COSSACK VISITORS.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13178, 10 February 1936, Page 3

COSSACK VISITORS.

EXILED FROM SOVIET RUSSIA. “We were sorry to hear of the death of King George, for he was a cousin of our own Tsar, 7 ’ said Mr J. Sbekletskv, leader of a party of five Russian Cossacks who were through passengers by the Maunganui to Sydney, at Wellington. They were on their way to give displays of equestrian skill, for which the Cossacks are famous, at the Sydney Royal Show. “We Cossacks are supporters of the Tsarist regime,' 7 said Mr Stekletskv explaining that the Tsar's own bodyguard was of Cossacks, and that under his reign they went taxfree, and lived like lords. “The present Russian Government is worse than ever the Tsars were,' 7 he coni tinned. “They have taken away everything from the peasants.' 7 Mr Stekletsky added that he had served in the White Armv against the Bolsheviks in the Crimean region. If he or his companions were to .return to Russia to-day they would certainly he gaoled or shot. They had been members of an army of 160,090 refugees who had fled Irom Russia, and taken shelter on the island of Lemnos, under French protection. The French, he said, had railed to feed them and they had died in thousands of famine and disease. Some 20,000 perished on Lemnos. Eventually he and his friends had found their way to the United States, and were now nationalised American citizens. Ho had nothing but* praise for his adopted country, and said it was a fine thing to be a citizen of the United States.