If there is one holiday that the Russians in Shanghai, and, indeed, anywhere else outside the Soviet Union, celebrate with real gusto and gastronomic delight, it is their Easter festival, which culminated with beautiful and deeply impressive religious ceremonies at midnight on Saturday. This holiday is deeply rooted in the history of Holy Russia and in cosmopolitan Shanghai it is faithfully observed each year by more than twenty thousand odd Russian exiles to many of whom it provides an unbreakable link with a homeland which they, even if their children might, will never see again. Although much of the magnificence of the Easter festivals of old Russia has departed with the passing of years, Russians in' exile, to the best of their very limited means, have endeavoured to keep alight the fires of tradition and, in this connection, a very pleasing feature of the celebrations this year was the fact that so many members of the younger Russian generation in Shanghai entered into the spirit of the observances with a deep fervour that disproved, once and for all times, the theory that being born in exile and living and working among peoples of other races has the effect of erasing all ties with a mother country which they have never seen. A grand sight at Russian churches in the French Concession at midnight on Saturday was the crowds of young Russian boys and girls, lighted candles in hand, their faces alight with eager expectancy as the impressive procession of cross bearers, priests and choirs made its way through the dense throngs that gather year after year. The services concluded, these youngsters, faithful to the traditions of Russian histo wended their way home, carefully guarding the lighted candles with their cupped hands so that they might be placed, still burning, in front of the family ikon. Even though the Russian language has been superseded in their lives by English, the religious traditions of the country of their fathers will never die in their breasts.
When they grow up Shanghai will still have the beautiful Easter services which are being kept alive by the older generation today. These youngsters always will be Russians even though their environment has nothing in common with their motherland. This was one significant fact which emerged from the Russian Easter celebrations this year.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.