Russian Australian

Notable Russian Australians: Kostya Tszyu, Anastasia Rodionova, Sidney Myer,
Total population
15,354 (Russia born, 2006) 67,055 (Russian ancestry, 2006)
Regions with significant populations
Melbourne, Sydney
Languages
Russian, Australian English
Religion
Russian Orthodox, Jewish, atheist
Related ethnic groups
Ukrainian Australian, Jewish Australian

The first Russian citizen known to have become a permanent resident of Australia was John Potocki, who landed in Hobart, Tasmania on 18 February 1804. Potocki, arrested in England, was sentenced to hard labor in Tasmania. According to Potocki's own account, recorded by captain Lazarev in 1820, he served in the Russian Army during the reign of Catherine II. In 1810 Potocki was released by British authorities and settled in Hobart permanently. By 1820 there were four Russian-speaking families of former convicts in Hobart.^[1]

Early naval visits[link]

In 1807 the Russian shallop Neva, under the command of Captain Leonty Gagemeyster, visited Port Jackson where it loaded provisions on its way to Russian American colonies. Sometimes this date is considered as a start of relations between Australian colonies and Russia.^[2]

Contacts continued in 1820 when two Russian ships, the Vostok (meaning 'East') and the Mirny (Peaceful), visited Port Jackson under the command of Captains Lazarev and Bellingshausen for provisions and repairs on several occasions during an expedition to explore Antarctica ordered by Tsar Alexander I. Until the middle of the 19th century, only a few dozen Russians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Finns and other émigrés from the Czarist Russian empire were resident in Australia, which was still a part of the British Empire.

Russian ships visited Australia throughout the 19th century and a number of Russian seamen absconded from their ships to settle permanently in Australia. Religious sects, including the Mennonites and Doukhobors, made plans to send up to 40,000 settlers to Australia and New Guinea but after much debate in the Russian press, and 2,000 applications to emigrate, this mass emigration did not materialise.

The Russian Imperial Navy corvette Bogatyr made a friendly visit to Melbourne and Sydney in 1863. Information from Polish deserters pointed to Russian plans to attack Australia in support of the Union cause. (See Australia and the American Civil War: Imperial Russian Navy)^[3] In 1882 three Russian Navy ships – the Africa, Vestnik (Herald or Messenger) and Plastun – made port in Melbourne, sparking renewed fears in the press of a Russian invasion. A brief mobilisation of defence forces ensued before the lack of aggressive intent was made clear. In 1885 concerned British colonists thought a Russian invasion was again imminent and built Bare Island Fort to protect 'Sydney's back door' in Botany Bay

Waves of emigration[link]

Up to 250,000 people a year emigrated from the Russian empire to countries such as the United States, Canada, Argentina and Brazil towards the end of the 19th century. Australia was a much less popular destination, with only 300 Russians leaving for Australia in 1890. According to the Census in 1891, the number of Russians living in Australia was 2881, comprising 2350 men and 531 women.

The first wave 1880-1905[link]

The first major wave of Russian emigrants to Australia began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, largely Jews from the Baltic and south west of Russia escaping anti-Semitism and a wave of pogroms which raged in the wake of Tsar Alexander II's assassination on 1 March (old calendar) 1881. The number of Russians according to the Australian census is shown in table below.

By the time of the formation of the Australian Commonwealth in 1901, a total of 3,358 Russians were resident in the newly created country, comprising 1,262 in New South Wales, 954 in Victoria, 454 in Queensland, 251 in South Australia, 400 in Western Australia and 37 in Tasmania. Most emigrants had come via England at this time, but in the future many travelled via the newly opened Trans-Siberian railway and ports in the far east, which provided a quicker and cheaper route. Letters from Antipodean emigrants were commonly published in the Russian press and had the effect of encouraging potential emigrants to consider this exotic new land as a possible destination.

