What is so unique about the first wave? This was mass emigration in a short period of time. The jostle was horrendous – hundreds of thousands of people were trying to board the ships. The view was so dull and deserted that Kutepov involuntarily exclamed, “Is that all?!” Some of them were doorkeepers,

Others would cut wood and bring it to the town. The officers were engaged in physical work here. They would load sleepers. The face of modern Belgrade is largely the work of Nikolai Krasnov. Nicholas II called her “the nightingale of Kursk”.

We do not know the fact that the Russians had a priority in comic books. The Russian emigrants had no passports. They did, but those had been issued by the country that no longer existed. The Soviet special services hired the Italian steamboat that crashed into the yacht and sank it.

They all lived out of suitcases because they hoped that they would be able to return to their homeland. It feels like this one-hundred-year gap vanishes right away when viewed up close. REDAKTSIYA Hello, dear friends. We are in Berlin, a city, which has become one of the centers of Russian emigration. Again.

Like it was one hundred years ago, when – according to different figures – from 1.5 up to 3 million Russian emigrants fled here after the 1917 revolution. That mass exodus is called the first wave of emigration. The second one followed after the war,

The third and the fourth waves took place under the USSR. The fifth one is going on today. That very first wave of emigration is usually called “white”. White emigration. It’s not quite a precise term as not all of those who left then were Whites.

They didn’t fight against the Reds during the Civil War in Russia. There were a lot of revolutionaries, – SRs, for example – who were declared enemies by the Bolsheviks. There were also many civilians who did not participate in that war and did not want to live under Soviet rule.

And those who were exiled by the Soviet government. But in the USSR, all those Russians who fled the country were called White émigrés. The name stuck, so we are going to use it in our film. Just to distinguish this emigrant wave from all the following ones.

Why have we decided to make an episode about these people? Let’s put aside the obvious and numerous parallels with today’s situation. They are so evident that we wouldn’t like to highlight them more. You will see them yourselves. When we talk about White emigrants, it always seems like those were stupendous people,

Almost titans who did not just live their lives – they suffered epically and triumphed over difficulties like heroes. They were true noblemen who were making history. It was true in a sense, because their stories were quite epic indeed. Anyway, just like any great picture, this is a mosaic, first and foremost.

If you’ve been watching our videos, you know that what we care about most is not the whole picture itself, but its separate parts, individual people. If we take a closer look into the wave of White emigration, we’ll start to see a lot of familiar things, which we’re facing today.

It feels like this one-hundred-year gap vanishes right away. It seems like we’re talking about our acquaintances or neighbors. We thought that this story would be rather relevant and interesting today. Sometimes it seems like a tragedy, sometimes it is a detective novel or even a comedy or an adventure story in many cases.

Have you ever heard about the famous singer Nadezhda Plevitskaya and her husband, a White Army general, who became Soviet intelligence agents and were involved in kidnapping or maybe even murder? Or about Ivan Bunin’s love drama? It’s a well-known fact that he became a Nobel Prize winner in exile.

What is less known is that his muse, a girl who lived with the writer and his wife, left him for another woman. And what about the incredible story of Vasily Shulgin, a deputy of the Duma, who accepted the abdication of Nicholas II and emigrated, but later returned illegally to the Soviet Union

And wrote a fascinating book about it? Which – just like his entire trip, actually, – had been organized and staged by state security agencies, as it turned out later, and he did not even suspect anything. Or maybe you heard about Don Cossack Nikolai Paramonov

Who had been a millionaire before the revolution, lost everything and started from scratch in exile and became a millionaire again? And what about Alexander Zubkov, who pretended to be a nobleman and a movie star, married Kaiser Wilhelm’s sister and blew everything that remained of her fortune? Actually, that may be untrue.

These are just a few of the stories which happened to the White émigrés. We realized that we can’t cram them all into one episode. Otherwise, this would be a never-ending episode. As we went deeper into the filming process, we decided to make two episodes.

Later, we realized that the project couldn’t be confined to two parts. So, we decided to make a mini-series of three episodes for the first time in our channel’s history. Of course, all of you remember that the center of this emigration wave was Paris. We will definitely get there,

But a whole lot of stories happened to White émigrés here in Berlin, Munich, Prague, Belgrade, Sremski Karlovci, Gallipoli, and Constantinople. Of course, we were filming this in Russia as well, which many of the émigrés missed so much and to which they desperately wanted to return.

You’ll see that it is a very modern story. Sure, its characters lived in another technological era – there was no internet back then. But we thought that many of their notes – and the émigrés left plenty of them – would fit right in on Telegram channels and chats.

This is the only element where we took liberties in our mini-series. As for the stories and events, all of them are the unvarnished truth. What is so unique about this very first wave? This was mass emigration in a short period of time. It took place mostly from 1918 till 1920.

The number of fleeing noblemen was significant, but it’s a misapprehension that it was predominantly elite. You mean, that only the nobility fled, right? That wasn’t true. The nobility was a minority. But the number of elites among emigrants was very high. Didn’t the Bolsheviks prevent emigrants from fleeing?

Or were they unhappy about this from the start? How could they prevent this? People were fleeing from the territories, which weren’t under Bolshevik control yet. By late 1920, the only territory in the European part of the former empire, which was still not controlled by Bolsheviks, was Crimea.

A huge number of future emigrants fled from there by sea. They were the last faction of the White Army under the command of baron Pyotr Wrangel. The Reds under Frunze’s command started their assault on Perekop and Sivash in November and cut their way through to the peninsula.

They outnumbered the Whites – more than 140,000 bayonets against the around 40,000 that the Whites had. Wrangel knew they weren’t going to make it. There was no other option to save the remnants of the army except evacuation. REDAKTSIYA This is the port of Moda in the Asian part of Istanbul.

Today, it’s a cool trendy place with a highly developed park. There are many Russians here. You can hear Russian spoken everywhere. There are many tourists as well as new immigrants here. Just like one hundred years ago, when you could hear Russian on every corner

Because a flotilla of Russian ships evacuated here from Crimea. It was fall, November 1920. The Red Army invaded Crimea. The White Army’s Commander-In-Chief Pyotr Wrangel gave an order to leave the peninsula. In his order, he wrote that those who didn’t find themselves in immediate danger should think well about staying

Because nobody knew what lay ahead for them. Those who chose to evacuate with the army, would have to share its road to Calvary, as Wrangel said. That’s exactly what happened. The sadly remembered evacuation from Crimea started around November 10. I think you’ve heard about it. The Russian language still has an expression,

Derived from this event, to describe a chaotic hustle, “Is the last ship from Sevastopol leaving now?” The jostle was horrendous – hundreds of thousands of people were trying to board the ships. This story is preserved in tens of memoirs and hundreds of photos. Movies were filmed about it in Soviet times –

For example, “Two Comrades Were Serving”, a nice Soviet film. Around 150,000 people boarded 126 ships – from large steamboats and cruisers to tiny tugs – and departed Crimea for exile. CONSTANTINOPLE, 1920 So, after five days in the open sea, the Russian flotilla arrived here, in Constantinople, from Crimea.

The number of ships had diminished by then. One of them sank during a storm. There’s a cruel irony here: the name of that torpedo boat was “Alive”. Constantinople was not ruled by Turks at that time, by the way. The Republic of Turkey, which we know today, did not even exist yet.

After World War I, Turkey, or the Ottoman Empire back then, was obliged to sign a humiliating peace treaty because it had entered the war on the side of Germany and lost. Essentially, the empire collapsed. According to the peace treaty, the Allies got control over the Bosporus strait, where Constantinople is located.

Russia had a spectacular opportunity to gain control over the Bosporus then. This was one of the reasons why Russia had entered this war. As you might know, that was the centuries-old dream of many Russian rulers to control both straits. But you remember, Russia was torn by revolutions and the Civil War –

No one cared about the straits. The Allies held a leading position here. The French took the newly arrived Russians under their wing. As the White Army’s allies, they stood ready to welcome Russian emigrants here. But they weren’t expecting to see that many people.

They thought there were going to be 30,000 or 50,000 newcomers. But 150,000 people came there at once. None of the White anti-Bolshevist governments were recognized by the great powers. None of them except Wrangel’s, who controlled Crimea and Taurian province. So, for France, he represented the legitimate government back then.

Yes. And Constantinople had enough space to accommodate both the military and civilians – in horrible conditions though. CONSTANTINOPLE The conditions on those ships were truly grave. You can easily imagine that. The ships were crammed with people: holds, decks, staircases. Swarms of people were everywhere they could squeeze in. One contemporary wrote,

“They were hanging down from masts like clusters of grapes.” They were not allowed to go ashore right away in Constantinople because the city was struck by a typhus epidemic. The French immediately announced a two-week quarantine. People were in total distress because many of them had already run out of money and food.

