May You Live In Interesting Times: A New World

 

May You Live In Interesting Times: A New World: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1949 to 1960. Coming Labor Day from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books. The fourth and last volume of the Ostrogorsky - Ivanauskas family history and archive distilled from nine hundred family photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, World War II Allied bombing, and train and transport ship journeys to the New World. Available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller.

The first three volumes have been published by Blue Parrot Books. Volume One, May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Family Memoir and Archive Circa 1885 to 1960, traces the arc of family history from the depths of Tsarist Russia to a new world of 1950s America. War and revolution chase the family out of their ancestral home in old Russian to refuge in central Europe to post-World War II transport ships bound for a new home in a new world. Volume Two, May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1918 to 1945, focuses on the volatile period from the end of World War I to the end of World War II, 1918 to 1945. Volume Three, May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1945 to 1950, covers the immediate post-World War II period 1945 to 1950, when the Ostrogorsky - Ivanauskas family resided in displaced persons camps in Kempten, Germany while searching for a new home in a new world, and where most importantly to me, my mother and father happened to walk into the same café and ended up dancing with each other.

Volume Four covers the period 1949 to 1960 when the family relocated to Canada and the United States, when my parents married to start a new life in a new world. 8.5 x 11 hardcover. 164 pages. ISBN 978-0-578-91983-6.

May You Live In Interesting Times -- Purported Chinese Curse

 

May You Live In Interesting Times -- purported Chinese curse. In the process of wrapping up my Covid winter project, a four volume family history and archive distilled from nine hundred family photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and World War II Allied bombing.

This collection includes hundreds of family photographs and letters, as well as documents from Russia's post-Tsarist Bolshevik government, the Russian White Army, assorted military officials during the Russian Civil War, the French Consul of Constantinople, the British and French Red Cross Missions in Constantinople, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the German occupation government of Yugoslavia, the Nazi Third Reich, the U.S. Military Government of Germany, the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, the International Refugee Organization, the U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile, and any number of private refugee relief organizations.

First two volumes covering the years 1918 to 1945 have been published by Seattle's Blue Parrot Books. Blue Parrot Books will publish the third volume, 1945 to 1950, July 4th. The final volume, covering the 1950s, to be published this fall by Blue Parrot Books.

May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1918 to 1945

May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1918 to 1945.

Coming from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books April 15th, second of a four volume family history and archive distilled from a collection of 900 photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and World War II Allied bombing. Available for pre-order now from your favorite bookseller.

This second volume presents the collection covering the volatile period from the end of World War I to the end of World War II, 1918 to 1945, and includes documents issued by Russia's post-Tsarist Bolshevik government, the Russian White Army, assorted military officials during the Russian Civil War, the French Consul of Constantinople, the British and French Red Cross Missions in Constantinople, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the German occupation government of Yugoslavia, the Nazi Third Reich, and the U.S. Military Government of Germany.

ISBN 9780578867533 8.5 x 11.0 hardcover. 184 pages.

May You Live In Interesting Times

I've been busy this Covid winter. While I'm ready to release May You Live In Interesting Times (ISBN 9780578844787) on Monday March 1st from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books, the first volume of a multi-volume family history and archive distilled from nearly 1,000 family photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and World War II Allied bombing, I'm also working on the first of a three-volume archive of the complete collection of family photos, letters, and documents.

This collection includes documents issued by Russia's post-Tsarist Bolshevik government, the Russian White Army, assorted military officials during the Russian Civil War, the French Consul of Constantinople, the British and French Red Cross Missions in Constantinople, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the German occupation government of Yugoslavia, the Nazi Third Reich, the U.S. Military Government of Germany, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, the International Refugee Organization, the U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile, and any number of private refugee relief organizations.

The first volume of this archive, covering the period 1918 to 1945, will be published by Seattle's Blue Parrot Books this spring. Two additional volumes coming later this year will cover the periods 1945 to 1950, when my family resided in displaced persons camps in Kempten, Germany while searching for a new home in a new world, and finally 1950 to 1960 following relocation to Canada and the United States.

I thank my grandfather, Russian Cavalry Captain Vassilij Yakovyevitch Ostrogorsky, for so assiduously, against all odds, collecting and preserving this incredible collection!

Cavalry Captain Vassilij Yakovyevitch Ostrogorsky, right. Crimea, circa 1920.

