Sunday, 26th January, 2020
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| Visit from the Town Hall to give my father a commemorative plaque for reaching 100. |
Good morning all.
January is never my favourite month. It's the month after Christmas which is always an anti climax for me. It's dark and it's cold and the middle of winter, my least favourite season. Roll on spring I keep thinking. In Spain there is a phrase "la cuesta de enero" (uphill January). It usually means financially but for me it's more general. I suppose in English that could be translated into "January blues". That is how I have felt this week, as if everything was a little difficult, a little uphill. It doesn't help being back on a strict eating regime after all the Christmas excesses. I dare not get on the scales but I know from my clothes I have put on some dreaded weight. The day after I returned from France I went back to healthy eating and hopefully within a month or two I will have shed the extra kilos. I certainly intend to and when I am on a mission there is nothing to stop me reaching my goals.
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| January - not my favourite month. |
Facebook reminded me this week that just 3 years ago I lost my job with Yoigo as their Communications Director and all that that meant when I was about to turn 60 in male dominated Spain where there is also age discrimination. That was a big stone in my path and I had to fight back and not feel sorry for myself. It was one of life's biggest challenges ever thrown at me. I refused to give in and did all in my power to rise again like the phoenix bird from the ashes. I haven't done badly I have to say and can only hope that things continue to go my way for the next two years before retirement.
One of the best things I did was to become an Airbnb host and open our house to people from all walks of life and from all around the world. It has been quite an adventure; not something everyone would do I'm sure as not everyone would want to open their own home to strangers. Of course I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to but while I do it, I do it with love and with grace and really enjoy meeting and making friends with people from every corner of the world. Last week we had a lady from Peru, a young Portuguese girl from France and Ingrid, from Colombia left on Friday. Luis, a young student from Mexico, arrived too this week. January is a quiet month so I count my blessings we have a full house in the low season.
Last Sunday was quiet. Sonia, the Portuguese girl left, Ingrid was out all day as was Andy, our semi permanent Scottish guest. The girls were away too at Oli's place. I was rewarded with a lovely photo of Suzy and her darling nephew Elliot. Here they are together.
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| Elliot and Suzy, Suzy and Elliot |
Storm Gloria had begun its damage with 30 or so of Spain's 50 provinces affected but luckily Madrid was not hit. We only got some wind here. We went on our walk very wary of the damned hunters out shooting rabbits but we needed the exercise.
The rest of the day was quiet and panned out just the same as most Sundays. Suzy joined us for lunch but went out again that day to stay with a friend, Mónica. I lounged around in the afternoon and watched "Gone Girl" on Netflix. I read the book a few years ago and thought the film might be interesting - it was. I had to interrupt my viewing when it was time for dinner and went down to the kitchen to find Andy, Ingrid and Eladio having a chat about Colombia. Ingrid was talking about life in Bogota which she said has a population of 13 million. She told us what we knew - life is not safe there, but also what we didn't. There is no metro, although one is to be built soon and traffic and pollution are crazy. She told us there was a new law only allowing cars with odd or even numbers on alternate days but that people had got around that by having two cars, one with odd numbers and one with even numbers. Imagine!
We had our dinner on our own - prawn salad - watching the news online and then went up to bed for more Netflix entertainment. Sunday night saw us watching the French series "Glacé" which I think we had seen before.
Monday came and I was up at 7.30. Oli had sent me photos of Elliot to print. They were for his passport and national identity document which he needs if they want to travel abroad with him and which no doubt they will do at some stage. They sent me the photos for printing and my goodness he is getting chubby. But what a bonny baby.
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| Elliot's photos for his first passport and national identity document |
While printing them I felt a bit cross that my grandson is not eligible for a British passport. I feel that is so wrong. In many countries, like Ireland for example, you are entitled to a passport of the nationality of one of your grandparents. In the UK, citizenship can be passed on to a child born to mixed marriage parents (one of them being British - my case) in another country. This is called citizenship by descent but stops at the child receiving it. Thus Suzy and Oli are English by descent but cannot pass on their British citizenship to any children they bear. Both that and the fact that I am now undergoing the process to collect all the documents needed to apply for Spanish citizenship make my blood boil. Bloody Brexit is all I can say. On the bright side, both Elliot and I will be EU citizens, something British passport holders will not, again thanks to Brexit.
Eladio and I mused on this on our rather windy and chilly walk. I heard later there were winds up to 70km per hour in Madrid which made walking a little difficult. My hair kept getting in my face, despite my hood.
That morning, inspired I think by my visit to France and being shown old photos from my mother's past by my Aunty Valya (married to my mother's youngest brother Nicky), I went to look at the file I had compiled on my mother's story to check the transcriptions of her on tape that my dear friend Amanda's ex husband had made many years ago. The tapes are not good and were restored and then transcribed into writing but the text often doesn't make much sense. I started reading them again and came across the mentions of two Grand Duchesses. All her life my mother used to mention Grand Duchess Irina from Paris but I had no idea who she was. Now I know from the tapes it is Grand Duchess Irina, the only niece of Tsar Nicholas II who was married to Felix Yusupov of Rasputin fame. I have now researched and found out that Princess Irina Alexandrovna of Russia was the daughter of Grand Duchess Xenia who was the sister of Nicholas II. She was the elder daughter and fourth child of Tsar Alexander III and married a cousin, Grand Duke Mikhailovich of Russia with whom they had seven children, one of them being Irina.
