Blogs which describe moments in my life, or the lives of my family.
Is writing in the blood? Are writers born and not made? Can the desire, if not the talent, for writing be inherited? I write, my parents wrote – my mother authored a couple of non-fiction books – and my maternal grandmother was a published author of a memoir, Upheaval. I
I love Berlin. I wish I could say, like JFK did, “ich bin ein Berliner”. Except I guess I would have to say “ich bin eine Berlinerin” as I am female – but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Perhaps a German speaker could enlighten me on
Despite the common assumption that only children are spoilt, I cannot remember that being the case. I was definitely lucky though. As the only child of a Baltic German father and a Russian mother, I celebrated both birthday and name day, Christmas on 25th December and Orthodox Christmas on 7th
I am lucky that despite war, revolution and immigration, old photographs from my maternal family have survived. I do not know how some of these photos made it through the Russian Revolution. I do not know who grabbed them and threw them in their luggage as they were fleeing Russia.
I was excited when I found several books at my local library on the Russian Revolution, including a few memoirs. I recently began to write a historical novel, set during the Russian Revolution and loosely based on the last couple of years of my maternal grandmother’s life. As some of
This photo shows my maternal grandparents, Paul and Olga Woronoff on their honeymoon in 1914. Before her marriage, my grandmother was Countess Olga Kleinmichel. All I know about how they met, their wedding and honeymoon I have learnt from the book my grandmother wrote, entitled ‘Upheaval’. However, she was not