A full listing of novels and short stories set in the International Settlement of Shanghai between the first and second world wars, and then again up to China's 1949 revolution, would fill a book in itself. The city's reputation as a paradise for adventurers, however, largely masked its status as a haven for waves of refugees who fled to the city from China's own internal strife; from the civil war in Russia; and from Nazi Germany. Most lived in abject misery.
"Shanghai Station" tells the story of two members of the Russian aristocracy who fled to Shanghai in the wake of the Russian Revolution. In the autumn of 1918, Young Alexander Karlov abandons his family estate to the approaching Bolshevik forces and accompanies his mother and sister to Vladivostok, where his father, in command of czarist troops, awaits them. En route, their Trans-Siberian train is attacked by Communist forces. In the fray, Alexander's mother is killed, his sister is abducted and he receives a crippling leg injury during a struggle with Viktor Polyak, a brutal Bolshevik agent.
Count Dmitri Karlov is reunited with his injured son in Vladivostok and the two depart by ship, together with a brigade of soldiers and the count's favorite horse. They head for Shanghai in the hope that a distant relative will help them get established in a new life. Karlov pere et fils attempt to pull themselves up by their bootstraps in Shanghai's European society, parlaying their recently honed military skills into a commercial fencing and riding academy.