The day I Googled my grandfather’s name in both it’s Russian form (Pavel Voronov) and in English (Paul Woronoff) I could never have predicted what I would discover. Apparently, my grandfather, who I knew as Dadu, was one of the love interests of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, daughter of the
In this picture my maternal grandfather, Pavel Voronov (Paul Woronoff), is 13 years old. He is a naval cadet in Russia. Years later he would be an officer on Tsar Nicholas II’s imperial yacht, Standart and the love interest of Grand Duchess Olga, eldest daughter of the Tsar. I know
Both sides of my family were deeply affected by war, strangely both were impacted in some way by the Russian Revolution. My father’s family were German Balts. In the 13th Century, during the Northern Crusades, the pagan tribes of Latvia and Estonia were overpowered by Christian armies, the bulk of