The second wave 1905-1917[link]

A second wave occurred between the defeat of Russia in the Russian-Japanese War in 1905, the revolution of that year and the February Revolution in 1917. These migrants comprised political opponents of the Czarist regime and defectors from compulsory military service in the Russian armed forces. According to Prince Abaza, the Russian General Consul in Australia in 1914, there were 12,000 people from the Russian empire in Australia out of a total population of 4.5 million. The lure of Australia's democracy and social mobility outweighed the hardships which many of the emigres suffered in their first years, often in labouring jobs due to their lack of English.

During the World War I no less than one quarter of all the Russian males living in Australia served in the Australian Army.^[5] By percentage it was more than for the general Australian population.^[5] There were more Russian nationals serving in the Australian Army than nationals from any other non-Anglo-Saxon country. Many more applied but were rejected either because of poor command of English or because of their medical conditions.^[5] Many of the recruits were motivated by their gratitude to their new country. Another important factor was the policy of the Russian General Consul Prince Abaza who lobbied for the forceful return of all Russian nationals who would not serve in Russian Army (unlike Australia, Russia had a mandatory military service policy).^[5]

No less than 150 Russian nationals in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps participated in the Battle of Gallipoli. No less than 400 Russians were among ANZACs on the Western Front in 1916.^[5]

The third wave 1917-1939[link]

The Australian Government placed an embargo on immigration from Russia between 1917 and 1922 due to the Russian revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War. After the lifting of this prohibition after the defeat of the white movement, a third wave of Russians migrated to Australia in the 1920s after the defeat of the White Army by the Bolshevik forces. These were known as the White emigres. Many of these refuges embarked from Manchuria, having been driven to Siberia by the rampant Red Army.

The fourth wave 1945-1960[link]

A fourth wave of emigrants came to Australia after the Second World War, comprising Russian prisoners of war and displaced Russian citizens. These people faced persecution in Stalin's Soviet Union, being seen as collaborators or contaminated with dangerous Western influences. Many Russians, fearing forced repatriation to the Soviet Union where they faced death in the Gulag, claimed to be Polish to escape Stalin's dictat that all Soviet citizens must return. There had been a large influx of Russian Orthodox refugees from China following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and more fled Mao Zedong's rise to power after the defeat of the Chinese Nationalist Army. Refuge in Australia for the Russian colony in China was negotiated by archbishop John of Shanghai. His success in negotiations with the Labor Government of Ben Chifley is sometimes seen as a miracle proving John's sainthood. Several Russian born emigrants to Australia have published accounts of their escapes from Soviet Russia and Communist China, including Alex Saranin's 'Child of the Kulaks' and 'The Tarasov Saga' by Igor Ivashkoff (Gary Nash).

The fifth wave - Russians in Australia today[link]

The 2006 Census revealed Australia had a Russian-born population of 15,354. Most Russian-born residents live in Melbourne (5,407) or Sydney (5,367). A significant portion of Russian-born residents are women (62%), and most (69%) had arrived in Australia no earlier than 1990.^[6] Also at the 2006 Census 67,055 Australian residents declared that they had Russian ancestry, either alone or in combination with one other ancestry.^[7]

Whereas previously many Russian immigrants were Jewish, in recent years Jewish emigration has been less evident. Notable Russian emigrates include boxer Kostya Tszyu and pole vault champion Tatiana Grigorieva, who won a silver medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Sydney's Bondi Beach is a popular area for Russian and Russian-Jewish migrants, with several restaurants and specialist shops catering to their needs. However, Russians live throughout New South Wales and Australia with less concentration in certain areas as might have been in the early waves of immigration. The traditional centres such as Strathfield and Sydney's Bondi are ever-changing communities catering to new people and services such as language schools and churches have not been well distributed beyond these areas since the 1980s. There is no language school, church or related services (for example) available in the northern suburbs of Sydney, despite Russians and other Slavic Europeans taking to the area in the recent waves of migration. The Australian Russian community is served nationally by Russian language radio broadcasting team at SBS Special Broadcasting Service Government radio station which broadcasts in 58 community languages.

