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2009/1.

Imre GALAMBOS

The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:

Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

In mid July 1900, while the Boxers in Beijing laid siege to the foreign embassies,
Chinese troops from the small settlement of Sakhalien (Chinese Heihe 黑河) shelled
the city of Blagoveshchensk located across the Amur River. Although subsequent
reports confirmed that there were no casualties on the Russian side, in the panic
following the incident the inhabitants of Blagoveshchensk turned against the Chinese
population of the city, who at the time numbered 5-6,000 people. On July 16, Chinese
residents were rounded up and taken down to the river in order to be transported
across to the other side. When no boats were found, they were driven at bayonet
point into the river and told to swim to the other side. Nearly all of these people
drowned and only less than a hundred of them were able to reach the other bank.
The number of those drowned in the Amur was never conclusively established —
estimates ranged between 3-5,000. Although news of the tragic events did not
appear in the Russian press at the time, later on they were extensively discussed
both in Russia and abroad. While opinions differed as to who was responsible for this
incident and to what degree, most sources agreed that the tragedy was triggered by
the panic that followed the Chinese attack.1 Because of the disturbances in China,
most of the local troops had been mobilized and sent to the region of Harbin, leaving
Blagoveshchensk practically unprotected. When the Chinese opened fire on Russian
steamers on the Amur and forbade any further navigation on the river, the level of
tension in the city reached its peak. By this time, of course everyone in town had
heard of the atrocities committed against foreigners in China but for the first time
such reports gained relevance at this distant frontier. Thus when on July 14 Chinese

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Imre GALAMBOS:
The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:
Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

troops began shelling the city, a panic ensued as inhabitants expected a full-fledged
assault and massacre. Suddenly, the thousands of Chinese residents who had been
working on the Russian side as tailors, laundrymen, cooks or servants were
considered a threat.
What follows below is a translation of a first-hand account from the weeks
immediately following the massacre, written by Aleksandr Vasilievich Vereshchagin
(1850-1909), a Colonel of the Russian General Staff.2 With the outbreak of the Boxer
Rebellion and the military tension that followed, he received orders to travel to
Manchuria. Following his return home, in 1902 he published in instalments an
account of his travels through the troubled regions of the Amur and Manchuria under
the title “Through Manchuria, 1900-1902.”3
Vereshchagin left Moscow on July 30, 1900, first heading for Khabarovsk.4 By
the time of his departure, the Boxer rebellion was already in full swing and foreign
embassies in Beijing were under siege. Yet at this time there had been no
disturbances along the Manchurian border. The news of the Chinese shelling
Blagoveshchensk reached him and his fellow passengers on the train, shortly before
arriving in Irkutsk. There were also rumors of the sacking of the city, although later it
was confirmed that the Chinese only shelled the Russian bank from the other side of
the Amur. By the time he arrived in Blagoveshchensk, the panic was mostly over and
the troops of General Rennenkampf were effectively clearing the southern bank of
the river. By interviewing local residents he gathered bits and pieces of information
about the whole-sale drowning of the Chinese population of the city, which he was
also able to substantiate when he continued his journey down the Amur and their
steamer overtook hundreds of corpses floating downstream. Surprisingly, for weeks
the incident remained relatively unknown even within the Russian army, and when on
August 2, almost a month later Vereshchagin dined with a group of officers in
Nikolsk-Ussuriisk, of the twenty or so people present nobody had heard of the
tragedy prior to that moment.
Vereshchagin’s account is one of the very few recorded during or immediately
after the events that transpired in Blagoveshchensk in July 1900. It is valuable not
only as a report of what happened but also of how the inhabitants of the city felt
about the death of the thousands of innocent Chinese civilians, many of whom they

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Imre GALAMBOS:
The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:
Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

knew personally. Although the author himself assumes the role of an outsider who
merely passes through the city, he is clearly shocked by both the gruesome nature of
the incident and the dispassionate attitude of some locals regarding it.

