The Mysterious Alexandra Tarasova-Yusupov

by Carl Douglass

  He was trying to look the sober part of the conquering hero returning home from the wars; but the little girl’s outcries were infectious; so, he laughed until he cried tears of joy as he marched up to her and the great symbol of Christmas and the New Year, Ded Moroz.

  “What is your name, Sweetheart?” he asked.

  The little girl suddenly became shy, looked at her feet, and stammered, “Oh, Uncle…I…I…I am…Ivanka…Ivanka Igorovich Skevar.”

  “You look lovely, Ivanka. Who is this old man with you? Is he Father Frost?”

  He was afraid she was going to cry; so, he swept her up in his arms, kissed both cheeks and hugged her tightly. From that moment on, little Ivanka treated the tall important man as her uncle; and Boris was glad to have another child in the family.

  Her courage returned, and she answered his question, “No, silly. He is the Otets Sem’i [Father of the Family—Patriarch].”

  Boris rewarded her with a big smile and a little laugh, which she shared.

  Abram—Father Frost—gave his son-in-law a great bear hug and a mug of hot tea.

  “Welcome home, my boy. Welcome back. We worried about you. Once you settle in and spend some time with Alexandra and the boys, you must tell us all about it.”

  “I am very glad to be home and to be with family again. I will tell the whole family about the Russo-Chinese war when we are sitting by the big fire and sipping hot chocolate.”

  Ivanka snuggled between the two large men, and the troika sped across the smooth ice road to No. 71 Pekinskaya Street and home. It was not so out of the ordinary that the Tarasovas let down the barriers of class and caste to welcome Ivanka, her family, and the less elevated people in Vladivostok to their celebrations. Even the population of Saint Petersburg–the capital of the Russian Empire–consisted of social strata nested within themselves like Indian castes except for a very few times each year—mainly Christmas, New Years, and Easter–that the traditions of their lives––whatever their social strata: aristocracy, high society, factory workers, servants, students, paupers, even Germans, converged to make them united as joyous Russians.

  The three travelers hopped out of the troika and raced each other to the front door. The two men somehow could not work up enough speed to catch Ivanka, and she won the race which pleased her immensely. She ran into her mother’s arms and told her all about her day in staccato syllables embellished with repeated large dollops of creative whimsy.

  When her cyclonic entry soliloquy finally faded away, Alexandra threw her arms around him and enveloped his body with her warmth. They unabashedly kissed, and Boris had to carry his portfolio in front of his waist for a few moments.

  Blushing brightly, Alexandra changed the subject that was now on both of their minds.

  She said, “Time to meet your boys, Boris. They’re going to be a little shy to begin with, but they will warm up in a few minutes and won’t leave you any peace.”

  Alexandra took Nikita’s hand to present him to his often-absent father. Before she could take hold of Oral’s small hand, the precocious Ivanka grabbed hold of it and marched along with Alexandra to be part of the formal ceremony.

  She blurted, “Oral and Nikita, this is our Dyadya Boris! He is home from the war!”

  Alexandra made the gentle correction clarifying the relationships, “This is your Papa, boys, and Ivanka’s Dyadya.”

  The family all laughed as Boris hugged his three-year-old sons who spoke in their own twin language to assure each other that all was well. Even the gathered servants joined in the merriment occasioned by little Ivanka’s temerity and the twins’ unintelligible foreign world gibberish.

  Veniamin and Valéry waited their turn and together encircled their brother-in-law with a robust Russian bear hug. Irina demurely stepped up to Boris to kiss his cheeks three times. He gave her such a strong familial smile that she opened her arms, and he hugged her and lifted her off her feet.

  She blushed and gave him a theatrical “naughty boy” look, and announced that, “Dinner is served. Cook and I hope you are very hungry.

  Veniamin, Valéry, Nikita, Oral, and Alexandra, possessively took Boris’s hands and arms to escort him to the dining room. Ivanka could not find an arm or hand; so, she wrapped her arms around one of his long muscular legs, causing Cook no end of embarrassment. Boris hobbled in an exaggerated limp, and everyone good-naturedly accepted that it was all part of the joy of having Boris home again and of the Christmas and New Year’s season.

