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Third Generation
He was christened after 3 Sep 1907 in Perm, Russia. [According to the Rites of the Old Russian Orthodox Church]
He was adopted about 1909 in Osinskovo Uezba, Buhovskoi Volosti, Shubina, Perm, Russia. Faddey immigrated on 9 Jun 1957 to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He was naturalized on 27 Sep 1962. [All the children under the legal age were also Naturalised at the same time].
[ Faddey was the patriarch of the Belonogoff family in New South Wales.
She was christened on 10 Oct 1916 in Perm, Russia. [Christened according to the Rites of the Old Russian Orthodox Church]. She died on 29 Mar 2000 at the age of 83 in Cabramatta, New South Wales, Australia. Evlampia was buried on 31 Mar 2000 in Rookwood, New South Wales, Australia. [Buried with her husband and sister in the Old Russian Orthodox Section of the Old Independent Cemetery]. Faddey
Loganovich
BELONOGOFF and
Evlampia
Hrisogovna
POPOV had the
following
children:
He was christened in Aug 1942 in Harbin, China. [St Peters and Paul Old Russian Orthodox Church] He died in Nov 1942 at the age of 0 in Harbin, China. Dee was buried in Nov 1942 in Harbin, China. [St Peters and St Paul Old Russian Orthodox Church] married Galina Galactionavna BAJENOFF, 15 Oct 1967, Strathfield, New South Wales, Australia married Vera UNKNOWN; died 27 May 2018, Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia buried Rookwood, New South Wales, Australia. |
His family was extremely poor as the Old Russian Orthodox Church was not recognised by the Tsarist Government, considered outlawed, and, as such, the family survived on the goodwill and generously of other family members and the local community. At the same time, the family was obliged to financially contribute to the Church. The village they lived was very isolated, their was no roads, only rough unmarked walking trails. During winter, and after heavy rain even these tracks became impassable. The river was used for trade from late in spring to early autumn, and also provided transport out of the area. It had some of he poorest soils in the world. Crops grown were stunned and the growing season of short duration. The families living in the area were all dirt poor, bartering being the only means of trade. The river was rich in fish and the forests full of wild life, which could be hunted for fresh meat. The winters were harsh, with Arctic winds, large snowfalls and the river frozen over. During these times, the family had to survive with whatever they had been able to preserve; mostly smoked meat and pickled vegetables. At the age of two years, Faddey, was suffering from malnutrition and could neither walk nor crawl, is development delayed because of his condition. There was no reliable medical assistance, nor money, available and the family's living conditions would have worsened his condition. It was at this time that he was adopted by his uncle Logan and his wife, who had no children of their own. Logan's wife nursed Faddey back to health and educated him; it appears that Faddey received no formal primary education. but wharever education provided by his adopted mother held him in good stead in later life. He came to consider his adopted family as his real family and was to take the patronymic name of his adopted father, Logan. It appears that Logan lived in the same region as Faddey's natural family and he kept in contact with them until at least Vasili was reassigned by the Church to Novosibirsck in Siberia. His adopted father, Logan, was a woodsman and a member of the local cell of the loosely knitted local cell of the White Army, an ogranised described pro-Czarist, but hunted by the Czarist and Soviet armed forces. There is no indication that Faddey had any involvement in the movement, but Logan's involvement must have an influence on his adopted son's upbringing. Logan's involvement in the White Army indicates the family's direct or indirect involvement in the local events. |
Sometime before or during 1919, during the Russian Civil War, the family was forced to flee from the area with the advancement of Cossack and revolutionary forces into the region; it appears that Logan, and his family, fled with members of the local cell of the loosely connected "White Army". They fled by foot up through the foothills into the densely forested Ural Mountains, at first using locally known foot tracks and later into unmarked territory. If caught this would have surely led to the family being imprisoned or killed; the later being the norm The family fled with only the possessions that they could carry. Some members of the group had buried their valuable possessions, believing that it was only a matter of time before they returned. There was three different railway routes across the mountains, but army guards patrolled the passenger carriages, checking and re-checking the passengers' identifications. Goods and freight train were minutely inspected at every stop. The surrounds of the railway routes were also guarded by armed forces. Armed forces regularly patrolled the forests, there were no prisoners. People and their families were shot without hestiation. Faddey remembers piles of dead bodies amongst the trees and the smell of death. In some places bodies hung from the trees. There was also outlaws, misfits and wild animals to avoid. There was no proper shelter at night, nor in adverse weather; at best maybe a cave or cliff overhang. No fires could be lit at night for warmth and safety; the light of the fire would have given your position away. During their flight, their footwear rotten and they had to use rags on their feet for some protection. It is known that Faddey suffered from frostbite, and it was feared at one stage that he would loose some toes from the condition. The families journey over the Ural Mountains took many months [2]. Faddey recalls seeing people fall through the ice into the freezing river waters below, they had no hope of being rescued. Life wasn't worth much. |
