Most of us wouldn’t fare well taking a few children on a long trip, so imagine the fortitude required to usher nearly 800 children aged 3 – 17 on a voyage around the world.
In 1918, amidst war between Russia and Czech soldiers caught in their country after World War I, a group of American Red Cross workers in Siberia met up with 782 Russian summer campers and their teachers. Originally from St. Petersburg, the children fled their summer camp by heading east, further from home. Over the next two years, the Red Cross workers escorted the children around the world – from Vladivostok to Japan to California to New York City and finally all the way back to St. Petersburg (by now renamed Petrograd). In all, the journey took two and a half years.
Lots of story possibilities there! Literally 700+ coming of age stories, but what about a murder mystery onboard ship? What if the war the children fled was more interesting than a post-war skirmish or civil war? Why were the children at that camp in the first place?
