Vasily Skrotsky

Vasily Skrotsky attended the Odessa Infantry Cadet School in 1896. From 1900 he was officer of the 68th Infantry Regiment and was transferred in 1909 to the 24th East Siberian Rifle Regiment, eventually in the rank of a colonel. Taking part in World War I he was wounded in November 1914 at the Polish front. He was awarded the orders of St. Stanislaus, St. Vladimir, and St. Anna. In 1912 he competed in the Stockholm Olympics in three running target events, placing fifth in the single shot team event.

After the end of World War I and the October Revolution, Skrotsky joined the White Army at the Eastern Front until the Primorye region at the Russian Pacific Coast came under Bolshevik control and was evacuated. In the end of 1922 and the beginning of 1923 he served in the Mixed Coastal Group in the Korean city of Genzan, now Wŏnsan in PRK. He spent the years until the end of World War II in the Far East where he moved on to the former Manchuria and to Harbin in China. When the Soviet Union in 1945 temporarily took over the city of Harbin, supported by the Waldensian Church, Skrotsky was taken to Northern Italy and spent his later years in the “Villa Olanda” in Luserna San Giovanni.