Russian tiger hunters on the slopes of Baekdusan

I hadn't realized Andrei Lankov has a blog, which I discovered the other day. Lots of interesting things to be read there, but one not-well-known story is that of the White Russians who fled the Red Army's victory in the Russian Civil War in 1922 and ended up in Korea. There were in fact several thousand White Russians who spent the winter in Wonsan that year before most moved on to other places. The story of those who remained can be found in several places, most notably Donald Clark's Living Dangerously in Korea: The Western Experience, 1900-1950, a book well worth reading, as well as Mary Linley Taylor's A Chain of Amber. One of the more interesting families were the Yankovskys, who ran a resort near Baekdusan; Lankov tells their story here. (Mary Linley Taylor also wrote a book about the resort called The Tiger's Claw, but I've never read it.)  Their story didn't end so well; to run such a venture in colonial Korea required ties with the Japanese authorities, and this, along with the fact that they were White Russians, did not serve them well when the Red Army poured into Korea at the end of World War II.

I saw a old movie poster in a restaurant the other day with Yul Brynner on it, which reminded me of this story, since he visited the Yankovskys' resort in the 1930s, so it was a little odd to discover Professor Lankov's blog a few days later and see their story right near the top.

Robert Capa Exhibition

I was reminded the other day that the Robert Capa exhibition is still on at the Sejong Cultural Center near Gwanghwamun and continues until October 28. The exhibition celebrates the 100th anniversary of Capa's birth and displays original prints of his war photography. More information can be found here (and in Korean here).

Here's a good documentary about his life:



I should note, though, that there's a continuity glitch in the video on youtube. At 29:50 (the sudden 'gambler' speech) you need to jump to 44:50 and watch until 59:50, at which point you need to jump back to 29:50 and watch to 44:50, and then jump to 59:50. Not really that confusing - jump 15 minutes ahead, watch for 15 minutes, jump 30 minutes back, watch for 15, and jump 15 minutes ahead. Or maybe it is confusing. Anyways, it's worth watching, even with a bit of myth making added in (though Capa himself cultivated his own myth throughout his life).