The Life of Princess Zinaida Yusupova: One of Russia's First Beauties

🔻Zinaida was born in 1861 in the family of Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, the last representative of an ancient lineage. As the owner of factories, manufactures, mines, rental properties, estates, and manors, he was incredibly wealthy.

🔻His brilliant daughter was intelligent, educated, sensitive, and gentle, she was one of the first beauties of St. Petersburg.

🔻Zinaida turned 20, she was surrounded by suitors, but all were rejected. Worried about grandchildren, the prince continued to send his daughter prince after prince. But love for Yusupova came on its own.

🔻One day the princess agreed to meet another suitor - Prince Battenberg, a contender for the Bulgarian throne. An officer named Felix Elston was part of his entourage. Princess Yusupova fell in love with him at first sight and accepted his marriage proposal the next day.

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Nikolai Fomich Pechenenko (born in 1930) met victory in May 1945 in Austria. He returned home with medals. He was only fifteen years old that year.

🔻Several times, the nazis led him out to be executed. They put a noose around his neck, knocked the support out from under his feet, and he... fell to the ground. They laughed and hooted. The fascists amused themselves by cutting the rope – they watched the fear of the child who was ready to die. They poured icy water on the unconscious boy, brought him back to his senses, and then threw him in the basement. Several times the Gestapo "joked" in this way, and in between their amusements, they beat him, drove matches under his nails. After another "execution," Kolya was paralyzed. The partisans saved him: they found him lying in a dugout, blue from beatings, with his teeth knocked out.

🔻After the war he wrote books with a pen held in his teeth, as he had complete paralysis of his limbs.

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