Recently the editors received a letter from an Australian woman named Jess. She said that about 20 years ago she found a beautiful wedding photograph in an antique store in Sydney.
On the reverse side it was written “In memory of dear Nina Petrovna and Pavel Ivanovich from Raya and Vasya Shvetsov. 25.9 1961 Harbin." She translated the text into English and wanted to know if it was possible to find the people in the photo or their relatives. And she wrote to the editor. Of course, I know Raya and Vasily Shvetsov. I also know that they are not very active in email correspondence, so I wrote a message to Alexander and Marina Hripko (Hughes). Vasily is Marina’s brother. Soon I received a letter from Alexander. He said that many events were connected with this photo. I quote, with the consent of Alexander Hripko, his letter:
“On May 10, 2024, I received a message from the editor of the Edinenie newspaper with a wedding photo of my relatives, Raya and Vasily Shvetsov. The photograph was accompanied by a request to give them this photograph and try to find out its history.
On the back of the photo there are words of gratitude to Nina Petrovna and Pyotr Ivanovich. In the 1960s, Russian Harbin residents left China and settled in many countries. Many went to Australia, but many also went to Europe, in particular to Belgium, which in those years provided an opportunity for immigration for elderly Russian residents of China.
In Harbin, the Shvetsov family lived next to Nina Petrovna’s house, and my mother-in-law, Maria Leontyevna Shvetsova, was friends with the Voronkov family. It so happened that during this turbulent time, Nina Petrovna left for Brussels, Belgium, and Pyotr Ivanovich remained in Harbin.
The young family of Raya and Vasya Shvetsov, who had recently gotten married, was also forced to separate temporarily. Literally the next day after the wedding, Raya was leaving Harbin, and Vasya did not yet have a visa, and he and the rest of his family left for Australia a year later. On the way to Australia, the Shvetsov family experienced another separation when Marina Shvetsova, my wife, had to cross the border in Hong Kong, and the rest of the family was stuck at the border for a whole year. In the end, Vasya and Raya, and the entire Shvetsov family, were able to unite and began to live in Sydney.
This could be the end of the story, which I knew well. But in the early 1980s, I visited Europe for work and came to Brussels very often. Before one of these trips, the mother of Marina and Vasya Shvetsov asked me to stop by and visit her friend Nina Petrovna in this city.
On the last day of my business trip, I had a couple of hours of free time, and on the way to the airport I stopped by Nina Petrovna to say hello and a present a small gift from Australia. It was the first week after Easter, and the table was filled with Easter treats. We, of course, drank a couple of glasses, I maybe a little more, remembered the old times, our friends and got to talking so much that I even missed the plane. It is clear that the conversation was about Harbin, and when she asked my last name, she noted that the Hripko last name reminded her of something. At that time, she worked in the private hospital of Dr. N.P. Golubev, a good friend of my parents. I plucked up my courage and asked if she remembered the operation of volvulus and appendicitis in a 7-month-old boy in November 1941. She replied that she remembered. Then I unbuttoned my shirt and showed the seam on my stomach. It was a seam from that same operation. After all this, when all the emotions had subsided, I had to make a promise that I would visit her on every visit.
For a long time I did this. A couple of years later, Nina Petrovna moved to a nursing home, and my wife Marina visited her several times. Unfortunately, I don't know her future life, I only know that life in nursing homes in Europe is not a gift compared to Australia. How the wedding photograph of the Shvetsov family ended up in an antique store in Sydney is not yet known. But the history of this photograph is very unusual and interesting.”
I thought that it would be difficult for photography to reach Australia from Belgium, so I wanted to find out the fate of Pyotr Ivanovich. I asked to look Alexey Ivachev at online archives. The next day I received a letter from him in which he said that he had not found Voronkov, but there was some information about Pyotr Ivanovich Voronov. He came from China to Australia with his son Alexander in 1965. Buried in Rookwood Cemetery aged 87 on 30 April 1982. If this is the Peter Ivanovich we are thinking about, then this wedding photograph, whose path we are trying to trace, could have come with him to Sydney and after his death, as unfortunately often happens, it became unnecessary to his descendants and could simply disappear.
But, fortunately, it reached people interested in history, and served as the basis for this article. Maybe after the publication of this material, we will learn additional information.
Vladimir KOUZMIN
