Hard Work Pays Off

WHEN HE WAS IN his twenties, Alexander noted how, from his hometown Norka, sister colonies sprouted adjacent to the mother village, much the same as did colonies from the close-by Sosnovka District. Suddenly, for administrative purposes, the Norka District had been divided into three velosts, Linevo-Ozero, Medveditsa and Oleshna.

However, although others worried, it concerned him little because his great-grandmother had left him a sizable inheritance with a position in the tobacco company. She had insisted that he pursue education instead of farm work, in order to become a knowledgeable, intelligent judge of Russia’s business climate.

His instructions, besides regular schooling, consisted of one apprenticeship in St. Petersburg in a government agency, and another in the Träger Company. By the time he was twenty-three he had had more education than most Germans in the colonies.

His great-grandmother’s largess enabled him to marry a well-broughtup German girl, daughter of a grain tycoon. Adela Schmidt was the perfect wife for him in every respect. Bright, outspoken for a woman and well educated, she was the kind of person whose company he enjoyed.

To his delight she also loved music and played the piano, one of the few pianos in the colonies, imported by her father from Germany. Furthermore delighting him, she loved to ride horseback and was an accomplished horsewoman.

Alexander built a house on the outskirts of Katharinenstadt on a parcel belonging to the estate of his great-grandmother. His great-grandfather Nicholas Träger had bought, with prescience and for good money, parcels of land belonging to the government, reaching far into the Kazakh steppe. These particular parcels produced very good tobacco crops and constituted an important part of his holdings, although most parts of the Kazakh steppe were useless for any kind of cultivation.

When Alexander had built his house, a manor he named Katharina’s Thor, Katharina’s Gate, in his great-grandmother’s honor, he had closely considered its proximity to the city. He did not want to live too far from the community, for no one had ever forgotten the Kirghiz assaults of which Katharinenstadt, too, had been a victim. However, those days had slowly faded in the memories of some, as the Kirghiz were held at bay by army regiments.

Alexander prized the privacy of his large home, as it sat surrounded by many deciduous trees in the middle of an estate-sized parcel. Compared to other frontier homes it was lavish, exhibiting a living standard known to few in the region.

Adela, who could charm the very riding boots off her father’s feet, beguiled him to import for her a kitchen from the town of Delft, which she had seen during a visit to Peterhof, in Peter the Great’s palace, Mon Plaisir. Her father obliged, and her kitchen was a beautifully tiled room with a wonderful stove and ovens, producing baked wonders.

Of course, the famous piano sat in the parlor among the most charming furniture that could be imported from Dresden and Paris. Although Alexander would have preferred a simpler home more in line with the rest of the population, he could not deprive Adela of her furnishings and furbelows. Truth be told, she would have much rather lived in St. Petersburg than on the frontier. Ingrained in her resided the belief that someone had to bring civilization and style to the frontier and, furthermore, that she had been chosen for the task. Therefore Alexander sat back, letting her have will and way in the decoration of the house.

Through such regard, the life of Alexander Döring and his wife Adela flourished. They were blessed with three children; Peter was born in June 1866, and Paul in 1868. But the light of their family was a girl, Victoria, born in 1869.

The moment Victoria opened her eyes for the first time, her smile accompanied the event, as if her unfocused eyes were delighted to perceive light after months of undefined darkness. The little girl cried seldom, always showing her sunny disposition. As she began to toddle about, she fearlessly escaped from the boundaries of the house, time and again, bent on examining garden, stables and meadows.

Yuri, now over eighty and living in a cottage on the estate, had appointed himself guardian to the adventurous sprite, herding her like a sheepdog. Alexander had seen to it that Yuri remained part of his family as he got old. A maid kept Yuri’s cottage clean and his food was served from their own kitchen. The old man had never stopped working. However, when he had entered his seventies he only did what he enjoyed.

He tended sick horses, cows, and sheep and worked in the flower garden, wherein he had planted Katharina’s favorite flowers, plants he had carefully removed from the late woman’s home.

“Who but you and I will love her flowers and care for them?” he had asked Alexander, as they were involved in the process of plucking her favorites from the premise that at her death belonged to her son Martin.

He had been correct in his assumption, because Martin never noticed that anything untoward had taken place in the garden, where the precious had been replaced with the common.

Alexander was not surprised when he walked out to the stables one day and saw two-year-old Victoria high atop a calm, brown mare being led about by Yuri.

“Look, Papa, I can ride,” cooed the little girl with pleasure.

“I see, darling, I see,” Alexander cooed back; then he sardonically remarked to Yuri, “You take them younger and younger now. I at least was six when you put me on horse back.”

The Cossack smiled an inscrutable smile, retorting, “I am old. Not much time and you, malchick, were late. Every respectable Cossack child could ride by three.”