May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale

 

Coming soon from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books:

Years ago I inherited several boxes of family documents and photographs that my grandfather Vassilij (William) Yakovyevich Ostrogorsky collected during the last century. These documents passed down through the hands of my aunt Vera Vassilyevna and father Vassilij Vassilyevich, my mother Jadvyga Ivanuaskas, and my sister Helen Vassilyenva. Once the boxes fell into my hands they sat mostly forgotten gathering dust in a store room.

Over the years I always intended to pull the boxes out of storage to compile a family history. Or at the least investigate the contents. In the words of the great eighteenth century English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson, “Hell is paved with good intentions.”

The realization of one’s own mortality has a way of focusing the mind. I am now in the last year of my sixth decade riding this blue ball called Earth sailing through the outer reaches of the Milky Way. My grandfather died in the second year of his seventh.

I pulled out the boxes. The contents astonished me. Photographs dating to 1920. Letters. Orders. Official certificates. Nazi work permits. Reports. Post-World War II pleas for shelter and assistance to the International Refugee Organization and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Military passes. Job applications. Applications to countries around the world in search of a new home. Red Cross medical reports, and even x-rays of all things!

But what astonished me even more than the contents of the boxes, was the realization my grandfather carried these documents with him halfway around the world by train, foot, and steamship to a new life in America in the 1950s. By my count, these documents survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, a couple of military coups, a military invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and the Allied aerial bombing campaigns of World War II.

I am pleased to present to you the Ostrogorsky-Ivanuaskas family history as best I can distilled from the documents my grandfather saved from oblivion, as well as notes my mother compiled in her last years, and family lore. Surviving photos are presented with this history. I am photographing the documents to be published in their entirety in a subsequent volume. I am pleased to report the entire archive will be curated with the Pacific Northwest Collection of the Special Collections Department of the University of Washington’s Suzzallo Library.

May You Live In Interesting Times

Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine. As today is ‪#‎ThrowbackThursday‬ we thought we'd throwback to our favorite movie of all time, Casablanca, which is somewhat apropos to these times since the movie deals with war, refugees, greed and corruption, and the fight against Nazism. A subplot of the movie is the disposition of the coveted Letters of Transit, documents that in wartime Europe were worth more than life itself!

Well, these are actual Letters of Transit, signed by the French Consul of Constantinople, which my grandparents used in 1920 to escape the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. As an indication of how cherished these documents were, they were some of the few documents my grandparents preserved from that era. My grandparents were war refugees, the kind of people who today would be looked down upon by certain retrograde segments of American society.

Grandfather Vasily is the dapper cavalry officer wearing the riding boots, front right, in his White Army uniform, and Grandmother Maria sports her White Army nurse's uniform. Grandfather was wounded in battle fighting the Bolsheviks on the Crimea during the Russian Civil War and met Grandmother in the hospital. The rest, as they say, is history:

Grandfather Vasily is the dapper cavalry officer, front right, wearing the riding boots. Tall man standing in center of photo is Baron Wrangel, the last Russian White Army general.

This would have been his officer corps in the Crimea. Grandfather Vasily was a Captain of Engineers.

Grandmother Maria in her White Army nurse's uniform

The last surviving photo taken of Grandfather Vasily (or William as his name was Americanized) at his engineering office at the old Idaho Highway Department in Boise, circa 1960

Rick's introduction to the letters of transit

We've Always Wanted To Use Kyrgyz and Parrot In The Same Sentence

This story, published in its entirety, appeared on the AKIpress news website, December 19, 2015:

Kyrgyz national attempts to smuggle 140 parrots from Ukraine to Russia

Bishkek (AKIpress) A Kyrgyzstani citizen was detained on Russian border while trying to smuggle 140 parrots from Ukraine to Russia on his car's trunk, Rosselkhoznadzor said. Import of live birds to Russia is impossible without the official permission of Rosselkhoznadzor, which issues documents confirming compliance with veterinary and sanitary requirements. The man was detained at the Nehoteevka international checkpoint. Rosselkhoznadzor inspector decided to return the birds to the neighboring territory.

That's it! 140 parrots on the car's trunk. We're guessing they weren't Blue and Gold macaw parrots like the accompanying photo suggests, or the crate would be about a half mile tall.

And why were the parrots on the trunk? And not, say, in the car? It is winter over there, so how were the parrots even alive? And can we call the guy a smuggler while driving a car with 140 parrots sitting on the friggin' trunk? Presumably in a box or crate? Presumably very noisy?

So the parrots were returned to the neighboring territory. Were they just released and shooed off? What happened to the parrots? What happened to the smuggler? How did this writer ever get a job writing news stories?

The Secret Soviet Plot to Bring Down the United States

And It's Been Spectacularly Successful!

