Julie Goucher ~ Anglers Rest

Russian Flag courtesy of Wikipedia

This post is part of a series of 10 posts about the British Community in Russia. You can read the complete series HERE.

Beginnings and Context to Research

The best way of beginning to research is to start and understand the foundations of the community and the context.

• Papers of Lady Muriel Paget  – as part of the University of Leeds Special Collections
• Society of Genealogists (SOG) holds a number of books relating to Russia within it’s library. The catalogue is available to all to search and can be found HERE. The search of the library catalogue and the various databases is open to all.
• The Great Britain-Russia Society – gbrussia.org Provides an opportunity to gain cultural content and travel information
• The Russian Revolution & Britain 1917-1928 – as part of the digital collection, Archives online at the library of Warwick University – The University has 650 documents digitised and freely available. There are also a smaller collection relating to the Soviet Union 1928 which are a resource in the University’s module on Stalinism in Europe. The majority of records are not digitised and will require visiting the library, having made an appointment. The University also has a selection of genealogical research guides.
• Russian online Genealogical records at FamilySearch Wiki
• British humanitarian activity in Russia 1890-1923 by Luke Kelly, published Palgrave Macmillian and available in both eBook and paper format
• The Treaty of Commerce between Great Britain and Russia 1766 -A study on the development of Count Panin’s northern system, An article by Knud Rahbek Schmidt published online August 2008 in the Scando-Slavica Journal Vol 1, 1954 Issue 1 (Pages 115-134)

You can read the complete series, of the British Community in Russia HERE.

Russian Flag courtesy of Wikipedia

This post is part of a series of 10 posts about the British Community in Russia. You can read the complete series HERE.

Despite the mass exodus of the British Community in Russia during 1918-1921 a few remained in Russia, they were typically old or too ingrained into the Russian way of life. In 1930 the diplomatic relationship was renewed and Lady Muriel Paget set up a charity with the aim of providing some relief to those remaining of the British Community.

For almost a decade, Paget worked tirelessly to track these individuals down in order to provide some assistance. The government too, had provided assistance, albeit, limited assistance, whereby a small villa was set up outside Leningrad where members of the British community could relax during the summer months.

In 1931 four individuals representing Metropolitan Vickers, who were a British heavy electrical engineering company and founded in 1899 and who traded until 1960, found that they had their four employees arrested by the Russian authorities on suspicion of espionage. This was one of the first trials that took place under Stalin.

Following this, fewer people went to Russia, although some British Communists went to Russia during the 1920-1930’s and a few remained there.

In 1939, war broke out and the identification of those from the British community became almost impossible and that marked the end of the British Community in Russia.

You can read the complete series, of the British Community in Russia HERE.

Russian Flag courtesy of Wikipedia

This post is part of a series of 10 posts about the British Community in Russia. You can read the complete series HERE.

The Bolshevik Revolution later that same year marked the beginning of the end of the British Community. Soon families saw that factories and mines were nationalised with those individuals who were not a worker or a peasant treated as suspicious. Bank accounts frozen, large houses and properties seized, motor vehicles confiscated. Some individuals found work as engineers, governess and managers, but others were forced to sell their belongings to survived.

People began fleeing Russia, crammed onto trains heading to Finland, smuggling out what they could, with jewellery and other valuables sewn into clothing. Those that had significant money invested in the banks or in business had to decide between fleeing or remaining in the hope of positive change.

Meanwhile, British soldiers arrived in the south of Russia and at Murmansk to try and intervene in the Civil War that was developing. Many Britons were arrested with some shot. It was to be the end of 1919 before the British and Russian governments to reach agreement of repatriation of their respective citizens.

Many Britons, in a desperate state were smuggled into Finland, or across the Black Sea to Constantinople, where refugee camps had been established by the Red Cross with the support of government and charities. Here they could settle and recover, gradually dispersing having found work. Although some still had not found work nor the means to move on, and were still reliant on charity provisions.

Post Revolution and Civil War, some Britons returned to Russia to seek opportunities, alas they were treated cautiously and subject to arrest by the KGB. Support from the Consulate was not always possible and the degree of suspicion, on both sides was significant.

You can read the complete series, of the British Community in Russia HERE.

Russian Flag courtesy of Wikipedia

This post is part of a series of 10 posts about the British Community in Russia. You can read the complete series HERE

By 1900, the British population in Russia was about 10,000 with many families established in Russia, such as:

• Gibbons in Moscow and St Petersburg
• Carrs in Archangel
• Hills who were scattered across the Country

These families were connected by both trade or marriage. Under Russian law, the third generation to be born in Russia was automatically declared Russian, therefore many pregnant women returned to Britain to have their babies. The travelling was problematic during the Russian winter, when their passage was inhibited by snow, snowdrifts, and ice which blocked the railways. In childhood, many children returned to Britain to attend public schools, which in turn strengthened the link between the family living in Russia and the family living in Britain.

