Talk:Russian Australians

Image problems
Why isn't the image of the ship captain working at the moment?

Repin and the Australian church
I sincerly doubt that Ilya Repin helped build the Orthodox Church in Sydney in the 1930, because he died in Kuokkala (now Repino) near St. Petersburg in september 1930, and (to my knowledge) did not travel abroad after the Revolution. Errabee 22:08, 6 June 2006 (UTC) BTW, in that case the mentioning in the "Did you know...?" is also erroneous. Errabee 22:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Ghirlandajo changed this, upon my request, in another Repin, not the famous painter but a mine engineer. I'll change the DYK page. Errabee 10:28, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Codywillis.jpg
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2 removed from infobox
I have removed Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev and Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai from the infobox as they were not Russian Australians but rather Russians in Australia - who spent short periods of time in the Australian Colonies. Also having Sidney Myer could be problematic as well, as User:Alex Bakharev notes, he was a Belarussian Jew, and some might dispute whether he is Russian at all. --Russavia Dialogue 10:36, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Addition Harbin, Manchuria
I am not Russian myself but through being associated with balalaika music and my book LA PLEVITSKAYA I have accumulated assorted knowledge.

Here in Adelaide we have a large number of Russians who came from Harbin, Manchuria, the Chinese town which had become an important railway town as the Trans-Siberian was going through there until about 1916. Russians were encouraged to live there, e.g. no military service. The Russian 'colony' in Harbin was not diminished by the additional track around Chinese territory. Those who fled the Revolution fled to their nearest point of freedom, West to Berlin and on to Paris, or East to Harbin.

A recent emigrant told me, 'no matter what the political upheaval, the railway always rolled'. In the Russian Community Centre here in Adelaide we have many, many Russians from Harbin who even formed a group not long ago to travel there. They did not really have to flee, rather it was made clear to them that China's had it with 'the Europeans' and would they please go elsewhere. What they could take out was limited, so some had to leave possessions behind. They could only buy a ticket out of China that would not go any further than HongKong. Once there they had to find a country that would take them plus find someone who would fund that travel. Some people had to change to another Christian religion, or they would have been stuck in HongKong. In my book I have put a half disguised short scene that was modelled on Yul Brynner, who had also been in Harbin for a short while. One of my friends spotted it, only that one. When I asked how he had made that connection, he said that his Mum was also from Harbin and had gone to the same school there as Yul Brynner, though a few years later. There are a lot of Harbin Russians in Australia. Ally Hauptmann-Gurski 144.136.192.10 (talk) 03:59, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Many Poles (including one of my ancestors) constructed railways in Russia. There were also many Poles in Harbin, I quote two articles in Talk:Harbin Russians. Xx236 (talk) 06:05, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

The Potocki story

 * There exists already Joseph Potaski.
 * Polish Australians describe the same man as a the first Pole.
 * Potaski nor Potocki was a Russian surname at that time.Xx236 (talk) 06:25, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, ! I found the article cited in the archives here. Potocki was Belarusian, not Russian. He had served in the Russian Army (er, yes, the Russian Empire stretched into Poland and beyond at that time). It has nothing to do with his ethnicity, so I'm removing all references to him as WP:SYNTH. Even in that era, Belorussian was differentiated as being 'not Russian'. I think the reference could be useful for developing the Belarusian Australians article, so I might post the link on that talk page to remind me. It has a list of convicts of other nationalities (including Polish), but I'm not convinced that Elena Govor, who wrote the article, is an unbiased source. She, herself, conflates the subject to "Russian Convicts in Australia", yet the names indicate a number of ethnicities amongst those she describes as 'Russians'. Any thoughts on whether it can be understood to be reliable? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:26, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * THis discussion should be moved to Talk:Joseph Potaski.Xx236 (talk) 06:04, 7 October 2016 (UTC)