Small “buy-sell-exchange” businesses started to appear around the arrived ships in the port. Those who took their family jewelry and gold were luckier because Russian money was not valid there – this was pretty clear. People spent days and days like this on the ships. Eventually, the French allowed civilians to come ashore,

As they had completely different plans for the military. They needed to convince Wrangel to disband the army. But he wanted to keep it. Europe was tired of wars. Nobody wanted to start a new war with the Bolsheviks. Therefore, no one needed Wrangel’s army as a military entity.

-That’s why they wanted to disarm it. -Right. And to make the military men civilians. One can understand what the French felt. Just imagine, you’ve taken control over the enemy’s city. And suddenly, a whole armada of 70,000 armed servicemen appeared. A whole army. The first and the most obvious wish of any authority

Is to at least disarm these people. That’s not the worst part: you also need to supply and feed them. The French took this responsibility with considerable reluctance. They decided to take everything that seemed valuable from the newly arrived ships as a compensation: provisions, ammunition, certain equipment; some ships were confiscated entirely.

As Russian emigrants calculated later, that the French expropriated 69 million francs worth of their property, which is equivalent to 60 million dollars nowadays. Quite a sum. Of course, the White military did not want to disarm. Who would love to do that in such a situation?

They were making a dramatic scene throwing their rifles overboard so that they wouldn’t fall into French hands. The main reason why the Russians wanted to keep going as an army and why this was so important to Wrangel himself was that they thought they wouldn’t stay there for long.

We will face this many times in our narration. They thought the Bolsheviks would soon fall and the Whites would be able to come back to Russia. Those who came here thought a bit differently: they wanted to regroup, they thought the Allies would help, and they would return to Russia across the Black Sea,

Squeeze the Bolsheviks out of Crimea, and ultimate victory would be very close. REDAKTSIYA Unlike the rest of his army, commander Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel and his family lived in absolutely luxurious conditions on a yacht, or a small boat. It was moored here, on the Bosporus, and had the name “Lukull”.

This yacht had an amusing history. It was built in England and later bought by Russia. For some time, it was an administrative boat for the Russian ambassador to Constantinople. It became the White Army’s property in Crimea and returned here in 1920 with the rest of the Russian armada. Wrangel lived on this yacht

And even hosted official and unofficial receptions there because the official residence and headquarters of the Russian emigrants was the Russian embassy. But it was too cramped to fit everybody. Anyway, it was more pleasant to be on a yacht, though Wrangel complained about cockroaches and confined spaces.

But we all know how hard it is to live on a yacht! Kidding. On October 15, 1921, about a year after the Russians had arrived here, the Italian steamship “Adria” coming from the Black Sea, from Batumi, crashed into this yacht and broke it in half. The yacht sank immediately.

The impact occurred in that very part where the general’s bedroom was located. By a happy coincidence, Wrangel and his family were not on board at that moment. They were ashore. A few people died. Wrangel’s extensive archive sank with the yacht. As well as a considerable part of his fortune, as they say.

PETER BASILEVSKY, PYOTR WRANGEL’S GRANDSON Luckily, it happened to be the wedding anniversary of my grandparents, so they fled the yacht to Constantinople for their anniversary dinner. And barely had they left the yacht, the steamboat crashed its side, and in three minutes, it went down.

I actually have one of the few things that came to the surface, this life ring. As far as I know, it was the Soviet special services who hired the Italian steamboat to crash the yacht and sink it. A official investigation revealed that it was an accident.

Of course, the steamship’s captain was guilty, but he had no ill intentions. Inevitably, a rumor that this was an assassination attempt on Wrangel immediately spread among the Russian emigrants. There was no proof for a long time. However, a couple of years later, in 1923,

Maxim Gorky – he was in Europe by that time – told his friend Vladislav Hodasevich that Elena Ferrari had had a finger in that pie. Such personalities appear in the most critical historical times. In other circumstances, you could call them Renaissant as they usually have plenty of talents.

This was an outstanding woman in every sense of this word. She was beautiful, she was a polyglot and spoke five or six languages including Turkish. She was a poet, she wrote poems, had many acquaintances in the literary circles and was on first-name terms with Gorky. Most importantly, she was a Soviet intelligence agent.

As it was later confirmed by documents, she came to Constantinople and later to Europe on the State Political Directorate’s assignment. Ferrari’s fate was predictably tragic and very typical for that period. She came back from Europe and continued her state security service. In 1938, Ferrari was arrested and was shot. So, Gorky told Hodasevich

That Elena Ferrari was on board of that steamship “Adria” that smashed into Wrangel’s yacht. If that was actually true – there is other evidence that she was on a mission in Constantinople in 1921, – then this accident with the yacht was not an unhappy coincidence, but an assassination attempt on Wrangel.

But he survived. Well, look, there were lots of spies, as you know. The Bolsheviks organized a great system of underground work. It existed for God knows how long, so they were the best at it. Absolutely, there were spies there. We focused mostly on Wrangel’s emigration in this episode.

But it’s only fair to say that the remnants of general Denikin’s army had come here after their evacuation from Novorossiysk a few months before Wrangel’s troops. ANTON DENIKIN, EX-LEADER OF THE WHITE MOVEMENT IN SOUTH RUSSIA Most of them had evacuated to Crimea, but around 25,000 people had come here right away.

The relationship between these two generals is a story of two bears in one den. They both were military leaders, two chiefs, men of ideas and great ideals that could not stand the sight of each other. At some point, Wrangel served under Denikin and was constantly criticizing him.

Later, Wrangel was invested with the command of the army by Denikin, when it could no longer have any pivotal impact on the outcome of the Civil War. You can’t say they were two epicenters of emigration when they both were in exile. They did not interact in any manner.

That was one of the big mistakes of the White Army, it all boiled down to personal struggle. There was a problem between Denikin and my grandfather. Denikin always thought that my grandfather was hungry for fame, that he was looking for glory. But he was just a dashing commander, everything that Denikin wasn’t.

Denikin described his time in Constantinople in his book “Russian Turmoil: Memoirs”. A very tragic episode, which had a great impact on the general happened here. His closest associate, general Ivan Romanovsky was shot right in the Russian embassy. Denikin was so depressed that he went to Europe right after Ivan Romanovsky’ s funeral

And never ever came back to Constantinople and Turkey in general. Most émigrés considered Constantinople a transfer point and did not stay here for long. For instance, Ivan Bunin was here for just a couple of weeks. IVAN BUNIN, WRITER By the beginning of the revolution, Bunin was already a two-time Pushkin Prize laureate

And an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences specializing in fine literature. Bunin had never thought of emigration. Never ever! All that horror was developing in front of his eyes. He’d been feeling these growing revolutionary sentiments since 1905. It was the first shot across the bow. He felt that.

In 1907, he said, “Ten more years – and Russia will be over.” The revolution happened. He left the country only a year after that – in early summer 1918. He went to the south, to Odessa. Even this was not an easy thing to do. He left the country at the very last moment

On the very last ship from Odessa. He held off, thinking, “Just wait, wait a bit, it’s almost over – the Allies will soon come here. The French, the Americans, someone else…” When the Red Army troops were approaching Odessa and were about to invade the city,

Bunin was getting on board of the steamship “Sparta” – the last one that happened to take to the sea. The French steamship “Sparta” headed to Constantinople. Since Bunin was a prominent figure, they gave him and his wife Vera Muromtseva a separate cabin. Considering the situation, that was top luxury.

However, they were not alone in that cabin. They shared it with Nikodim Kondakov and his secretary Ekaterina Yatsenko. Nikodim Kondakov was a very distinguished historian specializing in Byzantine history. Ekaterina was his student, secretary, mistress, and sometimes nurse – Kondakov was 75 years old at that moment.

They reached Constantinople at dusk after almost a week at sea. The French authorities sent them to a stone, ice-cold shed for an ice-cold shower right away to get disinfected. It was necessary because a typhoid epidemic was raging in the city. Bunin exclaimed, “Kondskov and I are academics.

We are immortal, no infection can take us down!” The doctor gave up and let them go. Bunin and his wife spent their first night in exile like thousands of other émigrés – in some unheated shed with the whistling wind. Both Bunin and Kondakov didn’t like Constantinople at all.

