We have already told you the fascinating stories of Jewish and Sikhs community in Shanghai (check these links if you don't remember!
1.In the late 19th century, the Russian imperial government was shifting the focus of its investment to Manchuria. As a consequence, China's trade with its northern neighbor soared. As soon as there was a regular ferry service between Vladivostok and Shanghai, the Russian tea merchants started to settle in the commercial capital of China.
2. In order to protect the interests of the Russian community, the Russian consulate was opened in 1896.
3. In 1905 , about 350 Russian citizens resided within the Shanghai International Settlement, mostly diplomats and businessmen.
4. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 ( the revolution that dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the rise of Soviet Union) thousands of ant-Communist Russians were stateless and homeless. They all flocked to Shanghai, China and a new life. They were called luó song.
5. Shanghai Russians were dubbed ‘White Russians’ to distinguish them from the “Red” Communists that controlled their country. Since they refused Soviet Russian (Communist) citizenship, they were officially “stateless” persons without an official passport. They were thus deprived of extraterritoriality, the foreigner’s privilege of being exempt from Chinese laws.
6. Most were from the upper and middle classes, well educated but not conversant in English or French. Both tongues were a kind of foreigner lingua franca in old Shanghai.
Russian men had the hardest time of it. Many became bodyguards, and there was a paid Russian unit of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. Some became doormen at hotels, or laborers, but found it had to adjust to a “lower class” lifestyle. Alcoholism became rife, and some of them became beggars.
Russian women made the contribution to the entertainment industry, dancing and otherwise, that gave the city its exotic reputation, noted in the guidebooks of the day. Many became “taxi dancers’ in Shanghai’s famous night clubs and cabarets. There, limited English was no barrier, if a woman was beautiful enough. Some of the Russian ladies opened dress shops, like Madam Garnet’s exclusive establishment in the Cathay (now Fairmont Peace) Hotel.
This lifestyle was depicted in the film The White Countess by James Ivory (2005) starring the late Natasha Richardson.
7. By the mid-1930s there were two Russian schools, and several Russian language newspapers. Russian musicians played at I the city’s many night clubs and cabarets. An area of the French Concession—Frenchtown—became “Little Russia” (around the Avenue Joffre, now Middle Huaihai Road), where they opened more than 40 Russian restaurants in the Xiafei Road ( Avenue Joffre now Middle Huaihai Road).It contributed to development of the local Western - style Haipai cuisine. Onion-domed Russian Orthodox Churches were built, and still can be seen today.
8. Russian musicians (such as Oleg Lundstrem) achieved a dominance over the city's foreign-run orchestra. The most famous Russian singer, Alexander Vertinsky, relocated from Paris to Shanghai; and Fyodor Chaliapin was seen on tour.
Vladimir Tretchikoff, the "King of Kitsch", spent his youth in the city.
Russian teachers offered lessons in theatre and dancing. Margot Fonteyn, the English ballerina, studied dance in Shanghai as a child with Russian masters, one of whom, George Gontcharov, had formerly danced with the Bolshoi in Moscow.
9.During the Japanese occupation, the Japanese formed a bureau for the Russian emigrees. It provided identification papers necessary to live, work and travel. The Shanghai Russians were left to choose between a Soviet citizenship or to remain stateless by support of the bureau. The stateless Russians were officially favoured by the regime, but in reality, they were not trusted and exposed to a great risk of being arrested as spies for the Soviet Union. They were also often enlisted in the army for work along the border with the Soviet Union. After 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union parted, they were in an even more sensitive situation. To separate the anti-Soviet Russians from the Soviet Russians, the former were ordered to wear a badge with the colours of the Czar — later a white numbered disk of aluminium.
10.The Shanghai Russians survived through the difficult days of the Japanese occupation, but left in the end with the advance of the Communists. They were forced to flee, first to a refugee camp on the island of Tubabao in the Philippines and then mainly to the United States and Australia; however, many settled in Hong Kong.
