Moving to Hilo

After accumulating a little money the family moved to Hilo on the Island of Hawaii. There Anton worked as a painter receiving five dollars a day.

Now, I'm going to be a millionaire. Evodokia thought to herself, this is the life. During the first year in Hilo, Evdokia had her second child. There was no doctor and her mother was hundreds of miles away so she locked the door of the bedroom and had her baby alone. She was young and unexperienced in such matters so she lay the entire day with the umbilical cord attached . Later her husband broke the lock and brought her a midwife.

In 1916 The Samborsky's sailed for America, 1933 Anton Samborsky died, and in 1935 Evdokia remarried... This time a Russian Colonel, but that is another story.

My mama and I.

Evdokia in pink satin skirt

Evdokia in pink satin skirt and blouse which she had made; Anton in his uniform. After the wedding party, which was tea served in her mother's home, Evdokia and Anton went to live with his father and brothers. She loved Anton dearly but it was a strange marriage to a man, strong and kind, but silent and outwardly unemotional. Not once in the entire nine months of her first pregnancy did he speak of her condition. Only on the night the birth began, and she asked him to take her to her mother, did he speak of it. He wrapped her in a fur lined coat and hood, and with wooden staffs, they plodded through the wind-driven January snow to her mother's home. The bay was a dear little girl they named Evgenia.

Near the end of that year Evdokia found on the kitchen table in her home a letter postmarked America. This was a wonderous thing to find because her mother had always of America as heaven where it never snows and everyone has money. Evdokia asked her husband about the letter but he refused to discuss it and took it away from her. A number of days later he informed her they were leaving Xpucmuanovka. For where? he would not say. They and six other families boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway at Isil-Kul. Three days later he told her they were going to Vladivostok but they were actually on their way to Harbin, Manchuria and eventually America.

On arriving in Harbin, Anton and the others thought their flight from Russia had been discovered. A Chinese inspector stopped to question them. It may have been only a simple routine check but they always felt that the inspector was quite aware of what they were attempting and had let them pass. As quickly as safety would permit, they hired three small four mule drawn covered wagons. The seven families travelled two and three families in a wagon. That night at dusk they left Harbin. The next nine days were not without hardship and sorrow.

Their food was stale bread which they had originally brought from Isil-Kul and eggs that they were able to buy along the road....

Xpucmuanovka Friends

In Xpucmuanovka friends again build them a house, a mansion infact- it not only had the usual two rooms but, a service porch. It also had a cellar into which each Spring the men of the village would pack fifty pound blocks of ice that they had cut from the frozen Irtysh River near by.

It was in this cellar they kept their perishable foods could be kept on the service porch because of the low temperature. Meats hung there would freeze solid. All stock and poultry was butchered right after the first snow fall of winter because the animals could not survive the long bitter winter.

When Evdokia was sixteen, she me Anton Samborsky, a handsome Pole, ten years her senior. He had just retired five years of service on the Russian Navy and was living in a village with his father and three bothers...

The village of Xpucmuanovka

The village of Xpucmuanovka 150 miles from Omsk. He told them that Christians from all over Europe were moving there, to worship as they pleased, to populate and thereby to secure Eastern Asia. The Czar was offering any family that would make this move fifteen acres of land for every son they had.

Matrona had four sons so once more the family moved. This time they traveled by train. Their train journey ended at a sparsely populated village forty-five miles from Xpucmuanovka. The only transportation available from there was a horse and a buggy or ox cart. Evdokia sill remembers that ride because it was through such a remote and lonely area and for many miles they were followed by wolves.

Omsk Journey...

At first in Omsk, they rented a house, and after a few months, friends helped them build a home. To keep out the 40 below zero cold during the nine-month winter, they built the house logs which they covered with earth and straw until the walls were two feet thick. The windows they filled with double panes of glass. Here they lived peacefully for three years. Then, one afternoon Evdokia's mother arrived home with the frightening news. Students had torn down the Czar's flag on the government building. Cossacks had come as if from nowhere, their horses trampling the students and literally tearing some of them to pieces. No one could stop them! That night, her father, too, had news. The workers were planning a strike. 

Often after this, Evdokia saw her father and other railway workers come from beneath the ground in the pastures. It was there that they held their secret meeting. She did not understand what was happening and her mother did not explain but they were plotting against the government. It was 1905, And, it was that year that Evdokia's father became ill with tuberculosis and died. 

In order to support her six children, Matrona returned to her chosen profession, nursing. The wealthy Baptists in Omsk helped too by giving them clothing, school books, and food. Then a Czar's guard befriended them and advised them to leave Omsk as soon as possible. There was to be an uprising. 

Evdokia Zaharoff Samborsky at the age of 19 in Hawaii (1912) With her daughter Adelia

                                                           

My Great- Grandparents life in Russia

                                                      

                                                        Evdokia Gregovna Zaharoff/ Grigori 

I came across interesting letters my great-grandparents left behind on my dad's side. I would love to share their lives in Russia. I am really excited to find history about my family from 1905.

Her feelings during her long difficult journey from Russia-"I was young and happy and believed in God," 

                                                    Flight from Russia-(1905) 

Though 70 years have passed, she still remembers that night when the Czar's Cossacks came to their hometown of Odessa on the black sea and not only took her father but all of their possessions. She also remembers how, after the Cossacks had gone, the children helped their mother bring straw into the house to make beds on the hard mud floor; and as they lay in the dark, her mother telling them that the Cossacks had come because she and their father did not worship in the Czar's church (Russian Orthodox). She explained that they had chosen their own religion, the Russian Baptist, because they did not believe in worship icons or images. 

Grigori Zaharoff was fortunate that he was a father of six children because it was for this reason alone    that he was not kept in prison. They told him that this had just been a warning. Next time, if he did not leave Odessa, he would be given the whip. Such terrifying experiences were what promoted Grigori to move to the city of Omsk half way across Siberia. They traveled by hired horse and buggy, Enroute misfortune struck again, all the six children became sick with measles, however, the children found it to be an unusual experience because the house in which they stayed, while recuperating, was underground and their beds nothing more than shelves cut from the earth. 

Anton Samborsky at the age of 26
This is my great grandpa.

Bicultural Chaos: Russian & Mexican Lifestyle

Growing up in a bicultural family can be hilarious and traumatizing. It's like being stuck in the middle not knowing who to believe. Plus trying to find self-identity when you can't make sense of your own cultural is a crisis. As a child, I couldn't figure out what language to speak without my parents fighting over which was better for me. My parents have strong characters with a lot of pride. My dad would say, "man your family calls a lot," and my mother would reply, "at least I get a phone call," and this would start up a never ending argument. My dad would tell me to eat one way while my mom shook her head.

So... I created my own rules because they made me feel crazy at times. I didn't listen to what was "right," so this made them both upset. My sister and I never had a peaceful childhood. We would laugh it off because we didn't know what to say.  When you're a kid you believe every lie and end up more confused as you get older. Don't get me wrong, I embrace both cultures and would love to learn the Russian language soon, but it has taken me years to develop a sense of identity because I've been pulled in two opposite directions. I even had people ask what side do I identify with more and why. I just said both and I am trying to get to know my dad's side a little more because his family is very reserved.

My Father and I. 

My main goal is to visit Ukraine, learn the traditions, eat the food, arts, opera, dance the music, and soak up the history. Hopefully, I can find some family out there to share my life with and reconnect back to my roots. I love being mixed because I can embrace the differences and find my own identity within both. Does anyone feel the same? What has helped  you in dealing with the chaos? I would like to know how people self-identify after growing up in a bicultural family.