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| Felix Yusupov and his wife Grand Duchess Irina. My mother knew them both |
My mother's family were close to the Yusupovs, the richest family in Russia before the revolution. My mother even refers to Yusupov as "Uncle Felix". Her grandmother (Olga Stachovich nee Ribeaupierre) and Felix' mother were first cousins. This week saw me, with the help of my unofficial genealogist, Andy, to determine the exact relationship between them although I had a fair idea as both their maiden names were Ribeaupierre (Russian noble family). He came up with a eureka moment while filling out the family tree, part of which you can see below. It also means that Felix Yusupopv who killed Rasputin was my second cousin twice removed! Amazing. Andy even went as far as to trace my relationship to Tsar Nicholas II and it comes up as "uncle of wife of 2nd cousin twice removed" hahahaha. So, there you are, I am related to the last Tsar.
What I also know for sure is that Felix Yusupov's mother was my mother's godmother. Both families exiled to Rome where the Yusupovs had a palace where my mother's family stayed when they left Russia. My mother adored her godmother, Princess Zinaida Yusupova who they all called "Aunty Fairy" as she was such a lovely person.
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| Family tree 1 - showing our relationship to the Yusupovs. |
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| Family tree 2 showing our relationship to the Yusupovs. |
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| Portrait of Zinaida Yusupovna, mother of Felix Yusupov, killer of Rasputin |
In my only ever visit to Russia I went to St. Petersburg. There I visited the Yusupov winter palace on the Moika. It was a present to Felix' great-great grandmother from Catherine the Great. Today it is a museum and there I saw the original painting of the portrait above. I had seen my mother's photo of the painting many times and was stunned to see it myself. I was also stunned to be in such an amazing palace imagining my great grandmother (Olga Stachovich née Ribeaupierre - dark hair) and my mother's godmother, Princess Zinaida (left with blonde hair) there together having tea. This photo of the two of them having tea is another treasure to put in my mother's book.
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| Princesss Zinaida Yuspov, mother of Felix and my great grandmother, Olga Stachovich née Ribeaupierre |
In the tapes my mother mentions staying with her Aunt Irina and Uncle Felix in Paris and saying he was very kind. She stayed there on her way from Bulgaria to Paris with her mother when she was sent to school in France at the tender age of 6. She is quite revealing about her "uncle" and his bisexuality and here I quote the words from my mother talking on the tapes: "he was just a
homosexual. And at the same time he married a woman and had a child. No, as a
boy, he got himself an engagement with a very well known café, Café chantal, with
performances there. He was to play the role of a young girl, which he did very
successfully until one of his uncles, who was in the public, recognised him". She says quite a bit more about him but I shall leave you just with this for the moment as the rest will be going into my book.
There was another Romanov Grand Duchess Irina in my mother's life who I met but never knew who she was, only that she was a cousin of Nicholas II. In the tapes my mother refers to her as Grand Duchess Irina Paley. Now I had a name I could find out who she was. She was none less than the daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, brother of Alexander II and Uncle of Nicholas II. Coincidentally Irina Paley married the brother of Irina Yusupov, Prince Feodor Alexandrovich of Russia. My mother knew Irina Paley mostly because her beloved nanny, "Nashka" who stuck with her family when they left Russia, went to work for her. I well remember meeting my mother's nanny and the Grand Duchess at the latter's summer residence in Biarritz on more than one occasion. We were often invited to tea there and it was all very formal. Irina Paley divorced her first husband and 15 years later in about 1950, married a very gregarious French nobleman; Count Hubert de Monbrison. My parents who spent most of their summers in their early married life in Biarritz got to know the Grand Duchess and the Count very well.
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| Grand Duchess Irina Paley |
Irina Paley's sister Natalia was a Hollywood actress and often actor friends of hers were invited to the villa in Biarritz. I remember my mother telling me that once Tyron Power visited with a girlfriend or wife - not sure who. Knowing they were staying at the house of a Romanov Grand Duchess they demanded of Nashka (my mother's nanny) for their beds to be made up with sheets bearing the Romanov insignia. She refused, saying something along the lines of them not deserving to sleep in sheets bearing a crown!
Once I had researched the two Grand Duchesses, I began to feel more inspired to start on my mother's book and worked every day this week on research. I do hope I haven't bored you with all this.
Once I had researched the two Grand Duchesses, I began to feel more inspired to start on my mother's book and worked every day this week on research. I do hope I haven't bored you with all this.
There's not much else to say about Monday apart from that I don't really like them and always think of the Carpenters' song; "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down".
If we had cold and windy weather in Madrid, it was a lot worse in the South East and the Balearic Islands. Storm Gloria battered that area of Spain with strong winds, rain and snow which left many inhabitants trapped and without electricity. In Valencia the biggest ever wave in the region registered at 8.44 metres high.