They instantly started to bustle about getting visas. They both got them from Bulgaria. Soon, they managed to buy tickets, which was also a great problem, and they took a train to Sofia. By the way, they had taken the route, which Agatha Christie immortalized in her famous crime story “Murder on the Orient Express”

12 years after the events we are describing now. Bunin and Kondakov left the city following the route of the Orient Express from Constantinople to Sofia – well, that route went further to Paris. Other emigrants, like Vladimir Nabokov’s family, didn’t even go ashore in Turkey. Twenty-year-old Vladimir Nabokov came to Constantinople

On the Greek steamship with an appropriate name – “Hope”. They left Crimea with great troubles. When “Hope” was putting out to sea, an artillery attack had already started. As it turned out later, there was almost no food on board. While the ship was in the open sea,

People had to rely on the provisions they had managed to take. As you might understand, those were quite scarce. Nabokov saw the sun rising over the Bosporus and wrote his poem called “Istanbul”. Don’t forget that the city still had the name of Constantinople at that time. Istanbul rises out of the dusk:

Two sharp, black minarets In the dark gold of dawn Above the bright silk of the water. Unlike many other Russian emigrants, Nabokov didn’t stay in Constantinople at all. Just a couple of days later, “Hope” left the port and headed to Greece, to the port of Piraeus in Athens.

Soldiers and officers from Wrangel’s army were allowed to come ashore after two weeks of tedious waiting on the ships. The main body – the first army corps under Kutepov’s command – was not allowed in Constantinople at all. They disembarked 200 kilometers south-west of the city, on the shore of the Dardanelles Strait.

GELIBOLU, THE GALLIPOLI PENINSULA We are in the small Turkish town of Gelibolu right on the shore of the Dardanelles. The views here are beautiful. But the émigrés didn’t think about local beauty then. It takes about a day to get here from Istanbul by sea.

This is where the rest of general Kutepov’s 1st Army Corps came ashore. This corps is considered one of the most combat-capable of the Russian army. Well, it WAS. By the time they got to Gallipoli, the soldiers were exhausted, disarmed, and tortured by distressful uncertainty ahead of them. It’s important to explain

What the town of Gallipoli and this whole area looked like in 1920. As we remember, World War I had recently ended. One of the key operations had unfolded here. In Russia, it’s hardly even known. It was called the Dardanelles campaign. The Allies, England and France, fought against Turkey.

It was a large-scale landing operation. The French and the British wanted to make their way to Constantinople and deprive the Turks of control over the Bosporus. Do you know who was the author and the key driver of this operation? First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. It was a total failure.

The landing party failed because the Turks were desperately resisting. Casualties were huge on both sides. The French and the British evacuated after almost a year of fighting. As a result, the whole town of Gallipoli was in ruins. When the Russian army came here, they saw quite a depressing picture. Several years after that,

The Russians of Gallipoli published a book of their memories of their life in this town. Here’s a quote from it, “The town seemed dead. The Greek flag over one of the buildings indicated that there still was life here, but it was impossible to discern its manifestations no matter how hard we tried.

The view was depressing. It felt like a leviathan had stepped on this small town, smashed it, crashed it, scattered it and went on having sown death and destruction.” This is the place where the events known as Sitting Around in Gallipoli took place. This term is forgotten now.

However, it conveys what the Russian army was doing here very accurately. When Russians came here, it was pretty crowded here at first. About 26,000 servicemen were housed in the camp. Besides, there were also people who weren’t part of the army: 1,500 women and over 3,000 kids. Local Turkish population was about 2,500 people.

So, it was simply impossible to accommodate all the Russians in the city. A third of them settled in Gelibolu, the other two thirds stayed in the camp about eight kilometers away from here. The Russians were about to face a great disappointment. The Russians set up a huge military camp

On this field about seven kilometers away from Gallipoli. Let’s see what they were saying, “General Kutepov rode a horse to the place the French told them about and literally found a bare field covered with wet mud. In the distance, you could see a mount covered with low-growing shrubs.” Here it is.

“A strap of the dirty Hellespont could be seen on the side.” They meant the Dardanelles Strait, it’s over there. “A Northeaster was blowing and bending wiry grass to the ground. The view was so dull and deserted that Kutepov involuntarily uttered an exclamation, “Is that all?!”

When he came back to the steamship, he didn’t even share his impressions.” As you can see, it’s winter now, too. The weather is very nice, the sun is shining. Apparently, we just got lucky with the weather. Usually, a very strong wind from the sea blows here 200 days a year.

And the climate has gotten much milder over the past 100 years. Why did they choose this place? Because an English military camp had been located here before. The British gave this place a sentimental name – The Valley of Roses and Death. Why roses? Because wild dog roses grew here.

Why death? Because it’s the habitat of wild snakes. The Russians gave this place a rather unpoetic and accurate name – “Bare Field”, which sounds very similar to the word Gallipoli in Russian. They set up tents on the Bare Field. The remnants of Kutepov’s first corps lived there for 1.5 years.

It was something like a military camp and a refugee camp. The Russian camp was located on both banks of the river. There were tents all around here: up to the village of Fındıklı in that direction and up to the seashore over there.

It’s necessary to say that the Russians managed to build a whole big settlement. Of course, those were simple, even primitive constructions of clay and stone. Servicemen’s families were allowed to live in the camp. Living conditions were harsh. The Russians had to not just share houses – several people could live in one room.

They had to divide the space with bed sheets that hung down like curtains. The Russians had no work here. They simply tried to survive, find food and a place to live. The situation in Istanbul was different. Refugees could work as drivers or secretaries. A whole new culture of White émigrés emerged there. CONSTANTINOPLE

Russian émigrés were forced to make a living by doing odd jobs here. They all suffered from a lack of money. Not many of them had enough money to rent a decent apartment. They huddled wherever they could: some of them spent the night in mosques, others stayed in churches,

Some émigrés received help from the Russian embassy. It was situated here, on Grande Rue de Péra. Today, it’s İstiklal Avenue, one of the central streets in Istanbul. An epicenter of Russian life started to evolve here: Russian restaurants, Russian saloons. We talked about this in detail in our episode about Turkey.

Here’s the link, check it out. It’s worth noting the number of Russians that inundated the city. The population of Constantinople was about 900,000 people at that point. And at least 150,000 Russians came here in 1920. Not all of them disembarked from the ships, but at least 100,000 émigrés did.

They’d been coming before that, too. So, you can imagine how many Russians happened to be here at the same time. In just a couple of years, only 30,000 Russian émigrés remained. In 1928, when Atatürk had already come to power, Turks implemented a very strict policy: you either speak Turkish or go away.

This is the main reason why there are few descendants of those very first Russian émigrés living in modern Turkey now, сompared to Paris or Berlin. THE GALLIPOLI PENINSULA The Russians brought changes to the traditional way of life in the city. For instance, they opened restaurants in this area

Where they sang old Russian romantic ballads. They were making a living by doing odd jobs. Some worked as doorkeepers, others would cut wood and bring it to the town. They would pick up pieces of wood on the shore after severe storms and sell them.

The key problem in the Russian camp was that there were almost no paid jobs in Gallipoli for the émigrés to earn money and to be able to buy something. Obviously, the Russians would never mind even the dirty and hard work. They were selling their possessions they had brought with them.

The state property in the camp started disappearing, too. But in general, supplying of the Russian camp was in the hands of the French. They established daily rationing, which the Russian emigrants scrupulously recorded and reproduced in this Gallipoli memoir book a few years later. I’ve already cited it.

Well, ordinary bread or biscuits: 500 grams per day. We’ve gathered these products here. This is about 500 grams. Flour, cereals, homogeneous products: 150 grams. We chose lentils for the sake of clarity. Frozen or canned meat: 250 grams. We took canned meat. Salt. Where is it? Ah, here. Fats.

We bought butter as an example. Sugar, tea. By the standards of the 20th century, when a terrible famine would happen every now and then, this grocery box doesn’t look terrible. It looks like the French tried their best. Merci, Monsieur. But if we look at it from a modern point of view,

We realize right away that this daily ration was not sufficient for adult men, which made up the majority of the Russian camp. This is why malnourishment was a topical issue there. This topic permeates through all the memoirs about Staying in Gallipoli.

We have a unique visual document about everyday life in the Gallipoli camp. This is a collection of cartoons by Mikhail Chernyavsky who worked under the pseudonym Zero. This collection was republished later in Europe and has appeared at different auctions several times.

By the way, you can find it even today at an online auction on the internet, if you’re interested. When you look at it, you can understand what the emigrants in Gallipoli thought, what they cared about and laughed at. Here’s the picture of them competing for bread crusts.

One of them turns around and says, “It is for this, it is for that.” Everybody hopes that it is for them. They are all hungry like wolves, but they lack bread. Look, they are cooking turtle soup. And here’s another cartoon called “Turtle Campaign”: “The disturbed tranquility of the virgin prairie.”

