Talking

BIOGRAPHY

IMPORTANT: LEFT-CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE (most of them)

1930-1940

I was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1930. I don't remember much from the first few years except sitting on a chamber pot in an apartment in Paris and there was a fire. I remember the Schvester (Sister) who was Austrian and who disappeared when I was about 7 and my sister Olga 5. Our governess became Zina Istuchina, 19,daughter of a Russian General and whose mother taught in Monterey, California the Russian Language to US Navy personnel in the 60's and who lived alone there and one day they found her dead. Zina, the daughter stayed with us for a few years, then joined us in France where she married Sergei who had a drivers teaching school.

Sergei & Zina Belaieff

They both came to the States when my mother lived in Connecticut with their daughter Ninotchka. Ninotchka born Belaieff must be still around somewhere - she must be in her 50's.
Sergei used to say that now he was working for a General....Electric...
I also remember the State funeral for the President of Poland, General Jozef Pilsudski (1867-1935), which we watched from a balcony in Warsaw.
Our cousin Elena (Lola) visited us in Konstatin, which was a summer residence not far from Warsaw. We had little plots in the garden and tortured Elena tying her as she was a captured enemy(play).
Olga, my sister, during nap time played with her socks and I secretly was reading -secretly because our grandmother Elisabeth didn't believe in kids reading early (she said it damaged the brain). By the time the war came around (WWII) I was glad because we were going to move and I had finished reading all the books in the children's library.
The Germans came in fast. I remember hiding in a trench and there was a frog which scared me more than the bombs.

At this time (1939) my family consisted of my sister Olga, my divorced mother Natalia, my grandparents Michael and Elisabeth Plotnikoff. My uncle George (my mother's older brother) had a young son from his second wife and Lola from his first. All four were to perish on a train in 1945, one of the last bombs of WWII fell on the train going to Switzerland. The sole survivor was Vera Sorokin, the governess who later came to live with us in our place in Mougins at the small villa inherited by my mother from her dead brother.

As the Germans invaded Warsaw, three cars (included my family and friends with dogs) started driving toward the Russian border, thought to be safe, where my grandfather had one of his paper factories.

My first odyssey had started. At night we stopped at various peasants' huts where my grandfather negotiated food (I still remember those delicious sausages) and shelter (mostly in granges which I thought was very romantic.)

Once while we were hiding from bombs in a sparsely wooded place in front of us was an almost deserted landscape except for the Polish airmen who were laughing at the German planes. Olga and I fell in love with a young good-looking pilot. I think that is why all her life Olga was crazy about pilots.

When we arrived at the factory next to Russia, the USSR had proclaimed war and was moving toward the invading German Army.

We drove back to Warsaw as it was decided the Germans weren't as dangerous as the Soviets.

My family had left Russia in 1917 when my mother was 12. They stayed in France, England and ended up in Poland where my grandfather opened the three paper factories and started making some real money.

LANGUAGES:

So at the end of 1939 I spoke fluent German (which I forgot completely), Russian and Polish.
In 1940 when we went to live in Rome, Italy I learned Italian -went to Middle School in Rome Suore dell'Assunzione).
In 1946 we went to live in France where I went to High School, learned French and passed the famous Bachot.
In 1951 I joined my mother in Connecticut, USA where I learned English at Colombia University in N.Y.C.
In 1952 I traveled to Brazil to join my father and get married. There I learned Portuguese.
Spanish was acquired while traveling by jeep Land Rover through South America (9 months) in 1954.
I am going to skip all the school years and write about Paris in the 50's.

PARIS:

My mother rented an elegant apartment in a townhouse on rue Pergolese. Downstairs the landlady was Mme Viardot niece of the famous opera singer Malibran.
My mother had her "Tuesdays" teas and on Saturdays we went downstairs to listen to Mme Viardot singing and other known people playing the piano or similar artistic entertainment. To us it was quite boring as there weren't any young people there. So no wonder when the Prince P. Paleologue, Pretender to the Byzantine throne entered accompanied by his aide the Count Y.P., 28 years old, Olga and I jumped at him. Well, not quite. Times were different and we waited till he spotted us. He also courted a little my mother who was looking her best. This is how it started. Y. was spotted in the neighborhood trying to get invited which in time he did.

At the beginning it was a platonic relationship (Olga and I called him mezzo-mezzo)and he and I were translating into French a play script by my mother's friend from Italy, Manocci.

Soon Olga went back to school in Cannes, her friend and "twin" Lucia to Italy and my mother joined her Liova (Lev S.) in the United States.
My step-father published this: : Sukacev, Lev Pavlovich, 1895-1974.Soldier under three flags : the personal memoirs of Lev Pavlovich Sukacev typescript, n.d. 1 item (1 ms. box). [ID: CSUZ76010-A]Lieutenant, Russian imperial army; major, Albanian army; colonel, Italian army.Summary: Relates to Russian military activities during World War I and the Russian Civil War; Albanian military activities, 1924-1939; and Italian military activities during World War II. Translation of original memoirs published in Novoe Russkoe Slovo, 1972.Photocopy.English translation from Russian.

