Albazinians

The Albazinians (Russian: албазинцы, Traditional Chinese: 阿爾巴津人, Simplified Chinese: 阿尔巴津人) are one of the few groups of Chinese of Russian descent. There are approximately 250 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 was a Russian fort on the Amur River, founded by Yerofey Khabarov in 1651. It was stormed by Qing troops in 1685. The majority of its inhabitants agreed to evacuate their families and property to Nerchinsk, whereas several young Cossacks resolved to join the Manchu army and to relocate to Beijing. See Russian-Manchu border conflicts.

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 city. The veracity of this oral tradition about the pre-Albazinian Russian diaspora in China is open to question.

The Albazinians formed a separate contingent of the imperial guard, known as the "unit of the yellow-stripe standard". Their first leader was Ananiy Uruslanov, or Ulangeri, a Tatar in the employ of the Manchu. The Russian surnames Yakovlev, Dubinin and Romanov were rendered in Chinese as Yao (姚), Du (杜), and Lo (Traditional Chinese: 羅, Simplified Chinese: 罗). The Qing gave permission for Solon widows to marry the Albazinians. They married with Mongol and Manchu women. The women available for marriage to the Albazinians were criminals from Beijing's jails. Their priest, Maxim Leontiev, was allowed to hold divine service in a deserted Lamaist shrine. An old icon of St. Nicholas, evacuated by the Cossacks from Albazin, was placed in this unusual church, dedicated to the Holy Wisdom.

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