Theosofische Vereniging Loge Antwerpen: Reizen

Het geboortehuis van mevrouw Blavatsky: reisverslag deel I

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 13:46:52 GMT

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Visit to the house where H. P. Blavatsky was born

Summer 2005

“Museum centre of HPB and her family”

11, Leningradskaya Street,

Dnepropetrovsk

Ukraine

1. Introduction:

Over the last several years, each time when the members of the Theosophical Society in Belgium came to the International Theosophical Centre at Naarden and met there with the members from the Ukraine, a number of them often invited us to come over to visit their country. This was not just a simple invitation by courtesy, but also a very serious business as it later appeared, because it is in that country that the founder of the Theosophical Society, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, was born.

During the last several years, the political situation in the Ukraine had not been very attractive for travelling and we hesitated to launch ourselves in such an endeavour, and also because the trip did not seem to want to materialize very quickly. This large European country with almost 50 million inhabitants has been going through a period of change, after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, when near the town of that name a nuclear power station melted down and exploded, causing many deaths in and around the nuclear site and large clouds of nuclear fallout contaminating Central and Western Europe.

The political situation changed suddenly after the demonstrations in the streets of the capital and the consequent change of government, in the winter of the years 2004/2005. Actually the first exchange of electronic messages between Kiev and Brussels, which had as their subject the possibility and programme of a two weeks visit to the Ukraine, started in September/October 2004, which must also have been the time that the political change was preparing to take place in that country.

The idea was to go for three days to the capital Kiev and for another three days to Dnepropetrovsk, where the house of HPB is situated. Furthermore there was a whole week destined for a holiday at the Black Sea, where there are lots of seaside resorts, so called “sanatoria” and sight seeing possibilities on the south coast of the Crimea.

A group of participants, numbering five people, all residents in Belgium undertook this travel experience, which seemed on the one hand like an exploration of the newly opened Eastern European territories after the end of the Cold War and on the other hand like a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. None of them spoke or understood Russian, so from the beginning it was agreed, that an interpreter would accompany them during the whole length of their two weeks journey.

The dates for the trip were chosen in relation to the flight scheme of the Ukrainian International Airlines and the possibilities of the participants and their interpreter, who was an English school teacher and member of the Theosophical Society in Kiev.

2. Visit to Kiev (23^rd to 26^th July 2005):

2.1. 23^rd July 2005 – Kiev – The Capital of the Ukraine :

The airplane arrived round midnight at the airport of Kiev, which is situated some 50 Km from the city centre. Kiev is the capital of the Ukraine and has about 5 million inhabitants. Chernobyl, where the nuclear power station melted down, is situated only 80 Km to the north of the capital close to the boarder with Byelorussia.

The flight was a combined one between Belgian Airlines and Ukrainian International Airlines with a Boeing 737 airplane, which with its blue leather seat covers had reminiscences of the old days from the time of Sabena, when this national Belgian airline had bought a number of these planes, just before going bankrupt.

There were no problems during the three hours that we were in the air, and most of the Ukrainian passengers who seemed to be quietly speaking in Russian were in a good mood, probably because they were happy to go home again. I was sitting next to a Danish diplomat, who was stationed for three years in Brussels. We had a very lively exchange of views about the European Institutions and the developments as well as possible future scenarios for the European Political Union.

After going through Customs and Immigration we found our host, who was waiting for us with a mini-bus and driver to take us into the town and to our apartment. She had flowers and our breakfast in a big plastic bag. During the bus trip, we could see that there were many new buildings under construction, so it seemed, that an economic revival had been under way, for several years already.

The apartment was situated in an old building close to the centre of the city next to the Iranian embassy, the office of the European Commission and a German Protestant Church. It was well after midnight, when we arrived at the building, where it appeared that the elevator did not work, so we had to carry our luggage to the fourth floor ourselves. This was a good introduction to the general state of affairs in the country. But it must be said from the beginning, that despite the many inconveniences that were encountered during this trip, the people we met stayed mostly very gentle and helpful.