It’s clear that there were turtles in the valley. At least, it’s meat. The camp residents arranged a real hunt for them. “Hunting for wild animals under the life-giving rays of the spring sun.” You can instantly understand that it is about the fight against lice and other insects –

The Gallipoli Russians didn’t have soap during their first month here. The French gave it to them later. That is why the problem of lice and other vermin was so acute. Here’s a nice cartoon called “Gastronomer”. A man is eating a snake. Another man asks him, “What are you doing? It’s poisonous!”

The first man answers, “That’s okay, Colonel. It’s boiled anyway.” You can imagine what kinds of jobs the Russians in Gallipoli would take up. They were willing to take on any type of job basically. “Companions in Misfortune”: a mule and a Russian in Gallipoli. As the following cartoon suggests,

There were social inequalities in the camp. Officers had a much better life than ordinary soldiers. This cartoon is called “An Outing for Cigarette Butts”. The soldiers are waiting for an officer to finish his cigarette. It needs no comments. It’s clear that all this did not contribute to good discipline.

Here they are playing football. “The transformation of potential energy into kinetic energy.” Actually, it’s a real fact. There was a football team in the Russian camp. Even amid hardships, they managed to sew sports uniforms and shoes for playing football, as well as the balls. Twenty-three football teams appeared here inside the military corps.

The Russians held large football tournaments. Even the Turks attended the matches with great pleasure. Did they play against each other? Only Russians played, yes. However, one of the teams that consisted of Russian émigrés was called “Gallipoli Sport”. It was a very famous football club. In away games abroad,

They used to defeat Czech and Bulgarian teams by a huge margin. There was an English ship there, too. The British had a gymnastics team: they looked lean, dry and tough. They were all young, even though they were all veterans. So, they challenged the Whites and held a football match against them.

The White Guards were winning with the score 3:1. Twenty minutes before the end of the match, the British gave up and left the field. Just imagine, they created a life for themselves. They opened a chess club. They had energy for it, and it proves their courage. Here’s an interesting thing:

Many of them believed they would go back and fight again. So they managed to maintain rigid military discipline. This is what we see in the photograph: here’s the place where the officers would go on guard. They continued to conduct exercises, live by military rules and adhere to routine. Kutepov strictly enforced discipline.

A couple of words about Alexander Kutepov. He was one of the brightest leaders of the White Movement and the whole Civil War in Russia. He was a shrewd military man. His career started during the Russo-Japanese war. By World War I, he was already a Colonel. He was one of the few officers

That tried to resist the revolution in Petrograd in February 1917. There were few people who supported Kutepov – nobody wanted to risk their lives for the monarchy. He returned to the front during Word War I. He was wounded several times and received military awards. Later, he joined the White Movement

And participated in the famous Ice March with Denikin. Maybe I’ll film an episode about it one day. When the Russian army came under Wrangel’s command, Kutepov remained the commander of the 1st Army Corps. NIKOLAI RAEVSKY Here’s the memoirs of Captain Nikolai Raevsky. He wrote, “Kutepov behaved here like no other general did

Before the revolution. For example, yesterday, he personally beat the officers who tried to go over to Kemal Pasha, and tore off their shoulder straps.” By going over to Kemal Pasha, he meant enrolling to the army Kemal, future Atatürk, was recruiting. Later, he liberated the country with its help

And established the modern Republic of Turkey. Kutepov, like Wrangel, was doing his best to keep his army functional. He was planning to fight again for Russia. That was why he resisted with his fists any attempts by his soldiers to enlist somewhere else.

The French who were in power here were trying to divide the army and make the Russians join them. They offered the émigrés to go fight in South America. There were plenty of conflicts there. Some did go. Chernyavsky made a cartoon dedicated to it. It says “Brazilians”.

This is what they called those who were about to go to South America. A French officer is recruiting them here. Many Russians were recruited into the French foreign legion, The French would post leaflets with appeals to join up, the Russians tearing them down. The French had to put sentries to guard those leaflets.

Chernyavsky left us a cartoon about it. Here you can see Russian soldiers distracting the sentry. They replaced the leaflet with another one, which says that the Russian army will go only where Wrangel ordered it to. They are making fun of the French sentry who continues to guard the leaflet.

The leaflet is quite racist, I have to say. Relations between the Russians and the French had always been strained. They were constantly in conflict. The French did not want to compromise and meet the requirements of the White Army. It seems to me that the French were afraid of the Russian army,

Because it was very strong. Here is Wrangel himself. Why wasn’t he allowed to live with his army? I think Wrangel was the person who controlled the situation in Istanbul and maintained international ties. My grandfather always held Kutepov in high regard, and we must do him justice, Kutepov did save thousands of people

When they got stuck on Gallipoli. Wrangel would come to Gallipoli from time to time. His wife also came here for a visit. I love such juxtapositions so much. This is Baroness Wrangel’s school. Here are the Russian kids who studied here. This is 1920. This is 2023. The same building, the same steps.

About 200–300 kids arrived at the Russian camp with the Russian military. This school was arranged for them. Baroness Wrangel took it under her wing. It is called the Wrangel school. This house is still called this among locals. The Russians continued their normal life as if they were in Russia.

They retained educational and military institutions. I think this is important. White Russians believed that Russia simply “migrated” here with them. Did they publish newspapers here? The so-called Spoken Newspaper was issued in Gallipoli: the news here was read over the loudspeaker every day. The Russians had done a lot for the city in general.

There were plenty of talented poets here. I’ve got a Gallipoli lullaby in my archive. Let me read it for you. “Rock-a-bye, my sweet Russian warrior, rock-a-bye, A French Arab is keeping an eye on your cradle May you dream of lira, shah, sugar, bread, figs.

At least in your dream, you’ll be happy in peace, you will arrange a feast. Let Russia not be in your dream! Life is not easy there. Trotsky and the dungeons of the Cheka are waiting for you there. Sleep by the mountains of Gallipoli as if it’s your native land.

Sleep, dear warrior of Taurida fields, rock-a-bye.” Volunteer Alexander Mikhailov. They arranged a theater and a library in the camp. Is that a theater? Right, it’s a city theater. It could accommodate 1,000 spectators. But the Russians managed to set up a theater that could accommodate 2,500 people! During their entire stay in Gallipoli,

The Russians staged more than 80 performances based on the works of Chekhov, Ostrovsky, and Gogol. They staged theatrical shows based on famous writers’ works. By the way, the locals also enjoyed going to the performances and participating in them. Nadezhda Plevitskaya also performed at the Russian Gallipoli Theater.

She was a very famous Russian folk singer before the revolution. Rumor has it, the royal family was deeply touched by her voice. NADEZHDA PLEVITSKAYA Nicholas II called her “the nightingale of Kursk”. Plevitskaya used to sing, presenting every single song as a performance, a spectacle. She cared about the message of every composition.

She was a woman of the people, a peasant. That was a unique phenomenon in Tsarist Russian culture: she rose from a peasant to a superstar. Plevitskaya was born in the village of Vinnikovo in Kursk province. Her maiden name was Nadezhda Vinnikova. She joined a dance troupe,

One of the participants of which was Edmund Plevitsky. Edmund Plevitsky was a spectacular dancer at that time. He performed at the Warsaw Opera and Ballet Theater. Plevitsky managed her talent and influenced her in many ways. He was much older than her. They seemed to be good friends.

That’s why she asked permission from her mother. For the marriage? Right. They got married, but divorced soon after. As Plevitskaya was rising higher and higher in her musical career, she started receiving large fees and attracting larger audiences. Merchants would get sober when she sang “The horse is dragging slowly”. NADEZHDA PLEVITSKAYA, RUSSIAN SINGER

“YAR” There is great irony and occasional Russian symbolism in the fact that the most important building associated with Nadezhda Plevitskaya, an important person for the Russian emigration, is also associated with a very prominent layer of pre-revolutionary Moscow history. Now it is called “The Soviet Hotel” and the red flag flutters above it.

This hotel is really called “Soviet”. We could film a whole episode about this hotel’s history and the myths surrounding it. This place was absolutely legendary before the revolution. The restaurant “Yar” was opened in Moscow in the early 19th century. Pushkin himself wrote about it. “How long will I remember Unwillingly fasting

Cold veal and Yar’s truffles?” That “Yar” was located downtown at Kuznetsky Bridge. In 1830, the restaurant moved here, to the Moscow suburbs. Its further history is associated with Alexei Sudakov, a merchant from Yaroslavl, a self-made man, like all merchants. He bought this restaurant. He was one of those people who created a concept

Of what leisure for Moscow merchants, masters of life, should look like. They had to ride every evening in a sleigh with bells. Gypsies were also mandatory. By the way, the Roma theater “Romen” is now located here. So, they had to come with gypsies, to escape from hustle and bustle,

Rush through the whole city with ringing and songs. You probably watched the film “Cruel Romance” – it’s well shown there. They would come to Moscow suburbs, to “Yar”. The expression “to come to Yar” has entered in the Russian language. TO COME TO YAR The merchants used to revel here.

