Olga's narrative is a personal story with a strong historical and factual background.
Olga's journey from the Far East to America is written from a young girl's eyes that weaves a heartfelt story which will captivate you.
She begins her narrative from the time her family had to flee the bloody Russian Revolution in 1918 and who joined the diaspora of Stateless Russians in Asia. They trekked for many months across Siberia and temporarily settled in the northern Chinese city of Harbin which was a final point of the Trans-Siberian railroad and harbored many refugees fleeing Russia. Later her family relocated to Kagoshima, Japan, a most southern tip of the country where Olga was born in 1933.
Olga's life is told in a series of powerful vignettes. Her story growing up in a town where she was the only blonde blue-eyed child is enchanting. Later she spent her formative years during the turbulent times of WWII in Shanghai among the diaspora of the White Russian refugees, who in the thousands settled there after fleeing the Bolsheviks. During that time Olga's family gave shelter to some Jewish refugees who were able to escape the Nazi clutches and came to Asia. Unfortunately, on the onset of Mao Tse Tung's takeover of China in 1949, they had to flee Communism again. Several thousand Russians were relocated to a Displaced Persons (DP) camp in the Philippines for 2 years in a tent city (typhoons and all) until; finally, they found a permanent home in America, arriving in San Francisco under the Golden Gate Bridge. Hence, the title of her book.
In 2007 Olga returned to visit her birthplace in Japan after 67 years and was joyfully, and tearfully, reunited with many of her Japanese childhood friends. It is astonishing that after all the time has passed, she was well remembered by so many and who welcomed her with opened arms and much joy.