The Story of White Russians in Tubabao (as published in EV Examiner)

In the historical town on Guiuan lies a beautiful island of Tubabao, small island as what we may say but it has a big contribution to the history of more than 5,000 Russian refugees around the world who escapes the shadow of communism that took over the powerful country of Russia and again dominated China in 1948.

In the thick pages of history books of the Philippines and Russia, none of its pages mentioned the saga of Russian refugees who once lived in the country in order to seek for better life out of communist governments.

Few of us know their story or if there are some knows about it maybe they have been gone and rest.

The story of “White Russians” as what people called them for they oppose communism as it is tagged with color “red” came to my knowledge one time while I was listening to the radio program of now DPWH Sec. Vic Domingo although not sure if it really true I was fascinated by it until such time Mayor Annaliza Kwan of Guiuan invited some media during their town fiesta and told us the flight of “White Russian” from Russia to China then to the Philippines as their temporary resettlement until such time they left the country and went to Australia and United States.

After 65 years when communist government took over China and after 65 years of their story not being told, the local government of Guiuan had take a step to let younger generations knows one extra-ordinary event that changes and save lives of thousand Russian refugees in China.

In 1948 as the Chinese Red Army are advancing to the Northern China which their ultimate goal is to take over the entire country, the International Refugee Organization which is an umbrella organization of the United Nation appeal to several leader in the world if they can afford to give a temporary refuges for refugees in China.

The only country to reply on the said appeal of the IRO was the Republic of the Philippines under the presidency of President Elpidio Quirino that provided the island of Tubabao in the municipality of Guiuan as the temporary refugee sites of Russian refugees fleeing from China.

The refugee evacuation according to the account started in January 1949 and completed early May of the same year a few months before the Chinese Communist took over Shanghai.

More than 5,000 men, women and children was transfer from Shanghai to Tubabao either by air or sea in lived in island in the place they called “Tent City” that connected the small island to the municipality of Guiuan by a wooden bridge..

In a chronicle of Olga Burger which she published on her blogsite she narrated that she was 13 years old by the time they left Shanghai in a Chinese Ship Hwa Lien which almost a scrap and manned by Chinese prisoners who are mostly murderers who took the chance after the Chinese government told them that as their reward of manning the ship they could obtain freedom.

Olga narrated on her blog “We left for the Philippines in early February 1949. It took us about two weeks as our ship, the Hwa Lien, kept breaking down. Among Russian refugees, we had doctors, nurses, engineers, mechanics, everything onboard. By the time we got to Tubabao, the ship was [leaning on one side] and we were all asked to move to the opposite side to prevent it from toppling over. In all, 5,000 Russian refugees escaped to Tubabao.”

“We had left Shanghai in winter but it was very hot in Tubabao. The men used large cane knives to cut down the thick undergrowth, while the women and children trampled it down to erect tents. For the children, it was an adventure; we learnt to swim and dive and we had such things as scouts and lifesavers.”

“The American military authorities supplied us with tinned meat, macaroni and dried vegetables which were left over from the war. We also found many tins of food, but had to be careful as some of them were contaminated. When one is so hungry one does not think too much about the dangers. The macaroni was infested with weevils and we had to pick them out before it was cooked in communal kitchens.”

“Our most serious problem proved to be the lack of fresh water. The men had to get it from a little spring and carried it back to camp in metal containers. Water was rationed, about three cups per person, per day.”

“Everyone had to help out in the kitchen or at other tasks. The Filipinos soon became business minded and knowing that there were 5,000 Russians on the island, they set up a hairdressing salon and an ice cream parlor. Mum used to wash clothes for people to be able to give me and my sister a treat such as a bottle of Coca Cola, an ice cream, lollies and a few cigarettes for herself.”

“After nine months on the island we migrated to Australia. My mother had contracted tuberculosis (TB) and if it was known then we would not have been accepted to [come to] Australia. We left Tubabao on 31 October 1949 onboard the American warship General Greeley, arriving in Woolloomooloo in Sydney on 9 November. The men had to sleep in hammocks down below, but the women and children had cabins. We were in a cabin for six, with another woman and her two children. We spent most of the voyage on deck which was great.” narrated by Olga in her blog.

In the blog of Dimitry Doohovskoy were he relates the story of his relatives during their stay in Tubabao which was chronicled in a 40 pages booklet it says that, “While in LA, my Tyotya Tanya told me several stories about her time on Tubabao, the island in the Philippines where 5000 Russian émigrés lived for several years after the Chinese communists took control of China, and while they waited another foreign country to accept them. My dad was there with Tyotya Tanya, and many other members of my family. Even though my dad was just a young boy, he still remembers vividly certain scenes from the island. However Tyotya Tanya, because she was older, was able to see and remember a lot more of their experience there. As always, the stories she told me were inspiring, vivid, and interesting.”

“She then handed me a 40 page booklet of memories from Tubabao that had been put together by an organization of Russians who had been on Tubabao that had ended up in Australia. The night she gave it to me, I stayed up late into the morning reading it cover to cover. Struck by all the stories within it, I realized that I need to do something with this amazing story of emigration, which spans from from 1917 to 1953, from Russia to America, from Revolution to Southern California.”

“One line in the booklet’s prologue struck me in particular, and seemed to me to be the reason why this story is so important for Russia: “Wherever they went, Russians displayed their strength of character, their moral qualities and resilience by their honest work, their determination to build a new life, and their good civil behavior,” as written in the booklet.

Dimitry added in his blog that in the Orthodox Church in San Francisco two icons in the church wall was made in Tubabao by Russian immigrants and brought to the US when they were relocated.

