Rzhevskys. “Rzhev land. history of the native land Origin and history of the family

The Rzhevsky family was included in the noble genealogical books of the Voronezh, Kostroma, Kursk, Moscow, Oryol, Ryazan, St. Petersburg, Tambov and Tver provinces.
You can make a coat of arms.
Additional Information. Some nobles late XIX centuries with this surname. At the end of the line - the province and district to which they are assigned.
Rzhevskaya, Map. Al-eev., (6 hours). Voronezh province. Korotoyaksky district. Included in the genealogical book.
Rzhevskaya, Anna Al-eev., daughter of a senior scientist, (6 hours). Voronezh province. Korotoyaksky district. Included in the genealogical book.
Rzhevskaya, Varv. Fed. Tver province. Zubtsovsky district. Gg. nobles with voting rights.
Rzhevskaya, Ek. Al-eev., wife of Guards. piece-cap., named after. at the village Ekaterinivka. Nizhny Novgorod province. Sergach district.
Rzhevskaya, Lyub. Al-eev., daughter of a senior scientist, (6 hours). Voronezh province. Korotoyaksky district. Included in the genealogical book.
Rzhevskaya, Polina Iust., vd. ns., (6 hours). Voronezh province. Korotoyaksky district. Included in the genealogical book.
Rzhevsky, Aldr Fed., ksk., uyezd. leader of the nobility. Simbirsk province. Syzran district.
Rzhevsky, Vlad. Al-eev., KSK., (6 hours). Voronezh province. Korotoyaksky district. Included in the genealogical book.
Rzhevsky, Const. Al-eev., (6 hours). Voronezh province. Korotoyaksky district. Included in the genealogical book.
Rzhevsky, Pav. Al-eev., cornet, (6 hours). Voronezh province. Korotoyaksky district. Included in the genealogical book.

Description of the coat of arms

The shield, which has a silver field, depicts a black cannon on a golden carriage and a bird of paradise on the cannon. The shield is covered with a mantle and a cap belonging to the princely dignity. The princely cap and mantle have been assigned since ancient times to the noble family of Rzhevsky, because it comes from the princes of Smolensk, and also has the coat of arms of the Smolensk princes.

Famous representatives of the Rzhevsky family

Rodion Fedorovich Rzhevsky killed in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380).
Semyon Fedorovich Rzhevsky(d. 1445) - voivode.
- Mikhailo Semyonovich Rzhevsky
  - Matvey Mikhailovich Rzhevsky, a boyar's son, traveled to Lithuania in his retinue. Princess Elena Ivanovna, bride of the Lithuanian lord. Prince Alexander ().
Nikita Grigorievich Rzhevsky- voivode.
- Ivan Nikitich Rzhevsky(died 1611) traveled as ambassador to Copenhagen in 1601; killed at the same time as Prokopiy Lyapunov.
- Andrey Nikitich Rzhevsky
  - Ivan Andreevich Rzhevsky- nobleman, first siege commander in Kyiv (1661).
- Grigory Nikitich Rzhevsky was a Duma nobleman (at the beginning of the 17th century).
Matvey Ivanovich Rzhevsky(d. after 1579) - voivode and governor in Chernigov, Rylsk and Ryazhsk; in 1576 he traveled as ambassador to Crimea.
Elizariy Leontyevich Rzhevsky(d. 1599) - okolnichy, governor, envoy to Crimea and Poland; great-great-great-grandson of Semyon Fedorovich Rzhevsky.

Ivan Stepanovich Rzhevsky(d. 1611) - nobleman, ambassador to Denmark.
Ivan Ivanovich Rzhevsky(died in 1678) - governor in Yeniseisk and Nezhin, then a okolnichy, like his son Alexei, who managed the Order of the Great Treasury.
- Alexey Ivanovich Rzhevsky(d. 1704) - okolnichy, governor in Vyatka and Samara; his niece Avdotya Ivanovna Chernysheva (nee Rzhevskaya).
  - Yuri (Georgy) Alekseevich Rzhevsky(-17.04.) - steward, governor of the Nizhny Novgorod province for more than 10 years, common ancestor of Stepan Alekseevich Kolychev and Pushkin’s mother.
  - Ivan Alekseevich Rzhevsky(c. 1660-07/06/1721) - Bryansk governor (1708-1715), governor of the Pskov province (from 1719).
    - Andrei Ivanovich Rzhevsky (1711-1737/1741) - midshipman, participant in the siege of Ochakov.
      - Alexey Andreevich Rzhevsky(1737-1804) - actual privy councilor, vice-director of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, freemason.
        Pavel Alekseevich Rzhevsky(1784-1852) - chamberlain, participant in the Patriotic War of 1812.