From the apartment we had a direct view on a gigantic and very dominant building, which had served as the headquarters of the local Supreme Soviet committee. It was a powerful cubical structure in the form of several superposed cubes, which had the appearance of a enormous cake and actually made one think of an oversized children’s tower of blocks with a big five pointed red neon-light star on top of it like the stars on our Christmas trees. As we arrived during a moonlit, but still a rather the dark night, there being less street illumination than we were used to, the building was even more menacing and looked mysteriously dangerous and terrifying. It made an overall impression of a completely tasteless and uninspired art form, which must have been resulted from the thoughts of utter materialism, which were in the minds of those who had decided to put it there. Because we were told that most of the churches were demolished by the soviets, rather soon after the communists came to power, it was clear that, for a couple of generations, this building had been standing on the site where in the old days a big orthodox church or cathedral must have been dominating the city. Our Ukrainian friends told us on several occasions that, during the pre-soviet times, there was a rule, which did not allow for any building to be higher than the highest church tower in the city.

We said good night to our host, who went home, as it was about half past two in the morning (i.e. half past three in Brussels time) and we were glad to go to sleep in our new quarters. The next day we slept a good part of the morning and enjoyed the bathroom and kitchen, which were in a rather old state, but well up to our western standard of comfort. There was even a washing machine, which we did not use, because the vacation had just begun. We decided not to look at the other apartment, which was still available. We had a very good breakfast in the tiny kitchen, which could fit just five at a small table.

By then it was Sunday afternoon and we had lunch in a self-service restaurant at five minutes walk in the direction of the centre. There was a delicious “Borsch”, which is a vegetable soup with cabbage, salads, fried potato slices and much more. After lunch we had a guided tour of the town with a T.S. member as guide, who spoke very good French, and our interpreter, the teacher in English. First we walked along a boulevard, which was free of traffic, because it was Sunday, and which led to the Maidan Square, where the Orange Revolution took place. We were told, that on this boulevard, were the enormous Soviet Building is situated and which was in line with buildings, which were all constructed in the same, heavy Stalinist style, people coming from all over the country were camping for several months during last winter, when sometimes it was freezing down to 15 degrees below zero. Now, there was a big Sunday afternoon crowd enjoying the good weather and relaxing in their liberated city centre. It was a nice sunny day and people were dressed accordingly. They were roller skating, selling souvenirs, riding motorcycles, showing circus acts and generally behaving in a relaxed way, demonstrating that they were happy to be free. We also experienced a general feeling of happiness and joy, while moving around in this crowd.

We saw the old West Gate of the city, the Twin Churches, with their towers facing each other instead of both being oriented in the same direction. The biggest church of the two is Sofia Kievskaya, where lots of couples, just married, were having their wedding photographs taken. A bit further on we visited the oldest site of the city, where its first foundations had been laid by four men, of whom three were brothers. On that high place, overlooking a water stream and a deep valley there stood the beautiful Andreas church with green rooftops and its golden onions above each altar. There we were told, that at the end of the Middle Ages or so, the daughter of a Ukrainian King became Queen of France. So today there seems to be nothing new in Europe and for thousands of years its people have wanted to live together in peace.

In the evening our host accompanied by two other members and an aspirant member of the T.S. took the five of us to a concert with music by Hayden and Schubert. The concert took place in one of the two Roman Catholic churches of the town. It was a rather big Gothic church with two towers and it looked like a small cathedral. The choir and soloists had beautiful voices and the church acoustics were so excellent, that we did not miss one note. The church benches were a bit hard though, but altogether it truly was a very moving experience. We were told, that the Ukrainians are known worldwide for their exceptionally good singing capacities.

That night the town made me think of Athens, probably because its orthodox way of life and organisation. We had supper on our way home at “Traly Valy”, a self service with very delicious traditional national dishes. Two of us had to go back to the cashier, because they had not paid for the drink cups. It was very obvious to everybody, that one should pay one’s debts. A clear example of instant self served karma.

2.2. 24^th July 2005 – Kiev – The National Open Air Museum :

Half past nine this morning our host came to the apartment with the train tickets to Dnepropetrovsk for the day after the next day. Luckily the elevator worked again and it seemed that the repair had been done very early in the morning.

We were informed about the spiritual forces in Ukraine and in Kiev in particular. These were very powerful and had not been used, because of the presence of one dominant religion during hundreds of years. Today, these forces were used in a positive way again, which could be seen in the phenomena like the Orange Revolution, during which some five million people moved through the centre of Kiev and over Maydan Square, the heart of the nation, all with a positive state of mind. This had such an effect, that even the opposing people were not capable to do any harm, as soon as they had arrived in the crowd. This explains also, why Mme Blavatsky was born and raised in this country to later receive and spread the Secret Doctrine.