Translation5

From Pokrovka to Blagoveshchensk

In some places the Amur branches out to the extent that it is hard to know where the
real banks are.
“Over there, is that the Amur or a side branch?” I asked the old pilot. He sat
calmly on the bench by the wheel and only from time to time waved with his arm to
show the helmsman which way to steer.
“Branch!” he muttered and then went back to doing his job. There was an
infinite number of these branches. The Amur is filled with islets of most diverse
appearance, and some of them can be very peculiar. But what is especially
interesting about the Amur is the difference between the two banks. Our bank, which
was on the left side, is, with rare exceptions, uninhabited and inaccessible. There are
very few Cossack villages or settlements of any kind, surrounded by poor hayfields
and meadows.
The Chinese bank on the right side of the river is just the opposite, even if in
places it is also wild and rocky. The hayfields here were abundant and it seemed that
nobody harvested the grass. There were no stacks or haycocks anywhere. Suppose
this had been a troubled summer, we were at war with the Chinese. But if these
hayfields had been harvested in previous years, we would have been able to see
some old fences or racks for the hay. However, nothing like that could be seen.
Everything was desolate, with no sign of humans. Only once we noticed from the
steamer a Chinaman. He walked hurriedly along the shore, now disappearing in the
tall grass, now resurfacing again. This sight was so unexpected and rare that all
passengers watched him at length, until he disappeared completely.
I don’t remember at which place on the river we began overtaking steamers
with troops on them. These were double-deck steamers of the American type, so-

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Imre GALAMBOS:
The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:
Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

called sternwheelers, i.e. they had only a single paddle wheel at the rear.
Where were these steamers from? Where were they heading? Who was their chief
officer in charge? These were the questions we kept asking each other. Finally, at
one of the stops to wood up we learnt that this was the detachment of General
Rennenkampf. He had been ordered to clear the right bank of the enemy and then
catch up with the detachment of Gribskii. Then they were to jointly take Aigun, still
occupied by Chinese troops who were not letting our steamers through.
We rode out from behind a sandbank onto a wide stretch on the river, and a
spectacular sight opened before my eyes. The Amur is extremely wide. We could see
its blue far in the distance. And on this blue surface the steamers followed each other
in a long succession; each of them was painted white, leaving behind a black trail of
smoke against the sky. Even without binoculars we could see that all these steamers
were carrying troops. The soldiers wore white dress caps and shirts. I began counting
the vessels. There were twelve of them. With four hundred soldiers per steamer, they
were carrying about five thousand troops in total.
At this point one of the steamers issued a signal. Suddenly the entire fleet
turned sharply against the flow and we stopped at the Chinese bank. I use the word
“we” because for safety reasons our steamer was obliged to follow the military
vessels. We stopped right underneath a high cliff, on the top of which our Cossacks
already managed to erect a cross. By the time we landed, Rennenkampf and his
detachment were already gone in search of the enemy. I stepped onto the bank. My
God, what grass! It felt like I was sinking in it. So fragrant, simply amazing!
We did not wait for the return of Rennenkampf’s detachment but boarded our
steamer and moved on. Still quite a distance before Blagoveshchensk, we noticed
the flames of a massive conflagration. It was the small Chinese settlement of
Sakhalien, located directly across from Blagoveshchensk. Following the Chinese
bombardment of our side, our troops completely destroyed this place, burning it to
the ground.
It is awkward to arrive at night into an unfamiliar city. Where to go? Which inn
to choose? All of us were asking ourselves the same questions. But we worried in
vain, as we were not to go ashore at this point.

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The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:
Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

Blagoveshchensk

As soon as our steamer reached the pier, a whole battalion of soldiers began making
their way to us along the gang plank. We transported them to the small settlement of
Sakhalien, already enforced by the detachment of General Rennenkampf. In the
semi-darkness illuminated by the bright reflection of the conflagration, we could see
groups of soldiers and officers. They were standing in anxiety, not knowing where
they were being led and what would come of this expedition. Rumors about Chinese
troops were most contradictory. Some said that they were complete cowards and
could not withstand the slightest pressure of our soldiers. Others were of just the
opposite opinion, claiming that the Chinese were very resistant and when a Cossack
tried to cut down a mounted Chinese, the latter avoided the sword by falling to the
ground, and from there he shot the Cossack, etc.
Morning. We all headed to look for vacant inn rooms. I was lucky to find a
great room very close to the pier, and I moved in without delay. The room cost me
five rubles per day. Currently, the entire city talked about the drowning of the Chinese
residents of Blagoveshchensk. Even though it had been about three weeks since
then, people discussed the incident as agitatedly as if it happened only yesterday.
As I sat in the common cafeteria having breakfast, I noticed a two-horse droshky
driving up to our staircase. An officer in police uniform stepped out.
“Here is a person I could have an interesting conversation with about the
disaster,” I thought to myself. “It would be nice to get acquainted with him!”
I walked up to him and introduced myself. We exchanged greetings. I led him back to
my room and we began to talk.
“Could you please tell me who ordered them to be drowned?” I inquired.
“Nobody actually ordered to drown them,” calmly answered my discussant,
downing a glass of lemonade. “The representative of the military command center
issued an order to gather all Chinese residents and escort them along the river to
Upper Blagoveshchensk, where the Amur is narrower, and from there send them in
boats to the other bank. I ordered my police chief to fulfill this command. He took with
him sixty Cossacks. They managed to gather the Chinese but they found no boats on

