Which of the Russians was aboard the Titanic and which of them managed to escape

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The sinking of the Titanic was one of the largest maritime disasters in the history of mankind. In terms of the scale of the disaster, it is second only to the wreck of the Philippine ferry "Dona Paz". There were more than 2000 people on board, of which only 712 survived from the sinking ship. It is known for certain that among the passengers of the Titanic there were also people from the Russian Empire - peasants, merchants and representatives of the nobility. According to archival data, some of them managed to survive.

How many Russians were on the Titanic

Since the end of the 19th century, thousands of people from Russia have moved to other countries and other continents in search of a happy life. Most often they emigrated from the western regions. The bulk of the settlers were Jews, who went to America due to oppression by the authorities and anti-Semites. The list of victims of the Titanic crash also includes the names of Russian Jews.

Most of the emigrants are peasants and ordinary workers who left to work and planned to return to their homeland, having saved the required amount. All these people could well have been among the passengers of the 3rd class aboard the tragically famous ship.

The exact number of Russians on the Titanic has not been established. Historians believe that there were at least a hundred passengers with passports of the Russian Empire. The writer M. Pazin in his book "Russians on the Titanic" has at least twenty. And according to data from the British archives, there were about 50 people on the ship with Russian documents.

Taking into account the "missing souls", the actual numbers could be much higher. The fact is that at first people were reluctant to buy tickets for the new liner, so for the sake of prestige, White Star at the very last moment "transferred" people from other ships. In a hurry, not all passengers were re-registered. An additional difficulty for the calculation was the fact that when spelling in English, Russian surnames could be greatly changed. In addition, some passengers, for various reasons, indicated fictitious names during check-in.

The official lists include the names of Russian women who were able to get into the boats and survived: Berta Trembitskaya, Evgenia Drapkina, Mimiana Kantor, and others.

Among the passengers of the liner were also two English merchants who had lived in St. Petersburg for a long time - Arthur Gee and a certain Mr. Smith. None of them managed to survive.

The feat of the cashier Zhadovsky

A week after the disaster, the Petersburg newspaper reported that Russian officer Mikhail Zhadovsky had heroically died on the Titanic. This is not a fictional character, but a very real person. He was born into a noble family in Nizhny Novgorod, became a military man and even received several orders in the Russian-Turkish war.

It is known that in 1902 he became involved in fraud and received several months in prison with the deprivation of all rights, privileges and awards. The bankrupt officer was forced to look for work in a foreign land. In 1911, at one of the social events in Paris, he met the manager from the White Star company, who recommended him as the chief cashier on a new transatlantic liner.

When the Titanic sank to the bottom, millionaires offered huge sums of money for a seat in a lifeboat. Zhadovsky's place was due to his position - he was responsible for the cash desk and important financial documentation. But the Russian officer did not take advantage of this privilege and said that he would remain on board. He gave the safe with the money to the sailor, and gave up his place in the boat to the passenger of the 3rd class, Josephine de la Tour, giving her a note with his Russian address. Later, Zhadovsky's son received a letter from the rescued woman in St. Petersburg, in which she reported on the heroic deed of his father.

The descendants of the Russian nobleman pass this story down from generation to generation. However, there is a version that this is just a newspaper duck. Author of the book “Titanic. Russian view”Evgeny Nesmeyanov argued that neither Zhadovsky nor Josephine de la Tour were on any list of passengers and personnel of the deceased liner. The biographer of the Zhadovsky family, N. Kulbaka, expressed the opinion in one of his interviews that such a legend was needed by the relatives of an officer caught in a fraud in order to restore the reputation of the clan.

Peasants from Rostov-on-Don

In 2004, in the newspaper "Veselovsky Vestnik", the Don local historian Vladimir Potapov published an article entitled "Russians on the Titanic: A Family Tradition." In this article, he said that among the missing passengers of the liner was his uncle Ivan Mishin, who tried to emigrate to America along with other peasants from the Veselovsky district.

According to local history materials, all of the Rostov passengers of the Titanic were New Israelites (or Lubkovites) - members of the then-famous New Israel sect. At home, representatives of this movement were persecuted. In search of a more peaceful place, part of the sectarians emigrated first to the United States, and then to Uruguay, since it was in this country, in need of working hands, that Russian immigrants were willingly accepted.

A group of Rostov peasants, together with I. Mishin, reached the French Cherbourg, where they bought the cheapest tickets for the first ship going to America with the money raised by the community. Upon arrival, the peasants planned to stay in Uruguay, where their associates had already settled.

In his article, Vladimir Potapov gave the names of his compatriots who may have been on board the liner. But none of these names are in the archival lists, so the presence of the Don New Israelites on the Titanic is not a proven historical fact.

Miraculous rescue of Mikhail Kuchiev

Another mysterious story is connected with a Cossack from the North Caucasus named Mikhail. His exact surname is unknown, but local historians and archivists suggest that he was Kuchiev.

The young man, according to his daughter, was planning to leave for America to work and bought the cheapest ticket in the third class. According to legend, on the eve of the shipwreck, he was poisoned and wanted to go up to the deck to get some fresh air. At the exit from the cabin, he realized that something was wrong upstairs, and all the doors to the compartment were locked. Further events developed as according to the script of the film of the same name. Kuchiev miraculously made his way upstairs and jumped into the water in a life jacket. There he managed to climb behind a piece of wooden furniture and wait for the Carpathia liner.

As compensation, the man received $ 200 from the company and underwent treatment in Canada, and later returned back to Russia. The legend became the pride of Kuchiev's descendants in North Ossetia. But Debbie Beavis, the author of Who Sailed on the Titanic, argued that this was just one of the beautiful stories invented. He explained his doubts by the fact that Mikhail Kuchiev is not on any of the five official lists of rescued passengers.

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