A DRAMATIC STORY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22098, 31 October 1933, Page 10

A DRAMATIC STORY

RUSSIAN AND HIS WIFE SEPARATED FOR 18 YEARS TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS IN RUSSIA (Special to Daily Times.) WELLINGTON, October 30.' : A strange and dramatic story of three anxious years spent in tracing his Russian wife to bring her with him back to New Zealand was reported to-day by Mr Andrew Trebukin, a former Russian subject. In 1930 he left -New Zealand so that his wife Maria, who had been forced by circumstances to wait for him in the Ukraine for 15 years, cmld join him. It was not until early this year that the two were at last successful in the face of formidable difficulties, political and otherwise, in coming together. They arrived' in Wellington last week from Manchuria via Sydney on the Wanganella. Mr TrebuHn was born in the Ukraine, where he and his Wife were what are called in the Soviet “ kulaks,” a derisive term for an independent farmer. He left his wife there in 1915 and came to Wellington, where he.worked as a carpenter. He was not in ■& 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 away. He was in Manchuria for three years, and during that time both he and his wife from the opposite sides of the border were kept continually in a state of anxiety and sometimes of despair and had many discouraging experiences. . Mr Trebukin’s first and most obvious difficulty was to find where his wife lived ao that he could communicate with her. They had been writing to each other before, but as far as his wife was concerned it was from continually changing addresses. Although she was working she was in extremely poor circumstances, and under the Soviet regime was frequently moving from one place to another.

Almost insuperable difficulties are placed in the way of a working ,mftn or woman who wishes to leave the country, and one of the greatest of these was the surveillance that took place of all correspondences “Every letter to and from Russia, whether business or personal, is opened and read by officials,” Mr TrebuMn said. “ I had to be careful whenever I wrote to my wife, and even then I could sometimes not tell whether the letter would reach her or not. I had to write * Conditions seem to be very good over there’ and that sort of thing, because otherwise it would

have been no good to Maria.’’ During many of the first months of waiting in Harbin he did not know Where his wife was as she could not write to him. He even did not know whether she was still alive. The last news he had heard from her some time before was that she was in bad health, and that she could not get sufficient food and clothing and wanted very much to find a chance of leaving the country.

It was not until lie heard from her mother, who was in Riga, that she was alive and still in Ukraine that he was

able to do anything. Then there followed the tedious business of making secret arrangements for her to leave Russia. Her mother in Latvia acted as intermediary in the correspondence and ensured the 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 be known often for months at a time, 5 In February, 1933, she was able to slip secretly across the Eusso-Manchurian border, and the husband and wife met after having been separated for 18 years, but Mr Trebukin’s natural delight at being able to meet her at last received a dismal check at seeing her appearance. She was in a state of semi-starvation and exhaustion. Her clothing consisted of a large and thick sack with holes cut for the neck and arms. Only after months of care and attention was she in a condition to undertake the journey to New Zealand which had been for her the promised land for many years. But it was a radiantly happy couple that, on their second honeymoon, arrived in Wellington on the Wanganella, It

■would have been almost impossible for him to have brought his wife out by ' going into Russia himself to her, Mr Trebukin said, adding, “It is easier to get into there than to get out again.” Many people who were dissatisfied with life under the Soviet crossed the border without permission, but often they were shot down and robbed by the Russian border soldiery. The Soviet authorities with an eye for increasing production wanted to keep every worker in the country, but hun dreds each month managed to slip across into' Manchuria, and at Harbin while he was there the Russian population was over 25.000. They were mostly business people who had refused to co-operate with the Communistic regime. Even after the .Japanese had occupied Harbin and taken over full control of the city the predominant language in its commercial life was still Russian. Mr Trebukin was not sympathetic with modern Russia. “It was bad

enough for the people before the revolution,” he said, “ but now it seems to be . very much worse. Two days before I left Harbin I met some men who were newly arrived from Vladivostok. ‘ How can we work on a farm?’ they asked. ‘We work and get not even enough food and clothing in return.’ That seems to be the opinion” also held by the majority ©f the Russians now in Manchuria.” A memory of Mr Trcbukin’s that rankles only less than the knowledge of his wife’s unenviable experience is the treatment given since the revolution to a minister friend of his. This man, who was a member of the Pentecostal Church, and whose name was Varanaev, was imprisoned by the authorities in a cellar in Odessa in 1925. Varanaev had been responsible for no offence, but had only carried on his regular church services. Two men who were with him in tne cellar died through asphyxiation from (he foetid - air, but Varanaev lived. Later Le was taken to a prison camp near the White Sea. News had been heard of him recently, and it appeared that no was still held prisoner but was being given a clerk’s woyk to do. “He has relatives in America’ who are trying to have him released from the country,” Mr Trebukin continued, “ but the Government wants a large sum for his release. It is making a big and profitable business of that sort of thing, and.it is for the same reason that it has put his wife • In prison.”