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Imre GALAMBOS:
The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:
Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

the bank at all. So they started driving them right into the water, since everyone was
completely panic-ridden.”
“So how many of them do you think drowned?”
“Quite a lot because they were driven into the water in rows of three,” replied
my new acquaintance. And this was all I could find out from him. The same night
went to the pier to enquire about the departure time of the next steamer for
Khabarovsk. Here, sitting on a bench, I struck up a conversation with the ticket
vendor, a very sweet and respectable old man.
“You see that large stone building across our pier?” he pointed forward with his
hand. “The whole first floor was occupied by a Chinese store. The owner, a fat old
Chinaman, had been trading there for about thirty years. He was very rich, but at the
same time exceedingly kind, writing off lots of debts for us Russians every year. We
were on very good terms with him as neighbors. So when they were being driven out
of their homes, he was driven out, too. Well, he was such a prominent figure; he was
not used to being pushed by force. Everyone respected him in this city, since he
moved quite a lot of money around. In addition, it was a very hot day. Our Chinaman
could not move fast enough, he was out of breath. As soon as he saw me, he began
hugging me, and threw himself in front of me. ‘Ivan! Ivan!’ he cried, ‘Save me!’ He
took out his wallet. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘this is forty thousand; take all, just save me.’ In
reply, I said, ‘I am just an ordinary man, what can I do?’ At this moment a Cossack
laid a whip across the back and drove him on. I never saw him again.”
The ticket vendor told this story so sincerely and poignantly that I did not doubt
his words for a second. I instantly imagined this fat Chinaman, with a red sweaty face
in the summer heat, in a blue silk khalat, driven by Cossack whips in the crowd.
Of course, it is an outrage that thousands of peaceful residents had been murdered.
The claims that there were three thousand of them are certainly only a modest
estimate. Some people assured me that the number of dead was nearly ten
thousand. Will we ever know the truth? God knows. Then again, we also need to
understand the Russian side. Half of the city’s population was Chinese. And then, all
of a sudden, the city was being bombarded from the other side. And who was firing?
Their own compatriots, people of the same faith. Not surprisingly, the residents of the
city began to feel animosity against them. The whole city believed that there was a

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Imre GALAMBOS:
The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:
Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

conspiracy between these and those Chinese, with the common aim to exterminate
Russians. At the same time, there were no troops in the city, save for a reserve
battalion. No weapons either. So when the gun fight began, all Russians ran to the
command center requesting weapons and pleaded to have the local Chinese moved
to the other side. And when those were driven down to the river but no means of
transport were available, it was almost inevitable that such a tragedy would occur.
With its embankment, the main boulevard and its straight wide streets
Blagoveshchensk makes a beautiful impression. Some of the buildings could be just
as well standing on the Nevsky prospekt in St. Petersburg.
On July 226, around noon, as I stood on the embankment I noticed that people
from the entire city poured down to the pier. “What’s the matter?” I asked one of the
inhabitants. “Aigun is taken!” he replied cheerfully. “A steamer is coming from Aigun!”
Indeed, a steamer’s smoke rose against the bluish strip of the Amur. The deck was
decorated with colorful Chinese flags. The crowd pushed flat against the pier, and the
police could only hold them back with great difficulty. Finally, the steamer reached the
dock and I could see several old and heavy Chinese canons on the deck, just seized
by our troops, as well as dozens of various old rifles. In addition, a great number of
flags, insignia and banners were flapping in the wind. In the bright sunshine, from the
top of the steep riverbank, all this made a magnificent sight. The people of the city
were greatly overjoyed.

From Blagoveshchensk to Khabarovsk

On July 247 our entire party once again boarded the steamer and moved on. As
before, our bank remained poor and inhospitable, whereas the Chinese side was
covered in green vegetation. It seemed that there was an unlimited amount of hay
there. The only problem was that there were not enough working hands. We did not
see a single Chinese fangzi, only burnt down pickets here and there. In the distance
we could make out lush oak trees with cooling shade against the summer heat, black
birches, cork trees, luxurious walnut and ash-trees, maples, tall pointed cedars, either
one by one or in groves. All of them were supplementing the magnificent scenery.
It has been almost a month since I left Petersburg but I still have not seen any

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Imre GALAMBOS:
The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:
Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

Chinese, apart from the workers encountered along the way.

