St Alexander Nevsky Church - Hankow - 1893
Cnr Poyang Rd & Pao Shun Rd, British Concession.
Being the centre of the Chinese black tea trade, Hankow attracted Russian tea traders who set up factories in the early 1860s to manufacture 'brick tea' - made from tea dust. Three of the four brick tea factories in Hankow were owned by Russian businesses, like Messrs SW Litvinoff & Co (known locally as Shun Fung), Messrs Tokmakoff, Molotkoff & Co (known locally as Hsin-Tai) and Messrs Molchanoff, Pechanoff & Co (known as 'Fu Cheong'). Shipments from Hankow went by steamers directly to Odessa and St Petersburg or were transported overland on the Tea Road via Mongolia and Siberia to Moscow. Russians also dominated the trade in skins, hides and pig bristles and they were the largest group of foreign residents in Hankow. Relations between the hard-drinking Russians and the more conservative British were not always so cordial if too much had been drunk and the conversation veered from mere business to politics.
To cater to the spiritual needs of the Russian residents, there has been a Russian church in Hankow since 1884. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Tokmakoff, Molotkoff & Co's tea factory in Hankow, the Russian mercantile community in Hankow received a visit from Tsaravich Nicholas (who would become the doomed last Tsar) in 1891. He promised to support the building of a new Russian Orthodox church in Hankow and after funds were raised through donations, this handsome Russian Orthodox Church was raised in 1893 within the British Concession, three years before the establishment of a Russian Concession, a mere stone's throw away. It is built in the Byzantine style. To view a photograph of this church from those Treaty Port times, go to www.orthodox.cn/images/hankou2.jpg .
After the Russian Revolution, like other ports and cities in China, Hankow received its fair share of White Russian refugees; often penniless and homeless, the Church provided shelter for these new arrivals. In the 1930's, Christopher Isherwood in his book “Journey to a War”, caustically noted of the Russians seen by him in China: “You see two or three of them behind nearly every bar — a fat, defeated tribe who lead a melancholy indoor life of gossip, mahjongg, drink and bridge.”
The church was undergoing restoration at the time of my photo (November 2013). It had been a rather garish pastel colour (see fellow flickrite Issac Wang's shot at www.flickr.com/photos/29856669@N02/3793274428 ) and I am informed that the local authorities would like to restore it to its former glory. Fingers crossed.
St Alexander Nevsky Church - Hankow - 1893
Cnr Poyang Rd & Pao Shun Rd, British Concession.
Being the centre of the Chinese black tea trade, Hankow attracted Russian tea traders who set up factories in the early 1860s to manufacture 'brick tea' - made from tea dust. Three of the four brick tea factories in Hankow were owned by Russian businesses, like Messrs SW Litvinoff & Co (known locally as Shun Fung), Messrs Tokmakoff, Molotkoff & Co (known locally as Hsin-Tai) and Messrs Molchanoff, Pechanoff & Co (known as 'Fu Cheong'). Shipments from Hankow went by steamers directly to Odessa and St Petersburg or were transported overland on the Tea Road via Mongolia and Siberia to Moscow. Russians also dominated the trade in skins, hides and pig bristles and they were the largest group of foreign residents in Hankow. Relations between the hard-drinking Russians and the more conservative British were not always so cordial if too much had been drunk and the conversation veered from mere business to politics.
To cater to the spiritual needs of the Russian residents, there has been a Russian church in Hankow since 1884. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Tokmakoff, Molotkoff & Co's tea factory in Hankow, the Russian mercantile community in Hankow received a visit from Tsaravich Nicholas (who would become the doomed last Tsar) in 1891. He promised to support the building of a new Russian Orthodox church in Hankow and after funds were raised through donations, this handsome Russian Orthodox Church was raised in 1893 within the British Concession, three years before the establishment of a Russian Concession, a mere stone's throw away. It is built in the Byzantine style. To view a photograph of this church from those Treaty Port times, go to www.orthodox.cn/images/hankou2.jpg .
After the Russian Revolution, like other ports and cities in China, Hankow received its fair share of White Russian refugees; often penniless and homeless, the Church provided shelter for these new arrivals. In the 1930's, Christopher Isherwood in his book “Journey to a War”, caustically noted of the Russians seen by him in China: “You see two or three of them behind nearly every bar — a fat, defeated tribe who lead a melancholy indoor life of gossip, mahjongg, drink and bridge.”
The church was undergoing restoration at the time of my photo (November 2013). It had been a rather garish pastel colour (see fellow flickrite Issac Wang's shot at www.flickr.com/photos/29856669@N02/3793274428 ) and I am informed that the local authorities would like to restore it to its former glory. Fingers crossed.