Tatiana Lavrentieva-a native of the city, where they killed the last king, — from Yekaterinburg. They met in nice. Their affair unfolded in Paris. And now she’s waiting in Yalta when he gets back from new York where just buried his father.
the Sad waves of the Black sea. They take us away and never, as if we want not return back. Only in memory.
the Last destination of this story — the southern coast of Crimea, Yalta. Floating above the city terrace on the third storey. In the house, once belonged to before the revolution, the famous Yalta Dr Shiryaev.
68-year-old Nicholas Shamshin-Trubetskoy — biochemist. And she — his Tatiana. They’ve been here for almost eight years.
White Exodus
“I couldn’t live anywhere else. Because the soul wants the homeland”, — Tatyana smiles at me.
to Sverdlovsk, where she was born. Harsh people from the Urals. When someone came the other leg in the bus, a lot of words not said — just at a stop, the door opened and people flew out. Thank God I’m alive.
Tanya, just a child, remember how did not the house of the merchant Ipatiev in the basement is in the night of 17 July 1918 was shot the Romanov family — father, mother, four girls and a boy.
“In’ 76, the year I was six. Winter, boots, hat elastic… We went to a tree near the Palace of pioneers. This house was just nearby. And the next year he was gone. Just an empty space…”
Like uprooted the patient loose the tooth. King, Queen, Princess, heir to the… the First Secretary of the regional party Committee, Boris Yeltsin, all demolished in one night.
Years later in a train compartment, stood all night in Sverdlovsk, sat another family, foreigners, travelers. They drove across the country, but was hoping that they are allowed to go at least for a few hours. Sverdlovsk — classified town. Honorary tourists, as expected, was accompanied by the KGB. But through the frosted glass, if predicate in this small patch, you could see in the backyard building of the old, no longer working station, where for a long time did not stop fast passenger.
It was a family of Trubetskoy.
“How strange, they could hold any other closed city — for example, in Nizhny Novgorod, — says Tatiana. But it was Sverdlovsk, where I’ll bring my Nicholas.”
Instead destroyed the Ipatiev house she’s gonna show him a brand new Church On Blood erected nearby.
And on July 17 they will pass religious procession to Ganina Yama, the place where the alleged burial of the murdered family of the last Russian Emperor.
“I still can’t understand why the killer took the body so far? 3.15 am in the middle of summer — very light, white stepped just to the side, around the shot… Why take the risk, whether those are generally the ostanKi, I think we never know for sure”.
In the morning on the seafront of Yalta floats chimes. An Orthodox Church surrounded by evergreen trees, which usually goes Tatiana, is across the street from their house, on the corner of Krasnov and the Sea.
And if you go down to the sea, then destroyed the old pier you can see a memorial sign here in November 1920 was the last to leave the ship Wrangel’s fleet. The city was occupied by red. Yalta was renamed Krasnoarmeysk, but the name she carried for more than six months.
On the ship, heading to Constantinople in the crowd of refugees Shamshinykh young couple went away with the newborn son of Oleg, the father of Nicholas.
Oleg was born in Sevastopol, Catherine Bay. In the autumn of 1920 the child was five months.
“will meet all Kiev!”
Isn’t that an amazing coincidence – the house Shamshinykh the Trubetskoy-I came to the day when Oleg Gennadievich Shamshina had to catch up 100 years. And forty days as he is no longer with them.
Tatiana says that she lacks communication with his father. “I loved when he proposed after dinner: “Honey, let’s bring the old albums.” And every evening hours and a half told me, but I wanted more and more. In his American office still lie undisturbed memoirs, poems, short stories, which he wrote, all his life.”
the First childhood memories of two years Oleg: little boy stands on the bridge and the boat with parents takes to the open sea. Where? Why?
Father Gennady Shamshin, a former tsarist officer, was accompanied by Russian ships in difficult transitions — protected “from the Soviet agents.”
the Family dropped anchor in Constantinople, then moved to Berlin, where he lived most of his life.
“They never called themselves immigrants, only refugees. They did not, they were forced to flee from their native land, forced to leave their homeland, they always stressed that.”
Oleg enrolled in the University of Berlin. For his study the father paid the remaining coins of Imperial coinage. Of valuable the house was a cat, a gramophone and old records, which will survive another war.
