Gulag survivor found alive and well in Russia, he's nearly 100 years old now

Valery ( "Valery" is a man's name in Russian, pronounced "vuh-LEH-ree", with the stress on the2nd syllable) Yankovsky is a remarkable man. I say IS because although born in 1911, he is still very much alive in Russia today.

This, inspite of of having spent some years in a GULAG prison north of the Arctic circle as well as a couple of other camps. And also inspite of having once escaping from a GULAG and being recaptured. Most others would have been shot on the spot. Remarkably, he was not.

His longevity may have something to do with his early life. He was born into a very hardy family of hunters, outdoors men and women who also raised and bred deer and horses, and owned a large estate across the bay from Vladivostok in Far Eastern Russia. They had built this estate up from scratch.

All the boys and many of the women knew how to shoot. It was a fact of life, that one needed this skill, as hunting aside, the area was often plagued by Hung-hu-ze bandits- so called red-beards, who were Chinese. Because of this, the Yankovskys trusted only Koreans, and adopted any of them in to their own "clan", and had their own small private army of Koreans.

Valery and his siblings were taken by their parents to North Korea, when it became clear the Russia revolution would take everything from them. They left just a few steps ahead of the Bolshevik forces advancing on the Vladivostok area. Valery was 11 years old at the time, already a hunter and a good shot with a rifle.

Once in Korea, it took some time for them to establish themselves, but they created 2 settlements, bith of which eventually became summer resorts - one in the mountains, one on the Sea of Japan a few miles away. All the children worked hard; their father was a tough taskmaster, whose own father had been exiled from Poland to Siberia for being a nationalistic troublemaker, and was himself a tough and unbending man. At that time Russia had ruled. Poland.

Big game hunting because a routine part of their life in North Korea, as well as breeding deer and running the summer resorts. In the hills, they had built what can truly be called a Russian Camelot, called "Novina". it was well known for about 20 years, and was once profiled in the National Geographic magazine, October 1945 issue.

Unfortunately, the Yankovsky family was surprised by the arrival of the Soviet army at the end of WW2, in 1945. All were put essentially under house arrest, although several of the men were enlisted to work for the Soviet army as translators and as people knowledgeable of the area, haiving lived there all those years. In fact Valery volunteered to help out because of the sentiment that he wanted to help his motherland Russia, in it's struggle with the Japanese.

Korea had been under Japanese occupation for quite a few years, as part of the "Japanese Empire", and the Yankovsky men spoke Japanese as well as Korean.

They were led to believe that all would be well; however valery was suddenly arrested as he was actually on his way to Novina where his wife was soon to give birth to their first child. He was sent to the GULAG in Russia, and did not learn what had happened to his wife and child until 17 years later, well after he was released rom GULAG.

He eventually became a recognized author in Russia, kind of a writer of "pulp fiction" by our standards - hunting stories, true life adventures, outdoor adventures. He has also written 2 autobiographical volumes. "Escape" is actually the first part of one called "The Long Return", the 2nd part of which is about his life after release from the slave labor camps, and a trip to America, when he met his son for the first time, when his son was already about 40 yars old.

His memoirs were translated, also by Michael Hitze, a family friend who lives in Australia.

I published that book first, also on Lulu, and it can be accessed by www.RussiansInKorea.com

I am the publisher of record. Although my name is now Elliott Snow, I myself was born over there in the area of North Korea/Manchuria. Valery" brother arseny was my grandfather by marriage, and my father Valentin Valkov was valery's best friend.