Matvey Vasilievich Rzhevsky(01.08.1702-21.11.1766) - captain of the fleet, married to the daughter of Vice Admiral Naum Akimovich Sinyavin, Fedosya (15.5.1717-05.02.1785).
- Stepan Matveevich Rzhevsky(1732-1782) - lieutenant general, hero of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774.
- Ivan Matveevich Rzhevsky(after 1734-1793) - major general, hero of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774.
- Vladimir Matveevich Rzhevsky(1740s - after 1813) - Novgorod civil governor.
  - Konstantin Vladimirovich Rzhevsky (1783-1831)
    - Vladimir Konstantinovich Rzhevsky(1811-1885) - official of special assignments, senator, publicist, privy councilor.
- Pavel Matveevich Rzhevsky(1734-1793) - Lieutenant General, Chief Commandant of Moscow.
  - Grigory Pavlovich Rzhevsky(October 18, 1763 - May 11, 1830) - actual chamberlain, lieutenant colonel, participant in the Polish campaign of 1794, writer.
    - Nikolai Grigorievich Rzhevsky(1800-1817) - studied at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum together with A. S. Pushkin; ensign of the Izyum Hussar Regiment.
Ilya Vasilievich Rzhevsky
- Alexander Ilyich Rzhevsky(1726-1809) - actual chamberlain, leader of the nobility of the Oryol province.

From the noble family there were also:

Matvey Petrovich Rzhevsky(died 1803) - senator.
Vladimir Alekseevich Rzhevsky(1865-?) - Russian politician.

Chernysheva, Avdotya Ivanovna, nee Rzhevskaya - mistress of Peter the Great.

The most famous fictional representative of this genus is Lieutenant Rzhevsky, hero of films and jokes.

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Notes

Excerpt characterizing the Rzhevskys

We need to command one, not two. Your minister may be a good one in his ministry; but the general is not only bad, but trashy, and the fate of our entire Fatherland was given to him... I’m really going crazy with frustration; forgive me for writing impudently. Apparently, he does not like the sovereign and wishes death for all of us, who advises us to make peace and command the army to the minister. So, I write to you the truth: prepare your militia. For the minister most masterfully leads the guest to the capital with him. Mr. Adjutant Wolzogen casts great suspicion on the entire army. He, they say, is more Napoleon than ours, and he advises everything to the minister. I am not only polite against him, but I obey like a corporal, although older than him. It hurts; but, loving my benefactor and sovereign, I obey. It’s just a pity for the sovereign that he entrusts such a glorious army to such people. Imagine that during our retreat we lost more than 15 thousand people from fatigue and in hospitals; but if they had attacked, this would not have happened. Tell me for God's sake that our Russia - our mother - will say that we are so afraid and why we are giving such a good and diligent Fatherland to the bastards and instilling hatred and shame in every subject. Why be afraid and who to be afraid of? It is not my fault that the minister is indecisive, cowardly, stupid, slow and has all bad qualities. The whole army is completely crying and cursing him to death..."

