The Russian Refugees

In 1924, members of the Andriev family and their friends the Sidorovs were part of a group of 116 privately sponsored Russian refugees who left their homeland to start a new life in Canada. Upon their arrival at a tent camp in Homeglen, Alberta, Phillip Andreeff (the family name had been changed by Canadian immigration officials) promised his three-year-old son, Nikifor, a better life.

The Russian Refugees provides a glimpse not only into one family’s story but into the experiences of many Canadians, as the narrative spans nearly a century and shows a broad perspective of the country’s ever-changing values. Many of the photos in the book are from the “Andruff family album” (the name was later changed by Nikifor himself).

In 1928, after four years of living on inferior land and seeing no future growth in their colony, eleven families decided to start their own settlement.

Author Michael Andruff, one of three Canadian-born children of Nikifor, writes that by the time his father’s family had moved to its new home near Fairview, Alberta, the land nearly a kilometre to the south was no longer home to Indigenous people. He notes that they had been “forced to bargain their ancestral land for others to farm.”

Andruff tells of the shift from horses to tractors, the thrill of having running water and electricity, the changing roles of women, and the move away from farming to city life and other occupations. While his book is an entertaining account of one family’s multi-generational history, the refugee experience is much more widespread.