RUSSIAN ARISTOCRAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 235, 4 October 1928, Page 20

RUSSIAN ARISTOCRAT.

WOW A CLERK IN WELLINGTON ONCE GOVERNOR OP SIBERIA. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. General Boris Merlin, once a member of the grand general staff of the Tsar of all the Russias, is now employed as -a casual clerk in the General Post Office in Wellington. He works as a translator, interpreter and statistical officer. M. Merlin, who is 53 years of age,' was educated in the exclusive Imperial Court of Pages, and gained a commission in the Imperial Guards. He saw service in the Russo-Japanese war, spent over five years in Tokyo as military attache and in 1913 was appointed to the Russian Embassy in London. "When the Russian revolution broke out," said M. Merlin, "I went to Siberia to assist Admiral Kolchak, who for a time successfully fought the Bolsheviks in the Ural district and in Siberia. He was proclaimed the supreme ruler ,of ■ Russia, and as such he appointed me i Governor of Eastern Siberia, with headquarters at Vladivostock. That was my last post in Russia. After resisting! to'' the last we were overcome by the 'revolutionaries, and I, my wife and staff; had to fight our way out of Siberia, assisted by the Japanese. Our railway carriage was fired at and hit and my* wife and I kept up a return fire through the windows. Kolchak was caught and shot. "The debacle meant the loss of everything. We made our Way to the Dutch East Indies, and from' there wrote to the New Zealand Government for ad- ' mission, which was kindly given. That ! was eight years ago. However, I went back to Java to take up a statistical position, but I found that I could not stand the climate so I came back here."