Nothing is known about Vasili Stolarenic except that he was probably born in Imperial Russia in 1889.
Sometime before the Great War, he left his native land and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the United States of America and settled in Chicago, Illinois, no doubt seeking fame and fortune in the New World. He actually found employment as a labourer.
In the spring of 1915, however, he decided to return home, perhaps because of patriotic
feelings brought about by the military defeats being suffered at the time, by the Imperial Russian Army.
As a result, for the first part of his journey home, he left Chicago at the end of April and travelled to New York, where he had booked third class passage on the Lusitania. He arrived at the liner’s berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May and was on board when she left there, just after mid-day for her delayed sailing out of the port.
The Cunarder was torpedoed and sunk just six days later, in the early afternoon of 7th May, by the German submarine U-20, when she was twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland, and 250 miles away from her Liverpool destination.
Vasili Stolarenic was one of the many third class passengers killed that afternoon and as his body was never recovered and identified afterwards, he has no known grave. He was aged 26 years.
Of the 69 Russian nationals who were passengers on the Lusitania that day, 40 were killed and 29 survived the sinking.
Cunard Records, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.