At 10.30 hrs in the morning our interpreter and two friends, took the five of us in a minibus with a driver for an excursion to the Open Air Museum. The two friends were the same friends, who had come to see us in Brussels after the summer school in the ITC at Naarden one month before. The museum has a surface of a large number of hectares, where there have been brought together the traditional buildings from the different parts of the country. Some of these buildings were already several centuries old when they had been taken apart, transported from their original sites to the territory of the museum and there put together again.

The most impressive building was a farmhouse from the High Tatra of over three hundred years old, of which most of the wooden structure was said to be the original more than one square foot thick beams made out of pine trees. One would like to stay and live there, so good was the feeling of security and being at home once one was in the vicinity of that age old structure.

There were farmhouses, small and big ones, even the original traditional farmhouse of a famous national writer and poet, churches, a pottery, a blacksmith, windmills and even an old wooden school with the house of the teacher inside of it, all with original furniture. The weather was not as good as the day before and now and then, an occasional shower surprised us. The museum was on such a vast territory that one could easily walk around for a whole day, before one would have seen all the buildings and a small part of the multitude of antique objects therein. There were several restaurants, an open-air souvenir market and a primitive theatre for folk dance performances and other events.

All together the museum looked like an enormous park with many trees and open grasslands between the different parcels, on which each region had the buildings of its own typical architecture united in small clusters, looking like little villages. As the day went by, there were more and more people, who came to relax and picnic on the grass and under the trees of the museum. Many wooden picnic tables and benches had been put up to that effect.

We had a vegetarian lunch in one of the restaurants, where the owner tried to speak German with us when we left his place. Our group might have puzzled him, when there were several languages spoken at the same time, i.e. English, French, Dutch, Russian and may be even Ukrainian.

On the way back into town we stopped at a vast exhibition site, constructed in sickening soviet style. The entrance had big columns with golden crowns at the top looking as if they were imported from ancient Greece. The exposition buildings had the same red stars on top of them as the Local Soviet Committee building in the centre of the city and were lacking any really artistic architectural proportions.

We went to do some shopping in a super market, which seemed to be a left over from the old regime. At the entrance there were toilets and also a guarded room, where bags and rucksacks could be left temporarily, which obviously could not be taken into the shopping area itself.

As we continued our way into the city and were waiting at a traffic light we could witness a quarrel between two drivers, who were standing with their cars in the middle of the crossing. One had come out of his car and had opened the driver’s door of the other to teach him a lesson. While the two guys were quarrelling, their female companions got out of their cars and started to get together at several meters distance to confer about the question what to do about this situation. The not so aggressive driver, who had stayed put behind the steering wheel of his car, suddenly gave his aggressor a well-directed punch in the face. This action had as a consequence, that the aggressor stepped back to mind his wounded face and that the other driver could call his female companion. She got back into the car and they escaped safe and sound. The traffic could resume its normal course, after his companion had taken the wounded driver to their car and they also had disappeared.

Although shocked, we were rather amused by this example of local crisis management and excellent problem solving capability. It also could be seen as a perfectly timed example to show us how full of temperament the local population was.

Coming near the centre of the city we could recognise the buildings and saw the Roman Catholic Church, where we had been to the concert the night before.

Back in the apartment we took some rest, washed our clothes in the washing machine, looked for matches and found a lighter, so we could cook our evening meal. It was a very cosy supper that we had in the small kitchen and our mood was really animated in that homely atmosphere, which we experienced there.

We even managed to find new light bulbs, to put in the place of the broken ones. But later we were told, that in the Ukraine these kinds of goods had to be replaced all the time, because the quality standards were very low.

2.3. 25^th July 2005 – Kiev – Pechersk-Lavra (Churches and Monasteries) :

Today, we went to see the Monasteries and Churches complex on the rocky hills to the north of the city along the river Dnieper, where there were also many underground tunnels and caves, in which generations of monks had been dwelling, over a period of some ten centuries. People said, that the tunnels even went as far as Moscow. As we travelled along the road from the city to this complex, we could see that there was a green belt between the road and the river at the left side of the road, while on the right side there were buildings all the way to the complex, which itself was situated on the left side of the road. It was surrounded by walls and had entry gates through which motorcars were not allowed to enter, the whole complex being a pedestrian area.

