RUSSIAN REFUGEE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 10, 12 January 1934, Page 7

RUSSIAN REFUGEE.

Girl Reaches Sydney En Route To New Zealand. RECEIVED BY RED CROSS. SYDNEY, January 11. The Russian girl Galina Bogatiroff, whose. parents in New Zealand are anxiously awaiting her homecoming, duly arrived by the steamer Atsuta Maru to-day. She is a cheerful, robust girl and was wearing a red print dress, blue beret and white sandshoes and socks. She was interviewed through an interpreter. Though extremely shy the little girl asked and answered many questions. She told her interviewers she passed the hours on the- voyage trying to picture her new life in a new country. She wondered what the school would be like in New Zealand. She expected she would have to learn English. Her companions on board were a Russian, Mr. J. Rumpkin, and his son, aged 15 years. No one else on the ship was able to converse with her. Galina is aged 15 years and is in the charge of the chairman of the New South Wales Red Cross organisation, Mr. R. Hawkes, until she sails by the Wanganella for Wellington on Saturday. She had the misfortune to lose the suitcase containing her belongings to-day while en route to the Red Cross offices. The first to greet the girl was Miss Rosa Piper, of the Red Cross, who affectionately embraced her and assured her through an interpreter of her future safety and comfort, whereupon Galina spoke what little English she had learnt on the trip. "Thank you very much," she said, "I very happy."

The parents .of Galina Bogatiroff escaped from Russia at the time of the Bolehevik revolution, but vrere compelled to leave their daughter behind owing to privations and illness. The girl was cared for by friendly unknown people. The Red Crose Society after extensive inquiries traced her at Stratensk, Siberia. Captain Galloway, of the New Zealand Red Cross, was largely instrumental in the negotiations for her restoration to her parents.