They would go on a tear until the morning. The tables were laden with food and the best wine. You could smear mustard on the face of the waiter if he did something wrong for an extra 100 rubles. For 120 rubles, you could throw a bottle of champagne and break a Venetian mirror.

Mr. Sudakov took care of everything in advance. And live music was an important part of the program. Today, live music is considered boorish in good restaurants. Then, on the contrary, it was considered great. Future big stars started their careers right here. Nadezhda Plevitskaya was one of them.

She came for a job interview with Sudakov himself. He hired her. This was a quick success. When merchants heard Plevitskaya singing Russian romantic ballads and Russian folk songs – which were her main repertoire – they would always start crying, especially when they were a bit tipsy.

A year later, Plevitskaya was already a big star in the city. All merchants knew her, her name was in everybody’s mouth. She already had concerts, invitations, and huge fees. She left Sudakov a year later and broke her long-term contract. He sued her for 500 rubles. But she could already afford it.

Yesterday’s peasant woman paid him and pursued a solo career. From that moment on, she became the most famous performer in Russia for some time. She was the most famous performer of Russian folk songs. She was probably like Alla Pugacheva in the late Soviet period. I don’t know who I can compare her with.

Today, everything is broken into small universes. We do not have one big star today, like Plevitskaya was in that period. People even used to compare her with Chaliapin. This woman went into exile. This long, very bright, and very dramatic story with a tragic ending, which happened later in exile, began here, in “Yar”.

There was no red flag then. After she had divorced with Plevitsky, she became affianced to Vladimir Shangin, as she wrote in her memoirs. He was a brilliant officer. She went to the front with him. World War I evoked a huge patriotic upsurge. She became a sister of mercy. He was a great officer.

He was a very brave man and a general, too. Marrying a Russian officer was a great privilege back then. He was killed in 1915. It was very tough for Plevitskaya to deal with the loss because her mother passed away the same year. -Her first husband was Plevitsky. -Right.

She kept his surname. Her third husband… Second. She wasn’t married to Shangin officially. -Right. He’s Levitsky. -Levitsky. -There were a lot of jokes about that. -It became the subject of jokes. That she removes one letter from each husband’s surname. If it would start with the letter E, it would sound provocative…

So, Nadezhda Vasiliyevna, honeymoon, November 1917. Her husband is Yuri Levitsky, a White officer. Plevitskaya found herself in a new reality. As you might know from history, all White officers were offered the chance to rip their epaulets off… -And join the Red Army. -Yes, the Red Army. Yuri Levitsky made this choice.

In fall 1918, when the Whites were already approaching Kursk, Levitsky got himself invited on an intelligence mission and took Nadezhda Plevitskaya with him. -His wife. -Right. Neither he nor she returned from this intelligence mission, which alarmed the authorities. After the frontline – that was it.

She didn’t speak about him anywhere and started a completely different life. She moved to the south. Plevitskaya met Skoblin. We don’t know exactly how they met. But we know for sure that they got married in October 1921 in the camp church in Gallipoli. THE GALLIPOLI PENINSULA

Here Plevitskaya got married to General Nikolai Skoblin. The wedding took place here, with Kutepov standing in for her father. They say, Kutepov was so delighted and touched by Plevitskaya’s singing that he gave Skoblin and her a separate tent. It was an incredible luxury for those days. Skoblin decided to work with Nadezhda Vasilievna

As her promoter and tour organizer. Wrangel wasn’t happy with this decision. Skoblin fell out of favor. Remember the names of Plevitskaya and Skoblin. Later, they played a very important and even fatal role in the fate of General Kutepov and the Russian émigrés in general. According to the recollections of locals,

Turkish women often sang Russian songs along with the Russian women. Turkish children also chatted in Russian with their Russian peers. We, modern Russians, who visit Turkey mainly in the summer, may have this logical question. Well, okay, the sea is not that pleasant in winter, it’s dank and windy here.

But the émigrés spent at least one summer here in Gallipoli. Yes, this is another tradition that the Russians brought here – bathing on the beach. For some reason, locals were not big fans of that at all. They were even surprised when the Russian officers would go swimming in the sea.

But then, they got used to it. Actually, the Russian refugees had another reason to get in the sea in addition to recreation. We told you about it when we were looking through Chernyavsky’s cartoons. The reason is lice. They had to deal with it somehow. Salty sea water was a perfect solution.

When the Russians first arrived in Gallipoli, a cemetery was not their first necessity. However, there were both wounded and sick people among the refugees. After some time, the Whites realized that they needed a burial site. The Turks gave them a part of their cemetery. About 300 people died during their time in Gallipoli.

A small Russian cemetery appeared here, but it has not survived to this day. In 1921, this modest monument was built according to the design of the second lieutenant of the technical regiment Akatiev. Akatiev came up with the idea of ancient mounds. Each warrior would bring a stone, which made up this cone-shaped monument.

Ruthless Chernyavsky also had a cartoon about the construction of this monument. Here it is. As you can see, in addition to the warriors who lost their lives in Gallipoli, he also mentions those who found eternal peace in 1854-1855. Those were prisoners of the Crimean War.

“In memory of our ancestors, the Cossacks, who died in Turkish captivity.” This inscription is no longer there. The monument was completely destroyed by an earthquake in the 1940s and was restored only in the 2000s. The Turkish authorities decided to remove this reference to Turkish captivity. GALLIPOLI WAR MEMORIES COLLECTION HOUSE

This was a police station back then with the headquarters of the Russian corps next to it. It hasn’t been preserved to this day, but you can see it in old photographs. A large group of military men, who were subsequently sent to Serbia, lined up here.

They left Gallipoli for Serbia from this very place. The Russians wanted to leave Gallipoli from the moment they got here. Of course, they hoped to return to Russia. Most of them indeed ended up in Orthodox countries, not in their fatherland, but in the Balkans. Locals started to host refugees in an organized manner.

For those who were still here, for those who did not enlist or leave this place earlier, their stay in Gallipoli ended in May 1923, when the last detachment under General Martynov’s command departed by ship. They headed to Serbia, where the locals were already waiting for them. In the early 1920s, Serbia,

Which was called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, gave shelter to tens of thousands of Russian emigrants. Moreover, if we compare the way they were welcomed in Constantinople, the way they were treated by the French, in Serbia they were received in a far more cordial way. Well, not with arms wide open,

But still as friendly as you can imagine in that situation. Why? Firstly, the Russian population, the Russian emigrants were ethnically close to the Serbs. They were Orthodox Slavs, but at the same time, they had nowhere to go. Many of them were well-educated. Most emigrants had graduated

From secondary schools, gymnasiums, and non-classical secondary schools. It was important, because these people were most in demand. They could teach in gymnasiums and schools; they could work as officials, and they could make up for that terrible demographic imbalance created by Serbia’s participation in the Balkan Wars and later in the World War I.

A lot of soldiers and officers died. And those were not soldiers and officers of the regular army. Those were the professional class, people who were drafted into the army and died in the wars. One of the reasons why Serbia welcomed the Russians so cordially was the King of Serbia,

Or rather the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Alexander Karadjordjevic. He was known as a Russophile, he studied in St. Petersburg, in the Corps of Pages. Rumor had it, he was considered as the future husband for one of the daughters of Nicholas II. All of them would later be killed in Ipatiev House.

So he had personal motives to help Russian emigrants. What was the most important thing Serbia did for the Russian emigrants, besides just showing hospitality? The Russians were provided with the necessary documents. Many of them got Serbian passports and refugee certificates. And here’s another very important thing. They were officially registered as refugees.

A refugee commission was set up. The UN High Commission for Refugees, which is a branched structure functioning in many places around the globe, has its roots in this situation. Serbia was the first country to set up a professional organization that was concerned with helping refugees, Russian refugees.

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes created a state commission and allowed the Russian embassy to operate within the framework of this mission. So, the embassy had the right and the legal opportunity to confirm the legal status of refugees. Many people didn’t have any documents,

But even at that time, it was impossible to cross borders without passports. It’s important to remember that the Russian emigrants had no passports. I mean, they did, but those had been issued by the country that no longer existed. Many people passed through Belgrade. Documents were one of the reasons.

