Page 174 - Revelation

Svetlana de Rohan-Levashova. Revelation

as far as I know.

The following "wanderings" of the Seriogins seem to me absolutely
incomprehensible and seemingly illogical, because I have an impression that they "zig-
zagged" all over Russia instead of going right to the place they had to. Certainly,
everything was not as simple as it seems to me now and I am quite sure that there were
thousands of very serious reasons for their strange itinerary.
Then they came to Moscow (where their very distant relatives lived), later was
Vologda, Tambov and the last one was Taldom before their departure from Russia. It
took them 15 long and very hard years after my father’s birth to get to the unknown
beautiful Lithuania and it was just half way to distant France...

(I am very grateful to the Taldom group of the Russian Public Movement
"Renaisance. The Golden Age" and personally to Mr. Vitold Georgievich Shlopak for
an unexpected and very pleasant gift. They found facts which confirm that the Seriogins
lived there from 1938 to 1942. According to the data, they lived at 2а, Custarnaya str.,
not far from a school which Vasiliy attended. Anna Fedorovna worked as a typist in
the district newspaper "Collectivny Trud (Collective labour)" (now "Zarya (Sunset)")
and Vasiliy Nikandrovitch was an accountant in the local enterprise on grain stock
"Zagotzerno".)
I think that during their wandering the Seriogins had to catch at any work to
survive. Times were severe and naturally, they did not count on anybody's help. The
wonderful Obolensky estate remained in the distant and happy past which seemed an
incredibly beautiful fairy-tale. The reality was cruel and one had to reckon with it, no
matter whether one liked it or not...
The bloody World War II was at its height and to cross the borders was an
extremely complicated business.

(I never knew who helped them to cross the front line and how. Most likely,
somebody needed very much these three, if they succeeded in accomplishing the thing
like this... I am also quite sure that somebody influential and powerful enough helped
them; otherwise they could never cross the border in such a difficult time. But no matter
how insistently I asked my poor patient grandmother, she always avoided answering
this question. Unfortunately, I failed to find out anything about this matter).
One way or another they found themselves in the unknown Lithuania... My grand-
dad (I shall call him this, because I knew only him as my grand-dad) became extremely
unwell, and they had to stop in Lithuania for a while. This short stop decided their

further fate and also the fate of my father and all of my family.
They stopped at the small town of Alitus where they could find accommodation
at an acceptable price, because unfortunately, money was a matter of some difficulty
for them. And while they "saw how the land lies", they did not notice their being
absolutely charmed by the beauty of nature, the cosiness of a little town and the warmth
of people, all of which invited them to stay, even for a little while. Despite the fact that
Lithuania already was under the heel of the Nazi "brown plague", it somehow preserved
its independent and bellicose spirit which the most fervent servants of communism had
failed to kick out of it, which attracted the Seriogins even more than the beauty of the
local nature or the hospitality of people. So, they decided to stay "for a while" and it

Back to content

173