, shoes, signal flags, staffs,
scout ties, whistles, ropes for knitting knots, individual ties. Some things were obtained from the
Filipino and American Scouts, and the clothes of theleaders - the second summer uniform of the
U.S. Army and boots - provided the squad camp administration of the IRO. And, as mentioned,
at first an important role in the supply of Tubaba'ov scouts played a Catholic priest of the
Byzantine rite Father Andrei Urusov.
On February 12, 1949, the Scout Headquarters began to write reports for the camp
commander, which mentioned the work of the scouts on the camp: on duty on boiling water and
on the beach, where they sometimes provided first aid from fish bites or cuts on corals, about the
monitoring of order at concerts and performances, about the cleaning of garbage and grass, about
cutting down the thickets and trees on the plots , about the transportation to the camp of heavy
luggage of refugees and various goods delivered by sea.
Scouts also worked as clerks and messengers in the IRO office and other offices. And
before Easter, according to the tradition established in emigration, from Good Friday to
Sautrena, they stood in the guard of honor at the shroud. The girls did not lag behind the boys:
they also worked on boiling water and in offices, in the hospital, helped women in their daily
chores. In their spare time from community service and study, the Boy Scouts and counselors
engaged in what was called "scouting": passed exams for the third, second and first scouting
grades, knitted knots, practiced first aid, made trips, conducted scouting and sports competitions.
Thanks to the efforts of the Philippine Scouting Organization and the Tubabaov brigade,
as well as with the support of the camp chief J.-L. Combs and the chairman of the Russian
National Group G.K. Bologov, the first friendly meeting of the Tubaba Scouts with the Filipino
managed to arrange June 26, 1949. The meeting began with the arrival at the camp, at 7 a.m., of
a group of Filipino scouts led by scout masters Isiah Bolim and Ignacio Monasterio. In the
morning, during and after breakfast, the scouts got to know each other, and after lunch and a
short rest passed in one formation on the large sports field outside the camp. Here, while raising
the Philippine flag and the flag of the Tubabov squad, the camp brass band under the direction of
P.F. Tebnev sang the anthem of the Philippine Republic and the anthem of the Russian Scouts
"Kol is glorious." After the ceremonial march of scouts in front of the stands of the guests began
scouting and sports classes, in which the Filipinos and Tubaba citizens demonstrated their skills,
and in the evening at the fire they performed alternately with their numbers. The rich program of
the day ended at ten o'clock in the evening. Both sides were pleased with the meeting, in which
they reaffirmed their commitment to the principles of brotherhood and cooperation between
scouts of different nationalities.
The Filipino Scouts' friendly meeting with the Tubabas was answered by the Philippine
capital'sManila Timesnewspaper, which featured a very flattering photo essay about the Tubaba
brigade on July4, 1949,in its Sunday app, «The Sunday Times Magazine.onthe third anniversary
of the independence of the Philippine Republic, a group of Tubaba Scouts participated in the
celebrations held on the occasion in the city of Gyuan5. 18-19 March 1950, the last friendly
meeting of the Tubaba and Filipino Scoutswas held in the samecity..
In addition to establishing ties with the Filipino Scouts, A.N. Knyazev wrote off senior
Russian scout O.I. Pantyukhov, who lived in the United States. In the documents at my disposal,
I found copies of three letters to Knyazev Pantykhov, all dated 1949: the first of May 7, the
second of May 27 and the third of December 5. The first and second were translations from

