Moysey Dossoeff, an Ossetian from Ardon, served in the Russian Army in the Russo-Japanese war. He came to Australia in 1913 and worked in Port Pirie as a labourer.
He started his service in the AIF in a machine gun company, but later was transferred to the 13th Light Horse Regiment with which he reached England. After several months of training there he was returned to Australia as medically unfit.
After the war he worked in South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia. In 1919 he received a permit to return to Russia via Vladivostok and in the early 1920s he disappears from Australian records; most likely he fulfilled his plan.
Francis Hajek, a Bohemian from Beroun near Prague in Austro-Hungary, in 1904 moved to London and in 1912 emigrated to Australia. He lived in Melbourne working as a waiter. In 1914 he naturalised as an Austrian subject.
In 1915 he got a certificate from the Russian consul confirming that he was a Slav under the protection of Russia. In May 1916 he enlisted in the AIF as a Russian subject. Before departure to the front he married a Czech woman Fanda Ceska. He served with the 5th Pioneer Battalion on the Western Front until he was severely gassed in September 1918.
After repatriation to Australia he lived in Melbourne with his wife, but in 1921 they went to Czechia to visit his family. In 1923 their son Emil was born and they stayed in Czechia. In 1939, with German advance, Francis was arrested by Germans as a British serviceman and sent to Buchenwald. He survived the camp and in 1948 applied for repatriation to Australia. He never made it and died in 1957 in Czechoslovakia, but his son and later his wife moved to Australia.
Alexander Oders, an Estonian seaman from Piarnu, came to Western Australia in 1913, deserting his ship, and continued seafaring in Australian waters.
He served with the 11th Battalion on the Western Front, where in August 1918 he was gassed at Chuignes.
In December 1918, while on leave in London, he married an English girl, Constance Evelyne Wakeman. They settled in Perth, where Alexander worked as a fitter’s assistant. They had a large family and their eldest son Alexander Robert served in the AIF in WWII, becoming a Japanese POW in Siam. Their two other children served in the AIF and Alexander himself served as a guard in 1941-1946.
Justin George Gooliaeff, a Russian from Dolgie Budy in Kursk Province, came from the family of a timber merchant. He studied at Moscow University, but, after a year there, came to Australia via the Russian Far East. He worked in Rockhampton, probably cane-cutting, although enlisting in the AIF he gave his occupation as a boiler maker.
He served as a gunner with artillery units on the Western Front.
While in a hospital in England, he met an English girl, Violet Maud Bullock, they married, and she followed him to Australia with their newborn son George Walter. Two years later their daughter Veronica was born. Justin took a block of land in the soldiers settlement in El-Arish, where he brought his young family. In 1925 he tragically died helping neighbours during a bushfire.
Steven Orloff, a Russian blacksmith from the Pskov area, came to Australia in 1912 via the Russian Far East and lived in Brisbane and Cairns.
He enlisted in the AIF in Rockhampton together with Gooliaeff and served with the 42nd Battalion on the Western Front. In October 1917, at the battle for Broodseinde, he was severely wounded in the head, right foot, and right thigh, and was repatriated to Australia.
He never married and lived after the war in the North Queensland (probably cane-cutting). Later he moved to Sydney where he worked as a labourer. In 1947, when he applied for naturalisation, he was living in the unemployed camp in La Perouse.
Nicolas Rehrick from Libava (Liepaja) in Latvia had a high school education and came to Australia in 1912 as a sailor; he lived in Victoria and Tasmania.
He served with the 29th Battalion on the Western Front. In September 1917, at Ypres, he was wounded in the arm; in May 1918 he was wounded in the thigh, but recovered and returned to his battalion.
After the war he lived in Melbourne, working as a seaman, iron worker, and rigger.
Russian Anzacs