The Russian Diaspora in China: When Harbin Became "Moscow of the East"

After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, over 100,000 White Russian refugees fled across the border into China, transforming the northern city of Harbin into the most Russian city outside of Russia itself. By the 1920s, Harbin was home to Orthodox cathedrals with golden domes, Russian newspapers, ballet companies, opera houses, and streets where Russian was spoken more than Chinese. It was a surreal European enclave in the heart of Manchuria - and it became a hotbed of espionage, intrigue, and desperate survival.

The refugees were former aristocrats, military officers, intellectuals, and wealthy merchants who had lost everything. In Harbin, they rebuilt their culture from scratch - opening restaurants serving borscht and caviar, establishing Russian ...