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 19

Russian to English, made by rostislav Balandin, the secretary of the brigade's headquarters, at the
request of Philippine censorship. The third letter, thanks to the easing of censorship at that time,
was Russian. Of the three letters, the longest was the first, in which Knyazev described the work
of youths in the dormitory at Ruth Frelunt before the evacuation from Shanghai, the formation of
the Tubabaev brigade, the public workload of the Scouts on Tubabao, the camp and other
scouting classes in the camp. He also made a number of suggestions on which of the leaders of
the Tubaba'ov team should be submitted for production or awarding of the Order. Pantykhov
approved Knyazev's proposals. In the same letter, Knyazev explained why the connection
between Russian Far Eastern scouts and Pantyukhov in the forties was cut off. This, he wrote,
was caused not only by the Second World War in the Far East, but also by the Japanese closure
of the NORS departments in the territory of China occupied by them. The Japanese occupation
authorities, Knyazev wrote, did so by suspecting Russian Scouts of spying for the enemy country
on the grounds that the head of a scouting organization lived in the United States7..
In a second letter to Pantyukhov, Knyazev reported on the departure to Australia of
seventeen Scouts and leaders with their families 8. The same topic he devoted and part of the third
letter, saying that by December 1949 the total population of the camp had decreased from about
five and a half thousand to three thousand four hundred. because the missions that came to
Tubabao to recruit people to resettle in their countries willing to take the youth. : Every day,
regardless of the weather, the scouting ground in the morning held the raising of the flag, roll
call, physical charge, reading prayer and singing the scouting anthem; every evening the flag was
lowered, and on Sundays there were bonfires. In addition, the units and links made day and daily
hikes9.
In the third letter, Knyazev also said that at first there were Russian boys and girls in the
Tubababaov squad who did not know Russian, but that after being in the scouting ranks for some
time, they learned to speak, and some even to write and read in Russian. The ignorance of the
Russian language by some Russian children from China, Knyazev explained by the fact that they
studied there in foreign schools. Unlike other letters, the third letter feels a decline in spirit and
fatigue. Knyazev complains that his stay in the camp undermined his health and left him without
money, but he does not regret that he took the leadership of the squad10.
In the life of the Tubabaov squad there were, of course, troubles. The documents I
reviewed included complaints about the exploitation and disrespect of scouts, as well as the lack
of fats and vitamins in the diet of children and adolescents. And on February 21, 1949, the IRO
camp administration demanded that only the United Nations flag be used for official purposes-
before that the three-color, white-blue-red, Russian flag was raised and lowered daily on the
Scout Site. that the decision was not directed against any nationality, but that no group could act
as an official representative of all residents of11the camp.
A few months after the founding of the brigade, Ukrainians left it. On this occasion, A.N.
Knyazev sent to the head of the camp, J.-L. Combsu, a confidential memorandum in which
claimed that Ukrainians, members of the Tubaba'i militia, leave it not of their own free will, but
under pressure from the Ukrainian community of the camp, which threatened to exclude them
from the community in case of disobedience and deny them assistance in resettlement. Knyazev
wrote that this method of influence contradicts the principles of the IRO, and asked the camp
chief to remove the pressure on the Scouts-Ukrainians from their community 12. The request of
Knyazev the head of the camp did not satisfy.
More positive events in the life of the squad should be noted the formation of a circle of
old scouts under the leadership of assistant scoutmaster Dmitry Georgievich Browns in May
1950. The Browns were thirty-four; large and representative, it was distinguished by culture and
erudition. In perfect command of Russian and English, he impressed the camp residents with the
high level of their oral translations of public speeches of English-speaking officials. R. Baden-
Powell believed that the most important element of the education of senior scouts is the
development of their sense of civic responsibility. And since by the time the circle was formed, it
became obvious that all or most of its members would move to the United States, one of the

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 20

main tasks of the circle was to familiarize its members with the history and state structure of the
United States. To that end,Brown gave a series of lectures on the history of the country, which
sparked a lively exchange of views among listeners.
----------------------------
1
In addition to their own memoirs, in the section on Scouts, used information from two sources: 1) Knyazev's
folder;2) 1909 LX 1969. Russian Scouts / Ed. Ed. Scoutmaster A. M. Vyazmitinov. San Francisco: The Central
Staff of the National Organization of Russian Scouts in San Francisco.
2
Newsletter: Edition of the St. George Knights Corporation, USA (NORTH), North American Division / Under Ed.
Scoutmaster A.N. Knyazev. 1975. 7 Jan. No 8. From.1.
3
1909 LX 1969. Русские скауты. С.488.
4 См.: В а 1 е i n J . O . Little Jamboree: At Tubabao camp, local boy scouts show they can get along with
peoples of other races and creeds // The Sunday Times Magazine. August 14, 1949. Pp. 14–16.
5
См.: General Program of the Third Independence Day Celebration. Guiuan, . SamarJuly 4, 1949. (Папка
Князева.)
6
См.: Program of Activities for Boy Scout Rally. Guiuan, . SamarMarch 18–19, 1950. (Папка Князева. )
7
См.: К n i a z e f f A . N ., Scm., Tubabao Group Leader, В а l a n d i n R . V ., Tubabao Group Secretary.
Report to Chief Russian Scout Col. Oleg Ivanovich Pantuckoff. Tubabao. May 7, 1949. (Папка Князева.)
8
См.: Letter to Oleg Ivanovich Pantuckoff from Scm. A.N. Kniazeff. Tubabao. May 27, 1949. (Папка Князева.)
9
See: Letter to Oleg Pantyukhov from scoutmaster A.N. Knyazev. 1949. 5 Dec. (Prince'sfolder.)
10
См. там же.
11
См.: F e n n e l l J . F ., , IRO-UN, . Flags Flown in IRO Camps. Camp DirectorSamarFebruary 21, 1949.
(Папка Князева.)
12
См.: Confidential Memorandum from Scm. A.N. Kniazeff to Capt. J.L. Combs, . Camp SuperintendentJuly 5,
1949. (Папка Князева.)