  The servants had been busy doing the necessary preparations for the Christmas meal: In Russia, on this Christmas Eve, the men of the family built a fire in their house yard and roasted a pig–or a sheep in some areas–on a long wooden spit. The whole roasted pig or sheep–called pečenica–was a traditional part of Christmas dinner. People who raised their own swine dedicated one for the pečenica a month or two before and feed it with better fodder. It is traditionally killed on Tucindan–the day before Christmas Eve–by hitting on the head with a lump of salt. Its throat was then cut, the blood being collected and mixed with fodder. Feeding cattle with this mixture was believed to make them thrive. Slaughtering and butchering the animals required every male to participate while the women did the cutting and preparing of the lard bacon, sausages; and Cook and her loyal staff prepared the other traditional specialties. Cook, Irina, and Alexandra, chose just the perfect meats for their delicious cabbage rolls, and steaks, and saved the grease for baking cookies.

  Like the rest of the welcome home, the traditional Christmas Eve meal—the Holy Supper–at Tarasova House was a great success: Before the feast, the long table was covered with a white cloth to hide the grains of wheat which were placed under the white table cloth to signify a rich harvest, garlic to ward off evil spirits, and a bit of sugar as a wish for a sweet life. The table was set with an extra place for the spirits of family members that had passed on as an added plea to bring good crops. Straw was scattered around the table by the family’s and the servants’ children, as a reminder of Jesus’ birth in the manger.

  Atop the hand-embroidered white cloth, decorations included a caricature ostrich sitting on eggs–its body made from a coconut, its neck from a banana, its head from a small fresh winter apple with holes or berries for eyes, and its beak made from an almond. Like most Russians with any means at all for a festive meal, the Tarasovas had a partridge and a traditional greasy goose.

  The Tarasovas had no objection to being eclectic and generally accepted local traditions as their own. The rural Russians in the oblast celebrated St. Basil’s Day on the seventh of January (by the Julien calendar). Basil was the Bishop of Caesarea—and tradition held that he was the patron saint of pigs. Accordingly, on the traditional new year, the locals and the Tarasovas ate suckling pig. No one made a comment that they were amalgamating the two holidays for their own blowout feast.

  In keeping with fond Russian Orthodox traditions, the Tarasova’s “Holy Supper” consisted of twelve dishes, each one in honor of one of the twelve apostles of Jesu; but in reality, there were far more than the twelve traditional dishes. When Russians celebrate Christmas, Russian Orthodox Christmas customs take center stage while other borrowed traditions from Eastern Orthodoxy find their somewhat less prominent place. Principal dishes on the Christmas table in old Russia included a variety of pork–roasted whole pig, stuffed pig’s head, roasted meat chunks, finely sliced pork cooked in pots with semi-traditional porridge, jellied pork kholodets [meat aspic dish]. Christmas dinner in the Far East also included many other meats: goose with apples, sour cream hare, venison, lamb, whole fish, and whole baked chicken. The large quantities of meats on the festive table was testament to the oversized features of the Russian oven—designed for preparation of large portions to accommodate the other Russian tradition: large families.

  No Russian feast–especially those at Christmas and Paschka [Easter, and the word for Jesus himself]—could be successful without sweets, especially a dizzying assortment of pies: both closed and ope
n style pirogi [meat hand pies]–vatrushkas [Sweet Russian farmer’s cheese buns with berries], coulibiacs [a pirog filled with salmon or sturgeon, rice or buckwheat, and hard-boiled eggs], kurnik [or tzar pirog, a dome-shaped savory pie filled with chicken or turkey].

  In addition to the assortment of pies, Cook made boats of pilaf in which rice was cooked in a seasoned broth. The Tarasova variety had a golden-brown color by first sautéing it lightly in oil before the addition of broth. Cook Skevar prepared cooked onions and other vegetables, a mix of spices, and in the various pies, some had pork or beef meat; some had fish, vegetables, pasta, or dried fruit. Cook Skevar made—with loving care—saeki [their favorite: hangover stew from Chosŏn. The dish was a spicy and steaming stew made from beef broth with cabbage, bean sprouts, radish chunks, and chunks of congealed ox blood eaten for the purpose of starting up the sluggish brains of hungover drinkers in the morning], shangi [a hot Szechuan paste and hot ginger paste from Mumbai, India], kalachi [assorted foods from Kalachi, India including Chicken Peshawari Karhai and Ghaffar-Chicken Malai Boti], cooked casseroles, and blini [a Russian pancake traditionally made from buckwheat flour and served with sour cream, quark, butter, caviar and an assortment of other garnishes].