Students could have fought with the Nazi regime. At night, secretly went to bike out of town, dug potatoes, plucked in the gardens of the apples, and cigarettes for bribing the guards of the camp, tried to give the prisoners food, sometimes it was possible.
“everybody knew that as soon as the Red Army would cross the Oder, the Germans “our” shot. Agreed that everyone will try to get three people. From “my” to the agreed place came one — Ukrainian. I hid it in the attic. In parting, he said: “Come on. You will meet all of Kiev! You saved my life!” — in old age told Oleg Shamshin reporters.
half a Century laterI’m in new York, where he lived Oleg G., will arrive to remove the program “I Serve the Soviet Union”. He remembers the story. After the broadcast call male from Ukraine, the same are saved by the name of Constantine Elk, and invited his Savior to visit. The time of their meeting seal on film: “Kolya and I wanted to find that record, but apparently erased it”, says Tatiana.
the trip to the country, the distant, almost-forgotten homeland, will leave the whole family. It was then that they never manage to get to the private Sverdlovsk-Yekaterinburg.
Father Oleg Shamshin, son Nicholas, daughter Mary, and mother, also Mary, Morocco, as everyone called her, Princess Trubetskaya.
“Your face is familiar”
Morocco Trubetskaya clean line Trubetskoy, the descendants of the Decembrists, which as a result of the failure of the uprising were exiled to Kiev, on the outskirts of the Empire. After the October revolution, the princes fled to France, Morocco was born in Paris, the “cute girl” as he called her one of the relatives in a letter to his son.
Soon the child’s mother, also Mary, died, a tiny Princess was placed in the care of aunt Sophia. The Princess grew up, entered the Sorbonne, studied fashion designer. But then for many years taught French at school.
With his betrothed Morocco met by chance.
After the defeat of Nazi Germany, his parents separated, he was in Paris. From there he moved to Canada. It was a time when the old Russian guard sought to move closer to America — in Europe smacked of socialism.
the First time they met he was still in France, but fleeting, casual, Morocco have had some kind of boyfriend, who then also went to Canada, and she rushed to find him, not knowing the address.
“That’s how I was told about them the first canadian meeting with Oleg Gennadievich — says Tatiana. — “I go to the temple. Is a pretty girl, whose face is familiar to me in Paris. I invite her to drink coffee with me, but she refuses, says she needs to run to look for the groom. Convinced her only by the fact that in the Russian community where everyone knows each other, you can try to find out something about this young man.” In General, the groom they never found, but soon Oleg suggested Morocco hand and heart”.
Their son Nikolai Trubetskoy, the Child, the name of his family, like all of us, he didn’t want to have anything to do with the country that expelled his ancestors, he hated when the other boys called him red. Fought to the blood! “I am not red, I am white”. He didn’t want to communicate in the native, only in English, which he spoke in eight years.
Mother — Princess Trubetskaya, on the contrary, insisted that all Russian. The Russian environment, a school, an Orthodox Church, a Russian scout camp.
Coat Rachmaninoff, with children’s ��et becoming dusty in their closet (once Sergey came to visit and forgot), painting, donated Korovin, all of these shirts, Easter, Easter cakes, holiday singing at the table… Totally alien, incomprehensible, old-fashioned.
“You have to have a Russian wife”, — said mother. As Russian? Why Russian? American is not better?
Nicholas studied biochemist with 18 years have lived separately for a long time the blood was silent… He was 22 when he first read “the Quiet don”. English. And only then realized that it is his people, his real. Mom was right.
“I don’t have time to catch Princess Trubetskaya. She died in the year when Kolya and I met,” — says Tatiana.
Modest handkerchief
Fate brought them in nice. In Europe’s largest Orthodox Nicholas Cathedral near the Boulevard Prince on Avenue Nicolas II.
In 1908 the Emperor Nikolay the Second from personal funds donated 700 000 francs, for which the dome was erected and completed construction work.
Nikolai troubetzkoy lived in Cannes, but on the weekends sang in nice in the Church choir.
Tatiana came from his cold Yekaterinburg in ordinary vacation on the Cote d’azur, came, as it should be to go to a Church service, festive and elegant.
