Cenotaph of the Cossacks

During World War I, Russia withdrew from the fighting in 1917, as the October Revolution radically changed the country’s course. A few years later, in 1920, Entente ships brought about 5,000 Cossack refugees to Lemnos after the Bolsheviks’ victory. The refugees settled in Portianou under extremely harsh conditions, with scarce food and inadequate housing—one tent for eight people. To survive, many were forced to sell their belongings to soldiers or locals. They first set up a makeshift church in a tent and later used an old church in Moudros for services. Hunger, disease and the harsh climate, however, caused hundreds of deaths, with the dead buried at Cape Pounda. Gradually, up to 1921, the Cossacks migrated to other Balkan countries, leaving behind the Russian cemetery and the cenotaph-pyramid that still survive on the island.