RUSSIAN WAR ORPHAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18324, 14 February 1923, Page 9

RUSSIAN WAR ORPHAN.

ARRIVAL IN AUSTRALIA. FOUND MOTHER MURDERED. ~- To lose his father in the war, and to return home from school one day to find his .-"-mother murdered—these 11 were the tragic 'experiences'of a : boy who was included in the 50 Barnafdo boys .who arrived by the Ballarat at Sydney last week. He is a Russian. Sis name is Shalva Gigolashvili, -which fortunately has been Anglicised to Charles' Gricoli.' Charles is a handsome, --" well-set-up lad of 16.. His father ,was a leading man among the ' Ossetines, one of the more numerous of ' the people inhabiting th« beautiful Caucasus, arid his mother was . a Russian. The famity was .living happily at when.lh<?wa.r. ( broke out. The father," an officer in the Russian army, " went i to i the -front, and was killed while snrvihg with General Diderichs' Russian force north of Salonika. Charles attended a school in Tifiis. and revelled in the constant coming and going of soldiers serving again/c the Turks in Armenia. Because of the opening of Russia's Western front, following the revolution of 1917, German armies < penetrated through 7 the Ukraine to the Caucasus. They .quartered themselves in j Tiflis, .and behaved yv.i,tji their, usual : arrogance. 11 On returning';^6me from '. school.- - "one day, Charles. found his mother lying dead on the floor—-murdered ; by the Germans, he thinks. ..3?<v- ,'"••' WW rsh'-zf'^^r;;;;. ; After armistice; British .troops arrived, and the homeless orphan attached himself as batman to an English officer, who. took , him to Constantinople, and, later, via Malta and Gibraltar, to Englard.:- .-. ' ;'-'.:,■' '■ " -\- '.'.: ...... , Charles lived with the officer! at his Hertfordshire, home, for 18 months, end was then placed : .the. Barnardo Homes .«#. London '. -There <kW:> heard lectures ;on " Australia; and resolved ;to come out when -opportunity * offered:' ; While' in : Melbourne", a- wealthy Russian expressed a wish to adopt him. That is a matter for the local organisation or the homes: to decide, j. Charles said h« would be - pleased to live 'with a Russian family, as he had , almost forgotten the Russian language. .:;-;.■:;-',:.: .