Love and loss in war and peace

During World War II, more than 100 Chinese children were educated at a boarding school 300 kilometers from Moscow. Despite the harsh conditions, many remember their school days with affection, as Zhao Xu reports.

Li Duoli waited more than six decades to pose a question to a girl he had known, and secretly adored, as a lovelorn adolescent in the former Soviet Union.

"Her name was Lyolya Shegenkova. Between 1942 and 1950, I grew up with her at the Ivanovo International Boarding School," he said. "The last time I saw her was in June, at her home in St. Petersburg. Afflicted by terminal cancer, she was nearing the end of her life. We talked about the past, and I said to her, 'We all liked you - all the boys were mad about you. But which of us did you like most?'