| Evlampia
recalls that Faddey's family had stopped in the area
during their journey into exile. It is believed that shelter and food was found here in a conclave of members of the White Movement. It was the centre of a major railway junction between the Tran-Siberian and the Chinese Eastern Railway, so the area was heavily guarded. The town was close to the border, and many people crossed over the border into China here. Whether Faddey's family tried and failed to cross the border here is unknown, but after a short stay here they resumed their trek, this time their destination was Vladivostok. |
The family eventually arrived in the town of Vladivostok, which at the time was not under full Russian control. The family settled here for an extended period of time. It appears that Faddey worked on whatever employment that was available, usually with hard labour and poor wages. [His employment probably was a lumper, lumping goods and products on and off ships].    The family's live here was more safer than they had been, living in a small tenanted room, a roof over there head. More importantly their was food on the table most of the time. They still had to avoid roaming guards and having to live with the fact that their door could be kicked down at any time. After a period of time, probably three years, Logan left his family and made his way to Harbin, China. He would have heard a lot about Harbin, and had undertaken the journey to seek a safer haven for his family and to find employment opportunities Faddey continued with whatever employment he could find to keep his family's expenses. It was also here that Faddey heard many different languages, of which he could eventually communicate, basically, in some different languages. For the rest of his life, Faddey was good with languages, being able to pick up different languages easily. |
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   [Harbin Russians or Russian Harinites referred to several generations of Russians who lived in the City of Harbin]. After the Russo-Japanese War, while many Russians left Harbin, a lot of long-time residents decided to stay. By 1913, Harbin had become an established Russian colony for the construction and maintenance work on the China Eastern Railway. A record shows Harbin had a total of 68,549 people, most of which are of Russian and Chinese descent. There were a total of 53 different nationalities. Along with Russian and Chinese, there were 45 spoken languages used in Harbin at the time. Only 11.5% of all residents were born in Harbin. There were lively religious activities, too, by the Russians (Saint Sophia Cathedral in Harbin), Ukrainians (Church of the Intercession in Harbin), Poles (Sacred Heart Cathedral of Harbin), Germans (Harbin Nangang Christian Church), and others They established the Russian school system and published Russian language newspapers and journals. For many who settled here it reflected a vision of life in Russian could have become had there been no communist takeover. A Harbin newspaper in the 1920s stated : We have created an illusion of our native land. For three decades, early 20th century Harbin was among the most cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic cities of the Russian empire, without rival in the Far East. It had grand boulevards named for Russian writers, onion-domed churches, large businesses... After the Revolution, Harbin became home to a unique culture --- that of the exiled White Russians, driven out by the Bolsheviks' Red Army. On the 23rd September, China ceased relations with representatives of Imperial Russia and deprived Russians of extraterrestrial rights. Overnight Russians in China found themselves Stateless [Map of Harbin, in Russian (1930)].  In Harbin, Faddey found a position as an apprentice pastry cook with the the firm of Dalconti; which was a upper class French bakery. As the firm expanded, Faddey was offered a position with the firm in Shanghai, which he readily accepted. Whilst in Shanghai, his love billiards and snooker came to the fore. He was eventually transferred back to Harbin by the firm. Back in Harbin, Faddey courted and married Evlampia Popov.  [Back Row : Evokia and Varvara Popov] [Front Row : Faddey and Evlampia Belonogoff, and, Evlampia's mother, Elizabeth Popov] [1937]  He commenced night studies at the Japanese School, undertaking a course in the Japanese language; he proved to have a natural ability with languages and was selected as one of the members of a twenty six day tour of Japan. The object of the tour was to further the students knowledge of the Japanese language and to experience it's usage in everyday situations.  [c.1940 : Unknown, Mihail, Evlampia, Faddey and Eugene Belonogoff] He and Michael had to deliver the finished dresses, sometimes as many as fifty at a time. From the off cut materials,, his mother was able to make clothes to be sold on the black market. He remembers his father and Logan at times having to hide in the forest from troops and other officials. They lived in a two bedroom house with a kitchen, without plumbing. The water having to be collected in buckets and brought inside. The lavatory was outside. Two of the boys shared a bed and the two girls shared a bed in the one room. Michael slept on a bench at the end of the hallway. The parent's bedroom also doubled as his mother's sewing room. |
| Eugene remembers that in
Barim , that he did not go to first class
at school because he had no shoes and it
was winter. His grandmother gave him a shirt for his birthday, with money in the pocket to buy lollies. He met his grandmother, with his mother, away from the house, due to tensions within the family. Later, he had to take fresh milk to shops, in buckets, on his way to school. The empty buckets were then picked up on his way home. There was little or no work for his parents, having moved to Barim on the advice of Logan. Logan had advised that they could live off the land and hunt. Food was rationed, soup sometimes had to be made of cow feed.
