Oryol Governorate
Yevgeni Alekseyevich Preobrazhensky was born in Bolkhov, Oryol Governorate, Russia Empire on 15 February 1886 . His father was the son of an Orthodox priest who taught for seven years in a zemstvo school before his ordination in 1883. Following his appointment as a parish priest in Bolkhov in the summer of 1883, the elder Preobrazhensky opened an elementary school for the parish at his own expense. It was in that school that Yevgeni was first educated.