In Beijing, the Albazin Cossacks were called "locha" or "lacha", which literally meant "demon", "evil deity" and had a deep meaning - the Manchus did not understand how ordinary people can show so much courage and courage to resist the superior forces of the enemy, and failing, return to Cupid again and again to win.
The Manchus explained the Albazin's courage by their diabolical origin and were openly afraid in battle, knowing their disdain for death. However, deciding to use these qualities of the Cossacks to their advantage, they invited those to serve the emperor (bogdykhan) Xuanye from the Manchu Qing dynasty. And the Cossacks agreed. But how did it happen that the Russian Orthodox people agreed to serve the Gentiles?
Disputed land
To do this, it is necessary to remember that first of all dashing people went to conquer Siberia, who either remembered God and began to pray and beat the tsar with their foreheads, then they committed atrocities, robbed and killed.
So the settlement of Albazin on the Amur was set up by yesterday's criminals: Ilim peasants, hunters, Yakut and Verkholensk Cossacks, who in 1665 on the Lena River watched the tsar's governor Lavrenty Obukhov and dealt with him, killing servicemen and taking the booty and money - sable skins. After such a "feat" they had no choice but to flee to Amur, hoping for the mercy of God and that they would do something that would forgive them all their sins - both past and future.
On the Amur, the Cossacks occupied the village of Albazin, which was deserted after the departure of Erofei Khabarov, which stood at the mouth of the Shilka, surrounded the local yasak and began to send sables to the king. They were forgiven after seven years; a clerk was appointed to Albazin, and then a voivode - so the left bank of the Amur became Russian, and Albazin became a fortress.
This did not please Bogdykhan Xuanye, who in 1685 ordered to resolve the issue with the Russians once and for all, sending a flotilla of river ships with an army of 3 thousand people to Albazin.
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Albazin held the siege for more than two weeks, but the forces were uneven. The cannonballs of Chinese cannons pierced the logs of the walls through and through, barns and a temple burned, more than 100 people were killed. In the end, the Cossacks were forced to leave the fortress, leaving for Nerchinsk, and the Chinese, destroying it, went home.
Upon learning of this, voivode Alexei Tolbuzin decided to restore Albazin. In total, 514 Cossacks and 155 peasants and hunters left for the Amur. The fortress was rebuilt, taking into account the capabilities of the Chinese, and fortified with artillery: the town was surrounded by an earthen rampart, and in the center was placed filling logs.
This time, to deliver the army to Albazin, the Chinese commander Lantan needed 150 ships and 3 thousand horses.
The siege began in the summer of 1686. The Russians were shelled, starved, and killed on raids. But this time, the Chinese cannonballs were stuck in the earthen ramparts, and the Cossacks who were breaking out of the fortress fought with such ferocity that the morale of the Qing empire's army was undermined.
Only by starvation did they manage to take Albazin. When the Cossacks were captured, Lantan learned that only 151 people remained alive, and only 45 were able to take up arms, the rest were lying.
At the court of bogdykhan
According to the Manchu chronicles, Lantan offered the captives a choice: return home or go to Beijing.
Russian sources write that 45 Cossacks agreed to go to Beijing. It is known that among the prisoners were the families of the Cossacks Yakovlev, Romanov, Khabarov, Dubinin and Kholostov and the priest Maxim Leontiev with his family.
But why did Emperor Xuanye need the Russians? After all, foreign prisoners in China were killed.
First, the Albazinians were not the first Russians at the court of the emperor. The first Cossacks appeared there in 1649 - a company of Gudei guardsmen was formed from them as part of the Xiang Huangqi Guards Corps, an elite division of the Manchus. 33 Cossacks were captured by the Manchus in 1678, others were taken away a year earlier.
Secondly, the Manchu bogdykhan Xuanye, by and large, was himself a foreigner in relation to the Chinese.
The Albazinians were taken to the emperor's palace in Beijing, where they were offered to go into the service of Xuanye. Only 12 people refused, the rest were received by the bogdikhan in the palace, treated kindly in every possible way, gifted with gifts and ranked among the hereditary military class of the imperial guards, who at that time occupied a prominent position in the military hierarchy of the Qing empire.
The former Cossacks were settled on the northeastern outskirts of the capital in the Inner City at the Dongzhimen gate, in Hujiajuan Lane, they were paid an excellent salary of three lians a month in silver, which was about five rubles in Russian money, and were given 10 poods of rice annually. All of them received land plots and even plots for the family cemetery (a very important privilege in Chinese society). They were given all the rights of the guards, but for the first three years they were completely relieved of their duties. Obviously, during this time they had to recover, get used to and learn the language.
Russian surnames are a thing of the past - now the guardsmen bore the surnames He, Du, Luo and Yao. Bogdykhan made sure that the Cossacks assimilated, allowing them to marry Chinese women, but at the same time left them complete freedom of religion: most likely, it was this condition that made it possible for the Cossacks to serve in the imperial guard.
If any of them hoped to return home, then in 1689 their hopes were dispelled - according to the Treaty of Nerchinsk, China and Russia pledged not to occupy Albazin, and the Cossacks remained in Beijing at the emperor's palace.
At first, the Gudei company was led by Russian commanders, but after the conclusion of the Burin Treaty between the empires, delimiting the state, and then the Kyakhta Treaty (1727-1728), the importance of the Russian unit at the Bogdykhan's palace came to naught, and the company became a regular part of the imperial guard. It was headed by one of the Manchu princes.
Lost their language but kept the faith
The Cossacks had no choice but to settle down in a new place.
Father Maxim developed a stormy activity, bringing books and church utensils with him. For the services, the bogdykhan allowed to rebuild the idol of the god of war Guan-Di, and the Albazinians built there an Orthodox chapel in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, in which they hung their main shrine - the icon of St. Nicholas the saint.
The Chinese called the Russian church "Locha Miao" - "Temple of Demons".
In 1696, the Tobolsk Metropolitan Ignatius received permission to build a temple in the name of St. Sophia, books, utensils and myrrh were sent, and the chapel was rebuilt into a temple.
In 1716, the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission was opened in Beijing, and the Temple of Sophia became the Assumption Cathedral. So gradually, on the site of the settlement of the Albazinians, the Northern Russian Compound was formed.
Not everything went smoothly: at first idleness and money corrupted the heroes of the siege of Albazin, and three years of doing nothing developed drunkenness and laziness in the Russian people. They bullied the Manchus, the Chinese, started fights, which often ended in stabbing and murder, and laughed at Father Maxim, who admonished them. And when the Bogdykhan sent them to fight in Dzungaria with the Oirats, the Albazinians forced Father Maxim, who was already very old, to go with them, shaving the priest's head "for laughter".
When this news reached the Tobolsk Metropolitan, Ignatius sent the Albazinians an exhorting letter for admonition, in which he reproached the Orthodox that they had forgotten God, lost their human appearance and were ruining their souls.
This sobered the guardsmen. Orthodoxy became a real salvation for them. It is known that Priest Maxim Leontyev served in the Assumption Cathedral until his death in 1712, and the Albazinians always helped him at services. They really managed to carry their faith through the centuries, but it was given to them with difficulty.
The Russian ambassador Yevfimiy Putyatin, who arrived in Beijing in 1857, wrote that only about a hundred of the Albazinians remained, and only two or three of them barely knew Russian. At the end of the 19th century, during the Boxer Uprising, many of them were killed along with the Orthodox Chinese and Manchus, but the most terrible persecutions they experienced in the 20th century during the time of Mao Zedong.
In 2000, only 250 Albazinians lived in China. They lost their European features and knowledge of the Russian language, but still retained their faith in Christ.
Maya Novik