Early in the morning, I went out on the deck. The sun was just starting to
spread its dazzling rays over the horizon. Everyone on the steamer was asleep. Only
the captain, a tall, lean man with a red moustache and black navy jacket walked up
and down the deck house, with hands behind his back. I greeted him. The steamer
glided rapidly on the smooth surface, leaving behind it a trail of waves. We passed a
rich Chinese village situated directly on the river. From the top of the deck we could
clearly see the gray wealthy fangzi, the beautiful temples and storehouses. A
multitude of wheat stacks, hay, stocks of firewood, logs and all kinds of other things.
It appeared that the inhabitants had just abandoned the village, and there was a lot of
livestock, horses, cows and calves, sheep, swine grazing around the village and its
surroundings. On the riverside two dozens of insignia and banners, with some
writings on them, were attached to high poles. Who knows what they meant. Most
likely the inhabitants were trying to persuade the Russians to spare their village and
not to pillage it. Indeed, what good can come out of such cruelty? The people ran
away, leaving behind their homes and all possessions to the mercy of the Russians.
It was as if they were saying, if you really have to, take what you need for
provisioning the troops, but spare the walls and the rest of our things within.
“Captain! How about picking up a few banners? Those red ones with white in
them are quite beautiful!” I yelled towards him. The captain consented, stopped the
steamer and lowered a boat. Four of the crew quickly rowed to the shore and in
about ten minutes they were back with the trophies. To be honest, I was quite fearful
that a volley would be fired from the village while the crew were removing the
banners. But everything worked out fine. And after not more than an hour we stopped
on our side at a Cossack village to wood up. A tall, handsome man with a thick light-
brown beard came up to me. He was the local ataman and was wearing a sword and
uniform with yellow collar.
“Your High Nobleness! Would you permit our Cossack women to pay a visit to
Nikanka8, to utilize some of those things,” he pleaded. “Why burn everything -- it
would benefit no one. But we could really use some of the stocks. This has been a
hard year indeed, everyone was taken off to the war and there was nobody to harvest
the wheat. Only the women and children were left behind.”

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Imre GALAMBOS:
The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:
Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

“I am not in command here!” I told him. “You’d better go see General

Rennenkampf who is coming after us with his detachment, and ask him. He can do
here whatever he pleases.”
In retrospect, the words of the ataman were proven to be prophetic. As soon
as the detachment landed, flames enveloped Nikanka from all sides, and with the
village all stocks also went up in flames. What was the point of all this! Just like the
ataman said -- it benefitted no one...
We proceeded quickly onward. Our steamer was moving downstream at the
speed of twenty-twenty five versts an hour. I forgot to say that on both the Shilka and
the Amur signal lights are placed along the river on known places; these pilot lights
are used to navigate the steamers.
The Amur is beautiful and majestic. The stretch of the river we were passing
probably extended to about ten versts. The sun sprayed golden colors over the calm
blue of the water, and the light playfully reflected from the surface. An American lady
in a white dress and straw hat wound in a white veil cheerfully walked around the
deck, followed by a crowd of officers. They were joking, laughing and talking among
themselves. I sat on a bench near the pilot’s deck house and admired the view. But
what is that in front of us? Some dark objects were scattered in the water. As we
were drawing up closer and closer, the objects grew in number and were becoming
more and more noticeable.
“A Chinaman!” told me the old pilot in a low voice, in such an unruffled tone as
if we were talking about a snag or an undercurrent. Despite his advanced age, the
pilot had remarkable eyesight. On dark nights he would always be the first to notice
the signal lights. No matter how much I strained my eyes, I was never able to discern
them first. A scornful smirk appeared on the old man’s wrinkled face covered in thin
brownish beard. As if he was saying, “what’s the use of paying attention to such
trivialities!” The pilot was right. Our steamer was fast overtaking a drowned man. He
was naked, of reddish-bronze color, with spread legs and arms hanging down on his
sides. He floated face down, almost as if immersed in deep thought. The corpse was
awfully bloated; the extremities were white and appeared to be made of lime. Then
the waves created by the steamer reached the body and it adopted their rhythm, now
rising, now sinking.