  Pie fillings were as many and as diverse as the cooks’ imaginations could dream: including herbal, vegetable, fruit, mushrooms, meat, fish, cheese, and mixtures. Very sweet dishes served on the Tarasova Russian Christmas table included berries, fruit, candy, cakes, angel wing cookies [Angel wings are a round Polish traditional sweet crisp pastry made out of dough that has been shaped into wings], biscuits and honey, and česnica [a sweet bread with a traditional silver coin inside]. The person who found the coin in his or her bread received a special blessing for the new year to come. The Tarasova House rules and rituals decreed that the dough be prepared with the strong water. When ready, the silver coin and small objects made of cornel wood–carved to represent chickens, oxen, cows, swine, horses, bees and one or two butterflies–were inserted into the dough.

  Beverages included drinking broths and sweet soups, sbiten [honey and sbiten’ spices, red wine, and juices’ flavor were boiled down separately and then these two parts were combined and re-boiled], kissel [a Russian fruit drink], hot chocolate, hard cider, local and foreign wines, and an assortment of beers. With the close proximity to Manchuria, the Far East Russians had developed a strong liking for green and black Chinese tea and the traditional Kutia made from cooked wheat, honey, poppy seeds, raisins and walnuts. Kutia was more a Christmas porridge than a broth or beverage, with the seeds included as a symbol of hope for the year ahead.

  The table remained covered; and no one was allowed to peek, until Father Gregor arrived and gave his blessing, then a prayer and blessing. Abram, as head of the family, greeted each person present with the traditional Christmas greeting of “Christ is born!” to which they all responded, “Glorify Him!” The bread was then torn by hand by each guest at the table and shared with all present. Then Father Gregor lighted candles in honor of Jesus–as Light of the World–and then uncovered the magnificent feast table.

  The guests paused for a moment to take in the grandeur of the table while Father Gregor lit a candle, blessed the family and house, and recited the Lord’s Prayer. After that, the family members kissed each other on the cheek saying: “The peace of God among us, Christ is Born.” Several religious toasts with the family’s best wines were made, and the family and guests dove in without further ceremony or further thoughts of proper decorum.

  Exhausted, lethargic from postprandial lassitude, and more than a little drunk, the family retired to their separate rooms for a well-earned sleep, or in the case of Boris and Alexandra, not until after another athletic match was consummated. The servants cleared the table and cleaned the room, then had their own feast from the more than ample leftovers. They all took large bags full of the marvelous food home to their own families—thereby providing all Tarasova House with a Christmas feast fit for kings.

  The Christmas day meal itself centered on roast pig, with side dishes including sausage, roast potatoes, nut strudel. baklava, kourabiethes, melomakarona, and other traditional pastries which were baked on Christmas Eve [khetum] to be ready for the actual day. Christopsomo [bread baked on Christmas Day–literally “Christ’s bread”] was a decorative traditional delicacy. A cross was formed on the top of the bread and at the end of each bar of the cross, a walnut was placed. In most Orthodox countries, pork is the traditional roast meat as well as lamb. Families around some parts of the Orthodox world gather for a lighter Christmas Eve dinner which generally consists of rice, fish, nevik–a vegetable dish of green chard and chick peas–and yogurt/wheat soup. Dessert in those countries usually includes dried fruits, and nuts, including rojik, which consists of whole shelled walnuts threaded on a string and encased in grape jelly, bastukh. This lighter menu is designed to ease the stomach off the week-long fast and prepare it for the rather more substantial Christmas Day dinner. Tarasova House, like the Yusupovs and the Romanovs, observed a much more elaborate and grand fare for both meals.

  After the Christmas dinner, the children of the family and of the servants’ families brought presents of fruits, nuts, and candles to older relatives. Grandfather Abram made the sign of the cross on the little ones’ foreheads, in order for them to be healthy. The men of the family then served božićni kolač–a round loaf with a Christogram impressed with a wooden seal on its upper surface. The women prepared for each male member of the family a round loaf called ratarica, suitably sized for the male recipient–the biggest one for the head, and the smallest one for the youngest boy. Theoretically, the men baked a pletenica–a loaf shaped like a three-strand braid–for each female member. In reality, the cooks made the pletenicas, lest disappointment and rancor prevail.