We went past all the churches and other buildings to a higher point to have a look at the river first. The rocks were rather steep and there was a wide view of the river and the land at the other side of it. These cliffs were obviously of strategically importance for the defence of the city site as well as densely charged with heavy telluric forces.

Then we went for a tour into the tunnels and caves. There we were told, that the monks, who had been living in these caves, in former times, received one meal per week and that most of them died rather quickly. Nevertheless a number of 119 of them had been declared saints. The bodies of many of these saints were behind glass windows inside niches along the sides of tunnels. These tunnels went gradually downhill. Later I concluded, that this must have made the task much easier for the monks who would have had to clean these caves.

After about ten centuries, the King and the Patriarch agreed to put an end to this cave starving ritual and they prohibited it by law. This must have been somewhere during the 19^th century.

When we had to go in a second tunnel, where there were intersections with other tunnels crossing that one, I smelled something burning. “These people still must have strange rituals”, I said to myself. The smell of burning was so heavy, that I became a little upset, until I discovered, that the flame of the candle, which I held in my hand, had set fire to my own beard. There was laughter all over, while I felt rather impressed by the effect of the whole situation upon my personal behaviour. Anyhow, I concluded at the time, that it probably expressed the opinion, that those cultures where the traditional burning of human remains takes place have found a better solution, compared with those cultures where the attachment to the physical is so great, that there still is a tradition of public exposition of these remains.

After the caves, we had a quick look at the rest of the complex, where the main church, which the soviet army had demolished a long time ago, had recently been re-established. The new cathedral looked a bit like a Disney Land creation, not so much charged as a religious sanctuary, but just a reconstruction of the outer form. The trees on the square in front of it were several centuries old and standing there respectfully, they seemed to give a demonstration that the intentions of the demolisher at the time had been directed to churches and not to these other valuable life forms.

We took the bus back into town, where we had dinner in the restaurant close to the apartment. After a short stop over in the apartment, two members of the T.S. took us to their library, where their group regularly came to study. The library is in an apartment, which is close to the football stadium just behind the building where the prime minister was living on the first floor. We spent the rest of the evening with a group of some 15 people, having tea and exchanging experiences about the theosophical work in our respective countries.

2.4. 26^th July 2005 – Kiev – Parks and Boulevards :

This morning everybody was free to sleep, go for a walk into town or whatever one wanted to do or not to do. Some went shopping and some took a rest. I went for a walk to look for the post office and discover the immediate surroundings of the apartment building, which was situated in an old part of the city and itself probably almost a century old. After finding the location of the post office I went to the right in front of our building and took three left turns after considerable distances so as to make a circular movement around the big building with the neon soviet star on top of it. At a distance of two hundred meters uphill I saw the street where there was the presidential office, but where the road was opened for works on the sewerage system like it seemed, so one could not walk through the street in front of this office. Not very far from there was the new office of the former president, who had to leave office last winter, where he worked now for a kind of charitable organisation.

Taking the first turn to the left at the street of the presidential office, I passed in front of a German Protestant Church, which had recently been renovated. The doors of the church were open, but I hesitated to go to have a look inside, because I wanted to continue my discovery and be back at the apartment on time for the excursion to churches and monasteries in the afternoon.

The street started to bend downwards steeper and steeper in the direction of the big avenue, called Kreshchatyk, under which there must have been a canalisation of the water stream, which had formed the valley. The site where the first foundations of the original capital of the medieval kingdom had been laid was on the hills at the other side of the valley. At the end of the street I went through a passage under one of the buildings, which were lining up along the Kreshchatyk. There Maidan Square and the river were to the right, but I turned to the left again, back to the apartment. On Kreshchatyk I was immediately immersed in the crowd of the daily city life. This is said to be the liveliest main street of the Ukraine. There were many people moving about on foot and in the traffic. The shops, terraces and entertainment acts gave the feeling that life here was just the same as in the centre of any other European capital.

At the end of Kreshchatyk I went to the left again and, after cutting a corner by going through a smaller street with lot of commercial activities, I passed in front of the restaurant, where we had gone for lunch on the first day. I felt satisfied to have discovered the city all by myself and took the last turn to the left while the road was going uphill again. Passing in front of the office representing of the EC, I again hesitated to go into that building to say hello, but decided, that nobody was waiting there for me, so I continued and passed in front of the Iranian embassy, which was standing brotherly side to side with the EU diplomatic building. A guard was martially standing on the pavement and did not return my friendly greetings. Everything seemed normal and peaceful that Tuesday morning.