For example, Bunin was not going to live in Belgrade, but he stayed there for a while until he got his passport. There were many people of different social classes and different educational levels. Who stayed there? What kind of people stayed? First of all were servicemen. The military was provided with jobs.

Those who could not work, disabled people and so on, were given pensions and benefits. Serbians helped the disabled and elderly. Russians started to come to Serbia even before General Martynov’s last emigrants left Gallipoli. There were more than 40,000 of them at the peak of emigration.

You may ask, what are 40,000 compared to the 150,000 people that came to Constantinople at the same time? But let’s put these numbers in the context. The population of Belgrade at that time was just 110,000 people. There were a lot more than 40,000 Russians here, especially when the Gallipoli refugees came –

Up to 100,000 people. They used Belgrade as a hub for their further travels around Europe. They came here by ship primarily. Many of them went ashore in the port of Dubrovnik. That was the territory of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes back then.

This is that very Dubrovnik, a resort on the Adriatic Sea, which has become very popular among Russians today. Of course, most emigrants headed to Belgrade, because there were numerous job opportunities there. This was the most important thing that refugees needed. WORK IN BELGRADE There were plenty of jobs for immigrants in Serbia.

I mean physical labor. The country was in ruins after World War I. Many roads needed to be restored and repaired. In addition, a new state had emerged, so new roads were to be built from scratch. Russian emigrants, especially yesterday’s soldiers and officers, young and strong men fit this need perfectly.

The new state gladly recruited them for this. At least several thousand Russians constructed bridges, dug tunnels, repaired and built roads in the 1920s. Most of them were former military. Even though they were robust men, this was clearly not the kind of work they were used to

And not the kind of job any of us would wish for. The officers were engaged in physical work here. They would load sleepers and build railways. -They were officers, weren’t they? -Right. You can tell that by epaulets and lapel pins if you zoom in on the picture.

One of them has an officer’s badge. They were constructing a road in Korbevac. Russian officers would quarry stone high in the mountains, blow up high mountain ranges and build the road, which is still in use. It is still called the Russian Way. Russians were often paid less than locals,

Simply because they were willing to work for cheap. Serbs would refuse to give jobs to Russian emigrants under a plausible pretext: they would say that it’s embarrassing to force such a respected person, a high-ranking officer, to work. This repeated many times in other centers of Russian emigration: this whole situation messed up

What had been unshakable in pre-revolutionary Russia – namely, social class differences. Representatives of the nobility were forced to look for work here along with completely ordinary people. WORK IN BELGRADE SERGEI SHEREMETIEV According to the legends, former Volyn vice-governor Sergei Sheremetiev worked here as an ordinary clerk in an English insurance company.

And he was lucky to find this job, because the former leader of the Moscow nobility, Prince Golitsyn, could not find a job and lived off his wife who sewed bed linen. I mean, if you are lucky to have a lot of money, don’t think you will have it forever. The money ran out.

It took a lot of money to keep an army. No matter how hard they tried to earn a living, it didn’t make much sense. On top of that, the Petrograd loan treasury was at Wrangel’s disposal. The Petrograd loan treasury was a pawnshop, or a silver treasury. Back in the 18th century,

Ivan Ivanovich Betskoy established it in order to use the proceeds to help orphans and so on. How did it end up in Wrangel’s hands? OLEG BUDNITSKY, DOCTOR OF HISTORY He captured it. Well, it was evacuated, like many other things, when the Germans threatened Petrograd.

WORLD WAR I WAS STILL GOING ON AT THAT TIME So, it was eight rail cars of silver. -You mean, eight cars with jewelry? -Well, yes, silver. What do you mean by “at Wrangel’s disposal”? -Did he take them to the Balkans later? -Yes. All eight cars ended up in the south.

Later, Wrangel’s soldiers captured them and took them away on those ships to Constantinople and then to the Balkans. What did he spend them on? Well, on the maintenance of his army. It’s actually an interesting story. It was a huge scandal. After all, these deposits and pledges were made by private individuals.

-They could even claim their rights. -Exactly. Although, it’s clear that most of them stayed in Soviet Russia. Right. And the Wrangelites announced that they would wait for the claims during such and such period. Otherwise, they’d start selling everything. It was a huge scandal.

Here’s the thing: try selling it – who on Earth would buy it? Imagine, some general has captured someone’s property and is now going to sell it. Eventually they sold everything through a private company. Moreover, it was dangerous to sell items, because they could be identified, requested and so on.

It was sold as scrap silver. Moreover, they did it with a 30% discount. But at the very least, they made 110,000 pounds sterling. This was a huge sum for the Balkans. The dinar was a rather weak currency back then. This was another reason why they went to the Balkans –

Life was cheap there. It was probably the most important factor for that emigration. They reserved 10,000 in case any owners would show up and claim their money. 100,000 pounds went to the army. Wrangel managed to keep his army for about a year. He tried to organize some kind of a government in exile.

The Russian Council operated there for about a year. It was situated in Sremski Karlovci. SREMSKI KARLOVCI We are in the small Serbian town of Sremski Karlovci about an hour’s drive from Belgrade. This is a very important town for our history. It’s the place where Baron General Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel settled in 1922.

He lived in this house. A memorial plaque is still here. It’s still an ordinary residential building. Officers of the Wrangel command staff resided all around the town and also spent four years here. A couple of words about this man. If you are old enough, you probably remember the song

That was taught in schools in Soviet times. The White Army and the Black Baron Are preparing to restore to us the Tsar’s throne. “But from the taiga to the British seas The Red Army is the strongest of all!” The Black Baron was Wrangel. Why black? In the last years of service,

He always wore one and the same uniform. It was a black Circassian coat with cartridge belts. Those are propellant powder charges that were inserted into special pockets on a Circassian coat. He really was black. He also wore a black papakha hat. A real black baron.

But the fact that he was preparing to restore the royal throne was a lie. It was offensive to Wrangel, because he had never been a monarchist. Before joining the army, he was a famous socialite in the capital. He was handsome, six-foot tall, he was a horse-guardsman

Who won the hearts of a huge number of women. Well, he was a remarkable person in all respects. When his career in the White Army took off, he was in a tough confrontation with General Denikin, because Denikin was a very conservative, obstinate man. Wrangel was doing his best to find a compromise.

He realized that the re-establishment of the tsarist regime was impossible, that it was necessary to negotiate. He tried to reach an agreement with the green guerillas, Makhnovists and others. He wanted to get ordinary people, peasants on his side. He realized how important it was

In the context of the Civil War and Bolshevik propaganda. Number one, he was very well-educated. He was a trained engineer. And he had a Europe-style, let’s say, a European family. Many of his friends, relatives, people in his circle got their education in Europe. His political views

Were that the people must decide for themselves what kind of government they want. The White movement had already lost by the time he became the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of South Russia. First, retreat from the Crimea, then Constantinople, and finally Serbia, to Sremski Karlovci. Wrangel was a well-known and respected person.

The general was the living image of the Russian emigration, because he was perceived as its leader. He was married and had four children. His youngest son was born in 1922, here, in Serbia. A great mass of architects stayed here. Especially the young ones,

Those who did not have a chance to express themselves in Russia. They started to do that here because they had a task. King Alexander was building a new capital for a new country. The old, small, narrow streets were not suitable for this new Kingdom of Yugoslavia. This was a total reconstruction:

Everything had been demolished and the city that we see now was created. Alexander Karadjordjevic came up with a plan for the construction of a completely new city. And, fortunately for him and for his plan, dozens of first-class Russian émigré architects happened to be here at that moment.

Perhaps, the most famous one was Nikolai Krasnov. They even erected a monument to him. He signed his works under the name “Nikola Krasnov” out of respect for his host country. This man lived a very interesting life. He was born in an ordinary peasant family

And made a dizzying career thanks to his talents and hard work. He rose to the rank of court architect of Nicholas II. The Livadia Palace is one of his most famous works. In 1919, Krasnov left Crimea, wandered and lived in poverty in exile

Until he came to Belgrade and started receiving very lucrative orders directly from the king, as they say. He became a building inspector. The face of modern Belgrade is largely the work of Nikolai Krasnov. This is the main building of the Serbian government today. The prime minister, who is the head of the country,

And his ministers work here. This building was built from scratch by Krasnov. He started the construction, but it was finished later. There is a figure of a woman holding a torch on the top of the main dome. It is the symbol of Yugoslavia. 150 architects and about 100 civil engineers moved here.

Apart from Krasnov, many others worked here as well: Vasily Androsov, Lukomsky, Baumgartner. Baumgartner is the architect who designed the Defense Ministry building. -Nikolai Krasnov died here, right? -Yes. -He stayed in Belgrade. -Yes. Many architects who moved here, went further on to Western Europe or USA in the 1930s. -Paris, Berlin. -Right.