Moscow's Red Square. State Historical Museum Center Right

In case you haven't noticed, we haven't posted on our blog The Zen Parrot for several weeks because we've been away on a trip of a lifetime. We've been off to visit the Old Country. Russia, that is.

Our family, on our father's side, comes from a long line of fervent monarchists, with a centuries old tradition of serving in the Tsarist military. Our great grandfather Yakov was a high ranking general in the Russian cavalry, as no doubt his father, grandfather, and great grandfather before him were as well. So it was probably to be expected that our grandfather Vasily would himself become a cavalry officer.

Grandfather Captain Vasily Front Right (in Cavalry Boots) Fighting the Bolsheviks

Unfortunately the grandparents passed away before we were ever old enough to appreciate their background and history. Our parents professed to know little about it. So we had the dream of traveling to Russia some day to research our family history and possibly even visit the estate outside of Moscow that our family supposedly came from. Our dream finally came to fruition this past year.

We first visited Russia in 1980 during the darkest days of the Leonid Brezhnev era when the bad old Soviet Union seemed so immutable and unchangeable. Researching Russian archives? Don't even think about it. We went back in 1989 during the heady days of Perestroika, but still faced insurmountable obstacles to accomplishing any actual research on family history.

Moscow's State Historical Museum, Established 1894, With Russian Genealogical Archives

Things are different now. For one thing, money talks. With a little grease we found a willingness to unlock archive doors that previously had been closed to westerners. Plus, it didn't hurt to have a Russian last name. For a month, every day except Tuesdays (for some reason never fully explained to us the museum is closed Tuesdays) we were at the door when it opened at 11:00 am and worked uninterrupted until closing at 7:00 pm.

Meet Dmitry, One of the Moscow State Historical Museum's Archivists

After about three days at the museum, one of the museum's archivists, a jovial chap named Dmitry, invited us to his apartment after closing for drinks. Dmitry called himself an archivist. We would consider him a glorified file clerk. But free drinks? Sure. Drinks at the hotel bar were seriously overpriced. The next evening, he invited us back to his apartment. For a business proposition he explained. Turns out, for the right price, he could provide us historical Russian artifacts to purchase. And even arrange to ship them home to us. Yeah, sure. We really weren't all that interested in commencing a life of crime this late in our lives.

Well, he knew we were legitimate historians (Ph.D. History, University of Idaho, 1993). Plus we could read Russian. How would we like to look at some old Russian documents? Never before seen by western eyes. Just declassified by the Russian government. Might turn into a subject for a book some day. Okay, we couldn't resist. What would it hurt to look?

Most of the material was dry as dirt. Пятилетнего плана Лима Бин Производство в степи Казахстан. Five Year Plan for Lima Bean Production on the Kazakhstan Steppe. Give me a break! Then there was Теория и практика Радиотелеметрия Наблюдения в Узбекистане. Theory and Practice of Radio Telemetry Observations in Uzbekistan. We were beginning to entertain serious doubts about Dmitry. Then came a box labeled Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ). We just about choked on our кофе (coffee, that is). КГБ in English is KGB. Committee for State Security. The Soviet Secret Police. The outfit that Russian President Vladimir Putin belonged to during the bad old Soviet days. Now we were getting somewhere. We decided it was worth a hundred Euros to get Dmitry to open the lid of this box for us. Euros only. Bastard wouldn't even take dollars.

Old KGB Headquarters Building in Moscow. Home of Lubyanka Prison

The material we saw mostly dealt with KGB operations in East and West Germany and Western Europe. Contracts. Contacts. Lists of this and that.

But one file we pulled out of the box was labeled Сумка проекта Чай. Project Tea Bag. Tea was and still is the Russian national drink. After vodka. When Dmitry saw the file he visibly blanched. Apparently he had some familiarity with Project Tea Bag. He insisted we put our iPhone away and not take any photos of this particular file. We called out to have a pizza delivered before closing. Then Dmitry locked his office door and we sat up all night drinking frozen zubrovka and reading the Project Tea Bag files. By the time the museum opened in the morning the two of us were in pretty sorry shape but we had one hell of a story to tell. Amazingly Dmitry went back to work while I literally crawled across Red Square back to my room at the Hotel Rossiya. I collapsed into bed to vodka-addled dreams of FSB (Federal Security Service, successor to the KGB) agents kicking in the door to arrest me.

To get all the lurid details you'll need to buy the book we're planning to write about this Soviet era operation. Suffice it to say the operation had the three essential ingredients of a blockbuster spy novel: Sex. Drugs. Rock N' Roll. But we'll give you a teaser here.

