Figure 1.-- |
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Conditions in Petrograd at the end of the War were very difficult. THe Bolsheviks had seized power and taken Russia out of the War. Food was very difficult to obtain. City officials decided to send thousands of school children into the countryside where they could enjoy more plentiful food as well as fresh air and sunshine for a few months (summer 1918). Their teachers accompanied them to look after them. For some reason they did not send the children into ares near Petrograd, but beyond the Urals. When the summer began to wind down and the temperatures cooled, the children. Most of the children made it home. But the Russian Revolution flared up just as the children were headed home and the Whites cut the rail lines. Abot 800 of the children were cut off in Sibreia. The children were sent off in summer clothes. They soon found themselves facing cold weather and the food ran out. The story might have ended there with tragic results. There was, however, an American expeditionary force in Siberia along with the Red Cross and a few journalists. The Americans were guarding supplies sent to Russuia before the Bolshevik Revolution that were stockpiled in Vladisvostck. Red Cross volunteers began to hear heart rending rumors of abandoned childre wondering the forest in rags looking for food. [Lally, p. A13.]
Conditions in Petrograd at the end of the War were very difficult. Food was very difficult to obtain.
THe Bolsheviks had seized power and taken Russia out of the War.
City officials decided to send thousands of school children into the countryside where they could enjoy more plentiful food as well as fresh air and sunshine for a few months (summer 1918). Their teachers accompanied them to look after them. For some reason they did not send the children into ares near Petrograd, but beyond the Urals.
When the summer began to wind down and the temperatures cooled, the children. Most of the children made it home. But the Russian Revolution flared up just as the children were headed home and the Whites cut the rail lines. Abot 800 of the children were cut off in Sibreia. The children were sent off in summerclothes. They soon found themselves facing cold weather and the food ran out. The story might have ended there with tragic results.
There was, however, an American expeditionary force in Siberia along with the Red Cross and a few journalists. The Americans were guarding supplies sent to Russuia before the Bolshevik Revolution that were stockpiled in Vladisvostck. Red Cross volunteers began to hear heart rending rumors of abandoned children wondering the forest in rags looking for food. [Lally, p. A13.]
Lally, Kathy. "Amid civil war, a Red Cross rescue of Russian children," The Washington Post (January 8, 2012), p. A13.
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