Public affairs
Next, I will describe some aspects of the IRO's activities, the conflict with Dr. Khan, the
work of the Russian Emigrant Association, which was officially called in the camp of the
Russian National Group, the meeting of the President of the Philippine Republic Elpidio Kvirino
with the chairman of the Russian National Group G.K.Bolo,and the visit to the camp by the
American Senator William F. Nouland.
As mentioned, the top IRO official in Tubabao was the camp chief, who was subordinate
to the director of the Far Eastern IRO mission. The duties of the camp manager included: the
management of the camp and the staff subordinates, responsibility for the safety of the inventory
and for the purchase of food, medicine, etc., cooperation with the local authorities and the
implementation of directives. His main assistants were deputy and heads of departments: work,
technical, supply, financial, medical and social services. In his work, the camp manager relied
heavily on the chairmen of the groups, who represented people of different nationalities who
inhabited the camp.
Of the camp's chiefs - all of whom were Americans - the most popular was the second in
order, J.-L. Combs, who took office in March 1949. once, having joined the camp team, he
helped unload the tents delivered by the truck.

The news of your departure has greatly shocked the Tubabaov Scouting Organization, and we say
goodbye to you with the most frank regret and sadness.
We all felt that in your face we had a true friend who often attended our bonfires, sang with us
our songs and in difficult moments helped us, helped not only our organization as a whole, but also
its individual members ...
There are no words strong enough to express our deep gratitude and sympathy for everything you
have done and tried to do for us... 1

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 Shortly after the camp was founded, the IRO medical service X-rayed the lungs of all the
camp's inhabitants and found five hundred people with tuberculosis. The question of TB patients
and the sanatorium built for them outside the camp drew sharp, emotional criticism from the
campers. Among them, the prevailing opinion was that IRO health workers could not read X-
rays correctly, and therefore their diagnosis was not trusted. In addition, there were rumors of
substitution of X-rays - healthy on unhealthy and vice versa, for bribes and special services.
Friction between the campers and Dr. Khan led to an open conflict when he declared that
"the campers are physically healthy but2mentally ill because they are worried about where they
will be taken nexttime."Heaccused many of them of being on top of the Chinese while living
inChina. than other whites, communicated with them on an equal footing. And the main thing
was that Dr. Khan's angry statements to the Tubabaovs clearly contradicted the medical ethics,
requiring the doctor to have compassion and sympathy for his wards. Although Dr. Khan was
defended by the IRO camp administration and the capital's Philippine newspaper, theManila
Times, he was removed after a while.
Another IRO physician, Dr. Altemirano, was popular with the Tubabians, unlike Dr.
Khan, as seen in the following diary entry by A.N. Knyazev dated December 1, 1949:

On this day, our camp left Dr. Altemirano, who worked in the sanatorium T.B. (English reduction
of the word tuberculosis. - N.M.). In response to numerous greetings, the doctor replied: "Dear
friends. In my life, I have only cried three times: the first time I left my family to study, the second
time when my sister died, and the third time, today; that's it." This speech made a strong impression
on those present. After a series of photographs, the doctor left the camp in a flower-decorated car
under a loud "Hurrah" and the carcasses of the orchestra in a flower-decorated car, heading to the
airfield for departure to Manila... 4

There have been cases in which IRO officials have made very inaccurate public
statements about the situation on Tubabao. Thus, in an interview with the UnitedPress on
September 12, 1949, Gerard Price, then head of the IRO in the Philippine Republic, stated that
there were "Soviet provocateurs" among the Tubabanovs. 5. Он сделал это заявление в ответ на
полученное в Маниле анонимное письмо одного тубабаовца. Прайс ложно обвинил автора
письма в советской провокации and falsely denied that the Tubabaovs were poorly fed, as the
author of «Manila Times от 5 декабря 1949 года, в котором он утверждал, что на Тубабао
«палатки были заменены деревянными бараками»6the letter rightlyclaimed.
Turning now to the Russian National Camp Group, let me remind you that its chairman,
Grigory Kirillovich Bologoin,settled with his family in the eighth district of thecamp, where
there was also a large tent tent, which housed the office of the Russian National Group and
which served as a place for meetings and receptions. The secretary of the group was first M.G.
Yakovkin, who was engaged in many years of emigrant affairs in Shanghai.
Bolyв was not impressed by all. Some of Bolo's criticsгconsidered him an upstart, others
complained that he was notгculturalenough.
UnderBolo'sleadership, mr.Ogov's office of the Russian National Group conducted lively
correspondence with foreign groups and figures, especially those in the United States, on issues
related to the resettlement of Russian refugees from Tubabao.
On October 28, 1949, the President of the Philippine Republic, Elpidio Kwirino, arrived
at the camp for a meeting withBolo,as the eyewitness of the event, T.A. Stupina, writes:

President Kvirino paid special attention and visited the camp. On behalf of all the campers, G.K.
Bologov presented the President with a very beautiful and gracefully executed address by our
artists, expressing deep gratitude for such saving hospitality. In his reply, President Kvirino said
that he felt it was his duty to provide hospitality to political emigrants and would do everything
possible to resettle them quickly... 7

The visit of Kvirino encouraged the Tubabaovs, for it meant that we were not forgotten.