Storm Gloria left a death toll of 13 (at the time of writing) as well as 4 missing people, some from Callosa de Ensarria (Alicante) the village dear to my heart where my parents bought a house in the 70s, It continued its way towards Catalonia the next day and from there to the south of France. Thank goodness our journey back from France had been before the storm and snow. The stories of damage done by the storm dominated the news all week.
If we had cold and windy weather in Madrid, it was a lot worse in the South East and the Balearic Islands. Storm Gloria battered that area of Spain with strong winds, rain and snow which left many inhabitants trapped and without electricity. In Valencia the biggest ever wave in the region registered at 8.44 metres high.
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| Storm Gloria produced the biggest ever wave in Valencia this week |
Tuesday came and it was still windy and cold here, so again a depressing day. We had braced the weather on Monday on our windy walk but did not venture out on Tuesday. I continued with my research making more discoveries from my mother's tapes and then googling what I found. It's a very laborious thing to do but incredibly revealing.
That day saw me unraveling who is who in the Stachovich family, my maternal grandmother's family. My mother mentioned so many uncles, aunts and cousins, I had to find out who they were. I mainly concentrated on my maternal great grandfather, Alexander Alexandrovich Stakhovich II - 1858-1915 - and his wife Countess Olga Pavolvna Ushakova. He died before the revolution and according to Wikipedia was a wealthy landowner, who studied law but also studied at the Nikolaev Cavalry School and served in the Hussar Regiment. At some time he was the Yelets district leader of nobility where he did a lot to improve education. Also a prolific writer, he was one of the founders of the Union of Liberation, a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party and was a member of the 2nd State Duma from the Oryol province. There is no mention of how he died as he died quite young, only that he was buried at the family estate in Palna Mikhailovka.
He was one of 7 siblings. My mother mentions them all: Nadezhda, Alexey, Olga, Mikhail, Sofia, Pavel and Maria (my mother's great aunts and uncles). It was to Mikhail's house in Salzburg my mother and her brother Nicki sought refuge in 1945 when they escaped the arrival of the Red Army in Berlin.
Alexander and Olga Pavolvna themselves had 6 children (my mother's uncles and aunts): Nicolai, Alexander, George his twin, Sophie (my mother's mother) Irina and Olga. Of these six, my mother's family seem to have had most contact with Alexander (Sasha) - 1884-1959 who resided in Paris, like many of them, after the revolution. Alexander married Anastasia Sergeevna Ignatisius (1889-1952), commonly known as "Tiusa" and they had 4 children, Alexander, Olga, Maria (Masha) and Anastasia. These were my mother's first cousins about whom she spoke all her life and I met them all except for Olga. It is with the daughters and the descendants of Olga and Maria with whom I meet in France every year at what is now our traditional summer "cousinade". To make life even more complicated, Alexander and Anastasia's daughter Maria (Masha) married another Stachovich, her first cousin, Alexei (or Axi) the son of Mikhail whose house my mother and her brother sought refuge in Innsbruck. That's awfully complicated isn't it? My Aunty Valya in France (wife of my mother's youngest brother Nicki) showed me various photos of which I took photos with my phone. One of them is of my mother's oldest brother Sasha (all oldest sons in the family seem to be called Sasha - short for Alexander) visiting these cousins in Paris in about 1939.
Thankfully my dear friend, Andy, my parents' past pupil of Russian, has done a good job so far of our family tree and many of those mentioned appear in the tree. As to the book itself, what shall I call it I keep asking myself? I don't just want to write about her but about her family and also myself. So maybe this would do, what do you think? "H.S.H. Elena Von Lieven. Memoirs of my mother. Her story and my story. A family saga from the Russian Revolution to the present day". I just wish she was here for me to get all the answers I need for questions I should have asked her when she was alive. Like with my father, when I was younger I just wasn't very interested. On the bright side I have lots of material but occasionally will ask her for inspiration. And where do I start I wonder? From the beginning probably, from the origins of the Lieven family. In any case, the good news is that I have started, at least the thought process has started as well as the research. Also on my side is the experience gained when writing my father's book.
My mother, who adored her adopted country, Great Britain, would have approved of my choice of film that evening, Darkest Hour about how Churchill became Prime Minister after WW2 broke out and how he planned to fight the Germans until the end, refusing to enter into peace negotiations. I have to say it's one of the best films I have seen about Churchill. It peaked my interest in finding a good biography on Great Britain's greatest statesman and I came across one recently written by Andrew Roberts. Called "Churchill, walking with destiny", it has rave reviews. I can't wait to get my teeth into it. I am a great Churchill fan, for all his flaws, and well remember as a child his state funeral where the country came to a stop. I spent half a crown of my pocket money to buy a commemorative booklet. I wish I had kept it.
My mother would have been proud too to see the photos of her granddaughter Olivia that night on stage as I was. Every year Oli is a master of ceremonies in English together with a young journalist who does the Spanish part in the annual awards of an international hotel chain. The awards take place every year at a fancy hotel on the eve of the big tourism fair held in Madrid, Fitur. This year Miguel went along too as Elliot had to be near his mother lest he need feeding and to keep him quiet if she was on stage and couldn't hahaha. Here she is with her co master of ceremonies looking like a star in an amazing black velvet dress.