In the afternoon our host took us for a trip to the park where we had a nice walk and consumed an ice cream. After that, we went sight seeing through the town on foot and also with the metro. We saw palaces, the Opera, the University and many other impressive buildings from the 19^th century. The town is a bit chaotic, because of building works all over the place, but the metro between Park and Opera was in a perfect condition, although a bit old fashioned.

At 21.30 hrs we had to go to the railway station to take the train to Dnepropetrovsk. The train was also old fashioned, but everything was functioning and in good order. The construction of the carriages was very solid and their suspension was excellent, so sleeping was not a problem.

EINDE DEEL I - VERVOLG ZIE DEEL II

Het geboortehuis van mevrouw Blavatsky : reisverslag deel II

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 16:44:07 GMT

VERVOLG REISVERSLAG "GEBOORTEHUIS VAN MEVROUW BLAVATSKY"

3. Visit to Dnepropetrovsk (27th to 30th July 2005):

3.1. 27^th July 2005 – Dnepropetrovsk – Center and “Petrikovskaya” painting:

The journey by train was very comfortable. In the morning we found that in the bathroom there was not only toilet paper, but also enough soap to wash ourselves, and that we could safely brush our teeth with the water. We had been sleeping most of the way, so we had not seen much of the countryside. When we had a look out of the windows, we saw that the landscape was a lush green. Closer to the city there were large areas of obsolete factories, which had fallen into ruins.

In Dnepropetrovsk the local T.S. members, one of whom we recognised, because we had already met at the ITC in Naarden some years ago, welcomed us. We were to be lodged for the next three days in the apartment of another T.S. member, who stayed with a cousin for the time that we were there. It was a very comfortable apartment on the second floor with many objects, which showed the spiritual orientation of the occupant, who shared with us the last evening of our stay in it and accompanied our party the next morning, when on our way to Yalta we made a visit to the Stone and Caves site, which is sometimes considered as the Ukrainian Stonehenge.

Just after we arrived in the apartment, a truck stopped at the crossing of the roads in front of it and on which we had a good view. We could witness how two women started to do road repair works. Their working clothes were blue trousers with white blouses and white head scarves. They seemed confident and happy to do their own jobs in their own fashion and one could see that they were very effective and efficient at it. I had never before seen a young woman climb over the back wheels into a big truck, wade through a heap of sand and start to throw out the shovels and other tools as if it was the most normal thing to do. At the same time my companions had started a discussion about earrings in particular and later about piercing in general.

Because the house where H.P.B. was born, was not in a very good state, we were taken first to the Museum, under who’s authority the house is, since last December. This is the Literature Museum and there are kept most of the articles, which should have their place in the “Blavatsky Center” once that will have been created as a museum in its own right. The Literature Museum is coming under the hierarchy of the Historical Museum, so we first had to go there and meet the director.

The house of HPB is situated near the centre in the old part of the town, which is a couple of kilometers down stream from the new centre. The level of the river changed when there were built dams in it in order to have a large seaport. Before that, the water was considered to have healing powers, as it had been going over a number of cascades just before it passed the place where the city was founded. The first foundation of Yekaterinoslav or Ekaterinoslav (renamed Dnepropetrovsk, in 1926) was in 1776, just after the 8-year war with the Turks had ended on July 21, 1774. It was meant to “open the window” into the Orient. The foundation of the town formed an integrated part of a colonizing strategy against the Turks, who had at least five main fortresses down stream on both sides of the river Dnieper. Because of the yearly flooding and the swamps, after two decades the town was moved upstream on the right bank of the river. In 1792 (the year of the French Revolution), the Tzarina Catherine II signed a blue print for that new town. Today it is the industrial and scientific centre of the Ukraine. Since Perestroika the number of its inhabitants has gone down from over 1.5 million to some 1.2 million.