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Imre GALAMBOS:
The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:
Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

After this Chinaman we came across another one, then another one, and
finally the whole width of the Amur was covered with floating bodies, as if chasing us.
All passengers came out of their cabins to take a look at this extraordinary sight. I
shall never forget it until my dying day. Clearly, these were those unfortunate ones
who had been drowned in Blagoveshchensk. Having stayed a given amount of time
on the bottom, they bloated and rose to the surface.
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Look how many of them are on the shore! Those are
all Chinamen, too!” excitedly cried out a red-haired lieutenant in a tussore tunic,
shading his eyes with his hand. At this section, the left bank of the Amur protruded
into the middle of the river, forming a wide and flat sandbar. And this is where the
drowned corpses accumulated.
“Feodor Vasilievich, could you please pass me the binoculars!” I turned to my
friend lieutenant-colonel R., to whom a bit earlier I had lent the general’s binoculars.
These were great binoculars. But my friend did not even hear me, he just stood there
motionless, with his eyes fixed on the sight.
“Please, give them to me, I would like to take a look myself,” I repeated.
“I can’t! I am counting how many of them are here” he replied jerkily,
apparently dissatisfied that I interrupted him.
“A hundred and thirty! A hundred and thirty one, a hundred and thirty two!” he
counted in a low voice. As we moved farther down the river, we could still see the
white strip of the sandbar in the distance for a long time, with a dark, reddish belt of
corpses covering it along the edge of the water. There was a heavy stench in the air
all around, and we all unwittingly kept our noses covered with handkerchiefs.
“Breakfast is served!” announced the cafeteria servant as he surfaced on the
deck, wearing a soiled tail-coat and holding a napkin under his armpit as a symbol of
his authority. The public descended below the deck. As for myself, I was in no mood
for a breakfast. Because of the awful sight, and the stench around me, I completely
lost my appetite. I stayed on the deck and continued to observe the surroundings.
Now the front of the steamer hit a corpse and pushed it far away into the waves.
Some kind of linen, perhaps an apron, was pulled over its head. “Could this have
been a gardener?” I thought to myself. “After all, all gardeners in Blagoveshchensk
were Chinese.” The long black queue floated out from underneath the linen and stuck

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The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:
Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

onto the wet shoulders. Part of the belly had been eaten by fish and presented a
gaping wound. It is hard to say even approximately how many floating bodies we
passed that day. But based on the fact that on that single sandbar we counted a
hundred fifty of them, it is reasonable to suppose that their number was quite large.
Then we stopped to wood up. A body of a Chinaman was washed ashore. I grabbed
my photo camera, in an attempt to make a quick picture. But as soon as I set the
focus, a wave picked up the body and carried it away...

The author is the Research and Overseas Project Manager of International

Dunhuang Project at The British Library.

Bibliography

VERESHCHAGIN, ALEKSANDR VASILIEVICH.1902. “Po Manchzhurii.” In Vestnik Evropy.

1:103-148; 2:573-627; 3:130-173.

HAWES , CHARLES H. 1903. In the uttermost East. London, New York. Harper. 36-43.

TYTGAT, CHARLES. 1901. Un reportage en Chine. Bruxelles. 61-66.

PAINE, S. C. M.1996. Imperial Rivals. Armonk, N.Y., London. Sharpe. 209-215.

1
Early narratives of the incident in the West include HAWES 1903; TYTGAT 1901. For a recent study on
the subject, see PAINE 1996.

2
A. Vereshchagin was the younger brother of the famous painter Vasilii Vasilievich Vereshchagin
(1842-1904) known for his war scenes and his Central Asian travels.

3
Originally, Vereshchagin’s account came out in three installments in the popular literary journal
Vestnik Evropy: Vereshchagin, Aleksandr Vasilievich.1902. “Po Manchzhurii.” In Vestnik Evropy.

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The Blagoveshchensk massacre of July 1900:
Translation from A. Vereshchagin’s account of his journey down the Amur

1:103-148; 2:573-627; 3:130-173. In the following year, all three installments came out together as a
book under the same title: Vereshchagin, Aleksandr Vasilievich. 1903. Po Manchzhurii. St.
Petersburg.

4
In his own account, all dates appear according to the Julian calendar used in Russia at the time.
Accordingly, he writes that he left Moscow on June 30, 1900.

5
The translation is based on: VERESHCHAGIN, ALEKSANDR. 1902. “Po Manchzhurii.” In: Vestnik Evropy.
1902 January: 110-118.

6
That is, on August 4 according to the Gregorian calendar.

7
August 6.

8
This is how this wealthy Chinese village on the other side was called (A. V.).

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