  Cook’s sister, Magda, took Ivanka by the hand early in the morning Christmas Day to the stream to collect water in a bucket. Magda dropped an ear of maize and a bunch of basil brought from home into the water and took it back home to her family. That water collected on early Christmas morning is called the strong water and is believed to possess a special beneficial power. Each member of the family washed his or her face with it, drank a glass before breakfast; and the infants of the family were bathed in it. On her way back home, Magda, by tradition, picked several cornel twigs, with which children were lightly struck that morning to strengthen their health and to remind them to avoid sin.

  Later in the afternoon, a group of boys [the vertepaši] from Saint Sophia’s Cathedral dressed in variegated costumes and went from house to house in Vladivostok carrying a vertep [lit. a “cave”–a litter constructed as a wooden model of a house or a church with two dolls inside]. One doll represented the Theotokos [Mother of God]; and the other–laid in a model of a manger–represented the Christ Child. The vertepaši boys sang Christmas songs, and recited poems praising the birth of Christ. For reasons lost to antiquity, the vertepaši fenced with each other with wooden swords in front of houses.

  The vertepaši greeted each member of the household with “Christ is born!”, and the residents responded with “Truly, He is born!” Tradition required that during the Twelve Days of Christmas everyone greet and respond the same way to every person encountered.

  A Tarasova tradition coming from the fact that so many family members missed many Christmases was that each of those members must tell an exciting tale about the adventures away from home. Abram and Irina asked Boris to go first.

  He gathered everyone around him in a circle and began to weave his tale.

  “Many of you have not heard of the war our country has been fighting in Manchuria. That is a part of China, not at all far from Vladivostok, to the south and west. The origins of the conflict go back to 1840 when the very weak state of Qing, China lost a major battle. Then several other European empires took slices of the China because the Qings were too weak to counter them. Our Russian troops walked into Outer Manchuria–including Sakhalin Island–under a treaty
with the Qing which said that the victorious Russians could claim as much land as a man can walk around in a day. Finally, a formal border was drawn in the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and in the Peking Convention in 1860. That is when Vladivostok became a Russian city for the first time.

  “I received orders to travel to Lüshun in March, 1880 to lead the Russian expeditionary force against the Manchu Eight Banners, local Manchurian nationalists, and Han Chinese who wanted to drive the Russians from our rightful lands there. It was my secret responsibility to take back the lands of Greater Manchuria from China and to reestablish our control over the coasts, ports, and the tribute world we established by the 1860 treaty. I was assigned to Port Arthur, a fort used by the Chinese as a naval base to guard the entrance to Bao Hai, or the Gulf of Chihli. We found the Port Arthur fortifications and preparations to be ridiculously poor to begin with. The Chinese soldiers and naval personnel lacked any semblance of military bearing; their dress was unkempt and dirty; and they wandered about the place with little in the way of direction. They were not professional soldiers; and we easily defeated them. They retreated to Mukden in far north eastern Manchuria—closer to Vladivostok than to Port Arthur. It took us until early December to clear the way for the coming battle in Mukden.

  “The insurgent Manchus, local foreigners from all over the world, and the Honghuzi warriors proved to be much more effective than the Han Chinese we had encountered in the region of south Liaodong Peninsula where the coastal facilities and Port Arthur were coming under proper Russian control. Winter was fierce and terrible—so much so, that all military activity on both sides was put on hold. My staff and I were holed up in a deep trench covered with barbed wire and surrounded by a mine field. We were freezing. It was lonely and drab. We were wet all of the time. Men were getting sick. Then one of the men remembered that it was Christmas. He began singing, The Forest Raised a Christmas Tree. Since only human voices are allowed to carry the music or to give voice to the lyrics, it was a great touch of home, because the man—a mere corporal—had such a fine voice. He was joined by our chaplain, Father Ignatius; and soon, all of us were singing songs like, God Eternal, Christ Is Born Today, and Good Eve to You. Even the air seemed warmer. I slept well that night with dreams of Alexandra, the boys, and home. It was the first good sleep I had known in four months.