And indeed little Elliot who weighed in at 7.5 kilos when he saw the doctor that day, demanded feeding and my daughter was able to oblige. Here is a photo of the two of them that dear Miguel sent me.
They had come for lunch that day and it was, as always, a pleasure to hold and see Elliot who is growing bigger by the day.
Wednesday came and it was on Wednesday that I found a treasure trove of photos and documents my father had kept and brought to Spain. They were in a great big plastic bag and oh my when I saw them. I knew immediately that this was help sent from heaven for my mother's book.
In the bag there were old photos of both of my mother and her family and my father and his. I was gutted to find 5 WW2 medals my father had been awarded by the British Armed forces I knew nothing about as well as some great photos of him during the war which would have been great to add to his book but oh never mind it is too late now.
It was my mother's photos I was most interested in. Many I already had and were repetitions but there were some which I had never seen. One really interesting one is of my grandmother, Sophie née Stachovich with all her brothers and sisters. Now I had photos of them all. This is it. It must have been taken in Russia. I tried to work out the year. My grandmother was born in 1886 and her youngest sister Olga (front row to the right of my grandmother) in 1892. In that photo Olga looks to be about 9 or so which could give us a date for the photo of about 1901 or so. Imagine.
But it was a more recent photo that really pleased me. It was one of my mother holding me in her arms the year I was born (1957). According to my father's notes on the back it was taken that year at Henbury Vicarage where his parents lived near Bristol.
I am very fortunate in that my father had taken the effort and I don't know when he did it, to write on the back of each photo the names of the people, the places and the dates the photos were taken as far as his memory could help him. That was an amazingly helpful thing to do and I am very grateful.
Wednesday morning was spent poring over the old photos and documents, some of my mother during the war I had never seen. We tried to venture out for a walk with Pippa but just as we were ready to go, the clouds burst and a huge rainstorm began. So again no walk. Here is Pippa all ready to go in her rain coat which she is not very fond of.
The photo of the day, not counting my new treasure trove, was of our little prince, Elliot. I love this one of him with his father. That day they went to get his national identity card and passport so that, if needed, he can travel abroad.
In the afternoon, I accompanied Suzy to a routine medical appointment in Madrid and later regretted going with her. That was because of the awful traffic coming back in the rain. The usual drive of about 25 minutes from the centre to home took over an hour. We stopped at Carrefour Market to get a few more provisions for our dwindling cupboards so as to have a delicious supper of scrambled eggs with asparagus and mangetout, a vegetable that was not eaten in my childhood (hahahaha) and neither in Eladio's who didn't like them. They are called "tirabeques" in Spain and are hard to find.
While the three of us were making our dinner, we chatted to our Colombian guest, Irina, who has been a pleasure to host. Later that night Eladio and I watched another great war film. It was about the restoration of Japan after WW2 and called Emperor. I highly recommend it.
Thursday came and amazingly we had a respite in the weather and the sun came out. That made our walk much more pleasant. I was busy again with my mother's tapes and in contact with Andy for him to continue building the ever growing family tree, just as he did with my father's family. The highlight of Thursday though was the visit of the town council of Villaviciosa de Odón. They had rung a while back to say they wanted to visit my father to give him a commemorative plaque for reaching 100. I was most surprised as he was too. In England of course all centenarians receive a card from the Queen but as far as I knew nothing is done in Spain. I was wrong as at least our local town hall do something to acknowledge the achievement of reaching 100. We dressed my father in a white shirt and Eladio put his Selwyn College Cambridge tie on for the occasion. We were expecting the councillor for social services and maybe someone accompanying her or him. So I was taken back when I saw a whole entourage of 6 people including the photographer. It was a very touching occasion, one my father appreciated as did Eladio and I. They gave him a glass plaque with his name on which was in the wrong order but who cares, it was the thought that counts.
I asked the group how many centenarians there were in our town and was told there were 11, two of them being a married couple! I also learned this practice of giving a plaque to 100 year old's is something done by some town halls but not all. Of course I had to tell the group about my father and his amazing life and ended up giving them my book which they asked me to sign. When they arrived he was reading a very old book in Russian which they thought was Greek. I think they were a bit in awe of his being able to read in Russian, not to mention in many other languages, at his age. I am still in awe of that. There were many photographs taken and I got one with my phone. I have chosen it for this week's feature photo.
Notice behind the group is a large portrait of Nicholas II. It was given to my parents, probably when they married, by my mother's Uncle Sasha (Stachovich) in Paris (the Sasha Stachovich I mention earlier in my blog). My parents always treasured it and it had pride of place at our home at 6 Heaton Grove. Today it graces my father's room. My father spoke to the group thanking them for the visit and the plaque and he very poignantly told them that he was alive thanks to me and to Eladio. We do our very best to take good care of him and shall continue to do so as long as he lives which I hope is for quite a few years more. I cannot envisage life without him. He is so dear to me.