Among the countless divisions that can be made in the phenomena of life, we can subdivide them all into those in which content predominates, others in which form predominates. Among these, in contrast to village, zemstvo, provincial, and even Moscow life, one can include St. Petersburg life, especially salon life. This life is unchanged.
Since 1805, we have made peace and quarreled with Bonaparte, we have made constitutions and divided them, and Anna Pavlovna’s salon and Helen’s salon were exactly the same as they were, one seven years, the other five years ago. In the same way, Anna Pavlovna spoke with bewilderment about Bonaparte’s successes and saw, both in his successes and in the indulgence of European sovereigns, a malicious conspiracy, with the sole purpose of causing trouble and anxiety to the court circle of which Anna Pavlovna was a representative. In the same way, with Helen, whom Rumyantsev himself honored with his visit and considered a remarkably intelligent woman, in the same way, both in 1808 and in 1812, they spoke with delight about a great nation and a great man and looked with regret at the break with France, which, according to the people who gathered in Helen's salon, it should have ended peacefully.
IN Lately, after the arrival of the sovereign from the army, there was some unrest in these opposing circles in the salons and some demonstrations were made against each other, but the direction of the circles remained the same. Only inveterate legitimists were accepted into Anna Pavlovna’s circle from the French, and here the patriotic idea was expressed that there was no need to go to the French theater and that maintaining a troupe costs the same as maintaining an entire corps. Military events were followed greedily, and the most beneficial rumors for our army were spread. In Helen's circle, Rumyantsev's, French, rumors about the cruelty of the enemy and the war were refuted and all Napoleon's attempts at reconciliation were discussed. In this circle they reproached those who advised too hasty orders to prepare for the departure to Kazan for courtiers and women educational institutions, under the patronage of the Empress Mother. In general, the whole matter of war was presented in Helen’s salon as empty demonstrations that would very soon end in peace, and the opinion of Bilibin, who was now in St. Petersburg and at Helen’s house (any clever man she should have had it) that it is not gunpowder, but those who invented it, that will decide the matter. In this circle, ironically and very cleverly, although very carefully, they ridiculed the Moscow delight, the news of which arrived with the sovereign in St. Petersburg.
In Anna Pavlovna's circle, on the contrary, they admired these delights and talked about them, as Plutarch says about the ancients. Prince Vasily, who occupied all the same important positions, formed the link between the two circles. He went to see ma bonne amie [his worthy friend] Anna Pavlovna and went dans le salon diplomatique de ma fille [to his daughter’s diplomatic salon] and often, during his constant transfers from one camp to another, he got confused and told Anna Pavlovna what it was necessary to talk to Helen, and vice versa.
Soon after the arrival of the sovereign, Prince Vasily talked with Anna Pavlovna about the affairs of the war, cruelly condemning Barclay de Tolly and being indecisive about who to appoint as commander-in-chief. One of the guests, known as un homme de beaucoup de merite [a man of great merit], having said that he had now seen Kutuzov, who had now been elected head of the St. Petersburg militia, sitting in the state chamber to receive warriors, allowed himself to cautiously express the assumption that that Kutuzov would be the person who would satisfy all the requirements.
Anna Pavlovna smiled sadly and noticed that Kutuzov, apart from troubles, gave nothing to the sovereign.
“I spoke and spoke in the Assembly of Nobles,” interrupted Prince Vasily, “but they did not listen to me.” I said that the sovereign would not like his election as commander of the militia. They didn't listen to me.
“Everyone is some kind of mania for confrontation,” he continued. - And in front of whom? And all because we want to ape the stupid Moscow delights,” said Prince Vasily, confused for a moment and forgetting that Helen should have made fun of the Moscow delights, and Anna Pavlovna should have admired them. But he immediately recovered. - Well, is it proper for Count Kutuzov, the oldest general in Russia, to sit in the chamber, et il en restera pour sa peine! [his troubles will be in vain!] Is it possible to appoint as commander-in-chief a man who cannot sit on horseback, falls asleep in council, a man of the worst morals! He proved himself well in Bucarest! I'm not even talking about his qualities as a general, but is it really possible at such a moment to appoint a decrepit and blind man, simply blind? A blind general will be good! He doesn't see anything. Playing blind man's buff... he sees absolutely nothing!
Nobody objected to this.
On July 24th this was absolutely true. But on July 29, Kutuzov was granted princely dignity. Princely dignity could also mean that they wanted to get rid of him - and therefore Prince Vasily’s judgment continued to be fair, although he was in no hurry to express it now. But on August 8, a committee was assembled from General Field Marshal Saltykov, Arakcheev, Vyazmitinov, Lopukhin and Kochubey to discuss the affairs of the war. The committee decided that the failures were due to differences in command, and, despite the fact that the people who made up the committee knew the sovereign’s dislike for Kutuzov, the committee, after a short meeting, proposed appointing Kutuzov as commander-in-chief. And on the same day, Kutuzov was appointed plenipotentiary commander-in-chief of the armies and the entire region occupied by the troops.

