As some of you might know, or remember, I have been working on updating my grandmother’s memoir Upheaval to include explanatory notes and her diary from 1919. Upheaval describes my grandmother, Olga Woronoff’s life as a young aristocrat in Imperial Russia and details the impact of the Russian Revolution and
UPDATE November 2023!!! I am happy to announce that I have donated this book to the State Library of Victoria who will undertake to restore it. I hope to be kept in the loop as regards to the restoration and, if I am, I will share the updates here. #statelibraryvictoria
There are many items I have inherited from my parents which I have no idea what to do with. Are they worth anything? Do I sell them? If they are worth nothing, do I donate them? And if the latter, who to? Today’s post was prompted by a post on
I find it very frustrating when I look through old family photos and I have no idea who the subjects are. To add to my frustration, I also often have no idea where or when the photos were taken. Even a certain amount of detective work fails to satisfy my
Last week we left my great-grandmother, now Catherine Yakovtsov, and her second husband, Vasily Yakovtsov (pictured together above), en route to Petrograd probably at the beginning of 1919. This week the story continues. Catherine and Vasily made it to Petrograd but were dismayed at what the once beautiful city had
A few weeks ago I promised to share the story of how my great-grandmother, Catherine Kleinmichel, and her second husband managed to escape from Russia. At the time I did not know his name and also did not realise I had a photograph of him (see above – it must