Later we had dinner quietly in the kitchen and as we did we watched the news on my now old iPad Plus. The main news this week on the international front has been about the virus from China, spreading from a town called Wuhan. It's called the "coronavirus" and has already left a death toll of 41 and 1.287 cases in China at the time of writing. More worryingly it has spread outside China and in France there are 3 cases. Some cities in China have been completely locked down which must be complicated as this weekend is the Chinese New Year. The other news which I at least found interesting was the Holocaust memorial that took place in Jerusalem on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. World leaders attended as did a group of dwindling survivors. It took place at Yad Vashem or near it - the world Holocaust Remembrance centre - which I shall never forget visiting with Eladio when we traveled to Israel about 10 years ago. It was a harrowing experience.
Obsessed as we are with WW2 - who wouldn't be in my position, brought up by parents who both experienced its horrors close up? - that night we watched another film on the topic. Called "Diplomacy" it's about the supposed planned attack to destroy Paris and ordered by Hitler which was thwarted through diplomacy. In the film Hitler orders General Dietrich von Choltitz, the last Nazi Governor of Paris to destroy the city. According to the film and there are hints the main story is true, a Swedish diplomat and ambassador to France, Raoul Nordling, persuades him not to do so by offering escape for him, his family and other favours.
I was up at 6.40 on Friday as it seems I am gradually returning to getting up earlier and earlier, I woke up to rain and it would rain all day. I had to lend an umbrella to Luis, the young Mexican student from Guadalajara who arrived the night before. We did the weekly food shopping and came home with enormous quantities of fruit and vegetables. Eladio always asks why we can't be like normal families and suffice ourselves with just apples, oranges, pears and bananas. No way I always tell him as I love strawberries, bilberries, raspberries, pineapple and mango which are always on the menu haha. I think we are the best customers of the local Mercadona branch!
While having lunch with my father with plenty of vegetables, his favourite being sprouts and cauliflower, the central heating fuel lorry arrived to fill the tank to heat this enormous house and more excitingly a new PC for Eladio we had ordered last week. He had a perfectly good HP PC. However it had the Windows 7 software for which, very unfairly, Microsoft will no longer make updates and other manufacturers will no longer support. Well now he has an up to date new PC. Here he is just before its unboxing.
Being the in house PC expert (hahahaha), it was up to me to set it up and install the office programme, etc. It was soon ready for using. If any of you computer experts could tell me, I would love to know how the hell to get rid of Microsoft Edge. I did so on the PC I bought back in September but can't remember how I did it.
I was multitasking that afternoon; setting up Eladio's new PC, texting with Andy and Helen on my research of my mother's past when I got a sudden Airbnb reservation for that very night. I only realised after it was confirmed that the guest, a young Venezuelan girl called Andrea, said she was coming just for a couple of hours with her boyfriend and that they would not be spending the night! OMG I thought, have I turned our house into a den of iniquity? But then I thought her money is as good as any, she had good reviews on Airbnb, so why not. In any case I couldn't cancel as I am a super host and if I cancel an instant booking reservation I would lose that status.
That night at Oli and Miguel's flat over dinner, we did laugh over the reservation which, by the way, is the first time it has happened. By the time we got back Andrea and her partner had gone! Dinner at Oli and Miguel's was another highlight of the week. As I wrote when I posted a photo of the family around the table, "family dinners are always more fun with Elliot".
We hadn't seen him since Tuesday and I swear he has grown since then. Oli showed me the amazing clothes our kiwi cousins had sent her - 10 outfits. My cousin Zuka also gave her a lovely little French outfit which is very chic. It's quite extraordinary how many of our friends and family have given gifts to Elliot. He has an awfully big wardrobe, hahahaha. He's such a little darling, recognises us and smiles brightly when he sees us. Eladio adores him as I do and I especially like to see my husband enjoying time with his grandson. Here they are together.
Oli was our own personal chef that night and had made a splendid Turkish dish with aubergines accompanied by more vegetables which pleased my vegan daughter Suzy. Food at Oli and Miguel's is always great and much better than going out to a restaurant. Miguel made the dessert, a delicious home made apfelstrudel which he has got down to a fine art. Eating my portion with a spoonful of ice cream was what broke my diet this week. But no worries it was just a hiccup on the way.
At just before 11 pm it was time to leave if we were to go to bed not too late. Suzy stayed behind as the next day she had a lesson nearby - a singing lesson by the way (good for her). We were home soon as there was zero traffic and there were no sign of any guests. It took me ages to fall asleep. Maybe I was a bit too full or rather my mind was too full of things but I must have gone to sleep eventually and woke up the next morning at 6. I refused to get up at 6 and forced myself to stay in bed until 7.
Yesterday it rained all day and we never ventured out. That is now 2 days since we have not been on a walk and we must remedy that today. It was another day of research into my mother's and my own past and I keep discovering the most extraordinary things. I am also happy to find information that confirms many of the things my mother either told me or that are on her tapes. Gosh the family's flight from Russia is an incredible story as is the story of my poor dear mother during WW2 in Germany where she was imprisoned by the Gestapo. No wonder I am obsessed with the war you must be thinking.