Description of the coat of arms: see text Volume and sheet of the General Armorial: I, 37 Part of the genealogy book: VI ... Wikipedia

A noble family descended from the princes of Smolensk. Prince Fedor Fedorovich was an appanage prince of the city of Rzhev and in 1315 was sent by Moscow Prince Yuri Danilovich to Novgorod to protect him from the Grand Duke of Tver Mikhail Yaroslavich;... ... Biographical Dictionary

Large biographical encyclopedia

A noble family descended from the princes of Smolensk. Prince Fedor Fedorovich was an appanage prince of the city of Rzhev and in 1315 he was sent by Moscow Prince Yuri Danilovich to Novgorod to protect him from the Grand Duke of Tver Mikhail Yaroslavich;... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

This term has other meanings, see Lieutenant Rzhevsky (meanings). Dmitry Rzhevsky ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Vladimir Mstislavich. Vladimir Mstislavich ... Wikipedia

Wikipedia has articles about other people named Fedor Fedorovich. Fyodor Fedorovich Prince Rzhevsky middle ... Wikipedia

The ancestor of the Rzhevskys, Prince Fyodor Fedorovich, was an appanage prince of the city of Rzhev, hence the name Rzhevsky. “Antiquity, nobility and poverty characterize this family throughout the entire genealogically foreseeable time,” writes N.K. Teletova, a researcher of the history of the Rzhevskys. On part of the lands that belonged to the Rzhevskys, the Joseph-Volokolamsky monastery arose, and for several generations the Rzhevskys donated large contributions to it for the commemoration of their souls, and some members of this family took monastic vows in the monastery. The rise of one of the branches of the Rzhevsky family dates back to the middle of the 17th century, thanks to the fact that Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich married Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya, a distant relative of the wife of Ivan Ivanovich Rzhevsky. The son of this Ivan Ivanovich, also Ivan Ivanovich (Ivan is the family name in their family), was Queen Mary’s fourth cousin. Duma nobleman Rzhevsky regularly served as governor in different cities, and in 1677 he was granted okolnichy. The next year he went to the southern borders of Russia, where he fought heroically during the attack of the Turks and Crimeans on the city of Chigirin. “When the enemies blew up the lower fortress with mines, and the defense of the upper fortress became impossible, Rzhevsky, with the entire garrison and all the inhabitants, partly taking with him, partly destroying all supplies and shells, made his way through the Turkish camp and united with the troops of the boyar Prince Romodanovsky” (“ Russian genealogical book" by Prince P. V. Dolgorukov). During this operation, the brave commander died.

Ivan Ivanovich left three sons. Okolnichy Alexey Ivanovich (c. 1638 - 1690) in 1689, in the case of clerk F.L. Shaklovity, a close associate of Princess Sofia Alekseevna, ended up in exile. Timofey Ivanovich (c. 1640 - 1705), steward, helped boyar A.S. Shein in pacifying the rebellious archers in 1698. He died in 1705. Sent by the governor to Astrakhan, Timofey Ivanovich, far from the royal eyes, felt like a rightful master there. Rzhevsky, without a twinge of conscience, came up with more and more new taxes, collected extortionate duties on goods, and cut the salaries of the already dissatisfied archers. Everyday innovations were also forcibly introduced: wearing foreign clothes, shaving beards. Rzhevsky's arbitrariness affected all layers of the settlement: archers, traders, artisans, and the poor grumbled. Finally, the desperate archers rebelled. The governor tried to hide, but he was found and executed. The younger brother Ivan Ivanovich (1653 - 1717) was also a steward, his wife Daria Gavrilovna Sokovnina (d. 1720) played the role of “prince abbess” in the “all-joking cathedral” of Peter.

