By Chinese standards, Harbin is a relatively young city, with a history spanning just over a century. And that history is primarily connected to Russia. Churches and residential buildings, schools, gymnasiums, and hospitals built by Russian architects and engineers at the turn of the 20th century still stand here, and Russian can still be heard on the streets. Historian Oleg Goncharenko's book tells the story of the lives of the first Russian settlers who built the Chinese Eastern Railway and Harbin, and of outstanding Russian émigrés who drank the bitter cup of hardship and adversity, but who preserved the image of their homeland in their hearts.