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The visit of California Republican Senator William F. Knowland to the camp on November 25,
1949 was further facilitated by the visit of the camp on November 25, 1949. Nouland sought, and
eventually secured, the U.S. Senate's passage of a bill allowing Tubabaows to enter the United
States bypassing immigration quotas, that is, out of turn. Arriving at the camp, Knowland
inspected for three hours accompanied by Bologov, camp chief John Dillon, IRO representative
in Manila F. Thompson and chairmen of all national groups. In a statement from the camp,
Knowland thanked the Philippine government for sheltering refugees from China and said the
following about the ideological conflict in the world and its efforts to get Tubabaows to enter the
United States:

... It is imperative for all of us to preserve a free world for free people. If there is no cooperation of
free states, this world will face dark days. I believe that there is a growing realization that it is
impossible to have aggression and the destruction of freedom anywhere in the world without
negative consequences for every freedom-loving state in our world.
Having met you, this wonderful group of people, I will return home determined to do everything I
can to help meet this very difficulttask..

On January 20, 1950, as the U.S. Senate was about to debate the Tubabanov bills that
Senator Knowland was talking about, members of the Russian public of the camp approved the
resolution, paragraph one of which read:

Recognize the need for our leader, K.G. Bologov, at this critical time to maintain an active
relationship with all American figures and public organizations engaged in this issue in the United
States, with the aim of timely and fully covering the issue in all its details, that one thing can
contribute to the successof 9.

The resolution also stated the need to raise money to pay for the postal and telegraph
costs associated with the action and to notify all camp residents of the decree.
-----------------------------
1
Letter from Scm. A.N. Kniazeff, Scout Group Leader, to Capt. J.L. Combs. August 3, 1949. Пер. с англ.
автора. (Папка Князева.)
2
См.: The Guiuan Squeal // Manila Times. November 26, 1949. Пер. с англ. автора.
3
См.: Н а n . A Statement. November 26, 1949. (Папка Князева.) Пер. с англ. автора.
4
Information from the diary of A.N. Knyazev. ((Prince'sfolder.)
5
См.: N a z a r e n o R . L . Presence of Soviet Agents at Guiuan DP Center Suspected // Manila Bulletin.
September 12, 1949.
6
Information from the diary of A.N. Knyazev. ((Prince'sfolder.)
7
S t u p i n a T . A . On the path of Far Eastern emigration (Dedicated to Tubabakov). (Prince'sfolder.)
8
Knowland Visits Guiuan Russians // Manila Times. November 25, 1949. Пер. с англ. автора.
9
ruling on the Tubabao camp on January 20. 1950 г(Prince'sfolder.)

On the road to a new life

The resettlement of the Tubabaovs began shortly after the camp was set up. The refugees
left on an individual-family or group basis. Individually, we went to Argentina, Brazil, Canada,
Chile, Thailand, Japan after receiving entry visas on theоcall of relatives or friends, or inthe U.S.
on the basis of visas in a queue determined by the quota system.
The Australian mission, as well as the missions of other countries to recruit those who
wanted to settle in their countries, consisted of several people and arrived at the camp at the end
of March 1949. Australians were primarily interested in young and healthy men who were ready
for any physical labor. After the speedy clearance of suitable people, Australians issued entry

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 23

visas on the spot. I applied for an Australian visa, but immediately refused it, learning that I had
to sign a blank sheet of paper, obliging me to work for two years in an unknown enterprise.
Despite the doubts that not only me, but many others, had, the conditions for obtaining an
Australian visa, more than a thousand Tubabaovians signed up to immigrate to Australia and
went there in two groups. The first left Tubabao in May 1949 and the second in September of
that year.
The French immigration mission arrived at the camp in early May 1949. I remember how
the head of this mission, addressing the Tubabaovs, pompously announced that his country
invites them to his "in accordance with the chivalrous traditions of France" («("selon les
traditions chevaleresques de"). la France The French were interested in three categories of
persons: former employees of the French municipality or private French enterprises of Shanghai,
people who had relatives or close friends in France, and agronomists.
More than a hundred Tubabaos immigrated to South America to the Dominican
Republic, Paraguay, Chile and Suriname.
Until November 1950, very few people who had obtained U.S. entry visas under the
quota system left Tubabao for the United States. This system came into practice under the U.S.
immigration law of 1924, under which the annual admission of immigrants was limited to one
hundred and sixty-five thousand people. In addition, quotas were distributed among different
countries unequally, as preference was given to white countries that received more quota
numbers than yellow countries. And the question of what quota belonged to the individual who
wanted to imigra in the U.S. depended on the place of his birth. Consequently, people like me,
i.e. Russian immigrants born in China, were on the Chinese quota. Therefore, they had to wait
longer for american entry visas than their compatriots born in Russia. In addition, to get on the
register with the Americans, it was necessary to fill out a questionnaire and submit it to the local
consulate of the United States. Before my departure from Shanghai, I did not do it for three
reasons: first, I had to wait too long for a visa, secondly, I had no money to travel from Shanghai
to the United States, and their appearance was not foreseen and, thirdly, I had no relatives in
America and no acquaintance of a U.S. citizen who would be ready to become my guarantor.
I, like most Tubabaovians who eventually came to the United States, was helped by the
1948 U.S. Displaced Persons Act, approved by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Harry
S. Truman in April 1950. The Displaced Persons Act 1948 applied to refugees (displaced
persons) caught up in Western Europe after World War II, mainly in West Germany. The
amendment to this law concernedthe exclusion of4,000 refugees from China, i.e. mostly Tubaba
people.

