Walking in the footsteps of my maternal grandparents and my grandmother’s family, led me from Istanbul to Marseilles, Le Grau du Roi, Rayol Canadel sur Mer, Nice, Paris and finally Baden-Baden, in Germany. As I expected, in Nice and Paris at least, I practically had to run from one address
What will you be reading over the holidays? When I’m not trolling through the real estate websites (because I’ve decided to downsize) I’ve been researching my grandparent’s journey after they were forced to leave Russia during the Civil War which erupted as a direct result of the Bolshevik Revolution. So
It’s been two months since I last posted, but I have a reasonably good excuse. I’m putting my apartment on the market and have spent these weeks sorting, packing and cleaning, as well as overseeing tradesmen. This week my apartment officially went on sale, which doesn’t mean I can relax
I have a question! My regular readers will know that I’ve been researching my maternal family for quite awhile now. My maternal grandparents, Paul and Olga Woronoff, escaped Russia in January 1920, during the Civil War in which my grandfather had volunteered for the White Army. As the Red Army
My latest search is for the graves of my maternal great grandmother and three of her daughters, my great aunts. My maternal great grandmother, Catherine Jakowzoff (Yakovtsov), died in France where she and her second husband, Vassily Jakowzoff, had fled to from the chaos of Soviet controlled Russia. They had
“Wot’s in a name? she sez. An’ then she sighs, An’ clasps ‘er little ‘ands, an’ rolls ‘er eyes. A rose, she sez, be any other name Would smell the same.” Those are the first lines of the poem, The Play, taken from The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, written