The recent death of the Queen of England, and the arrangements for her funeral, made me think of this post from earlier in the year. My great-grandmother, mother of my maternal grandfather remembered the funeral for Tsar Alexander II and I am fortunate to have her memories in my possession.
On the 13 March 1881 (1 March in the Russian old style calendar) Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. His carriage was bombed in St Petersburg by the group known as People’s Will. Initially the bombs missed their target but, when the Tsar insisted on leaving his carriage to check on
On 1 January 1946 my great-grandmother, Catherine Nicolaievna Jakowzoff (formerly Countess Kleinmichel), sent a Christmas / New Year greeting to her granddaughter, my mother. The images of the card and the photo she sent are above. At the time of writing my great-grandmother was 81 and living in France, and
According to the memories of my great-grandmother, Anna Pavlovna Voronov, many of the male Voronovs (Woronoffs), my maternal grandfather’s family, were in the Russian military. In 1722, during the time of Peter the Great, one of my ancestors – Prokopy (Prokofy) Petrovich Voronov was severely wounded while fighting. I assume
After writing the final chapter of the story of my great-grandmother’s escape from Russia with her second husband, which you can start reading here, I was curious about her second husband. Where did he come from? Where and how did they meet? What did he do when they finally settled
In this final episode, we learn how my great-grandmother and her husband finally was able to leave Russia to be with her daughter, my grandmother. If you have missed the first four chapters of her story, you can start reading them here. Last week we followed my great-grandmother as she