The great-grandson of Alexei Ivanovich - Alexey Andreevich Rzhevsky (1737 - 1804), who died with the rank of actual privy councilor, held a number of important posts: vice-director of the Academy of Sciences, senator, president of the Medical College, as a member of the Russian Academy, participated in the compilation explanatory dictionary Russian language. However, he gained greater fame as a writer. His mentor on this path was A.P. Sumarokov. Rzhevsky turned to a variety of poetic genres. Among his works are odes and elegies, sonnets and stanzas, the poet freely experimented in the field of rhythm and form (for example, he wrote an ode consisting only of monosyllabic words, or sonnets that can be read in two or even three different ways). Rzhevsky published I. F. Bogdanovich’s poem “Darling” at his own expense. Alexei Andreevich's first wife, Alexandra Fedotovna Kamenskaya (1740 - 1769), sister of Field Marshal M.F. Kamensky, died after childbirth.

In 1777, Rzhevsky married Glafira Ivanovna Alymova (1759 - 1826), a graduate of the Smolny Institute. She was immortalized in a famous portrait by the artist D. G. Levitsky. This is the same Smolensk woman who plays the harp.

The grandson of Alexei Andreevich (through his daughter Maria Alekseevna) is Pyotr Nikolaevich Svistunov (1803 - 1889), cornet of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, Decembrist, convicted of category II and sent to hard labor in Siberia (completely amnestied by the 1856 manifesto).

Another branch of Alexei Ivanovich’s descendants included his granddaughter Sarah Yuryevna Rzhevskaya. She married Alexei Fedorovich Pushkin, and the daughter from this marriage, Maria Alekseevna (1745 - 1818), married Osip Abramovich Hannibal (1744 - 1806). Maria Alekseevna is the maternal grandmother of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin (1799 - 1837). Pushkin described the history of the Rzhevsky family under the name Yezersky in his poem “Yezersky”.

It is interesting that another Pushkin heroine also descended from the Rzhevsky family along one of the lines and was a relative of Pushkin. This is the famous " Queen of Spades" - Princess Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna (1741 - 1837). The fact is that her father Count Pyotr Grigorievich Chernyshev (1712 - 1773), as well as his brothers Field Marshal General Count Zakhar Grigorievich Chernyshev (1722 - 1784) and naval commander Count Ivan Grigorievich (1726 - 1797), were the sons of General chief Grigory Petrovich Chernyshev (1672 - 1745) and Evdokia Ivanovna Rzhevskaya (1693 - 1747), daughter of the youngest of the three Rzhevsky brothers, sons of the Chigirin hero Ivan Ivanovich. Thus, Natalya Petrovna was a fourth cousin of Pushkin’s grandmother, Maria Alekseevna.

Natalya Petrovna’s son, Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich Golitsyn (1771 - 1844), who bravely fought in the War of 1812 (his brother Boris died from wounds received in battle), was the Moscow military governor-general from 1820 for almost a quarter of a century. In this post, he did a lot for the improvement of our capital. His impeccable service was marked for him by the rank of cavalry general, membership in the State Council and, finally, the award in 1841 of the title of His Serene Highness Prince Golitsyn to him and his descendants.

The family nest of Natalya Petrovna and her sons was the Vyazemy estate near Moscow, where the A.S. Pushkin Museum is now open (the neighboring Zakharovo belonged to the poet’s grandmother Maria Alekseevna, and Pushkin spent his childhood there).

Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna's sister, Countess Daria Petrovna Chernysheva (1739 - 1802), was married to Field Marshal General Count Ivan Petrovich Saltykov (1730 - 1805). Their grandson, through their daughter Praskovya, was Ivan Petrovich Myatlev (1796 - 1844), chamberlain, active state councilor and wonderful poet. It was he who wrote the famous poem “Roses” (“How beautiful, how fresh the roses were...”), which Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev and Igor Severyanin recalled in their equally famous works. Ivan Petrovich Myatlev was Pushkin’s sixth cousin, which their mutual friend Prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky brilliantly played up in humorous verse:

Dear relative, poet and chamberlain,

And you are his relatives, a poet and a chamber cadet... -

Moreover, the first line recalls Pushkin’s address to Vyazemsky: “Dear Vyazemsky, poet and chamberlain...”, and it, in turn, is inspired by the poems of Alexander Sergeevich’s uncle Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, addressed to a distant relative Priklonsky: “Dear relative, poet and chamberlain...").