During the 1980s the Soviet Union was bleeding out from its ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan. Led by the doddering old fool Leonid Brezhnev the empire was on its last legs. Anyone not in the time warp of the Kremlin could see it. Including a high-ranking KGB officer by the name of Vladimir Putin. Yes, that Vladimir Putin. A group of reformist Soviet officials including Putin realized the days of the Old Soviet Empire were numbered. They needed to act fast to neutralize the United States as a threat to Russia. Working with leading scientists and behavioral psychologists at Moscow's Ivan Pavlov Institute they concocted a plan they called Сумка проекта Чай, Project Tea Bag.

The scientists developed subliminal messages they would embed in contemporary American television commercials. These messages would inculcate a deep seated hatred of government in the television audience which the Russians hoped would lead to a popular uprising in America. The behavioral psychologists believed it would take twenty years for this subliminal messaging to take its desired effect. Give or take. Working through government financed Russian holding companies in the West, the Soviet officials began orchestrating ad buys in the mid-1980s, with the final ad buys in 1989. Unfortunately for them the Soviet empire collapsed sooner rather than later. Only decades later would the Russian officials come to realize just how effective Project Tea Bag really was.

With some research we were able to identify a few of the commercials the Soviets concocted. See if you can spot the subliminal messages in these Soda Wars commercials from the 1980s.
(Not to worry. You'd need to watch these continuously over an extended period of time to fear becoming a raving lunatic.)

Not surprisingly no one in the Kremlin would respond for comment to this story. While we were in Moscow we managed to track down one of the former Soviet researchers responsible for these commercials. He responded that the group never really expected Project Tea Bag to amount to much. They thought that the subliminal messaging concocted by the behavioral psychologists would result in adherents taking such radical and absurd positions on political questions of the day that no one would ever take them seriously.

May You Live in Interesting Times

May You Live in Interesting Times: Family History

Great grandfather Yakov was an Adjutant General in the Russian Cavalry, 11th Dragoons.
Photo circa 1880s, pictured wearing a St. George's Cross on his chest, and a St. Vladimir's Cross on his neck.

We come from a long line of fervent monarchists. Our great grandfather (on our father's side) Yakov, was an Adjutant General in the Russian Cavalry, 11th Dragoons, at the end of the Nineteenth Century. He was personally acquainted with Russia's Czar Alexander III. The family lived on an estate somewhere near Moscow.


The general had at least two sons, one of which was our grandfather, Vasily Yakovich. As to be expected in that era, grandfather also joined the Russian Cavalry. A seventeen year old cadet in 1913, he received a commendation personally from Czar Nicholas II commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty.

Commemorative medal grandfather personally received from Czar Nicholas II in 1913 (penny for scale)

Grandfather rose to the rank of Captain of Engineers during World War I. He was awarded a St. George's Cross during the war for heroism in battle.

Grandfather's St. George's Cross, 4th Class (penny for scale)

Of course, the Russian war effort and the Russian monarchy ended badly. Following the Bolshevik (or October) Revolution, Russia descended into years of Civil War, from 1917 to the ultimate Bolshevik victory in 1923.


Grandfather eventually joined the officer corps of Baron Wrangel's White Army, based in the Crimea in southern Russia, part of the White Movement fighting the Bolsheviks.

Baron Wrangel, tall man in center of photo

Grandfather appears front right, wearing the cavalry boots
(He's wearing his St. George's Cross on his chest)

During one of Baron Wrangel's campaigns, grandfather was wounded in battle and entered a White Army hospital. There he met a nurse that he came to fancy:

Our grandmother Maria, in her White Army nurse's uniform, circa 1920

As they say, the rest is history. Grandfather married grandmother. They had a couple of kids: our aunt Vera, and our father, Vasily Vasilyevich.


When Baron Wrangel's White Army collapsed in 1920, Vasily and Maria, along with our newborn aunt Vera, fled from the Crimea to what was then still called Constantinople, using French Letters of Transit.

Grandfather's Letter of Transit, issued by the French Consul of Constantinople

Grandfather is pictured still wearing his White Army uniform

With the Turkish Revolution against Allied control of the old Ottoman Empire, our grandparents were forced to move once again, this time to the new state of Yugoslavia. They settled in Belgrade. Grandfather went to work as a royal engineer for King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, and they had another kid, our father, Vasily Vasilyevich. There they were able to live in peace until the Nazi invasion in 1941.

The lives of our grandparents bring to mind the old Chinese proverb: May you live in interesting times! They certainly did.