Paul Ippolit Kirvalidze

Alias 1931 Paul Kay    Russian spelling Павел Ипполитович (Иванович) Кирвалидзе

Born 14.12.1888      Place Zvarete (?), Kutaisi, Georgia, the Caucasus     Ethnic origin Georgian    Religion (Georgian) Orthodox

Father Kirvalidze, Ivan      Mother Kirvalidze, Nina

Arrived at Australia

            from Moji     on 15.06.1913      per Empire    disembarked at Brisbane

Residence before enlistment Brisbane, Sydney

Occupation 1913, 1916 grocer, 1927 wharf labourer, 1932 tobacco grower

Service

service number 3088   enlisted 31.07.1915   POE Liverpool, NSW

unit 2nd Battalion, 61st Battalion, 3rd Battalion   rank Private, Lance Corporal, Corporal, Lance Sergeant, Sergeant, special guard, Acting warrant officer

place Western Front, 1916-1919      casualties WIA 1916

discharged 17.05.1919 in London

Other service 19.05.1919 joined Middlesex Regiment as Sergeant, attached to War office intelligence dept., July 1919 – October 1920 served in South Russia Intelligence Branch of British Military Mission

Naturalisation 1932

Residence after the war 1921 worked in American relief mission in Russia; in August 1923 arrested as a British spy and counter-revolutionary, detained for 12 months, deported to Constantinople, returned to Australia in 1925, lived in Mackay, Mt Isa

Family wife Olga (née Holland), married 1935, divorced 1942; wife Nadia (née Priadko), married 1946

Materials naturalisation (NAA)

digitised service records (NAA)

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

Paul Kirvalidze wrote: ‘At the conclusion of the War when I was stationed in Belgium with my regiment a call was made for volunteers by the British War Authorities for Relief Force in Archangelsk for which I volunteered. I was sent to London, got my discharge from the A.I.F. Headquarters in London, and on the same day reenlisted into the Middlesex regiment from which I was called up by the war office attached to the Intelligence Department of the War Office and sent to Russia with the British Military Mission where I remained up to August of 1920.’ He served as an interpreter in south Russia, then joined ‘an American Relief Mission in the famine stricken districts of Russia … On the determination of the famine I remained in Russia and started a business of my own in conjunction with Major F. Collas but in August of 1923 we were both arrested and I personally was charged as a British spy and [with] Counter Revolution… I was sentenced to death by Cheka (Political Department of Soviet Russia) but on the defence of British representatives I was released and deported to Constantinople in March 1924.’

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