Russian Revolution Timeline | The Start of a Long Journey

The Start of a Long Journey

Posted on January 13, 2008
Filed Under Russian Revolution |

June 4, 1894 Moscow
My name is Alexander Denisei; I was named after the first Czar of my father, Alexander III.   Growing up I remember my father, Fusic Denisei, asking God’s blessing on The Czar every day.   My father was killed in an industrial accident when I was just 13,

With just my mother working there wasn’t enough food to support my two little sisters Aimi, the older of the two, and Olina, and my brother Viktor, who is the baby of the family, so I was forced to take my father’s job at the factory. 

My sisters, now 16 and 17 have married and moved away to live with their husbands.   Olina lives in the country, just outside of Tula with her husband Lenya, a peasant farmer.   Aimi moved to St. Petersburg with her husband Luka, who works in a factory there.

I’m still living in our shack with: Mother, who is too old now to work, Viktor, who recently started working along side me in the factory, and my wife Tamary.   We were married five months ago, and she is with child. She is still working as a seamstress, but will have to stop soon.

The streets of the great Moscow are littered with beggars, although no one has any money to give them except for the upper classes that seem content to ride in their carriages and continue to line their own pockets.   Ha!  Beggars begging beggars!   Funny isn’t it?   My father would have never have imagined that Russia would get this bad.   “The greatest power in the world,” he used to call it, even while he was struggling to put food on the table.   It’s nearly impossible to make a living these days.   If only the Czar could see us, I know he would help.

I stayed in my father’s position at the factory until 1891 when the Czar began constructing the Trans-Siberian railway and a new factory opened up here in Moscow assembling the locomotives.  I, of course, couldn’t resist being a part of the newest wonder of the modern world, and jumped at the chance to play a part in this great chapter of Russian history.   russian revolution

There is talk of another strike at the factory. I will pray for them, but I cannot afford to participate, and it will make little difference.   There are ten men willing to take the place of anyone who strikes.   We can’t even return to our native village because we have lost all contact with its people.

Food is scarce. It has been ever since the famine in 1891, which claimed the lives of a half million Russians.   Adding to the problem is the heavy taxation of the peasants.   I’m not sure how we’ll get by once Tamary has to take leave, but we’ll manage. We always do.

Alexander

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