“I had a handkerchief “Burberry” on the head. Then all of our wore. Expensive, rich. No, the French wouldn’t. A man came up: “are You Russian?” How did he know? “In the South of France ladies have long ago broke with tradition to wear a headscarf in the temple.”
“I’m Russian, but I’m Soviet”. She said proudly, almost as much as Nicholas himself fought the enemies as a child: “I’m not red, I’m white.”
“Oleg Gennadievich last even argued about it, — sighs Tatyana. — Yes, I had a happy childhood, and I am proud that I am Soviet, but Soviet is a revolution, an escape, an eternal wound on the heart, but I don’t want and can’t hate.”
a Tourist in the Soviet Union, Nikolai troubetzkoy came twice, before the Olympics-80. With friends they loudly joked on the red square, a policeman came: “Your documents!” Got passport: “Pushkin, Lermontov, Trubetskoy”. Of course, in the area with such names are not taken.
“Nicholas always said it in Yekaterinburg, to me, all these years, was led by fate. Somehow had to go through us to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, but given a direct flight, then with his parents in the journey to Russia was kept on the siding”.
No, it was his country, his way. And he wouldn’t be able to get off.
When August 19, 1991, arrived by train from Finland, went to the Cathedral of the assumption, coming out of the Kremlin, seen in the streets of Moscow are crawling tanks.
the Biochemist who invented his method of treatment of cardiovascular diseases, Nicholas O. Shamshin-troubetzkoy became part of their new-old homeland, of everything that happened in it over the past 30 years, printed Orthodox literature, brought the first computers, created the projects for the Hermitage (where the Director was once one of the ancestors), collaborated with the Donskoy monastery, to the Prince Zurab Chavchavadze tried to get Gorbachev permit the entry of the last of the Romanovs.
the First time Nikolai troubetzkoy married 37 years, wife was of the Georgian princes Chavchavadze, grew up two little girls, daughters, Mary and Sonia.
That’s just a Russian wife quite Russian, the girl on the Cote d’azur, where is it?
“six months after that trip to nice I was in Paris — continues to Tatiana. — Called him: “I’m in France.” And France-all of our Sverdlovsk region. “But I’m not in Cannes,” he said sadly into the phone. “So I’m not in Cannes”. The next day started the Christmas post, Nicholas called me on the eve of dinner. Met in the subway — the elegant cashmere Navy blue coat, calm, well-mannered, conversation of voltana. “Today is the last day when you can eat out”. I don’t understand why the latter — every day can eat delicious, thank God, not starving”.
In the old house on the outskirts of Paris, where all things — the memories, the guests drank wine, the owner cooked the duck, friends, entirely Orthodox priests, too, of the former, sang to the guitar “black Eyes”, “Ermak”, “Murka” and “Million scarlet roses”.
Tatiana had an argument with a Parisian priest about the song “the hawthorn tree”. “He insisted that she was still with those pre-revolutionary times, and I — that it was written in Soviet times. She’s our, Ural. There also is word about the factories, about Turner and blacksmith. So we never found out whose it is, all mixed up.
Shakes the branch, curly
the Wind without end
the Right curls Turner
to the Left of the blacksmith…”
the next Morning they with Nikolay went to a pet shop, Tatiana sat down in front of small dogs, Maltese are available to them in Yalta, Vivi and Lulu, then Nicholas will tell her that in that moment everything about her, the real, understood: “You were so sincere and vulnerable, as only children.”
“somewhere on an intuitive level I felt it, too: that’s my man. He sent to me by God. He changed me capital — believes today Tatiana. — I was hoo what a character! I was doing fine, and even a handkerchief… Was right, I thought the understanding. Emigration is the traitors and bastards. Have the working class of the Soviet people, and no gentlemen. I’m born in 1970 — the peak of developed socialism. And I defended their point of view in their old aristocratic environment. I don’t know how or when I changed. This is it, they changed me? Or am I myself?” — says Tatiana.
“Sometimes it’s funny, they say very PRAvelino — the “what” and “glacier”: where is the glacier? Well, the freezer’s why it’s so difficult to remember? As they taught Russian language, so they did and learned. And do not want to change in yourself, you have to change yourself”.
In Paris, no one has walked in heels. And Tatiana had a beautiful stilettos. Before Nicholas offered all the time: let’s get you some bullocki. “And now, when I wear only the poor, like everyone in Europe recalls wistfully: you remember how in Paris, well-heeled was.”
