Page 8 - The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1

Nicolai Levashov. The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1. Born in the USSR

Such an ordeal is incredibly hard for anyone, even the strongest, to endure;

however, many of them did not become embittered, despite the good reasons they had
for it.
It is a pity that everything that happened with my family and with many others who
belonged to the former aristocracy, will remain in secrecy forever. There is almost
nobody left who would tell their descendants about those times. There were millions of
destroyed souls and broken lives whose only guilt was that they were born into a certain
social level that someone just hated. Most of these people could be called the flowers of
their nation that burgeoned within their nation for many thou-sands of years.

My grandfather, Vladimir Georgievich Levashov, was in the bloom of his youth
(he was born in 1890) when the revolution broke out. He was stripped of everything and
was “carried off” to Siberia, along with almost all representatives of the aristocracy,
nobility and other “parasitic” classes, who somehow had escaped being shot on the spot.

However, unlike the most oppressed members of the first wave who appeared in
Siberia, my grandfather along with his wife and daughter, (who was born in Siberian
exile in 1930), managed to resettle in Kazakhstan, and later moved on to the Northern
Caucasus and Kislovodsk. Here he found a dwelling on the outskirts of this remarkable
city, where my father, Victor Vladimirovich Levashov, was born in 1938 in a little one-
room semi-basement apartment with all the “facilities” out-side.

Neither my grandfather, nor my grandmother from the paternal side, Babanina
Marfa Iosifovna, who died in 1988 at the age of 86, ever revealed their past even on their
deathbed—who they were or what had happened to them. Even in 1988 my grandmother
was afraid that this information could cause harm to her children and grandchildren.

I can only imagine what they had to go through. It is quite likely that only because
they were able to keep silent, the birth of my father became possible and, as a result, the
appearance of myself, my elder brother and my younger sister. The only thing my
grandfather ever told my mother was that they were aristocrats from a very rich family,
knowing perfectly well that this information would never reach the ears of strangers. I
succeeded in finding some information about my ancestors with the help of my friends,
when I lived in the USA.

* * *
My mother, Valentina Petrovna Levashova (maiden name Andryushechko) was

born in 1938 on a small farm in Vesioliy, Rostov region, which was almost hidden in
the Salskie steppes. Her father, of Siberian origin, was a skilled military man, also from
the ranks of “the former”.

In 1941 he, or rather, his experience and knowledge of several foreign languages
were commandeered by the Motherland. In this role he performed special tasks, so
confidential that my mother’s brother-in-law was unable to find out anything from him,
despite the fact that he was colonel of the rocket troops and worked in the U.S.S.R.
Ministry of Defense.

The extremely high confidentiality level of his work is reflected in the fact, that my

maternal grandmother, Anna Sergeevna Andryushechko (maiden name Ishenko)
inherited his personal pension of 200 rubles. By comparison, her brother’s widow
received a pension of 3 rubles. Her other

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