Anything else I did yesterday pales in comparison and my head was full of names and facts I kept checking with my friend and fellow researcher Andy D. I just couldn't do this without him. I really have to thank him for his support but above all for his interest in the story. We both concluded that with all the facts we have I could write a modern day version of War and Peace! That's no joke by the way as Tolstoy was a family friend. My mother always told me how her own mother, my "babushka" (Princess Sophie von Lieven née Stachovich) used to play tennis with him! Tolstoy had an estate near some of her family's in Palna-Mikhailovsky. He even wrote a play dedicated to her Uncle Misha; "The power of darkness". There is an article Andy found in Russian (google translate to English) where the author quotes Lenin as saying about the Stachovich family: "with such landlords, there is no need for the revolution". He called them all "reactionaries". Google Translate must have got it wrong but I assume from the sentence Lenin was accusing them of owning too much land. I am now also concluding that although the Stachoviches did not have the grand title of my paternal grandfather's family, Lieven (this family has the title of His or Her Serene Highness), the story of the latter Stachoviches is far more fascinating than the Lievens in general. My final conclusion is that with all this information, apart from writing a book, it would make amazing material for a period family drama on film.
Talking of films, yesterday was Spain's celebration of Spanish cinema - The Goya awards.
They were held yesterday, although I didn't watch them as I find the ceremony rather long and tedious and Eladio was not at all interested. "The Goyas" took place in Malaga, the city Antonio Banderas was born in. It was his night as he won best actor for his part in Almodovar's latest film, Pain and Glory. But it was really Pedro's night as he won 7 of the awards and is now hoping for an Oscar where both Pedro and Antonio have nominations. We had seen the beginning of the film not long ago on Netflix but didn't really like it. Now, as it seems so favourable to the critics, we shall have another go at watching it.
Today I was up early again and it looks like another cloudy, wet and miserable morning. I just hope the clouds clear and some sunshine breaks through. This weather is really depressing me. It's not the Spain I know in January. Today will be a quiet day, just what I need to continue my work. It will no doubt pan out as usual as there are no outings or plans for the day and the girls will not be here for lunch.
So my friends, here I am at the end of the tales of this week. I do hope I haven't bored you with the stories of my mother's past. I shall probably continue to bore you as my work continues so please bear with me.
All the best for now,
Masha
That day saw me unraveling who is who in the Stachovich family, my maternal grandmother's family. My mother mentioned so many uncles, aunts and cousins, I had to find out who they were. I mainly concentrated on my maternal great grandfather, Alexander Alexandrovich Stakhovich II - 1858-1915 - and his wife Countess Olga Pavolvna Ushakova. He died before the revolution and according to Wikipedia was a wealthy landowner, who studied law but also studied at the Nikolaev Cavalry School and served in the Hussar Regiment. At some time he was the Yelets district leader of nobility where he did a lot to improve education. Also a prolific writer, he was one of the founders of the Union of Liberation, a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party and was a member of the 2nd State Duma from the Oryol province. There is no mention of how he died as he died quite young, only that he was buried at the family estate in Palna Mikhailovka.
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| My maternal great grandfather, Alexander Stachovich |
He was one of 7 siblings. My mother mentions them all: Nadezhda, Alexey, Olga, Mikhail, Sofia, Pavel and Maria (my mother's great aunts and uncles). It was to Mikhail's house in Salzburg my mother and her brother Nicki sought refuge in 1945 when they escaped the arrival of the Red Army in Berlin.
Alexander and Olga Pavolvna themselves had 6 children (my mother's uncles and aunts): Nicolai, Alexander, George his twin, Sophie (my mother's mother) Irina and Olga. Of these six, my mother's family seem to have had most contact with Alexander (Sasha) - 1884-1959 who resided in Paris, like many of them, after the revolution. Alexander married Anastasia Sergeevna Ignatisius (1889-1952), commonly known as "Tiusa" and they had 4 children, Alexander, Olga, Maria (Masha) and Anastasia. These were my mother's first cousins about whom she spoke all her life and I met them all except for Olga. It is with the daughters and the descendants of Olga and Maria with whom I meet in France every year at what is now our traditional summer "cousinade". To make life even more complicated, Alexander and Anastasia's daughter Maria (Masha) married another Stachovich, her first cousin, Alexei (or Axi) the son of Mikhail whose house my mother and her brother sought refuge in Innsbruck. That's awfully complicated isn't it? My Aunty Valya in France (wife of my mother's youngest brother Nicki) showed me various photos of which I took photos with my phone. One of them is of my mother's oldest brother Sasha (all oldest sons in the family seem to be called Sasha - short for Alexander) visiting these cousins in Paris in about 1939.
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| Sasha my uncle and my mother's oldest brother in the middle with his cousins (left Masha and Olga and front row Anastasia) with their mother Anastasia (Tiusa) . Photo taken at their family house near Paris in Anier in about 1939. |
My mother, who adored her adopted country, Great Britain, would have approved of my choice of film that evening, Darkest Hour about how Churchill became Prime Minister after WW2 broke out and how he planned to fight the Germans until the end, refusing to enter into peace negotiations. I have to say it's one of the best films I have seen about Churchill. It peaked my interest in finding a good biography on Great Britain's greatest statesman and I came across one recently written by Andrew Roberts. Called "Churchill, walking with destiny", it has rave reviews. I can't wait to get my teeth into it. I am a great Churchill fan, for all his flaws, and well remember as a child his state funeral where the country came to a stop. I spent half a crown of my pocket money to buy a commemorative booklet. I wish I had kept it.
