Raichka (Raissa Lichtenstein)

(1896-1988)

Last photo of Raichka: with me in Salisbury hospital, 1988. She was aged 91 and died a few weeks later on December 21st.

Sestroretsk, 1898 - 1916

My grandmother Raissa was born on December 22nd 1896. Her father, Matio Lichtenstein was a German medical doctor; her mother Eugenie (Genia) was Russian. Raissa had five siblings: Dina, Moussia (Mary), Tamara, Leo and Mischa (Michael).

Matio and Genia, Raichka’s parents.

It was not at all unusual for doctors in the Russian Empire to be German. Indeed “the words ‘German’, ‘Doctor’ or ‘Pharmacist’ used to be synonymous in Russia. German Doctors had been active in Russia since before the 15th century. Later they established medical institutions like pharmacies or hospitals.” (link)

Raichka grew up mainly at Sestroretsk, where her father worked at the sanitorium. Sestroretsk is 34 kilometers (21 mi) northwest of St. Petersburg, and is located on the shores of the Gulf of Finland, the Sestra River and the Sestroretskiy Lake, The town is still known as a balneologic (spa) and climatic resort, and a large hospital and rehabilitation centre is situated within the boundaries of the town. (link)

The resort at Sestoretsk was founded in 1898, so if Dr Lichtenstein obtained his position at the beginning Raichka would have been less than two years old when the family settled there.

Photo credit Vitaly Bichayev

This is the front gate of Sestroretsk resort. The resort was opened in 1898. The gates were built in the late 50’s of the 20 century. Pure pine air, sand dunes, endless expanses of the Gulf are attracting thousands of residents of Petersburg.

The Tunguska event of 1908

I happen to be writing this two weeks after the Russian meteor blast which injured 1000 people in February 2013, said by NASA to be the largest reported fireball since the Tunguska event of 1908. Scientists believe that on the morning of June 30, 1908, a large space rock, about 120 feet across, entered the atmosphere of Siberia and then detonated in the sky, several miles above the Earth. It is estimated the asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere traveling at a speed of about 33,500 miles per hour. During its quick plunge, the 220-million-pound space rock heated the air surrounding it to 44,500 degrees Fahrenheit. At 7:17 a.m. (local Siberia time), at a height of about 28,000 feet, the combination of pressure and heat caused the asteroid to fragment and annihilate itself, producing a fireball and releasing energy equivalent to about 185 Hiroshima bombs. (NASA link) It estimated that perhaps 80 million trees were flattened and livestock were killed over an area of 800 square miles.

In 1908 St. Petersburg was the capital of Russia with a population of a few hundred thousand. It has been calculated that if the asteroid had arrived four hours and fifty-two minutes later it could have hit St. Petersburg: the city would have ceased to exist.

This photograph, taken before 1917, shows the train which linked Sestoretsk with St Petersburg.

Meeting David Sisserman in 1916 - and marriage

Raichka wrote a very romantic account of her meeting David Sisserman in the summer of 1916. She daily attended the concerts of the Preobrajensky orchestra, near the beach at Sestoretsk, accessed by walking through the pine forest from her father’s sanitorium. She was introduced to David, who walked Raichka and her brother home, and then had to stay overnight due to a thunderstorm. Raichka’s mother found David sleeping in the bed of another brother. In the morning David played the cello to the family; he had already proposed marriage!

This is an illustrated account of that first meeting:

Click here to download Raichka’s fuller account of their meeting, in her biography of David Sisserman.

Travel from Petrograd to Rostov, July 1917. After the February revolution, David continued to play with the Preobrajensky orchestra, which was sent to Rostov - where they arrived the day before the birth of George (11 July 1917). David became a Professor at the Rostov Conservatoire. Raichka’s mother advised them not to return to Petrograd but to stay in the South of Russia, but Rostov too was in a constant state of siege, changing hands between the Red and White armies 4 times in a year. Raichka and David were on the side of the Whites.

Click here to download Raichka’s own account.

October 1917: Requisition of the Sestroretsk sanitorium and death of Raichka’s two brothers

This is in Raichka’s biography of David Sisserman:

After the revolution of October 1917, all money was a valueless heap of printed paper. The newly formed Government of People’s Commissars requisitioned private property from the “bourgeoisie”, and Dr. Matio [father of Raissa] lost his beautiful sanitorium by the Finnish Bay in Sestroretsk. All the valuable possessions like silver, carpets, priceless Persian rugs and the rest of the family treasures were packed away and stored in the attic – the entrance to which was cleverly papered over to match the wallpaper of the upstairs room. This attic was converted into 3 large bedrooms for the family, one for the four girls, another for the two boys, the third room for mother and Dr. M. If we ever came back to our home (as everyone hoped at that disastrous time) we would get all our treasures back! We hoped that one day we would return to our home and find our “secret place” undiscovered …

But it was only a hope. Our devoted manservant-gardener was helping the family in this strictly confidential ritual. And this servant was actually the victim of Bolshevik propaganda, which urged all servants to spy on their masters, promising a big reward for the location of any hidden valuables. Arnold, the gardener, looted the sanatorium, carted away beds, carpets, my piano and music, a large assortment of furniture, etc. We could make no claim for compensation …

In the nightmare of class rule, my two brothers lost their lives in their early 20s. During the epidemic of arrests, Mischa and Leo were in a group of a few dozen young people who got together for a jolly evening which was not authorized, listening to music and telling jokes. They were arrested, and some disappeared, including my brothers M. and L. “You are under arrest!” “Me? What for?” They had no time to register those they had arrested … M. and L. disappeared for ever.

In April 1917, when Lenin and his comrades had made the 2,000 mile eight-day rail journey from Zurich to St Petersburg, they passed through Sestroretsk where “the platform was crowded with a large party of jubilant workers from the Sestroretsk munitions plant several miles away. They lifted Lenin shoulder high as he stepped from the carriage, much to his surprise”.

A first-hand account of a family whose allegiance was also to the Whites - and their allies from Britain and other interventionist forces - is given in Eugenie Fraser, “The House by the Dvina: A Russian Childhood” (Corgi Books, 1986). Fraser was born in 1905. From p.191 she covers the start of World War I, the February 1917 ‘revolution’, and the Civil War up to her departure with her Scottish mother in 1920. In an epilogue on the Civil War she writes:

Never since the dawn of Russian history had there been such a time of fear, grief and horror - a time described by the poetess Akhamatova as ‘When only the dead could smile’.

David to Novorossiysk and Odessa. David travelled with his quartet to Odessa, where he was again appointed to the Conservatoire. Chaotic conditions of Civil War continued, Odessa being under the White army but fearing the arrival of the Reds any day. David wrote to Raichka asking her and George to join him in Odessa.