He was proud that his Russian wife. She knows how to cook and sew. Not like in America where “everything can be bought, why do most”.
“I Have 18 sewing machines. Morocco also sewing. Vintage sewing… I collect them, but they all work. Something is stored here, something in the other apartment. Such strong — take five layers of the skin.”
just what are these old Russian aristocrats, searched and found in our modern women? Which took then with him, making countesses, duchesses, princesses, giving hands, heart and soul… What was he looking for?
“Tanya, you look just like your mother…”
Yalta, sail
somewhere in Yekaterinburg is still kept Tanya’s book on mathematics for sixth or seventh grade. The last page of the enumeration cherished girlish desires for the future: “Tights, dress, coat — a list of all the necessary and important in life, and in the end, the last and incredible paragraph: boat in Yalta”. Absolutely fantastic dream for a girl from the Urals.
it All started with a pier from where a hundred years ago moored once Wrangel’s last ship, ended of this floating terrace in the former home of Dr. Shiryaev. “You each will show.”
“Actually, we were going to live in Ekaterinburg, — says Tatiana. — But Kohl’s offered me to stay in Yalta, I immediately refused: no, I’m in this provincial Yalta would never ever go. This was my view — you can just relax on Lasource”.
the American, whose wife is Russian visa is given for three years. It so happened that Nicholas decided to renew it at the Russian Embassy in the Ukrainian Crimea, where he was then. So it was possible.
In our representation Troubetzkoy, without thinking, wrote that he will be living in the Yekaterinburg region. Despite the fact that the area — Sverdlovsk. But the documents issued on the next day. And took for speed is “only” $ 280.
While I was in Simferopol, I decided to look one day Yalta. In the sanatorium after Kirov, one of the oldest in the Crimea, the former estate of Countess Rostopchina, the old Park, where centuries-old pine trees, side by side with slender cypresses and bamboos, met with the Director. The course offered a contract — how, American, doctor-biochemist, cool!
Mid October��ber, how cold it. In the Urals, already dressed in rubber boots and hats. And then were given a Suite, the sea view from the balcony.
In General, Tatiana could not resist, flew.
“And so I Yalta unexpectedly liked it. Measured everything, they and in America itself, never in a hurry, so this stake came, but I with my character the first time had to adapt…”
the Past two years, Nikolay looked after the father, lived arrivals with Oleg Orlov in America, in Russia. Communicated over networks.
Last time he went there last October, Tatiana was supposed to visit him for thanksgiving, a Turkey, but the meeting was postponed to Christmas. Then the Baptism, even some holidays, business, time…
February — and everything went downhill: a pandemic closing borders, and they have divided the ocean…
Oleg Shamshin just a month did not live up to its secular birthday. “We didn’t think it would happen suddenly — sad Tatiana. Was sure to celebrate his birthday. He was a very strong man. To the last mowed the grass, drove the car. That fateful night Nicholas asked the father: “Well, we’ll go out to celebrate in Sevastopol, where he was born?” Usually the excuses, hard and long flight, and so on. But then suddenly thought: Yes, it would be nice. And in the night he suddenly died.”
He died in America. And buried there, next to his beloved wife, Princess Mary troubetzkoy. At the Russian cemetery in a four-hour drive from new York city.
at seven-thirty in the morning in the middle of Yalta the temple, an exact replica of one project of the Church in nice, begin to beat the bell and read the gospel. And in the evenings on the waterfront beats on the rocks of the sea and the crying violin. Eternal resort couples dance under the eternal “the Tired sun”.
Sea noise in any understandable language. All as once. As if there wouldn’t be these hundred years. Again in Russia. Again Russia.
“Come Lermontov, Dashkov… We are also building a manor house surrounded by vineyards… I would Like to open a summer school for girls, but this year, you know, this is difficult” — throws up his hands Tatiana.
only Nikolay close yet, and when I come back, it does not depend on them.
the terrace in their house reminds all terraces in the world. Here is the room in which Chaliapin sang, this was filmed Gorky on the porch Korovin wrote the oil: “you See how grown palm trees under the Windows, which are visible in the picture?”
Chekhov said that Yalta is better than nice. And in some ways he certainly was right. Although the girls here still prefer “Burberry”.