My mother would have been proud too to see the photos of her granddaughter Olivia that night on stage as I was. Every year Oli is a master of ceremonies in English together with a young journalist who does the Spanish part in the annual awards of an international hotel chain. The awards take place every year at a fancy hotel on the eve of the big tourism fair held in Madrid, Fitur. This year Miguel went along too as Elliot had to be near his mother lest he need feeding and to keep him quiet if she was on stage and couldn't hahaha. Here she is with her co master of ceremonies looking like a star in an amazing black velvet dress.
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| Olivia dressed to kill for being on stage on Tuesday night for the hotel awards ceremony |
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| Oli off stage to feed her ever growing son Elliot |
Wednesday came and it was on Wednesday that I found a treasure trove of photos and documents my father had kept and brought to Spain. They were in a great big plastic bag and oh my when I saw them. I knew immediately that this was help sent from heaven for my mother's book.
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| Another treasure trove of photos and documents I found at home |
It was my mother's photos I was most interested in. Many I already had and were repetitions but there were some which I had never seen. One really interesting one is of my grandmother, Sophie née Stachovich with all her brothers and sisters. Now I had photos of them all. This is it. It must have been taken in Russia. I tried to work out the year. My grandmother was born in 1886 and her youngest sister Olga (front row to the right of my grandmother) in 1892. In that photo Olga looks to be about 9 or so which could give us a date for the photo of about 1901 or so. Imagine.
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| Photo of my grandmother Sophie Stachovich in Russia before her wedding in about 1902. She is sitting in the front row with her youngest sister Olga to her right. In the back row from left to right the twins Sasha and George and to their right Irina who died aged 21 of typhus. Olga died too a few years later in Paris where she was run over by a train. |
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With my mother the year of my birth, 1957, at the Vicarage in Henbury, Bristol, the home of my paternal grandparents |
Wednesday morning was spent poring over the old photos and documents, some of my mother during the war I had never seen. We tried to venture out for a walk with Pippa but just as we were ready to go, the clouds burst and a huge rainstorm began. So again no walk. Here is Pippa all ready to go in her rain coat which she is not very fond of.
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| Pippa in her raincoat. |
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| Father and son on Wednesday |
While the three of us were making our dinner, we chatted to our Colombian guest, Irina, who has been a pleasure to host. Later that night Eladio and I watched another great war film. It was about the restoration of Japan after WW2 and called Emperor. I highly recommend it.
Thursday came and amazingly we had a respite in the weather and the sun came out. That made our walk much more pleasant. I was busy again with my mother's tapes and in contact with Andy for him to continue building the ever growing family tree, just as he did with my father's family. The highlight of Thursday though was the visit of the town council of Villaviciosa de Odón. They had rung a while back to say they wanted to visit my father to give him a commemorative plaque for reaching 100. I was most surprised as he was too. In England of course all centenarians receive a card from the Queen but as far as I knew nothing is done in Spain. I was wrong as at least our local town hall do something to acknowledge the achievement of reaching 100. We dressed my father in a white shirt and Eladio put his Selwyn College Cambridge tie on for the occasion. We were expecting the councillor for social services and maybe someone accompanying her or him. So I was taken back when I saw a whole entourage of 6 people including the photographer. It was a very touching occasion, one my father appreciated as did Eladio and I. They gave him a glass plaque with his name on which was in the wrong order but who cares, it was the thought that counts.
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| The commemorative plaque from the Town Hall. They got his name upside down. It should read Charles Courtenay Lloyd but again it's the thought that counts. After all, people have got my father's name wrong all his life! |
Notice behind the group is a large portrait of Nicholas II. It was given to my parents, probably when they married, by my mother's Uncle Sasha (Stachovich) in Paris (the Sasha Stachovich I mention earlier in my blog). My parents always treasured it and it had pride of place at our home at 6 Heaton Grove. Today it graces my father's room. My father spoke to the group thanking them for the visit and the plaque and he very poignantly told them that he was alive thanks to me and to Eladio. We do our very best to take good care of him and shall continue to do so as long as he lives which I hope is for quite a few years more. I cannot envisage life without him. He is so dear to me.
Later we had dinner quietly in the kitchen and as we did we watched the news on my now old iPad Plus. The main news this week on the international front has been about the virus from China, spreading from a town called Wuhan. It's called the "coronavirus" and has already left a death toll of 41 and 1.287 cases in China at the time of writing. More worryingly it has spread outside China and in France there are 3 cases. Some cities in China have been completely locked down which must be complicated as this weekend is the Chinese New Year. The other news which I at least found interesting was the Holocaust memorial that took place in Jerusalem on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. World leaders attended as did a group of dwindling survivors. It took place at Yad Vashem or near it - the world Holocaust Remembrance centre - which I shall never forget visiting with Eladio when we traveled to Israel about 10 years ago. It was a harrowing experience.