It took Y. months to seduce me but he did and we started living together secretly, first at the place on Rue Pergolese then in the Hotel rue Tronchet. Weekends we rented a room at the Hotel de Geneve in the heart of St.Germain-des-Pres. St-Germain was a center of bohemianism and existentialism in the glittering café society of the post-war years.

Andre, me and Yuri in front of the Mabillon, famous CAFE in Paris, 1950

Names associated with this period are Sartre and Camus and the singer Juliette Greco. Young French boys and girls spent nights in its jazz clubs and cabarets. Many famous French singers sang in the clubs or lived in the area, such as Georges Brassens, Charles Trenet, Guy Béart, Charles Aznavour. The home where Serge Gainsbourgh lived on rue Verneuil has become a graffitied shrine. Jazz greats who played here include Sidney Bechet, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Camus, J.P.Sartre were our models and in the Cafe Mabillion, Flore and Deux Magots we sat for hours carrying on philosophical discussions with our books at hand: Kierkergaard, the Swedish philosopher, translations of American best sellers (Hemingway,Sinclair Lewis, John Dos Passos), Simone de Beauvoir who revolutionized French viewpoint about women . They called us "existentialists" and we the girls wore black.I just had finished all the 12 volumes of Proust and thought I understood what I was hearing. Y. was really good at these discussions, with his Jesuits upbringing. Also he brought with him an exotic aura with playing the balalaika.

Yuri preparing to play (left)
Eglise de St.Germain (below)

We hitchhiked to Trouville -North beach of France and then to the South Of France, via the famous route 7. A memorable night spent in a grange at Tarare, not far from Lyon. At St. Tropez met many friends from St. Germain and I bought my first pair of black jeans, We went to the nudist beach there where Jean-le-Coreen dangled his ...on our faces while having a very serious conversation.

This was read at Y. memorial service:

YURI PAVLOVITCH PSHERADSKY WAS BORN IN Bouik-Dere in 1921 to a young Russian woman, Elisabeth, recently widowed from Paul, a captain in the now non-existent White Russian Army.. This was just after the Soviet Revolution.. Elisabeth took Yuri, 2 years-old to Belgium and then to France where he was raised in a Russian "internat", sang in the choir, played the balalaika, attended a Jesuit school. That's where he learned logic, reasoning, and ...arguing.He met his wife in a literary "salon "in Paris - (Mme Viardot, niece of the famous opera singer Malibran).Mary, Marie as you know her, had just passed her Baccalaureate and was working as interpreter/secretary in a Travel Agency (her fluency in Italian got her the job). Yuri was aide-de-camp of the Prince Paleologue, pretender to the throne of Byzance. In 1952, after spending a year in Connecticut with her mother and step-father, M. went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where her father had a business. She was soon joined by Yuri and they were married. Honeymoon: hitchhiking in Brazil. A year later Y. and M. traveled by jeep Land Rover through South America taking pictures. Local newspaper kept interviewing the young people. That type of trip at that time, was considered a feat. It took 9 months. Y. learned Spanish by playing the guitar accompanying the songs. Spent 2 months in Vina del Mar, Chile living in a shack with fishermen. Back to Rio. Learned Portuguese and Photography. Did very well in Photography.In the '60's immigrated to the United States. Lived mostly in N.Y.C. (Greenwich Village) where he translated a book by Korzybski about General Semantics and owned two consecutive photo studios.The couple kept traveling to Europe and Canada..In the '80's moved to Florida from where they went 8 times to Europe, once to Mexico and visited twice his wife's nephew Michael, his wife Linda and their 2 young sons. Yuri had a keen sense of humor - always a funny answer and a deep understanding of people. He was also a true gentleman and will always be remembered as a man with a soul and "esprit".

We spent some time on the Cote d'Azur (French Riviera). Sometimes we went to my deserted mother's house in Mougins (I was preparing to send furniture to the States) and sometimes we spent the night in Nice at the house of the Princesses T. Yuri's blue-blooded friends. Other times we slept on the beaches. One night while sleeping on the beach of Golf Juan we were joined by a dog who became our first adopted dog. We named him Voyou. He left me when I had him confined on a yacht I was sleeping in while Yuri went to Paris to take care of some paperwork. He had hurt his paw and I didn't realize that he valued his freedom of movement above all.

Back to Paris. Had to leave on the s/s De Grasse on July 23 to come to the United States for the first time. It was heartbreaking - awful .....to leave Y.

After spending one year and half in the United States, I was invited by my father whom I haven't seen since I was a baby, to Brazil. There I convinced him to sponsor Y. so he could get a visa and emigrate to Brazil.

