The Ghosts of Russia That Haunt Shanghai

Karaoke is the only music heard these days in the two remaining Russian Orthodox churches here. Now they are both restaurants. But a short walk away, in a part of the city once called Little Russia, stands a tall plinth topped by an elegant bust of the poet Alexander Pushkin.

Erected in 1937 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his death as a result of a duel, its presence serves as a reminder that with a population of roughly 25,000, Russians were by far the most populous group of Europeans living in Shanghai in the 1920s. Stateless victims of the 1917 Revolution, the White Russians were absorbed into the polyglot world of old Shanghai, cultured outcasts who did much to give the "Whore of the East" its reputation for sin, nightlife and glamour.

Then there were the Bolsheviks. Without Soviet gold, advisers and weapons, it is quite possible that modern China might be a different place than it is today, a fact largely overlooked as Shanghai, along with the rest of the country, prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.

But history is written by those who pay the bills, and these days Russia can scarcely afford the cover charge. Shanghai's stately Russian Embassy, commissioned by Czar Nicholas II in 1916, caught fire recently and looks as though it hasn't been painted since Mao swam the Yangtse.

Heavy curtains guard the eyes of the gothic pile that squats where the Suzhou Creek meets the Huangpu River, a unique vantage point from which to survey Shanghai's magnificent old Bund. When China and the Soviet Union had their falling out in the late 1950s it was converted into a seamen's club and, although the Russians reclaimed it in 1986, the building hasn't really recovered from the indignities visited upon it by marauding Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

Vladimir Gaissine, the Russian vice consul here, complains that most of his consulate's tiny budget, with the ruble being devalued almost daily, goes to "entertaining visiting generals and bigwigs from Moscow." Consular staff members, unable to afford expensive foreign schools in Shanghai on their meager salaries, have organized a makeshift school, where parents take turns trying to teach their children.

Nevertheless, the Russians have been putting on a brave show this year to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Pushkin, who was denied permission by the czar to join a diplomatic mission to Shanghai in the 1830s, allegedly because of something less than flattering he wrote about the Imperial family.

In May, the commander in chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, sailed into Shanghai to commemorate the day, 50 years ago, that the two countries established diplomatic relations.

Film premieres, concerts, poetry readings, a literary conference, as well as a reissue of Pushkin's complete works in Chinese have been popular among mostly older Shanghainese, those who came of age in an era when the Chinese affectionately called the Russians their "big brothers."

The depth of appreciation for things Russian in Shanghai, although initially surprising, stems from the fact that Shanghai has always been China's most cosmopolitan city. In the period between the two World Wars it was, among the foreigners, the Russians who provided the bulk of the city's professional dancers, singers, artists and literary figures.

Two Russian theaters did a thriving business and more Russian-language books were published in Shanghai in the 1930s than in Paris or Berlin. A pair of Russian newspapers competed fiercely and the North China Herald's beloved editorial cartoonist, Georgi Sapojnikov — or Sapou — was formerly an officer in the Imperial Russian Army.

American car dealers in the city, the historian Harriet Sergeant writes in "Shanghai," experienced what they called a "red boom" when Soviet agents poured in in the 1920s. Bedazzled by a way of life that had vanished from Bolshevik Russia, many of these hard-line revolutionaries happily frittered away Moscow's gold on fast cars, strong vodka and beautiful women.

Relative to other cultural influences, Russia's artistic hold on Shanghai increased after 1949, as China restricted "bourgeois culture" from the West but gave easy access to visiting troupes of Soviet performers — hence Pushkin's popularity today among older residents of the city.

Russian-speaking Shanghainese love chatting with Russian tourists, often serenading them with old songs like "Podmoskovnie Vechera" or "Katyusha." There is even a Shanghai version of borscht.

The city still exerts a considerable fascination in the former Soviet Union, as well.

Alexandra Shrestha, 26, a native of Kiev, began studying Chinese in middle school at the age of 12. "When I was trying to decide where in China I should study," she said, "I decided upon Shanghai. I was convinced there would be thousands of Russians living here. But it was three months before I met anyone who spoke the language."

Her reaction was to organize the Russian Club, open to all members of the former "Soviet empire." It meets informally on a monthly basis at a small café in the heart of old Little Russia, just off Huaihai Road. Shrestha, like most of approximately 200 young Russians and Ukrainians who now call Shanghai home, is almost as much a refugee here as the White Russians who preceded her.

"People leave home to study or work here and they don't go back," said Larissa Lagoutina, 29. "Things were bad in St. Petersburg when I left two years ago, and they have only got worse." Despite being stabbed in nearby Qingdao last year, Lagoutina, a fitness instructor, is convinced that China not only represents more career opportunities for her and her friends, but also is much safer.

Big nightclubs have taken to hiring Russian dancers on six-month contracts to perform risqué cabaret-type routines, harking back once again to Shanghai's glory years. "I think for us it is very similar to the 1920s," said Lagoutina, who even resembles a flapper. "Just like then, everybody in Shanghai thinks we are all either gangsters or prostitutes."

James Irwin is a journalist in Shanghai.