Valentine Alexeef and Misha Anissimov both Russian-American who visited Guiuan upon the invitation of Mayor Annaliza Kwan had thanks the people of Guiuan in behalf of more than 5,000 White Russians that’s stayed in Tubabao 65 years ago.

Valentine Alexeef was a year-and-a-half when he first arrived in Tubabao 65 years ago and it was his first time to come back in Guiuan after they left to America.
Alexeef was the first White Russian to answer the call of Mayor Kwan in her posting in the internet asking for White Russian all over the world to communicate with her to tell their story on their stay in the said island.

“I was one of the 8000 White Russian refugees on Tubabao in 1949. I was only a small child & my recollections are good. As a kid I had a wonderful time swimming in the warm waters & going to Russian Scouts every morning for flag parade. On Sundays there was a huge scout campfire. For us young ones life was great but not so wonderful for my mother & other adults who endured the heat, humidity, fevers & living in a hot army tent. Facilities were almost nil. Anyway fond memories.” Alexeef reply on Mayor Annaliz Kwan posting in the net.

Meanwhile Anissimov whose mother was only 13 years old when she arrived in Tubabao said that according to her mother Tubabao was not a refugee camp for the children nor a jungle but a paradise because it save thousand lives of Russian refugees. He added that since he was a child her mother kept on telling him stories of their stay in Tubabao.

Anissimov who used to be a mechanical engineer and married to a Cebuana is now a film maker and planning to make a documentary film of White Russians stay in Tubabao.

Aside from Anissimov and Alexeef, Mayor Kwan had also invited Nikolai Massenkoff a world-celebrated Russian-American singer who was only 10 years old when he arrived at Tubabao to have a concert for the people of Guiuan but failed made it because of his illness.

Among White Russians that stayed in Tubabao, the most celebrated was Archbishop John of Shanghai or St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, whom the Russian Orthodox Church had venerated him into sainthood.

Russian refugees who are dominant Orthodox Christians upon setting their foot to the island within the first few days following their arrival on Tubabao, Russian Orthodox clergy (priests and nuns) and laity had already set to work on organizing church life, establishing and furnishing two tent churches on camp territory: the Church of St. Seraphim and the Church of St. Michael the Archangel.

Michael Borisovitch Maximovitch (Archbishop John of Shanghai) after he was elevated to the episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and was sent to Shanghai, China at the age of 38 where he restored the Church unity and was among the refugees who were sent to Tubabao.

“He left the island on July 12, 1949, to go to Washington DC and lobby the United States Congress on behalf of those on Tubabao, with the goal of securing for them the right to become permanent residents of the USA. Vladyka John took part in the composition of the so-called “Appeal by Russian Hierarchs to the Governments of the World,” an appeal that included a request to ease the fate of those living on the island. As later demonstrated, the Russian hierarchs’ efforts bore fruit: ultimately, all of the refugees were taken off Tubabao and resettled in various countries,” according to the book of V. Moravsky’s The Island of Tubabao, 1949-1951. The Russian Far-eastern Emigration’s Final Haven, Moscow, which was published in 2000.

“The camp residents both sensed and treasured the presence in camp of Vladyka, their intercessor, healer, their person of fervent prayer “for each and for all. ”Everyone would know that Vladyka was walking around and blessing the camp at bedtime, and in small ways, a great miracle would happen: Living in tents, in exhausting heat to which they were not accustomed, people would not lose courage; they would continue to maintain their Orthodox way of life. In a camp of five and one half thousand people, there were no disturbances, and morale was exceptionally high. It was a starry night, on Pascha.” T. A. Stupina described in an article published in San Francisco, USA (Russian Life, 12 April 1993).
In another article published in the net it says that, “When the fear of typhoons was mentioned by one Russian to the Filipinos, they replied that there was no reason to worry, because “your holy man blesses your camp from four directions every night.”
They referred to Vladika John, for no typhoon struck the island while he was there.

In trying to resettle his flock, Vladika went to Washington, and through his intervention, almost the whole camp was miraculously able to come to America - including his orphanage.

In a letter of Holy Hierarch John of Shanghai and San Francisco on his appeal for the people in Tubabao to be relocated to the United States which was kept by the Orthodox Parish Church in San Francisco it says that:

An appeal on the fate of Russians on the Island of Tubabao, the Philippines
Below we present an appeal by the “Committee for an Appeal to the President of the United States.” Addressed to Russian society and signed by V.N. Borzov, the letter deals with the fate of Russians on the Island of Tubabao. In the upper right hand corner of the appeal, St. John made the following hand-written remarks:

“I ask everyone to respond to this appeal, and to sign the attached appeal, in order to help those in Samar. Immediately after the Feast of St. Nicholas, the lists of signatures must be returned to me for further distribution.

May Our Lord bless everyone! +John, Archbishop of Shanghai.

St. John appeal to the United States government was granted after the United States immigration law was amended wherein the refugees was granted to become an immigrant after a five years waiting period.

Although Archbishop John stayed in Tubabao for more than two years no Filipino inhabitant were baptized into Orthodox faith and did not preach the Orthodox faith to Filipino inhabitant in Guiuan.

Recently, Presidential Assistant for Eastern Visayas Cynthia Nierras said that groups of Russian immigrant are now planning to visit Guiuan, specifically the island of Tubabao to visit the place where their roots had stayed from their escape against communist government.

Although the plans was set last October, PA Nierras said that it was postponed due to the recent visits of typhoons and calamities that strucked the country.

Mayor Kwan on the other hand says that now that people knows about the story of White Russians stay in Tubabao and with the help of the National Historic Institute whom she asked for help during her research on the said event says that it will help to open more opportunity to Guiuan on tourism promotion.

She added that the National Historic Institute is now planning to put a marker in the said island that will make people know that the said island is historical and it has great contribution to the history if Russian immigrants around the world.