So, at the time HPB was born, the town was just half a century old, thus rather new and promising, considering the spirit of that time. While going through the streets, we saw a tramway which had been constructed in the middle of a wide avenue, just in the same manner as the Tervuren Avenue in Brussels and it looked strikingly the same. Our hosts told us, that Belgian engineers had conceived the project somewhere in the eighteen eighties as a copy of the Tervuren Avenue, which we knew was a gift from the Belgian King to his people at the celebration of the 50 years independence of that country in 1880.

In the museum there was a statue of an ancient god, which was discovered nearby, of whom the historians think that he was Vishnu and therefore they also think that the Rig Veda happened here and that the struggle, in which light and won over darkness, took place almost exactly on the same spot where HPB was born.

The museum is situated on the highest point of the city, next to a cathedral, for which Catherine II and the Austrian King of the time laid the first stone. The cathedral was meant to become the biggest ever, but the building, when finally constructed, represented only a small part of the original plan. On top of that, the building had served as a museum for atheism, during soviet times. Inside the restoration was almost completed and it had a rather neutral atmosphere.

The Historical Museum itself had an original old building in classical style to which was added at the back a new modern styled building with big exhibition rooms. In front of the modern part of the museum facing the cathedral at some distance stood an old soviet tank dating from World War II.

In the museum we were introduced to the director, who seemed pleased to be able to welcome visiting T.S. members from abroad. In this museum there was a portrait of the mother of H.P.B., who still is a well-known Russian writer with the name Helena Von Hahn. Later, we were told, that in the Literature Museum there were some 5,000 articles of H.P.B. and her family in store, waiting to be put on exposition.

We had simple but tasty lunch in a restaurant run by an Indian sect, where the women serving us were wearing saris.

In the afternoon we had to visit a place outside the city – the village Petrikovka, where a local primitive painter had his atelier. It appeared to be a factory, where under the Soviet regime at the time of its highest production about 400 people had been employed. Now there were only twelve of them left to do the work. They had the famous Russian puppets and many painted wooden household articles for sale.

There was a small exhibition room, where the painter gave us a historical overview of the development of his painting and factory. He told us, that in the old days all the inhabitants painted their wooden houses with garland and flower motives. Also the wooden furniture, like chairs, tables, and beds as well as all other wooden objects in the houses were painted with these motives. Not to forget about the eggs, wooden ones and real ones.

Very vivid colours are used for these paintings and the overall effect is that of cheering up the atmosphere in the otherwise rather dull looking wooden houses. Somehow these pictures had a strong effect upon some of us. In this context it must be said, that a great number of the big paintings in the exhibition room looked like the paintings of the chakras published in the book by C.W. Leadbeater, so there might have been resonance.

3.2. 28^th July 2005 – Dnepropetrovsk – Center of H. P. Blavatsky and family:

Today was the great day, for which the whole trip had been organised. We finally would be visiting the house where H.P.B. was born, almost 175 years ago on the 12^th of August 1831. We had to drive by car along the bank of river to the south, where the old town was situated. The house is standing there in a road, which is rather busy. The area around it had become industrialised and most of the old buildings have been broken down.

As if by a miracle, H. P. Blavatsky’s house had been saved from the demolisher and stayed almost completely intact, see photograph on the front cover of this report. The outer and supporting walls are all in good shape. Although there have been considerable modifications made to the interior of the house, the architect, who made a preliminary study, discovered how the rooms and fireplaces of original house had been situated. Only the roof was in a very bad state and should to be renovated urgently.

Andrey de Fadeyev, HPB’s grandfather, who was a government official and who ended his career as a Provincial Governor, bought the house in the year 1815, when he became head of the Bureau for Foreign Colonists.

In the early days, there was no corridor and through a small hall one entered the house directly into the living room, which had a surface of about 8x8 meters and three windows looking onto the street. On the ground floor there were two smaller rooms and another big room. One of the smaller ones also had windows on the street and the other two rooms were at the back of the house, while the bedrooms must have been on the first floor.

It was probably in the big room on the ground floor, that the baptising ceremony of Helena Petrovna took place in 1831, during which ceremony one of her nieces set fire to the dress of the priest leading the ceremony,

Behind the smaller room on the ground floor was the other big room, where H.P.B.’s grandmother, Helena Pavlovna Fadeyev, had her quarters and where the children used to come very often. She was a princess and member of the Dolgorukov’s family, descending from the Viking King Roerik, who was the founder of the Russian Empire ten centuries ago. It was he who was known as the prince of the Roes, the people who gave their name to the Russian people and their country. The grandmother was an exception in her time, being an artist and musician as well as an autodidact in botanical- and archaeological science. As a woman, she had not been able to go to Universities, but she had become such a learned person, that she was corresponding with other scientists in Western Europe. She spoke five languages and taught ancient and modern Greek to her granddaughter HPB, who spent much of her youth in her grandparent’s house.

