Cossacks, Ural

The Albazinians are one of the few groups of Chinese of Russian descent.

There are approximately two hundred and fifty Albazinians in China who are descendants of about fifty Russian Cossacks from Albazin on the Amur River that were resettled by the Kangxi Emperor in the northeastern periphery of Beijing in 1685.

Albazin, a Russian fort on the Amur River, founded by Yerofey Khabarov in 1651, is stormed by Qing troops in 1685.

The majority of its inhabitants agree to evacuate their families and property to Nerchinsk, whereas several young Cossacks resolve to join the Manchu army and to relocate to Beijing.

Much uncertainty surrounds their migration to China.

It is believed that, upon their arrival to the imperial capital, the Albazinians met the descendants of 33 Cossacks that had been captured by the Chinese in 1667 and several Cossacks that had settled in Beijing as early as 1649 and had become the parishioners of the South Roman Catholic Cathedral in the downtown area.

The veracity of this oral tradition about the pre-Albazinian Russian diaspora in China is uncertain.The Albazinians form a separate contingent of the imperial guard, known as the "unit of the yellow-stripe standard".

Their first leader is Ananiy Uruslanov, or Ulangeri, a Tatar in the employ of the Manchu.

The Russian surnames Yakovlev, Dubinin and Romanov ire rendered in Chinese as Yao, Du, and Lo.

The Cossacks are permitted to marry the widows of beheaded Chinese criminals.

Their priest, Maxim Leontiev, is allowed to hold divine service in a deserted Lamaist shrine.

An old icon of St. Nicholas, evacuated by the Cossacks from Albazin, is placed in this unusual church, dedicated to the Holy Wisdom.Although the descendants of the Cossacks intermarry with the Chinese and gradually lose their Russian language, the Russian Orthodox Church regularly sends missions to Beijing, starting in 1713.

As a result, the Abazinians come to form the core of the Chinese Orthodox Church.

In 1831, Ioakinf Bichurin reported that there were 94 Albazinians in the capital of China.

Other Russian travelers noted that, apart from their faith, the Albazinians were thoroughly Sinicized and bore little physical resemblance to the Russians.

By the end of the 19th century, their number was estimated at 1,000.The Boxer Rebellion entailed the persecution of all Christians and Europeans in China.

The Russian Orthodox Church claims that 222 Orthodox Chinese were martyred on 11 June 1900, including Father Mitrofan, who was later declared a holy martyr.

An Orthodox chapel used to mark the burial place of the Chinese Orthodox martyrs in Beijing.

It was destroyed in 1956 at the urging of the Soviet ambassador in China.

Although several Albazinian families found it reasonable to move to the Soviet Union during the Cultural Revolution, the bulk of them still reside in Beijing and Tianjin.

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