But Krasnov and other important architects stayed in Belgrade for the rest of their lives. Krasnov passed away in 1939. One of the city streets has been recently named after him. Nikolai Krasnov street, not far from the Church of Saint Sava. You remember that more than 40,000 Russian emigrants

Lived in Serbia at the peak. But there was no parish church for the emigrants for quite a while. This was an important thing for an emigrant at that time. Here is one of the most important cathedrals of Orthodox Belgrade – St. Mark’s Cathedral. In 1924, Serbians allocated an ordinary barn

For Russian émigré priests to use and allowed them to build their own church at the back of this cathedral. The Russians started construction right away. They used the designs of the Russian architect Valery Stashevsky. They were in a hurry in case the priesthood of St. Mark’s change their minds

Despite their good relations with the émigrés. This cathedral was ready in just a couple of months. It still stands here in its original form. The surname of the parish priest at the Holy Trinity Church has been Tarasiev since the 1950s. At the beginning, it was Tarasiev, one of the first Russian emigrants.

Then, his son, also Tarasiev, became a priest. And now, his grandson, Vitaly Tarasiev, is serving as a priest here. During the revolution, my grandfather’s family lived in Mariupol where my great-grandfather and almost his entire family were killed, unfortunately. My grandfather came to the Balkans alone.

He served in our church until his death in 1974. He always cared about people. He served, heard confessions, and communicated with parishioners. So, people loved and revered him. They would always seek his advice. This was his life, this was his calling. Did he miss Russia? Of course! As far as I remember,

This was the first generation of Russian refugees. They all lived out of suitcases because they hoped that something would change at some point and they would be able to return to their homeland. It’s such a special feeling. The problem of the Russian church

Was not whether it could be built next to St. Mark’s Cathedral or not. The problem was two bells. How could we simultaneously ring the bells, even despite all our similarities? Nevertheless, Serbia supported us. Serbia allocated a part of its patriarchal palace in Sremski Karlovci in order to accommodate the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

Why was Sremski Karlovci such an important place on the map of Russian emigration? Because the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia was formed here in 1921. It happened in this patriarchal residence. This is the residence of the then Serbian Patriarch Dimitrije. Metropolitan Anthony of Kiev also left Russia together with Wrangel’s army.

He became the leader of this church. The council was held here, at the newly established church in 1921. At first, it declared submission to Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow though. We remember that he was under terrible pressure from the Soviet government. He learned about the decision of the Karlovac Council in hindsight,

And he didn’t approve it. Relations with Moscow were strained from the very beginning. They were finally severed in 1927, when the keeper of the Patriarchal throne, Metropolitan Sergius published his famous declaration, in which he actually recognized Soviet rule. Of course, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia could not accept and forgive this.

From 1927, all contacts between the two branches of the Russian Church were severed until the late 1990s – the early 2000s. Putin had a hand in these two branches of the Russian Church formally uniting again. Now, relations between the two branches are not that simple against the backdrop of the events in Ukraine.

But that is another story. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia was the main and legitimate Russian Church for the entire Western world, and the US in particular. Later, its headquarters was situated in New York. It owned a lot of real estate, monasteries, and land. It played a very significant role in general.

And still does up to this day. THE RUSSIAN HOUSE One of the main things, which King Alexander Karadjordjevic gave both permission and money for, is the Russian House. It was opened in 1933. This wasn’t the main political center of Russian emigration. The Russian embassy, which was located on the other side

Of the Russian House, played the key role. Before 1940, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was then called the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, did not recognize Soviet power, and the tricolor flag still flew over the old Russian embassy. A cultural and scientific center of Russian emigration was organized here,

In the Russian House. A scientific institute, a publishing house, and a gymnasium operated here. Exhibitions were held in this building. So, basically, the entire educated segment of the Russian emigration flocked here. Up to 2,000 people a day would visit this place in the mid-1930s. THE RUSSIAN HOUSE NAMED AFTER NICHOLAS II

In addition to this cultural function, there was another one of great importance. It was an administrative and supervisory function. Perhaps, that is why the opening of the Russian House was met not only with joy, but also with some irony, especially in the youth circles of the Russian emigration.

For instance, the satirical magazine “Bukh!!!” welcomed the opening of the Russian House with the following squib: “Don’t boast, silly Europe, we have our own culture, the Russian House, blini with caviar, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.” Well, what else would they be so ironic about, except for the Russian House?

They wouldn’t dare to make fun of King Alexander, who supported and accepted them. If only they tried to make fun of the Serbian elite like that! No. People usually make fun of themselves. I think this ditty is always relevant. I’ve been trying to read it

From the stage of the Russian House for a long time, but I didn’t have a chance. It’s the 90th anniversary of the Russian House soon. I will break onto the stage and read it. And I will consider that my mission is over. You told me that your interest in Russian emigration largely began

With the magazine “Bukh!!!”. What kind of magazine was it? Three guys, friends, started an interesting satirical magazine. They were really sharp-tongued. They touched a raw and painful nerve of everyone they could reach. And yet, they were holding on. Unfortunately, their fate was very sad. I stop at the 1930s.

For example, one of the magazine’s authors Boris Ganusovsky became the editor of a collaborationist publication later during the war. Remember this story. We will get back to it and the events of World War II in the next episodes. The future fate of the Russian House is amusing.

It continued to operate even after the war, when the Red Army first came here and Marshal Tito established socialism in Yugoslavia. And even when Tito quarreled with Stalin until the sparks flew and the relationship was completely ruined, even when the Soviet embassy in Belgrade was closed, the Russian House still continued operating.

It worked as the House of Soviet Culture back then. Later, it logically became the Russian House again within the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. The House belongs to the state Russian agency “Rossotrudnichestvo”. Speaking about the agency… Many government officials and organizations are now afraid

To do interviews with me because of my foreign agent status. But the Russian House, even though it is a part of Rossotrudnichestvo, said, “With great pleasure! Come, because Russians have been welcomed here in the 1920s and are welcomed in the 2020s, regardless of their status.” Serious debates would take place in this hall.

The time was turbulent – it was 1933. Up to the beginning of World War II, the left wing of the Russian emigration would clash with the far-right wing here. The cream of the Russian academia and the intellectuals gathered here. If we draw parallels with other centers of emigration –

Berlin, Paris, Prague and so on – Belgrade was a perfect, blissful picture when we speak about scientific emigration. There were more than 15 Russian Academy members and a huge number of professors working at the university. The university was also just being formed, there was no personnel yet. UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE

Thirty-three Russian professors worked here, at the University of Belgrade, in 1921-1922. I found a good quote about this from the Serbian poet Milos Crnjanski. “Poor, old, shaggy Russian professors filled departments and universities in a foreign land with books, like the Greeks once did after the fall of Constantinople.”

I doubt that Mr. Crnjanski could have personally seen the fall of Constantinople and those Greeks, because it happened in the middle of the 15th century. However, the image is certainly impressive. We can instantly imagine those shaggy professors with piles of dusty books. This street was called King Milan’s Street in the 1930s.

This was the main Russian street in Belgrade. The monument to Nicholas II was erected right here. This whole street was all about the Russian emigrants: there were plenty of Russian shops, Russian pharmacies, and Russian products. It was impossible to walk along this street in the 1930s

At a rush hour and not to hear Russian. The situation is the same now: you walk along it and hear Russian from time to time. This is Varvara Knyazeva’s antique shop. But they didn’t sell antiques here. Russians would live here for a month, two, a year, a couple of years.

They wanted to leave at some point. They had very little money, and everything they had was of value. In such conditions, they had to get rid of not only their previous place of residence, but also their beds, lockers, or wardrobes. In that case, Russians would go to such Russian antique shops.

They didn’t sell antiquities there. They would sell household stuff that the Russians could leave. -So it was a consignment shop? -Yeah, something like that. Its peculiarity was that mainly Russians would go there to sell, and Russians would come there to buy. This was a market.

And the market offered the hardest job in the whole town: I mean, peddler’s job, peddling. And here we can see one such street peddler, he is walking around the market and offering something. Can we assume that he was also a Russian emigrant? Yeah. Not just assume. We know he was a Russian emigrant.

This photograph is stored in the archive. It is labeled “Russian peddler”. He must have already learned Serbian by then. It depended on the emigrants’ personal inclinations. Some of them did not speak Serbian well until the end of their life in the 60s and 70s.

Some Russian emigrants spoke it perfectly by the early 20s. Those emigrants were different. They did not live in a Russian-speaking microcosm. They immediately integrated into Serbian society. They lived in this society with all its advantages and disadvantages. They did not isolate themselves in their own community, be it literary, military, or ideological.