Between 1766 and 1917 in Russian Empire There was a body of noble self-government - the Assembly of the Nobility. He acted at both the provincial and district levels. The head of the noble assembly had the title of leader. This body dealt with local public issues. Noble assemblies were officially canceled after October revolution. And only in 1990, representatives of Russian noble families united and founded the “Russian Assembly of Nobility”, following the example of which provincial and district societies began to be formed. This event did not bypass Dzerzhinsk... In our city there is also a Dzerzhinsky district Noble Assembly, the leader of which is the hereditary nobleman Igor Borisovich Grigoriev, he is also the vice-leader of the Nizhny Novgorod provincial assembly. In this section you will find exclusive interviews with representatives of famous noble families living in Dzerzhinsk today, as well as materials telling about the activities of the unique self-government body of Russia - the Assembly of the Nobility.

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Noble Family of Rzhevsky in Dzerzhinsk

Among the noble families of Russia, a place of honor is occupied by one of the most ancient and noble - the Rzhevsky family. There were many outstanding statesmen, scientists, and poets in the Rzhevsky family. It is enough to point out that the great Russian poet A.S. Pushkin on his mother’s side came from this family. Today, the descendants of the Rzhevskys live all over the world, including Dzerzhinsk. Kaleria Vasilievna Orekhova (née Rzhevskaya) told SVETSKY about the history of her family, the most interesting destinies of her closest ancestors who became victims of the great bloody revolution, about forced emigration and how Soviet Russia met her sons and daughters.

Kaleria Vasilievna, you belong to the Rzhevsky family of nobles. When does your surname originate?
- The Rzhevsky family comes from the Smolensk princes - descendants of Prince Rurik. The first mention in chronicles dates back to 1315, where it is described that Prince Fyodor Fedorovich was an appanage prince of the city of Rzhev. As for more recent times, my great-grandmother Lyubov Appolonovna Mozgalevskaya married Nikolai Nikolaevich Rzhevsky. He owned a huge estate in the village of Borisovka, Lgov district, Kursk province, and several hundred souls. He and his wife were big theatergoers and staged productions in their estate, which had its own stage and a large hall. They had 6 children. Unfortunately, my mother Irina Nikolaevna did not live in this estate for long. Since her own father died, and her mother married the sugar factory owner Pyotr Nikolaevich Rashevsky for the second time. And all together they moved to their stepfather’s estate in Chernigov. This estate was very large and beautiful. It has survived to this day and was called “Chernigov Switzerland” for its stunning beauty.

What kind of upbringing and education did the nobles give their children?
- All nobles were required to receive an education. For example, my great-grandmother Lyubov Appolonovna Mozgalevskaya graduated from the Moscow Institute of Noble Maidens. She knew German perfectly and French languages. Nobles with their offspringchildhood was kept in strictness and taught to work. The girls were washing clothes. The whole family collected berries, mushrooms, and herbs. We have a photo of everyone riding on a horse-drawn cart to pick mushrooms. Each of the children was on duty in the kitchen once a week: cooking and washing dishes. Mom told me what kind of refrigerator they had - a large room lined inside with blocks of ice that were frozen in the underground. That's why they even had their own ice cream. Children were given tea and cocoa only on holidays, and on common days– compotes and herbal decoctions. Hence the ideal health that my mother enjoyed. She died at the age of 94, before last day I was doing exercises and working.

What did your ancestors do?
- When I was little, I asked my mother: “What did the landowners do?”, because I thought that since people had everything, they had nothing to do. And my mother answered: “No, my dear, your grandmother was busy from morning until late evening.” Grandmother Kaleria Nikolaevna (after whom I was named) was a very progressive landowner. Everything on her farm was mechanized: winnowing machines, seeders, there was even washing machine. She loved and cared for her peasants, built a school for peasant children and a Church on her estate in Borisovka. In short, my grandmother was a great philanthropist. At one time, my grandfather (my mother’s stepfather - sugar factory Peter Rashevsky) began planting sugar beets throughout Ukraine. However, no one agreed to grow it on their property, but the grandmother agreed. This is how they met, later got married, and began running a huge farm together. They also had a marshmallow factory. By the way, at his sugar factories, grandfather was the first in Russia to introduce an 8-hour working day, while workers everywhere worked for 10-12 hours, and built dormitories for family and single workers not far from his factories.

