SWEDES LEAVE RUSSIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20372, 28 September 1929, Page 18 (Supplement)

SWEDES LEAVE RUSSIA.

TOO MUCH PERSECUTION.

After 147 years in Russia, tho Swedish Colony from Alt-Schwodendorf, on tho Dnieper, has been forced by revolution, counter-revolution, and the conditions obtaining under Bolshevism, to return to Sweden.

Ono hundred and eighty-six Swedisli familios, undor their leader, Gustav Hoas, reached Vienna not long ago, and are being cared for> by the Austrian Red Cross.

The little colony has a romantic history. During tho first Kusso-Swedish war tho Russians gavo tho conquered Swedish islands to a llussian duke, who reduced tho inhabitants to sorfdom. Tho same lovo of freedom which has driven the colonists to desert their farms and withdraw from Communist rulo to-day led their ancestors in 1781 to abandon their island homes. Twelve hundred.of them set off for tho South Ukraino, whero the 600 survivors sottled on tho shores of the Dnieper. In tho next two years more than half of theso succumbed leaving Alt-Schwoden-dorf, as they christened their homo, with 264 inhabitants.

Shortly before the war their numbers had risen again to over 1200. During tho rovolution they found themselves caught between " White" and " lied" armies. Their property was plundered. Five hundred out of their six hundred horses were requisitioned. Finally they all took rcfugo on an island in tho Dnieper while roving bands plundered their homes before their eyes. Since then hunger and jjgverty havo reduced their number again, and they decided to return to the land of their forefathers*