The visa will not be issued under this law to a person who is either a member of the Communist
Party or has in any way promoted the ideas of communism. The law requires that this be sworn in
before issuing a visa and subsequently before arriving at the port of entry to the S. States. If it is
discovered after the immigrant entered the S.S. that he preached the principles of communism, he
will be deported1.

Each Tubabanovets had to have a "guarantor" - an American citizen who provided this
Tubabanovets with the so-called "ashurans" ("assurance").assurance»). Ashurans guaranteed
that the person would not become a financial burden to the community, i.e. the "guarantor" was
responsible for the fact that upon arrival in the United States the person would be provided with
housing and employment.
In September 1950, an American mission arrived at the camp to iresidents who wanted to
imigra in the United States. And before her arrival, the Russian National Group organized for its
members to check the documents necessary for filing for the American mission: passport photos,
autobiographies in English, birth certificates, marriage, widowhood, divorce, etc. I owe
"ashurans" to my good friend Vala Kolycheva, who left Tubabao a few months before me. She
managed to persuade me to give "ashurans" living in San Francisco Russian-American

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 24

businessman, Mr. Chechetkin. I met this sympathetic and sweet man soon after arriving in the
United States. Kolycheva, Chechetkin, Lyudmila Sergeyevna Druzhinina, her daughter Irina,
Gennady Shuisky, his mother Maria Grigoryevna and all the other kind people who helped me
come to the U.S. and start a new life here, I will be grateful for the rest of my life.
The first large group of Tubabas, six hundred and sixteen people who received U.S. visas
under the 1948 U.S. Amendment to the U.S. Displaced Persons Act, left Tubabao in San
Francisco on November 14, 1950, on the U.S. military transport ship General M.-L. Hersey." I
left the camp with a second large group in early 1951, which I will tell you about now.
--------------------------------
1
Extract from Instruction 10 of the U.S. Resettlement and Repatriation Division/Per, the office of the Russian
Emigrant Association. (Prince'sfolder.)

Tubabao - San Francisco: Travel Diary

Ahead of the departure to the U.S., the second largest group, consisting of thousands of
hundred and seventeen men, all capable of physical labor men from it mobilized to load heavy
luggage leaving. On January 2, 1951, they took the luggage to the camp warehouses and the next
day began to load it onto the self-propelled barge , the "Sulu Si". By 3 p.m. on January 4, the
loading was over, and on January 5, the U.S. military transport vessel General V.-J. Haan"
anchored in the harbor of the nearby city of Tubabao, Gyuan. On the same day, a "sulu si" was
moored to it, and the luggage on it was lifted on board the ship.
On January 5, the boat delivered to the ship the front group of passengers "General V.-J.
Haana" of one hundred and seventy-nine men and forty-seven women, of which I was, and we
had to serve the rest of the passengers who arrived the next day. Having reloaded from boat to
ship hand luggage, we got on board and, finding the rooms and beds intended for us, left their
belongings there. Then, having gathered in the dining room, we passed our Philippine exit visas
and received our own appointments for work. I chose the publication of the daily ship newspaper
as my occupation for the duration of the voyage. Our first day on the ship ended after dinner, by
ten o'clock in the evening, when we finally took a shower - our very first hot shower since
arriving on Tubabao! and from fatigue barely got to the beds, plunged into a deep sleep.
On January 6, our forward group started their day with breakfast at 7 a.m. Having
cleaned up our premises and filled our beds, we began to prepare for the arrival of the rest of the
passengers, which was expected by 1 p.m. The most difficult duty fell to those who had to be
"police officers": standing in their posts, they had to direct the newcomers to their designated
premises and beds. On the same morning, typists and kitchen workers started working.
Meanwhile, in the camp, the departing were packing their light luggage and putting it in
trucks. Then they were taken to the wharf, where the names were checked with the passenger
register. After that, the boats began to deliver passengers to "General V.-J. Haan," where they
had to surrender their Philippine exit visas. After that, with tickets in hand, passengers were sent
to their designated beds. Dinner began at 4 p.m., and at 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve there was a
God of walking in theofficer'ssalon. Haan" hit the road.
"General V.-J. Haan, a displacement of twenty thousand tons at full load, was launched in
Richmond, California, in 1945. It could hold up to two thousand four hundred soldiers and
officers, and before coming to the Philippines for the Tubabaovs brought to South Korea Turkish
and Greek military units (remember that at that time there was a military conflict in Korea).
Major General of Engineering Troops V.-J. Haan, whose ship was named after him, died during
World War I in a battle near the French city of Chateau-Tieri.
Since January 8, («our Herald has been published daily in Russian and English.
Vozdvodensky and N. Moravsky, on a Russian typewriter printed by V. Vozdvodensky, on the
English N. Moravsky. 20 см административный отдел судна. За время плавания вышло