How did you make the final decision to go abroad?
- Shortly before 1917, but already in troubled times, the whole family went on vacation to Cannes. There, one of the vacationers, also a sugar factory worker, persuaded his motherstepfather not to invest in land in Russia, but to buy plots in Cannes. Pyotr Nikolaevich was very angry at such a proposal, since he was a true patriot, he came and bought five more plots in Yalta for each of the children. And soon all this was expropriated, as the revolution began. However, my grandparents hoped for the best until the very end. Lenin himself even suggested that my grandfather move to Moscow. Mom wrote in her diary that at first they were even happy. But this matter did not develop, since the south of Russia at that time was already covered civil war, there were battles on several fronts. And their lives were under real threat. As a result, in 1921 it was decided to urgently leave. The last steamship of the Russian emigration departed from Yalta in great haste amid volleys of cannonade. And Pyotr Nikolaevich with his wife and four children managed to board this ship. We arrived in Turkey. There the struggle for survival began. The fact is that in Turkey all work was only for women. So, one rich Englishman took my mother as a servant. And she fed her stepfather and her two brothers. Later, the Englishman drew attention to one of his mother’s brothers, who was constantly thinking about something and drawing some formulas on the tablecloths. Subsequently, the Englishman took him with him to his homeland, then to America, where his mother’s brother became a professor at the University of Chicago and was the “father” of world biophysics.

How did your parents end up in Czechoslovakia?
- In 1918, Czechoslovakia was formed from parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, the collapse of which followed the defeat in the First World War. Both the president and prime minister of the new state were great Russophiles. And having learned that an impressive diaspora of Russians lived in Galipoli (in Turkey) and Yugoslavia, they opened a gymnasium in Moravia in the city of Przebova, where Russian students were invited to study. At the same time, students were entitled to a scholarship, provided with a hostel, but most importantly, they could move there with all their relatives. Thus, they greatly helped the Russian emigration and formed a colossal diaspora in Czechoslovakia. Soon our whole family ended up in Prague.

Kaleria Vasilievna, can we say that you also received a noble upbringing?
“I and the children of our relatives were raised in the same way as our parents were raised in their time.” But most importantly, we were always taught that we are Russians and should never forget about it. Soon I was able to communicate perfectly in Czech and Russian, as well as in English. In our home, all Russian customs and traditions were observed. Were in Prague Orthodox Temples which we visited. Thanks to the efforts and work of my parents, we eventually moved to a large 4 room apartment in the center of Prague, and after finishing school I entered the Medical Institute, where I met my future husband - the son of emigrants, also a doctor - Leonid Grigorievich Orekhov.

Why did you decide to return to Russia?
- My mother always said: “Never forget that you are Russian and be sure to return to Russia.” Therefore, we were firmly convinced that it was necessary to return to our homeland. We followed the events in Soviet Russia - we bought the newspapers “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “Izvestia”, “Pravda”. In 1947, we accepted Soviet citizenship, but only in 1954, after a second attempt, were we allowed to return to our homeland. The consulate asked us where we wanted to settle. We began to ask to go to the Virgin Lands, because we read the newspapers and knew that there was a grand construction going on there, the development of new lands, but we so wanted to serve our homeland! My husband and I already had a one-year-old child at that time ( eldest daughter- Irina). And the Soviet consul Zorin said: “What are you talking about? From the navel of Europe and to the barracks? And we have no idea what barracks are? As a result, we were offered to go to Uzbekistan, where young specialists were needed. And we went there very happy.

