My Great- Grandparents life in Russia

                                                      

                                                        Evdokia Gregovna Zaharoff/ Grigori 

I came across interesting letters my great-grandparents left behind on my dad's side. I would love to share their lives in Russia. I am really excited to find history about my family from 1905.

Her feelings during her long difficult journey from Russia-"I was young and happy and believed in God," 

                                                    Flight from Russia-(1905) 

Though 70 years have passed, she still remembers that night when the Czar's Cossacks came to their hometown of Odessa on the black sea and not only took her father but all of their possessions. She also remembers how, after the Cossacks had gone, the children helped their mother bring straw into the house to make beds on the hard mud floor; and as they lay in the dark, her mother telling them that the Cossacks had come because she and their father did not worship in the Czar's church (Russian Orthodox). She explained that they had chosen their own religion, the Russian Baptist, because they did not believe in worship icons or images. 

Grigori Zaharoff was fortunate that he was a father of six children because it was for this reason alone    that he was not kept in prison. They told him that this had just been a warning. Next time, if he did not leave Odessa, he would be given the whip. Such terrifying experiences were what promoted Grigori to move to the city of Omsk half way across Siberia. They traveled by hired horse and buggy, Enroute misfortune struck again, all the six children became sick with measles, however, the children found it to be an unusual experience because the house in which they stayed, while recuperating, was underground and their beds nothing more than shelves cut from the earth. 

Anton Samborsky at the age of 26
This is my great grandpa.