In the smaller room at the back of the house was the library inherited from the family of HPB’s grandmother, where as a child she spend a lot of time reading books. It contained hundreds of books, many of which were on subjects of spiritual nature and occult science, such as magic and alchemy.

There was a big garden at the back of the house, where HPB’s grandmother had a vast collection of plant species. Her family had some 14 servants, some of which belonged to a family of serfs, who had been there for generations. This seemed to be a rather large number of servants, but several were occupied just to keep the garden in good order.

The director of the Literature Museum informed us, that the river Dnieper is described by H.P.B. and by her mother Helena Von Hahn in their books. The director said, that the novel “The animated violin”, in which H.P.B describes the river, would become obligatory literature for the secondary schools in the Ukraine, in the next school year.

After our visit to the house of HPB, we had lunch in a restaurant run by an Indian sect, where the waitresses were dressed in saris. During the afternoon we went on to the Literature Museum, where the director had invited us for a more detailed explanation of the project for the Museum Center of HPB and her family. In the Literature Museum we saw two exhibitions of modern art and an exhibition of the different study rooms of six Russian writers, amongst whom Helena Von Hahn, HPB's mother. There was a small exhibition in a separate room with objects of HPB and her family. It contained a portrait of the 14-year-old Helena Petrovna with her mother, painted after the death of the latter. The director of the museum told us, that the painting was one of the five thousand objects, which the museum had collected for the new project. During communist times it had been kept by the housekeeper of a member of the Von Hahn family, who lived on a farm, which had been confiscated and demolished by the soviets. This Von Hahn descendant had died, probably after his deportation to one of the camps, during the regime of Stalin.

We were invited for a soft drink with cake and cookies in the main exhibition room, where we were given a presentation of the project “The Museum Center for H. P. Blavatsky and her family”. First we were shown the blue prints for the new project as well as a number of official documents. The main idea of the project is to re-establish the house in its original state and to enlarge it underground only, where there are projected cellars not only under the house, but also under part of the garden. These underground premises will provide room for administration, archives, toilets etc. The ground floor and the first floor, which will be put back in their original state, will be destined for use as museum, conference rooms and centre for gatherings and meetings. At the end of the presentation, we saw a video of the ceremony, which took place at the house around the year 1991, when the international president of the TS, Radha Burnier, inaugurated a commemorative stone at the front of the house.

The project is estimated to cost in total at least US $ 1 million, while the first phase, which consists of making the detailed architectural plans, will cost an estimated US $ 60,000.

3.3. 29^th July 2005 – Dnepropetrovsk – The river Dnieper :

The 29^th of July was the birthday of our host and she invited us for a birthday party, which consisted of a trip on the river Dnieper and a lunch at the beach in the local boat club, named “Bartholomeo”. Because of the barrages in the river, its surface is rather wide and the boat ride was a very smooth one. Near the city's banks on the river we saw some impressive architectural structures, build after the Perestroika, but there also were very nice looking buildings for social housing at the other side of the river, which dated from the Soviet times. Several long bridges connecting the two parts of the city seemed to be rather old and desperately in need of repair, this appears to be the same situation probably for all public works, including museums. Later, some of us took a swim and a jet-ski ride and we all could enjoy ourselves during the nice birthday party at the beach.

In the evening, the person, in who's apartment we were staying, came to keep us company there, because it was our last evening and we would be leaving for the Crimea early the next morning. Our host, who would participate the next morning in the excursion to the prehistoric site called Graves and Stones at about 200 Km to the south, made a telephone call to an Association of Kung Fu, which was situated on the Crimea and which we could visit in the afternoon, towards the end of our journey to Yalta. The place is called Gung Fu School of Dragon-Tiger Lung Hu Chuanj. The man who is running the place is an Afghanistan War Veteran, called Valerian Marjin.