Bathing was restricted to once a week; babies, kids first and adults last. The water was then used to wash the clothes. In Barim, his mother made a suit out of army blankets for his father's return to Harbin, so he looked respectable whilst looking for employment At the urging of Logan, Faddey and his young family moved to the region. There may have been other reasons for the move; at the time the Japanese troops were using the Harbin region as headquarters for their experiments using chemical weapons and had set up concentration camps and placed numerous restrictions on the local population. There was also indication that the Japanese eanted him to spy on other Russians, which he did not want to do. [Faddey's wife, Evlampia, remembered the Japanese soldiers as being very cruel and having little or no regard to human life.] The move to Barim brought Faddey and his young family renewed hardships and placed them in a position of abject poverty. Faddey accepted any employment offered and worked as a sawyer and a farm labour amongst other positions. His wife, Evlampia, accepted any dressmaking and clothing repair work; the material used were mostly off cuts or remmants from clothing scraps that could be found. The family remained in Barim for two years, before moving back to Harbin. |
The remaining non-Soviet Russians life under the Japanese was no piece of cake, and Harbin in the 1930's was described as "a worn-out, decadent, almost desperate, but still charming beauty, clinging to her reputation as the Paris of the Far East, but step by step being taken over by the new Japanese masters. There was an aggressive policy of Japanese settlement, with the best jobs, including, of course, those on the railroad, going to the Japanese. And a number of non-Soviet Russians fell victim to Japanese red-baiting—there were political repression and arrests From 1932 to 1945, Harbin Russians had a difficult time under the Manchukuo regime. Faddey, with his training in pastry and baking, found employment training others in his skills. Eugene's partner, Nadia, remembers seeing a notebook with one of Faddey's recipes in it from this time. At first some the Harbin Russians had thought the occupation was good, hoping that the Japanese would help them in their anti Soviet struggles and provide protection from the Chinese, who were desperately trying to regain sovereignty of Harbin. In 1934,the Japanese formed a bureau for Russian emigres which was nominally under the control of the FRP; it provided identification papers, which were necessary to live, work and travel in Manchukuo. Faddey's knowledge of the Japanese language and way of live would have helped at this time, but live for the family was still harsh. It is no wonder that by 1939 only 28,000 Russians remained in Harbin, for by then the rest had immigrated either to North or South America, or to major Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Tianjin, and Beijing. As difficult as life was under the Japanese, the final blow for the Russian community in Harbin came in 1945 with the Soviet occupation following Japan's defeat, and the takeover of Harbin by Red China the following year.  [Nicholas, Evlampia, Faddey, Helen, Mihail and Eugenie Belonogoff] [c1948] The lifestyle of the Russian exiles in the town had deteriorated and the Chinese Government, having regained control of the region, made it known that foreigners were not welcome and that they wanted them gone. The situation was such that today only a handful of older Russian exiles still reside in the area. Faddey and his growing family now faced the prospect of moving again, with little money or possessions. One of the first options considered was a move to Japan. Faddey had studied the language and visited the country, whilst Evlampia's sister, Varvara, resided in Japan, having married a Japanese nationalist. Eugene recalls that the family was ready to settle in Japan. The family, now officially Stateless, had the necessary paperwork required by the Chinese Government and the family was ready for the journey to Japan. Varvara's husband had officially stated that he would accommodate the family in Japan and to financially support the family for two years. Eugene remembers that his Uncle had also stated that he would sent Michial and himself to college in the United States, again at his expense. The family remained in Tientsin for two weeks, completing more Chinese Government paperwork before obtaining a passage on a ship bound to Hong Kong. During their voyage, Helen badly gashed her leg falling onto the steel frame of door. |
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The family arrived in
Hong King on 8th April 1957, with still no
firm arrangements for their intended