How did your homeland receive you?
- We left Prague in luxury carriages, where we served coffee; each compartment had a shower and toilet. So they took us to the border with the Soviet Union. And the first thing that struck me in Russia was that at the station women carry sleepers. We stood at the border for several days. They started delivering some dry rations, which we naturally refused. They opened a shop nearby, where we were offered to buy sugar, salt, and cereals, and they gave us Russian money. True, our two families were merged into one and they gave us half the money they were supposed to. On the third day they suggested taking a shower. We were delighted. But when we arrived at these showers, final sobering and... shock set in. A few days later we were transferred to other wagons, which looked more like cattle trucks, and were taken to Uzbekistan to a state farm. They bringus across the Syrdarya River to a state farm, which is located in the desert, where exiled people live: Chechens, Tatars, Ossetians, etc. There was literally nothing on this state farm. For food I had to go to another place, where there were queues, in which I invariably ended up in the last rows, receiving beatings and punches. Our family was saved by the fact that we exchanged the furniture we brought for food (for example, for a huge antique buffet you could get half a bag of seed potatoes). My husband gets a job as a gynecologist, who gets stoned. A male gynecologist is trying to treat Eastern women! In this situation, my mother’s amazing self-control helped me out. She said: “Kalya, this is not all of Russia, remember, this is not all of Russia! Be patient a little, the main thing is that we are together!” Then we move to Chirchik - a city 40 kilometers from Tashkent, where my husband receives a good place And two-room apartment. Mom gets a job as a methodologist at the Palace of Pioneers, I get a job as a music worker at kindergarten(I had already graduated from the pedagogical institute by that time). Here the second daughter Inna is born. Subsequently, the husband becomes the chief specialist obstetrician-gynecologist of the Republicfaces of Uzbekistan.

How did you get to Dzerzhinsk?
- In Uzbekistan, we lived and worked normally until the 80s, that is, until the Soviet Union began to fall apart, and the local population, on a nationalist wave, began to push Russian speakers out of Uzbekistan (at the same time, a person’s nationality did not matter - German whether you are a Jew, a Tatar or a Ukrainian). And the further we went, the more it became clear that staying here was pointless and we needed to go to Russia. My husband retired. By that time, the youngest daughter Inna had married a military man. In the early 90s, he went on business trips to Russian cities, in particular to Dzerzhinsk, to OKBA. Soon they decided: since it doesn’t matter where we go, we’ll go to Dzerzhinsk. And in 1997, the whole family came to the capital of chemistry, except for my mother, who died and was buried in Chirchik. Here we rented an apartment and started new life. The money received from the sale of an apartment in Chirchik was only enough for us to move and rent an apartment for 3 months. But, thank God, we made it out here too. Today, my granddaughter Lena is already married and together with her husband she is engaged in entrepreneurial activities. Grandson Leonid has entered his third year at NSTU, where he is studying at the Faculty of Communication Technologies.

How did you meet representatives of the local Assembly of Nobility?
- Through a friend with whom we were friends back in Prague. Today she will live in Nizhny Novgorod. Through her I got to the library named after. Pushkin to the “Ageless Hearts” club. And meetings of the local Noble Assembly were held here. Then their leader was still Zinaida Grigorievna SnarsKaya, and then Igor Borisovich Grigoriev. He, in fact, proved to us that we must not forget our roots, we must study our ancestry. And thanks to his persistence and with his direct participation, we took up this matter, for which, of course, we are very grateful to him. I attend all events organized by the Dzerzhinsky Noble Assembly, despite the fact that I am 80 years old and walk on crutches. I probably learned my fortitude from my mother. If our ancestors did not give up in those difficult conditions, then we especially do not have the right to give up today.

Kaleria Vasilievna, have you heard that you have found relatives abroad in America, and they are planning to come to Dzerzhinsk?
- The fact is that my second cousin Irina lived in America. However, her mother was also a patriot and always wanted to return and die in her homeland. In the end, they, just like us, move to Russia to St. Petersburg. True, Irina’s daughter said after a while: “You, of course, can go crazy, but I’m coming back.” And she left, but her mother and grandmother remained here. And then one day Igor Borisovich Grigoriev saw a message somewhere that a funeral of a certain Mrs. Rzhevskaya had taken place in St. Petersburg. We didn’t know who she was, but he began to study this information, and in the end it turned out that Irina Rzhevskaya, who now lives in St. Petersburg, is my second cousin, and the deceased is her mother. And now we are waiting for them to visit us in Dzerzhinsk. The meeting has already been postponed several times for various reasons, because my sister is also not a young person. But we certainly hope to meet with relatives, contact with whom was lost about a century ago...