Khacho Zaliachanoff is believed to have been born in Imperial Russia in 1878. Some time before the outbreak of the Great War, he had emigrated to the United States of America and settled in New York, N.Y., where he presumably found employment as a labourer.
In the spring of 1915, perhaps because of the military balance in northern Europe between the Imperial Russian and Imperial German armies, he decided to return to his homeland and as a consequence, booked third cabin passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool, on the first part of his journey home.
Arriving at the liner’s berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May, he had his last view of his adopted country just after mid-day as the steamer then commenced her delayed sailing. This delay was brought about because she had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the S.S. Cameronia, another Cunard liner, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war service as a troop ship, at the end of April.
Six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, near The Old Head of Kinsale, twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland, only hours away from her destination.
Khacho Zaliachanoff was one of 69 Russian nationals on board, and he was one of 40 of
them to be killed. He was aged 37 years and as his body was never recovered and identified afterwards, he has no known grave.
Cunard Records, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.