And the most important part of Russian Belgrade of that time was the Russian restaurants. Yes, the Russians brought their restaurant culture to Belgrade. It’s the very center of the city. The monument to Nicholas II and other important Serbian state buildings are just a hundred meters away.

The famous “Russkaya Lira” restaurant is located here, in this street. This is a new construction, “Lira” was located in the building situated here before. The owner of this place had previously owned restaurants in Petrograd and Moscow. Alexander Vertinsky, Pyotr Leshchenko, Nadezhda Plevitskaya would perform here, at the “Russkaya Lira”.

It is important to note that a good restaurant of that era always had live music. Since many first-class Russian performers would perform here, it was often not very clear whether you’re paying for a dinner or a concert. What did Belgrade fall in love with? It fell in love with balalaika players.

Every decent Serbian restaurant had to have balalaika players. Famous Russian balalaika players became an integral part of Serbian restaurants. The emigrant newspaper “Bukh!!!” was rather ironic about the restaurant habits of the Russian emigrants. It described them on behalf of the Serbs and wrote, “What did the Russians give us?

Russian ballet, Russian salad, Russian balalaika, Russian aristocrats, Russian icons, and the custom of kissing women’s hands.” It’s a nice tradition. The author continues, “And what did we give the Russians? Rakia, the skill of swearing” – I think they are mistaken on this – “and civil service jobs with some salary.” That’s true!

“Well, also a dowry for those who married our girls!” We keep saying Russians are everywhere; we speak about Russian ballet and so on. But we do not know that the Russians had a priority in comic books. Actually, European and Yugoslav comic books in particular, which are a serious part of the former,

Were created by Russian emigrants. They started to use the most serious topics quite freely. There is a comic book of “The Silent Don” by a Russian emigrant. It’s a creative dialogue. -With Sholokhov? -Right. Oh, wow! So, Sholokhov was there, he was here.

Sholokhov was there, he was here, and he would draw his cartoons. Nevertheless, this is not some kind of crude satire, this is not a caricature, this is not a parody. This is a pretty serious discussion. However, it is also an adventurous novel that is fun to read.

-In what language were they written? -They came out in Serbian. Moreover, they were almost immediately published in France and in Belgium. -Did it bring a good income? -It would bring in a fair return. Meanwhile, Baron Wrangel was running out of money to support his army of thousands.

He realized that it was impossible to keep it in its former state. He came up with a way out. This is Sremski Karlovci, a town of several thousand. There is a memorial plaque and a monument to Wrangel here. Take a look at how cool it is. It stands against the background

Of a large photo of Wrangel and his fellow officers. Here they marked the fifth anniversary of Wrangel’s accession to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of South Russia. Since Wrangel was obsessed with the idea of an army that cannot be dismissed because it would have to fight against the Bolsheviks again,

Until the very end, another very important event for the history of Russian emigration took place here, in Sremski Karlovci. There were already quite a few veteran organizations in exile at that time. There was an organization of Gallipoli veterans, there was a veteran organization of the Ice March participants. But they were scattered.

So, Wrangel decided to unite them all into a single organization, which was created by his order on September 1, 1924. It was called the Russian All-Military Union, or RAMU. This was a very important abbreviation, because the RAMU was often remembered in the USSR as one of the main counter-revolutionary anti-Soviet organizations.

Certainly, the Soviets thought that this was a counter-revolutionary organization. And they indeed carried out counter-revolutionary activities in Russia. But deep inside, he understood that the chances to go back and cancel the Bolshevik Revolution were pretty slim. But he saw it this way: two million people left Russia,

And they were scattered across the globe, all over the world. And he saw the RAMU as a connection point needed by emigrants that didn’t speak foreign languages, that ended up in a strange, hostile environment, jobless. They needed a way to keep in touch.

I think that’s what he had in mind when establishing the RAMU. The idea was to keep the connections between these military men, so that this army could be recreated. The departments of the All-Military Union were located in Paris, in Berlin, in Prague, in Bulgaria, in Serbia.

In all those places where there were some groups of former military personnel. The point was to maintain this unity and to get ready for this future campaign. -Which never took place. -Which never took place. That expectation of return, the expectation of the upcoming spring campaign,

The expectation that the Bolsheviks would stay in power for a short time – the feelings the Russian emigrants were filled with, started to dissolve. People were becoming more and more frustrated. As for Baron Wrangel, he stepped out of these doors of his house in Sremski Karlovci for the last time

And left for Belgium, for Brussels in 1926. According to his official biography, he worked for some firm there. In fact, he did not give up until the very end, hoping that it would be possible to organize a new offensive against Bolshevik Russia. That was why he went to Belgium.

The main reason was that leading an organization from a peripheral country outside the center of Europe was difficult in practice. It was impossible to meet anonymously either with German, or with French, or with English representatives. It was also impossible to maintain any contacts with any representatives of illegal organizations.

It was a small town. If someone arrived there, they would be in plain sight. So Brussels was a much more advantageous place, wasn’t it? Yes, on the one hand, he was in Western Europe between England, France, and Germany. But he wasn’t on the territory of any of these states.

So, he could maintain neutrality. Did Brussels look like a new successful hub for Wrangel? Yes, definitely. In 1928 in Brussels, Wrangel suddenly fell ill with tuberculosis and quickly passed away. This is how this glorious chapter in the history of Russian emigration ended. There is an important and beautiful afterword.

Wrangel asked to be buried in a fraternal Slavic country, which was obviously Serbia. Russian emigrants solemnly carried the coffin with his body from Brussels to Belgrade. He died in Brussels and was brought here by train. Russian emigrants would come to the train along the entire route through the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

With wreaths, flowers and wept. They organized small demonstrations around the train in every city. When his body was taken to Belgrade, even its permanent residents were stunned. They would wonder in the newspapers, “Do we live in a Serbian or in a Russian city?” Not only the entire Russian community,

But also Russians from all nearby places came here. Emigrants not only from Yugoslavia, but from other neighboring countries, came to participate in this procession. They carried Wrangel’s body from the railway station to the Holy Trinity Church. Russian emigrants lined up all along the way. It is known that the remains of General Denikin

Were reburied in Moscow. -Right. -Why was Wrangel not reburied? Firstly, because his family, his descendants, did not agree with this. I wrote a letter to that effect. I said that Stalin and Lenin’s mummy are still in the Red Square. My grandfather is buried in Belgrade with his soldiers.

If we had to take him back, especially when 50 percent of people still think that Stalin was a great leader, he would roll over in his grave. It would go against everything he believed in. GENERAL WRANGEL After Wrangel had died, the RAMU was headed by General Alexander Kutepov.

Under his leadership, the union fully justified its status as an anti-Soviet organization, which was given to it in the USSR. Back in 1927, Kutepov managed to send several groups of militants there to carry out terrorist attacks in Bolshevik organizations. Most of the subversives were arrested.

But one group led by Viktor Larionov succeeded to complete the task. On June 7, 1927, they bombarded the party club of the Leningrad Communist University with grenades. One person was killed, more than 20 were injured. This was one of the very few successful acts of sabotage

Committed by White emigrants on the USSR territory. The action was high-profile but completely meaningless, if not harmful. None of the prominent Bolsheviks, especially the leaders, suffered. Of course, they were not going to appear at some insignificant party club on that day. But the explosion gave the JSPD an excellent pretext for new repressions.

As a result, this cost Alexander Kutepov his life. He died in an attempted abduction by the Soviet special services. But they successfully kidnapped his RAMU head successor and delivered him to the state security department. Moreover, Russian emigrants themselves provided active assistance in this.

Those who were in the highest circles of the White Army emigrants. How did it become possible? What arguments did Soviet intelligence make to these people? What made them act the way they did? How did the issue of a possible return to their homeland and cooperation with the Kremlin split the Russian emigrants?

What were those who received permission from Moscow to return required to do? Why was Alexei Tolstoy called the Red Count? How did the geography of Russian emigration in Europe change in the mid-1920s? Why did many emigrants aspire to go to Czechoslovakia and here, to Germany?

How did the rise of the Nazis affect Russian emigrants in Germany? How important was this “dividing range” for emigration? What were they about to do: to leave here or stay and try to sit out? Or maybe collaborate with Hitler? What did the life of Russian emigrants look like in Prague and Berlin,

Where, for example, Vladimir Nabokov lived for many years, but did not learn German out of principle and hated Germany all the time? For what? And how did an ordinary Russian emigrant manage to settle in the Imperial Palace here in Bonn? We’ll talk about all this in the next episodes

Of our series about the White emigration. Subscribe to the channel. See you soon. REDAKTSIYA

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