According to Russian Federal State Statistics Service there are about 1200 Russians who left Russia for Australia from 2000 to 2008. Roughly 170 Russians leave Russia for Australia every year.^[8]

The Russian Orthodox Church in Australia[link]

The first Russian Orthodox parish in Australia was founded in Brisbane in 1925. Parish St. Nicholas church there was intended to be a monument to the Tsar-martyr Nicholas II.^[2]

The first Russian Saint Vladimir Cathedral in Sydney was opened in 1938 in celebration of the 950th anniversary of the baptism of Russia.^[2] Many more churches were opened after World War II. An Australian Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR, also known as the Russian Church Abroad (ROCA), or the Synod) was formed and now has about 42 centres in Australia and New Zealand including St Peter and Paul Cathedral in Strathfield NSW, and area where many Russians had settled. There is also the Russian Orthodox convent in Kentlyn, near Sydney, and the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Bombala, NSW. Some Russian churches set up Russian schools to preserve Russian language and customs.

There are also parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in Glen Iris, Victoria (celebrating in English) and in Blacktown, NSW, (celebrating in Slavonic). There is a small Belarusian Orthodox community in Bankstown, NSW, that is administered by the Moscow Patriarchate. The Russian Orthodox congregation in South Yarra, Melbourne, is under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and celebrates services in Russian. There are some parishes of Lipovan Orthodox Old-Rite Church which represent the tradition of Russian Old Believers.

Russian entrepreneurs[link]

Sidney Myer, born Simcha Baevski, was a typical representative of the first major wave of Russian emigres

The Myer shopping chain, still a dominant power in the Australian retail sector, was founded by early Russian speaking Jewish immigrant Sidney Myer in Melbourne, his first store set up as the 'Myer Emporium'. He supported new Russian emigres to Melbourne for as long as he lived.

Russian arts in Australia[link]

The mine engineer Ilya Repin (1888–1949), after settling in Sydney in 1925, helped create a Russian Orthodox Church in Sydney on Robertson Road in the 1930s. First holding services in his own cottage, he founded the Church of Saint Vladimir on this site, a 'khram' which exists to this day. There is a long history of Russian cultural and artistic visits to Australia. In 1913, the Russian Imperial Ballet toured Australia, the first and only performances of Russian actors before the First World War. In 1926 the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova danced in Melbourne and Sydney, giving a great boost to the embryonic Australian ballet of its day and in the same year, famed opera singer Feodor Shalyapin made an Australian concert tour. Renowned ballerina Irina Baronova toured Australia before the Second World War and lived in Byron Bay, New South Wales from 2000 until her death in 2008. She was a vice-president of the Royal Academy of Dance and a patron of The Australian Ballet, and published her memoirs in 2005.

Kira Bousloff (Abricossova) (1914–2001) is best known as the founder of the oldest ballet company in Australia - the WA State Ballet Co. Born in Monte-Carlo to Russian parents she came to Australia as a member of the Covent Garden Russian Ballet company in 1938 and remained in Australia after the tour ended in 1939. She moved to Perth with her husband composer James Penberthy and established the WA State Ballet Co in 1952.^[9]

Pianists Alexander Sverjensky and Phillip Shovk and painter Danila Vassiliev worked in Australia and boosted the local development of their arts, while art historian Nina Kristesen established the Department of Russian Language and Literature at Melbourne University in 1946.

Celebration of Maslenitsa in Australia. Federation Square, Melbourne

Russian arts festivals and events are popular in Australia. The 150th anniversary of Pushkin's death was commemorated with poetry festivals in 1987 and a range of Russian cultural and social organisations are active in the major cities of Melbourne and Sydney. The Russian Connection provides an independent and comprehensive guide to cultural events and occasions with a Russian flavour in Australia. The organisation promotes Russian cultural activities such as art exhibitions, ballet, classical music, concerts, festivals, children's events, movies, musicals, lectures, opera, and theatre. The Russian Connection is continually expanding with the recent addition of a catalogue of new Russian literature and Russian language movies available from various public libraries.

Australians in Russia[link]

The Russian connections in Australia are mostly composed by Russian-borns moving to or visiting Australia. The most notable representative of the Australians moving to Russia is the famous physicist Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov. He was born in Atherton, Queensland, Australia, to a family of Russian immigrants in 1916. He and his parents relocated to the Soviet Union in 1923. In 1964 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on lasers and masers. He was also the chief editor of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia from 1969.