The British living in Russia were mainly middle class. The birth register at St Petersburg’s  consulate for the period  of 1856-1912 recorded the following occupations:

• Merchants
• Bankers
• Mechanics
• Cotton Carders
• Electrical and Mining Engineers

Those living in Russia were able to obtain British goods at a shop in St Petersburg. The Shop sold a variety of goods including tea and shortcake. An English club was also available, where English beer, Scotch Whiskey could be found and drunk whilst playing billiards.

Anglican churches could be found at St Petersburg and Moscow, they had their own chaplains, as did religious venues for other denominations. The British community was large and reasonably affluent, however things were about to change and they would not return.

As the Great War broke out in 1914 there was a huge rush to register children born earlier, with the Consular Registers being located at the National Archives in Kew. Registration as British prevented the Russian call up and provided the means for an exciting route to serve, if needed, because these young men would need to return back to Britain to enlist. In anticipation, a listing of all British men who were able bodied, and able to serve in the military was undertaken.

The English Club located in St Petersburg, although renamed Petrograd, created a fund that sought to support the wives, widows and children left behind following the males returning to Britain to join the military. Many young men left Russia, travelling to Britain via Sweden and Norway.

Russia was not prepared for war against Germany who was modern with a well provided for army. Russia had it’s first Revolutionary War in 1917, here was opportunity to become a real democracy and to be seen as an such, on an equal footing with other European countries. Those that did not believe that, began taking action to move property and family abroad; essentially outside of Russia.

You can read the complete series, of the British Community in Russia HERE.

Russian Flag courtesy of Wikipedia

This post is part of a series of 10 posts about the British Community in Russia. You can read the complete series HERE

In the 16th Century, Russia was a small medieval country. The main exports were hides, honey, wax, whale oil, flax and furs and the British traded these in exchange for western goods.

The port of Archangel was established in 1584 to facilitate foreign trade,with the links between Russia and Britain, remaining in tact until 1920, when the Bolsheviks took over.

Despite, the British trading regularly , it was not until the reign of Peter the Great (1682-1725), that the British Community because established. Peter the Great wanted to expand and develop his country. He had toured extensively throughout western Europe, bringing in benefits of trade and technology.

He moved the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg, which was a new city on the Baltic Sea. Peter had visited Britain previously, and later on, employed British shipbuilders and artisans, believing that the establishing of factories and the building of ships would provide opportunity for him to modernise his armed services. He hired professional soldiers and sailors to train and instruct his fellow countrymen.

After Peter died, the employing of westerners continued. In the 17th and 18th Centuries, Russia began expanding in the areas of what is now Poland, Finland and the Baltic States. During the 19th Century there was great expansion of the British community. The period after the Crimean War led to modernisation of the Russian economy, in turn this led Czar Alexandra II to free the Serfs and introduce legal and economic reforms which brought Russia into the modern world.  This saw a new generation of Britons setting up mines and factories in Russia, and to build railways.

In the south of Russia, cotton began growing on a large scale, with those in charge following the expertise of the Britons, to build cotton mills, as large as those in the British city of Manchester.

In the 1860’s, the brothers, William and John Yates established a paper factory. The mill began to be successful and the family began to settle into life in Western Siberia. By 1918, the family owned a mechanical works and five mills. The work they undertook was reported to be of good quality and they were known through the whole of Siberia. By 1914, the family had amassed a fortune wealth of approximately £350,000, although much of it would be confiscated under the Bolsheviks.

Not unexpectedly, the mining industry was doing rather well, the spread was across Russia, producing coal in the Ukraine, platinum in the Urals, copper in the Caucasus and gold in eastern Siberia.

Experts were recruited into the beginning of the oil industry, to run the oil rigs and to build, and maintain the pipelines. By the turn of the 20th Century, the Russian oil fields produced more oil that the rest of the global oil fields combined.

The recruitment of employees from Britain led to an increased amount of young women who were employed in Russia as governesses to the children of wealthy families. The first governesses in Russia were documented in 1830 and within 50 years, this was seen to be a “suitable” way for a independent women to earn a living. These young women lived in mainly large cities, but many families had second homes and estates in the rural areas of Russia, with many of these families taking holidays in the Crimea and Finland.

You can read the complete series, of the British Community in Russia HERE.