My parents and grandparents were definitely hoarders. Each time I attempt to sort through the papers and letters and documents and photographs and other things I brought home after the death of my father; I am amazed at how much they kept. Bearing in mind either my grandparents had to
I often find documents in the many papers I inherited, which make me wonder about why they have been kept for so long. Documents which nowadays we would (and I do) throw out after they are no longer needed – of course many of our documents are now virtual. In
The Covid-19 pandemic and the recent lockdown here in Melbourne had me searching through my grandmother’s papers. I knew that she had kept notes on the diseases which devastated southern Russia in 1919. It was the time of the Civil War in Russia and my grandfather was fighting with the
This weekend, the execution on 17 July 1918, of the last Tsar of Russia, his family and their faithful staff, will be commemorated by many. There will be posts on social media and, no doubt, articles in newspapers and services in the Russian Orthodox churches remembering this dark day in
On this day, 102 years ago, my grandmother, Olga Woronoff, began a diary which documents their last months in Russia and their movements during the Civil War. My grandfather, Paul Woronoff, was fighting with the White Army (the Volunteer Army) and my grandmother had travelled to the south of Russia
Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great Russian writer, wrote those words. I’m sure they were written from experience. My grandparents, Paul and Olga Woronoff understood how important hope is to life. If they had not had hope they might not have survived through the tumultuous years that their homeland of Russia threw