See also[link]

• Russian Jack

References[link]

External links[link]

• Australiada journal
• Australian and New Zealand Eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
• Russian Orthodox Church in Australia
• Unification Russian newspaper
• Russian Canberra

v t e Ethnic groups in Australia Australia Australian · Anglo-Celtic · Australian Aboriginal · Torres Strait Islander · White Europe Northern Danish · Norwegian · Swedish Western English · Anglo-Celtic (Cornish · Scottish · Welsh) · Belgian · Dutch · French · Irish · Manx Central Austrian · Czech · German · Hungarian · Polish · Swiss Southern Gibraltarian · Greek · Italian · Maltese · Portuguese · Spanish Balkan Albanian · Bosnian · Bulgarian · Croatian · Kosovan · Macedonian · Montenegrin · Romanian · Serbian · Slovene Eastern Russian · Ukrainian Asia East Chinese (Hong Kong) · Japanese · Korean · Taiwanese South Afghan (Pashtun) · Bangladeshi · Indian (Malayali · Tamil) · Nepali · Pakistani (Pashtun) · Sri Lankan (Sinhalese · Tamil) Southeast Cambodian · Filipino · Indonesian · Laotian · Malaysian · Singaporean · Thai · Vietnamese West Arab · Armenian · Assyrian · Iranian · Iraqi · Israeli · Jewish · Jordanian · Lebanese · Palestinian · Saudi · Turkish Americas North American · Canadian Caribbean Jamaican · Trinidadian and Tobagonian Latin Argentine · Brazilian · Chilean · Colombian · Ecuadorian · Peruvian · Salvadoran · Uruguayan Africa Egyptian · Ethiopian · Somali · South African · Sudanese · Ugandan · Zimbabwean Oceania Fijian · Maori · New Zealander · Samoan (according to 2006 Australian census data: 20680 - Ancestry by Country of Birth of Parents)

Maria Sharapova

Country	Russia
Residence	Bradenton, Florida, United States
Born	(1987-04-19) April 19, 1987 (age 25) Nyagan, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Height	1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)[1]
Weight	59 kilograms (130 lb)[1]
Turned pro	April 19, 2001
Plays	Right-handed (two-handed backhand)
Career prize money	$ 19,323,417[2]
Singles
Career record	441–109
Career titles	26 WTA, 4 ITF
Highest ranking	No. 1 (August 30, 2005)
Current ranking	No. 2 (May 28, 2012)[3]
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open	W (2008)
French Open	SF (2007, 2011)
Wimbledon	W (2004)
US Open	W (2006)
Other tournaments
Championships	W (2004)
Doubles
Career record	23–17
Career titles	3 WTA
Highest ranking	41 (January 30, 2012)
Grand Slam Doubles results
Australian Open	2R (2003, 2004)
US Open	2R (2003)
Last updated on: May 28, 2012.

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (Russian: Мария Юрьевна Шарапова [mɐˈrʲijə ˈjurʲjɪvnə ʂɐˈrapəvə] ( listen), US: /ʃɑrəˈpoʊvə/, UK: /ʃærəˈpoʊvə/; born April 19, 1987) is a Russian professional tennis player and former world no. 1. A United States resident since 1994,^[4] Sharapova has won 26 WTA singles titles, including three Grand Slam singles titles at the 2004 Wimbledon, 2006 US Open and 2008 Australian Open. She has also won the year-end WTA Tour Championships in 2004. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked Sharapova world no. 1 in singles on four separate occasions. She became the world no. 1 for the first time on August 22, 2005, and last regained the ranking for the fourth time on May 19, 2008. As of May 28, 2012, Sharapova is ranked world no. 2. She has been in six Grand Slam finals with the final record 3–3.

