‘PROMISED LAND’ REACHED

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 31 October 1933, Page 6

‘PROMISED LAND’ REACHED

RUSSIAN COUPLE REUNITED WIFE ARRIVES IN DOMINION. SEPARATION FOR 18 YEARS. (By Telegraph—Press Association-* WELLINGTON, Oct. 30. A strange and .dramatic story of thre anxious years spent in tracing his Russian wire to bring her back with him to New Zealand, was told to a reporter to-dav by Mr Andrew Trebukin, a, former Ilusian subject. In 1930 he left New Zealand so that his wife Maria, who had been forced b: circumstances to- wait for him in the Ukraine for fifteen years could join him. It was not until early this year that the two were at last succeissiul, in face of formidable difficulties, political and ..-otherwise, in coming together. . They arrived at Wellington last week from Manchuria via Sydney on the. Wanganella. • Mr Trebukin was born in the Lkraine, where lie and his wife were what are now called in the Soviet “kulaks’” a derisive term for an independent farmer. He left liis wife there iii 1915 and come to- h ellmgton, where lie worked as a. carpenter. He v ;as not iii a position to return for his wife until early in 1930, when he went to Harbin, Manchuria, with the intention of getting her across the Russian border 300 miles aivay. He was in Mahbhufifi for ,three years and during that time and both lie and his wife, from the opposite -sides ot the border, were kfept continually ni a state of fifixifetly and _ -sonietinies' ot despair and had many discouraging experiences.

SURVEILLANCE OF LETTERS. Almost insuperable difficulties were placed in the way of a working man or woman who wished to leave the country and one of the greatest pi these was the surveillance that tools, place over all correspondence. During many of the first months lie was Availing in Harbin lie. did not know whethere she- was still alive. The- last news lie liad heard from her some time before was that she was in bad health and could not get- sufficient food and clothing. It was not until he heard from her mother, who was in Riga, that .sue was still alive and still in the Ukraine that life was able t-b do ahythihg. Then there followed the -Tedious business of making sefirfet -arrangements for her to leavb Russia, her mother in Latvia acting as an intermediary iii the correspondence ahd ensuring, safe and unopened arrival of letters. Sometimes his wife would have to moVe to another part of the country .and on those occasions there were enforced silences from her and her address would not he known for months at itime. , 4 Vo- , In February, 1933,. she was able tc slip secretly across the RussoManchurian border and husband and wife met after having been separated for 18 years, but Mr Trfekuin’s natural delight at meeting her at last received a dismal check on seeing her aopearance. She was, in a state of semi-stairvatibn and exlialistioh. Her clothing was a large and thick sack with holes cut for the neck and arms Only after months of care and attention was she in a fit condition to undertake the journey to New Zealand, which had been for her a promised land for so. many years, but il was a radiantly happy couple who or their second honeymoon, arrived a 1 Wellington on the Wanganella.