4. Stay on the Crimea (30^th July – 6^thAugust 2005) :

At six in the morning, we all got in one minibus and one passenger car and we left for the Crimea. The roads were in a state that reminded us of the Western European roads some 40 years ago, which made for very bumpy travelling with average distance covered of about 65 Km per hour. Later it would appear, that on the South Coast of the Crimea the roads were even worse.

Round 10 o'clock in the morning, we stopped for a visit at the “Rocks and Graves” site, where there are prehistoric caves with a small museum situated on the bank of a small stream in a sandy landscape, which is covered with abundant green vegetation. The brook is called the “Milky Stream”. There reigns a very serene atmosphere at this site, which has been considered and venerated as a holy place, for ages.

We made a second sight seeing stop, at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, at the Gung Fu Centre of Valeriy Marjin on the North side of the Crimea. We were told, that several years ago, when he came back from the war in Afghanistan, he started there his centre on a couple of hectares of an old tobacco farm and that he reopened a well, which seemed to have been the only one with water during a recent drought. The small group does some farming and helps young people to kick off their drug addiction through spiritual teaching. In one of the rooms there is an altar, where objects of all faiths and religions are gathered together, even with an icon of H.P.Blavatsky, from whose works Valeriy repeatedly gave citations.

It was about 6 o'clock in the evening, when we arrived in Yalta at our apartment. The garbage was piling up all over the side of the roads, because during the Summer the services of this relatively small town which has only about 100,000 inhabitants, could not cope with the all tourist who come to stay there for their holidays, thus multiplying the number of inhabitants by more than a factor of ten.

It was dark, when our host took us out to have an impression of the town, in which were included a public demonstration of modern rock ballet and a walk along a crowded boulevard at the seaside. In this town there are so many trees, that when we came out of the apartment it seemed as if we were entering into a dark forest. Somewhere in the distance we could see lights glimmering, which were coming from the windows of the other apartment buildings. Vegetation was subtropical and it we were like walking in a midsummer night's dream, experiencing all sorts of romantic and magic feelings.

On the coast near Yalta there are about 150 to 200 so called “Sanatoriums”, which have several hundred beds each of them. The second day we were lodged in a more comfortable apartment, which was better situated and closer to the centre and also had a piano. For the whole week, our host, whom we knew already from the ITC in Naarden, Holland, treated us like Kings and Princes. Several evenings were organised for us with music and exchange of experiences and one night there even was a professional interpreter. Almost every day we went to the beach of one of the “Sanatoriums”, which was not too far from town and looked like a village of the “Club Med” in Eastern European style. We went to a concert and the main tourist sights like the “Swallows Nest”, the Saint Peters Mountain of more than 1,000 meters high etc. were visited with a guide, who had worked for Intourist, in the past and who ended up inviting us to his house to meet his family.

On the last day, we went to a place called Kaktobel, which is situated at a 4 hours drive and some 150 Km to the east. The sights we saw were unforgettably beautiful. The African and Minor Asian geological plates have pushed up mountain formations and there is even proof of volcanic activities. The road goes through mountainous terrain and is not comfortable for cars, which are constructed for normal highways.

In his beach house, in Kaktobel, which looks like a church or chapel, lived and worked the painter, writer and poet of the name Valoshin, who was a theosophist for many years, before he became anthroposophist. He also was a Free Mason and constructed his house of stone according to Masonic principles. The paintings he made look like the ones made by Roerich, but they appear to be more refined and subtle, except for the ones made for and under the instruction of Rudolf Steiner.

We skipped dinner, the last day, so we were able to purchase the large book with reproductions from the works in the museum, which has been established in the house of Valoshin and was being renovated in the year 2005. There are some 60,000 objects conserved by the second widow of this formidable artist, who returned from the impressionists’ scene in Paris to his motherland, after the 1917 Bolshevists revolution, and thus left a great historical heritage on theosophy and other esoteric movements to his country and the world.

EINDE REISVERSLAG

Theosofische Vereniging Loge Antwerpen: Reizen

Het geboortehuis van mevrouw Blavatsky: reisverslag deel I

1. Introduction:

2. Visit to Kiev (23rd to 26th July 2005):

2.1. 23rd July 2005 – Kiev – The Capital of the Ukraine :

2.2. 24th July 2005 – Kiev – The National Open Air Museum :

2.3. 25th July 2005 – Kiev – Pechersk-Lavra (Churches and Monasteries) :

2.4. 26th July 2005 – Kiev – Parks and Boulevards :