On December the 4th 1952 we were married in Rio de Janeiro.

Petropolis 1953

1954

A trip of 9 months that took place in 1954 cannot be retold in details. Too many things/people/places have changed.

Maybe some pictures will show better what the trek was like, though I have no photograph that illustrates the kindness of so many people we met, nor shows the awful conditions of the roads we traveled.

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One of the songs we were singing while traveling through Chile:

LEFT-CLICK ON IT TO HEAR IT

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1955-1960

We had to come back to Brazil because of problems with paperwork we settled in Rio de Janeiro waiting for our permanent visas to the United States.

After trying different ways of making a living with Photography we lucked upon becoming photographers for about 25 private schools in Rio. It was good business and permitted us to continue to be independent.

In 1956 we were invited by my mother to stay a year in the United States. We lived part time at her house in Connecticut and part time at my sister's in New York City.
We had a Photo Show at one of the Art Galleries in New York City with an artist who was showing his crafts.

We bought a second-hand old car and drove to California. Very interesting 2-month trip where we discovered the big at that time deserted Golf beaches. We slept every second night in the car. Visited Las Vegas, San Francisco. I have a journal of that trip but it is written in pencil and is unreadable.

Back to Brazil and photography. We were doing great with the schools but were anxious to receive our permanent visas to go live in the United States.

In June 1960 we had at last our visas. There was a week wait between planes and we stayed in Medellin, Colombia -visiting the beautiful surroundings.

Here is the picture of me with the toreros in their Traje-de-Luz in Medellin, Colombia.

We rented a cottage in New Jersey about 15 miles from where my mother had her new house.

These were our neighbours, Coco and Ed from Holland, but long-time residents here

Guests at my mother's house:

1961-1963

Much later:

9 months later we moved to New York City, a small studio-type apartment, ground floor in the East Village. We made friends in the Village (Greenwich Village), saw the first Video at the Rivera and stepped through the peanut shells which littered the floor of the Ninth Circle.

Soon wanderlust overcame us and we went on a 4-month long hitchiking trip through Europe.To get there we embarked on a Norvegian cargo ship that was going to Tangier in Morocco. However first it went to Boston to pick up some more cargo. Viewing Boston from the top of the Customs building we saw a highway far away and felt a pang to the heart. 44 years later I felt the same pang by just opening a map. It is that travel-related love,the thrill of the idea, it does not go away.

Europe had changed in 11 years - it will change more later.

On this trip we assisted at the construction of what was to become a couple of years later a very famous tourist resort in Spain: Torremolinos.

1964-1978 New York City and camping trips to Canada. Will skip trips to friends' places as they might still be around and not too happy to be mentioned on such a public BLOG.- Also the beginning of our regular trips to Europe.
Owned two successive (but not very successful) PHOTO STUDIOs in Greenwich Village.
We were never interested in making much money..

1973
Trip to Florida

I will skip a few trips we made to Canada (both to the Western part of that country) to visit friends and continue by illustrating the two trips we made by rented car, one in 1974 and one in 1976 both to Eastern Canada.

Trip to Canada 1974

Trip to Canada 1976

MOSTLY New York City until 1978

In 1978 we moved to Florida.

When we moved to Florida I went crazy for plants and gardening. Yuri did home improvements and we won twice "Beautification" prizes. We lived in a Mobile Home in a large Park, then moved to a smaller Park and a larger MO-HO.

Gardening is serious business ------->

FLORIDA TRIPS

1981/82/88

Florida State song:

Mexico 1986

Eight trips to Europe

We flew to Europe 8 times, traveling by rented car and staying a few days here and there, in some cities and at some beaches. We never missed our favorite country for the scenery: Spain with its never-ending and always switching, advancing, chains of mountains and its bright contrasting colors of fields of vegetables and flowers.
We enjoyed the food in Europe - we didn't eat often in restaurants. We bought at the traiteurs and markets in France, ate Tapas at counters in Spain and picknicked all over Europe. Our diaries are full of prices, rates of exchange (it was before the advent of the Euro), sketches of routes and (at that time) practical information.
Now most of it is obsolete.
We went back to certain favorite places many times noticing the changes as the years went by. The growth of tourism, the modernisation, the industrialization are duly noted. We wrote that people in Spain were extremely pleasant and polite (when no tourists involved) and that in France people responded quicker.
Here are the years we went to Europe - all of them during the summer:
1985, 1987, 1991, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999. 2000

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Images of Spain left in my mind: The mountain ranges always moving around us, the vivid colors of the sunflowers fields, the wonderful surprisingly hidden beaches, the infinite number of cafe-bars serving an imaginative variety of delicious"tapas", the gentle politeness of the people and, the last image of Barcelona (and of Europe): a beggar sitting on the sidewalk, accepting people's alms with one hand, while the other one was holding a cell phone into which he was talking.

The next FIVE pictorial composites are of SPAIN