Obsessed as we are with WW2 - who wouldn't be in my position, brought up by parents who both experienced its horrors close up? - that night we watched another film on the topic. Called "Diplomacy" it's about the supposed planned attack to destroy Paris and ordered by Hitler which was thwarted through diplomacy. In the film Hitler orders General Dietrich von Choltitz, the last Nazi Governor of Paris to destroy the city. According to the film and there are hints the main story is true, a Swedish diplomat and ambassador to France, Raoul Nordling, persuades him not to do so by offering escape for him, his family and other favours.
I was up at 6.40 on Friday as it seems I am gradually returning to getting up earlier and earlier, I woke up to rain and it would rain all day. I had to lend an umbrella to Luis, the young Mexican student from Guadalajara who arrived the night before. We did the weekly food shopping and came home with enormous quantities of fruit and vegetables. Eladio always asks why we can't be like normal families and suffice ourselves with just apples, oranges, pears and bananas. No way I always tell him as I love strawberries, bilberries, raspberries, pineapple and mango which are always on the menu haha. I think we are the best customers of the local Mercadona branch!
While having lunch with my father with plenty of vegetables, his favourite being sprouts and cauliflower, the central heating fuel lorry arrived to fill the tank to heat this enormous house and more excitingly a new PC for Eladio we had ordered last week. He had a perfectly good HP PC. However it had the Windows 7 software for which, very unfairly, Microsoft will no longer make updates and other manufacturers will no longer support. Well now he has an up to date new PC. Here he is just before its unboxing.
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| Eladio with his new PC which arrived on Friday |
I was multitasking that afternoon; setting up Eladio's new PC, texting with Andy and Helen on my research of my mother's past when I got a sudden Airbnb reservation for that very night. I only realised after it was confirmed that the guest, a young Venezuelan girl called Andrea, said she was coming just for a couple of hours with her boyfriend and that they would not be spending the night! OMG I thought, have I turned our house into a den of iniquity? But then I thought her money is as good as any, she had good reviews on Airbnb, so why not. In any case I couldn't cancel as I am a super host and if I cancel an instant booking reservation I would lose that status.
That night at Oli and Miguel's flat over dinner, we did laugh over the reservation which, by the way, is the first time it has happened. By the time we got back Andrea and her partner had gone! Dinner at Oli and Miguel's was another highlight of the week. As I wrote when I posted a photo of the family around the table, "family dinners are always more fun with Elliot".
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| Family dinners are always more fun with Elliot |
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| Grandfather and grandson together |
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| Miguel's apfelstrudel |
Yesterday it rained all day and we never ventured out. That is now 2 days since we have not been on a walk and we must remedy that today. It was another day of research into my mother's and my own past and I keep discovering the most extraordinary things. I am also happy to find information that confirms many of the things my mother either told me or that are on her tapes. Gosh the family's flight from Russia is an incredible story as is the story of my poor dear mother during WW2 in Germany where she was imprisoned by the Gestapo. No wonder I am obsessed with the war you must be thinking.
Anything else I did yesterday pales in comparison and my head was full of names and facts I kept checking with my friend and fellow researcher Andy D. I just couldn't do this without him. I really have to thank him for his support but above all for his interest in the story. We both concluded that with all the facts we have I could write a modern day version of War and Peace! That's no joke by the way as Tolstoy was a family friend. My mother always told me how her own mother, my "babushka" (Princess Sophie von Lieven née Stachovich) used to play tennis with him! Tolstoy had an estate near some of her family's in Palna-Mikhailovsky. He even wrote a play dedicated to her Uncle Misha; "The power of darkness". There is an article Andy found in Russian (google translate to English) where the author quotes Lenin as saying about the Stachovich family: "with such landlords, there is no need for the revolution". He called them all "reactionaries". Google Translate must have got it wrong but I assume from the sentence Lenin was accusing them of owning too much land. I am now also concluding that although the Stachoviches did not have the grand title of my paternal grandfather's family, Lieven (this family has the title of His or Her Serene Highness), the story of the latter Stachoviches is far more fascinating than the Lievens in general. My final conclusion is that with all this information, apart from writing a book, it would make amazing material for a period family drama on film.
Talking of films, yesterday was Spain's celebration of Spanish cinema - The Goya awards.
They were held yesterday, although I didn't watch them as I find the ceremony rather long and tedious and Eladio was not at all interested. "The Goyas" took place in Malaga, the city Antonio Banderas was born in. It was his night as he won best actor for his part in Almodovar's latest film, Pain and Glory. But it was really Pedro's night as he won 7 of the awards and is now hoping for an Oscar where both Pedro and Antonio have nominations. We had seen the beginning of the film not long ago on Netflix but didn't really like it. Now, as it seems so favourable to the critics, we shall have another go at watching it.
Today I was up early again and it looks like another cloudy, wet and miserable morning. I just hope the clouds clear and some sunshine breaks through. This weather is really depressing me. It's not the Spain I know in January. Today will be a quiet day, just what I need to continue my work. It will no doubt pan out as usual as there are no outings or plans for the day and the girls will not be here for lunch.
So my friends, here I am at the end of the tales of this week. I do hope I haven't bored you with the stories of my mother's past. I shall probably continue to bore you as my work continues so please bear with me.
All the best for now,
Masha
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