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 25

четырнадцать ежедневных номеров и один сувенирный.
At first, some passengers reproached the newspaper's staff for "tuned in a warm place".
This was partly due to the fact that most able-bodied men had to engage in boring and sometimes
hard physical work: work in the kitchen, wash, sweep and rub the floors, collect and throw
garbage, etc.
We were often rocked, and many suffered from seasickness. Periodically on board the
ship there were training alarms: having risen on the signal to the deck, passengers put on life
jackets and were ready to leave the ship.
January 9. First training alert. On the same day, each adult passenger was given three
dollars for purchases at the ship's shop.
January 10. A ship shop has opened. Of the products offered in it, the greatest demand
was canned fruit juice - it was sold out instantly. Among other things, the store sold American
cigarettes of various brands and pipe tobacco. A few hours after the opening of the ship's shop in
the festively decorated officer's dining room was organized a children's Christmas tree.
January 11. Due to the fact that there were more than seventy school-age children on
board, three volunteers - A. Shiliakis, M. Rozov and B. Savitsky - opened a school for them.
January 12. On New Year's Eve, a solemn service was held in the old style; Father-proto-
priest Matvey Medvedev served in the service of Hieromonk Michael, father Filaret Astrakhan
and proto-deacon Pavel Metlenko. The choir sang under the direction of M.A. Shulyakovsky.
There were many praying.
Sunday, January 14. A New Year's concert was organized by the forces of the former
Tubabaovs. In addition to the passengers, the concert was attended by representatives of the
ship's command and the accompanying representatives of the IRO, Mr. R.S. Weil and Mrs. V.
Van Lennep. After the concert there were dances. On behalf of the group of passengers, a
telegram was sent to the remaining Tubabao G.K. Bologov wishing his early departure from the
island.
January 15. In the officer's salon A.F. Senkevich held a session of simultaneous play of
chess. Of the thirteen games he won ten, lost two and reduced one to a draw.
Tuesday, January 16. "General V.-J. Haan" crossed the date change line. Thus, the next
day was the second Tuesday of January 16 for us. On the first Tuesday, January 16, the
kindergarten opened, and in the second - passengers filled out customs declarations.
January 17. It was rocking, it was very windy, it was raining. The boy cut himself, and a
woman fell. Both had stitches.
January 18. The weather has improved. At six o'clock in the evening the Vigil was served
on the occasion of the coming day of the feast of epiphany of the Lord. The service was held in
the officer's salon, which did not accommodate all the worshippers.
Many stood on the deck, despite the piercing wind. It got cold, and everyone was given
blankets.
January 19. To mark Epiphany, the morning was served by the impoverished and lighted
water. There were seagulls.
January 20. This, the last before the ship's arrival in San Francisco, Sunday began with
services. Orthodox prayed in the main dining room, and Pentecostals and representatives of other
beliefs - in the same room from two to four o'clock in the afternoon was a children's celebration
organized by the captain of the ship. In the evening there were dances, attended by the officer of
the ship's team led by Captain Ansel L. Seyffer and the head of the military department,
Lieutenant-Captain David B. Ligent. , for the seventh time, moved the clock an hour ahead.
January 22. The weather was wonderful. There were albatross, and there was a closeness,
sushi. From six to seven o'clock in the evening, the ship's doctors conducted a medical
examination of the passengers, then we were all invited to sign a commitment not to join the
organizations listed in the document, which were considered hostile to the U.S. government. I,
like all other passengers, signed this commitment. The list of listed organizations was quite long,
but I remember only two: the U.S. Communist Party and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (this–

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 26

brigade was staffed by American volunteers who took part in the Spanish Civil War in 1936-
1939on the republican side).
January 23. On this day, the following entry was recorded in the travel diary: "Due to the
sudden change in weather, most Tubabaovians sneeze and walk, holding handkerchiefs. Two
years of tropical heat and suddenly... on this day and the next day there was intense preparation
for the arrival in San Francisco: the disembarkation rules were hastily translated into Russian,
documents were sorted, luggage was packed, etc., etc.
Just before arriving in San Francisco, the editors of the newspaper "Our Gazette"
feverishly prepared a souvenir number. In addition to ordinary employees, volunteers and friends
of the newspaper took part in this work. In translations from Russian to English, the editors were
greatly assisted by A. Shiliakis and M. Rozov. And the decoration in the form of sketches of the
camp and its tropical nature, household scenes on board the ship and friendly cartoons on several
persons associated with the journey took on the artists N. Pikulevich, S. Skalkovsky and S.
Uralov. Three poets also contributed. I cite a poem by one of them, Sergei Uralov, inspired by
the hardships of expat life and hope for the future:

Into an unknown distance

Ocean...
This dead space...
These quiet, blue gave...
The unsmooth rumble of cars...
Splashing waves at the iron boards...
Day after day,
Day after day - into the unknown!
And the thoughts are tired,
And at heart longing,
And so sorry for the flying years!

In stages
We've lived a life.
The fever-fate laughed
Over dreams, over the spectre of happiness,
Crushed, scattered in dust
Somehow glued life...
Again, there's nothing left
And again, just the road is like a dream,
Into an unknown new being.

But let sadness,

Let the melancholy,
Let the fresh wounds hurt,
Let sadness at heart
Don't kill them in us the faith alive,
What now, finally, we'll find
Beyond the vastness of the ocean waters
A quiet angle and work,
And freedom,
And the peace welost..

The souvenir edition of "Our Gazette" in thirty-six pages of clean bilingual text with a
cover depicting the full-page Statue of Freedom of work by N.A. Pikulevich, was opened by the
following appeal of Captain Ansel L. Seiffer to passengers:

My dear passengers!
I want to thank you for your amazing help and patience during the journey, which was not

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 27

 without rough edges.
Since I have not had the opportunity to meet each of you in person, I wish you all the happiness
and success you have dreamed of over the years. In the language of the sailors, I hope that you will
all find a place where you can drop your anchor.
If I ever meet in the United States, I'd be honored to shake your hands and walk with you as a
compatriot2..

In their farewell addresses, the head of the ship's military department, Lieutenant-Captain
David B. Vigant, and the accompanying representatives of the IRO, Robert S. Weil, and his
assistant Wendel Van Lennep, were equally flattering about the passengers and, as he did,
wished them well in their new homeland. The leader of the passengers, Yevgeny Tlatov,
answered all these greetings, expressing gratitude on their behalf for the care and help.
In the souvenir issue of "Our Gazette" two tables were published: one - determining the
nationality of passengers, and the other - their religion. Haana" were: nine hundred and eighty-
nine Russians, fifty-two Poles, twenty-six Ukrainians, seventeen Latvians, seven Lithuanians,
five Estonians, four Czechs, three Frenchmen, three Turkic Tatars, two Lebanese, two Germans,
one Briton, one Bulgarian, one Hungarian, one Iranian, one Portuguese, one Romanian and one
Serb. By religion, the passengers shared as follows: eight hundred and fifty-two Orthodox,
eighty-one Catholic, eighteen Baptists, thirteen Lutherans, seven Pentecostals, two Methodists,
one Adventist, one hundred and twenty-nine other Protestants, ten Jewish and four Muslim.
In an advanced article entitled "To a new life," A.N. Knyazev wrote:

... None of us seduces ourselves with a mirage of easy, fun life in America. No, we know that only
with hard work, perseverance and faith in our strength can we achieve what we have dreamed of
for so many years in exile. All that is in our humble power - everything will be given to our new
Motherland, even life, for the most beautiful that it gives us- Freedom... 3

In the souvenir issue was published and a detailed travel diary "General V.-J. Haana"
with Tubabao in San Francisco. It was written in Russian by A.N. Knyazev, and it was mostly
translated into English by A. Shilyaikis and M. Rozov. The brief description of our journey
above was based almost exclusively on this material.
Foggy Friday morning January 25, 1951 "General V.-J. Haan" slowly entered the Gulf of
San Francisco, passed the island of Alcatraz, where then there was a large and well-known
prison, and finally became anchored. Customs officers, immigration officers, journalists and
photojournalists boarded the board. Friends and relatives were waiting at the wharf. Among the
representatives of the clergy and public-charitable organizations who met us were Archbishop
John of Shanghai and Alexandra Tolstoy, the youngest daughter of the great writer and the
chairman of the Tolstoy Foundation. The nextday,localnewspapers, the San Francisco
Chronicle,theSan Francisco Examiner,theOakland «Tribune, and the Russian-language Russian
Life, covered our visit in detail.
I came to San Francisco alone, there were no relatives with me. I was twenty-seven years
old at the time, and I had already experienced grief and all sorts of other adversities: the death of
my loved ones - an older brother, a mother, a father, a disenfranchised and lack of money of an
uninvited guest in a country foreign to culture and mores - China, the Japanese occupation, the
flight from Shanghai, the Tubaba camp... When I arrived in San Francisco, I had twenty Filipino
cents in my pocket, which was ten American cents at the rate of the day. But as soon as "General
W.-J. Haan" moored to the wharf, my close friend Gennady Shuisky sent me on board twenty
dollars, and before that my other friend, Valya Kolycheva, rented a room for me in the city.
Stepping on American soil, for the first time in a very long time I felt like a full-fledged person.
The last large group of Tubabaovs, consisting of several hundred people, delivered the
American military transport vessel General Black to San Francisco on June 14, 1951.
---------------------------
1
У р а л о в С . В неизвестную даль // Наш вестник (Our Herald), сувенирный номер.

