russians

This Russian Orthodox parish, the first in Australia, was established by white Russians fleeing the Russian revolution. For many years they worshipped in St Thomas’s Anglican Church in nearby South Brisbane. In 1925 they purchased a cottage and converted it into a church. It was later moved to the back of the block to make way for the construction of the new church. Since these early days, and indeed since the foundation of the church, services have changed little. Worship is still conducted in the liturgical language, Church Slavonic. There are no pews or chairs and the congregation stands while the smell of incense wafts around singing members. Candles burn before the icons and on the altar. More icons line the walls representing the spiritual beauty of the Kingdom of Heaven. Source www.stnicholascenter.org/gazetteer/81

Russian Grand Duke. He visited NY in 1913. Killed in battle in 1915. query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E05E0DF153BE233A...

No way! It was a rumor! He died in 1933. He fled Russia in 1920 before Bolsheviks entered Crimea. "He and his family, together with his mother-in-law, the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark), were rescued from the Crimea by British battleship HMS Marlborough in the quagmire of the 1917 Revolution, and thus they survived" - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_Alexander_Mikhailovich_o...

"GRAND DUKE NOT DEAD.; Russian Headquarters Also Deny Turkish Official Reports of Victories" -- New York Times, January 13, 1915. The New York Times reported the above four days after they initially reported the article, dated January 9, 1915, linked by Cynthia Wenslow. This photograph appears to be dated April, 1913, and accordingly may have been "in the news" as a result of Michaelovitch's announced 1913 visit to New York.

Vassily Grigorievich Voskresensky (16 September 1888 – 27 July 1951), usually referred to as Colonel Wassily de Basil, was a Russian ballet impresario. De Basil brought the Original Ballet Russe on a tour of Australia in 1939–1940,[6] travelling there aboard the P&O ocean liner RMS Maloja in September 1938. He had earlier organised tours to Australia in 1936–1937 and 1938–1939, although he did not travel with the company. During his visit to Australia, de Basil commissioned work from Australians, especially from designers, who included Sidney Nolan and Kathleen and Florence Martin. He also instigated a design competition for an original Australian ballet, which was won by Donald Friend with designs for a ballet based on a fictitious event in the life of Ned Kelly. Source en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_de_Basil

The writing is in Cyrillic alphabet meaning: "God Save Russia".