immigration to Japan. Faddey approached the British Embassy, who did not recognise Japan, for assistance and was directed by the Embassy to the World Council of Churches. With the assistance of the World Council of Churches, the British Embassy gave the family refugee status and the World Council of Churches arranged for their immigration to Australia. His Japanese paperwork not being recognised, as Britain and Japan still did not have official relations since the end of World War Two. Faddey spent many hours in lines, with other refugees, waiting to see various officials, usually several times to see the same officials. The Territory was overwhelmed by refugees and resources were pushed to the limit. Refugees were not allowed to work. They roamed the streets, day and night, with little or no money. Boredom prevailed and petty crimes sky rocketed. Not all immigrants were poor refugees though. Many—especially from Shanghai and Ningbo—were businessmen, bankers, entrepreneurs, financiers, and property tycoons. Many of this wealthy elites came with their capital largely intact. Those who lost their fortunes still had their knowledge and skills intact and were able to secure financing to re-build their riches. A sponsor, living in Australia, was required, and one was found in Victor HEINZE, who was residing in Sydney, New South Wales [and had helped many other families to re-settle]. Faddey's wife, Evlampia, had done work for Victor's family when they had resided in Harbin, China and he needed no prompting in assisting the family. He stated in the official paperwork that he was the godfather of the couple's children, which appears incorrect, but would have added weight to the family's application. The necessary paperwork was commenced by a Mrs SUMMERS, a British Embassy employee, whilst the World Council of Churches advanced the necessary finances, the airfares alone were to total 1,800 Pounds Sterling. The family undertook the necessary medical examinations and vaccinations were given. Whilst in Hong Kong, Eugene became seriously ill with boils and required hospitalisation and expense medication. The family had little money and this expense would meant that the money had to come out of the loan advanced from the World Council of Churches for their re-settlement. |
| The family arrived in
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on 9
June 1957, aboard a QANTAS aircraft. After
passing through immigration and customs,
the family was met at the airport by
Victor HEINZE, who had arranged form their
accommodation in a boarding house at 34
Lang Street, Centennial Park, owned by
another Russian family named DOMAGATSKI. Victor also assisted, to a limited degree, with whatever financial concerns that the family required. On his second day in Australia, a new Country and with no understanding of the English language, Faddey obtained employment with Pulkownik, a firm specialising in hand making "upmarket" chocolates; it is believed that the firm is still in business today. Michael and Eugene went straight to work in a rubber factory in Darlinghurst. The younger children sent to school, with no knowledge of the Australian language. It was a matter of learning on the run. After the family had paid off their debts to the World Council of Churches, Faddey, with the financial assistance of Victor HEINZE, found more suitable accommodation and a place where a pastry business could be established, at 157 Canterbury Road, Canterbury. Faddey spent a few weeks with the owner learning the business and pastries that were suitable, at the time, for the Sydney market; also becoming familiar with the machinery and other aspects of the business. On taking over the business, Faddey continued producing and selling Australian pastry products, introducing a small range of European products. The European products, specialising in Russian pastry items, continued to grow. His wife, Evlampia, took control of the retail shop and the accounts of the business. Surprisingly this all happened within six months of the family arriving in Australia. In 1967-68 the family and the business had outgrown the Canterbury premises and a new family home and business premises were found at 357 Liverpool Road, Enfield. With the move came changes with the business. The business dropped many of the Australian pastry items and started to concentrate more on European pastry items, specialising in Continental pastries. The business a small number of shops, hotels and restaurants in specialised pastry items. It appears certain that the business could have greatly expanded from here, but Faddey was a "hands on" pastry chef and continued as before. Their son Nicholas, excelled in his school studies. Having started with not knowing the English, he learnt quickly, and was able to sit for his School Certificate and Higher School Certificate in the same year, with high marks on each. He then attended Sydney University and obtained an Engineering Degree. In his sixties, Faddey needed hospitlisation and required surgery. After recovering he was informed that he needed to take twelve months off work, being self employed and his age, Faddey decided to retire. With all his children married, Faddey and his wife, Evlampia, moved to their holiday cottage at Palm Beach, where he enjoyed his last days fishing and gardening. Faddey died on 22nd November 1984 at the age of 77 at the Mona Vale District Hospital from He is buried with his wife and sister in law at Rookwood, New South Wales. Faddey throughout his life kept the faith of the Old Russian Orthodox Church and was a founding member of the Church at Auburn, New South Wales, providing considerable financial assistance to the Church. He appears to have never wavered from his faith, despite all the hardship he had encountered during his life. His life is a amazing story of survival from abject poverty, with death facing him in the face numerous times over many years, to a reasonable and successful existence involving a exodus of many tens of thousands of miles over many years. |