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 28

2
In the same place.
3
In the same place.

End of the camp

In December 1951, Typhoon Ami erupted over the islands of Samar and Tubabao,
destroying the Tubabaov camp. The witness of this disaster, Benjamin Sapelkin, described it in
the article "The Tragedy of the Samaritans" published on January 1, 1952 in the San Francisco
newspaper "Russian Life". I bring it with some abbreviations:

The first signs of impending danger appeared from the evening of December 8, and by 11 a storm
was raging.
By 2 a.m. the typhoon had reached speed before, but particularly devastating, terrifying the
deadly danger it was by 7 a.m. on December 9. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon suddenly and for all
unexpectedly the typhoon died down, the sky cleared, the sun came out, but, as it turned out, only
to in half an hour with a new terrifying force to complete his evil work of destroying the camp and
its unfortunate people.125 миль в час
There is no need to talk about tents - there are no shreds of awnings or any signs at all, but there
was a moment when, like house of cards, they began to crumble and turn into a pile of rubble
wooden and iron barracks and offices... People found themselves in the open air, saving their lives
in the ravines of the jungle, hiding in pits, holding on to the surviving trunks of coconut palms
(banana palms - as it happened), climbing under the flooring of the floors. Someone Romoslavsky
was crushed by the floor for a day and only miraculously survived, and the Filipino Peter, who was
also rescued under the floor, the senior in the working group, who enjoyed the general sympathies
of the whole camp, was killed on the spot - he was smeared with his head torn from the floor of the
floor. Many tied themselves to the trunks of the most powerful trees...
On Tubabao there are no evening twilight, there night comes instantly. Imagine the situation and
condition of the victims of the swooping "Ami" under the cover of a dark, ominous night, when no
zigda is visible, and "light up" was nothing, not to mention the shelter for the night, and at this time
from everywhere continued to rush calls for help, because from the whole camp there were no
injured or un hurted person. Everyone was affected; two killed - engineer Mitrophan Molchanov
and Matrena Averyanova ... Medical care was provided by Dr. Tack, but his efforts were almost
inconclusive: there were no medicines, dressings, surgical instruments... The wounds were
bandaged with rags from surviving linen, but this linen was contaminated by a typhoon...
"Flying rescue groups", hastily organized, extracted from the ruins of the sick and wounded and
placed them under the surviving floors of barracks and buildings, which were built on pillars and
stilts at a level a meter from the ground, but these shelters were unreliable - the furious element of
everything in its terrible way mercilessly destroyed ... The capital bridge over the bay, which was
used for cargo and passenger traffic between the "Samartsev" camp and the nearest city of Guan,
was destroyed... The surviving "Samaritans" were transported across the bay to the airfield in
Guana to be sent to Manila by boat and boat...
It is impossible to ignore the sacrificial behavior during the typhoon of the IRO administration,
represented by the acting director of the camp of Riper and medical officer Mr. Taylor, who,
risking his life, sought to provide assistance and assistance to everywhere and all, and Mr. Riper
was seriously injured - he had a severe bruise or broken ribs. He is now undergoing treatment.
Ms. Ruhl, the headmistress of the camp, was absent as the ship, which left Tubabao Harbour on
29 November, was taking a group of tuberculosis patients (sixty-eight people, including family
members) to France to place two leper "Samarians", an elderly woman and a boy, on the ship. To
do this, she had to fly from Manila to Singapore with the sick. Her mission, which she took on the
great kindness of her and her heartfelt sacrifice, fulfilled brilliantly: the administration of the ship
agreed to accept the lepers, and now they are on their way to France ... 1

Upon hearing of the Tubabao disaster, F. Thompson, the director of the IRO in the
Philippine Republic, immediately went there to help the victims. When he returned to Manila, he

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 29

obtained permission from the Philippine authorities to temporarily stay with the refugees from
Tubabao until their final resettlement. Thus, by the end of December 1951, the last inhabitants of
the camp, one hundred and eighteen people, had leftthe camp 2.
This is the end of the Tubaba's epic.
----------------------------
1
S a p e l k i n V . Tragedy of the Samaritans / Russian Life. San Francisco, 1952. 1 Jan.
(Prince'sfolder.)
2
См. It's the same.

© Russian Way Information Portal www.rp-net.ru or Russian-way.rf 30