Sharapova made her professional breakthrough in 2004 at age 17, when she defeated two-time defending champion and top seed Serena Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final for her first Grand Slam singles title. She entered the top 10 of the WTA Rankings with the win. Despite not winning a major in 2005, Sharapova briefly held the no. 1 ranking, and reached three Grand Slam semifinals, losing to the eventual champion each time. She won her second major at the 2006 US Open defeating then-world no. 1 Amélie Mauresmo in the semifinals and world no. 2 Justine Henin in the final.

Sharapova's 2007 season was plagued with a chronic shoulder injury and saw her ranking fall out of the top 5 for the first time in two years. She won her third Grand Slam at the 2008 Australian Open, defeating Henin in the quarterfinals and Ana Ivanović in the final. After reclaiming the no. 1 ranking in May 2008, Sharapova's shoulder problems re-surfaced, requiring surgery in October and forcing her out of the game for 10 months. Sharapova returned in May 2009 and was ranked no. 126 in the world due to her extensive lay-off. Since her comeback, Sharapova has won seven singles titles (bringing her career total to 26) and improved her ranking to no. 2 in the world.

Sharapova has been featured in a number of modeling assignments, including a feature in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She has been featured in many advertisements, including for Nike, Prince and Canon, and is the face of several fashion houses, most notably Cole Haan. Sharapova was the most searched-for athlete on Yahoo! in 2005 and 2008.^[5][6][7] Since February 2007, she has been a United Nations Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador, concerned specifically with the Chernobyl Recovery and Development Programme. In June 2011, she was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time.^[8]

Early life[link]

Maria Sharapova's parents, Yuri and Elena, are from Gomel, Belarus. Concerned about the regional effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, they left their homeland shortly before Sharapova was born.^[9] When Sharapova was two, the family moved to Sochi. There her father befriended Aleksandr Kafelnikov, whose son Yevgeny would go on to win two Grand Slam singles titles and became Russia's first no. 1 world-ranked tennis player. Aleksandr gave Sharapova her first tennis racket at the age of four, whereupon she began practicing regularly with her father at a local park.^[10] She took her first tennis lessons with veteran Russian coach Yuri Yutkin, who was instantly impressed when he saw her play, noting her "exceptional hand-eye coordination."^[11]

At the age of seven, Sharapova attended a tennis clinic in Moscow run by Martina Navratilova, who recommended professional training at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida, which had previously trained players such as Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, and Anna Kournikova.^[10] With money tight, Yuri was forced to borrow the sum that would allow him and his daughter, neither of whom could speak English, to travel to United States, which they finally did in 1994.^[11] Visa restrictions prevented Sharapova's mother from joining them for two years.^[9] Arriving in Florida with savings of US$700,^[11] Sharapova's father took various low-paying jobs, including dish-washing, to fund her lessons until she was old enough to be admitted to the academy. In 1995, she was signed by IMG, who agreed to pay the annual tuition fee of $35,000 for Sharapova to stay at the academy, allowing her to finally enroll at the age of 9.^[10]

Tennis career[link]

2001–03[link]

Sharapova first gained attention on the tennis scene in November 2000, when she won the Eddie Herr International Junior Tennis Championships in the girls' 16 division at the age of just 13.^[12] She was then given a special award, the Rising Star Award, which is awarded only to players of exceptional promise.^[13] She made her professional debut in 2001 on her birthday on April 19, and played her first WTA tournament at the Pacific Life Open in 2002, winning a match before losing to Monica Seles. Due to restrictions on how many professional events she could play, Sharapova went to hone her game in junior tournaments, where she reached the finals of the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2002. She was the youngest girl ever to reach the final of the Australian Open junior championship at 14 years and 9 months.^[14]

From 2003, Sharapova played a full season, and made a rapid climb into the top 50 by the end of the year.^[15] She made her debuts at both the Australian Open and the French Open, but failed to win a match in either.^[16] It was not until the grass season that she began to fulfill her promise, beating a top-20 player for the first time and reaching her first semifinal at the WTA level. Then, as a wildcard at Wimbledon, she defeated 11th seed Jelena Dokić to reach the fourth round, where she lost in three sets to Svetlana Kuznetsova.^[16]