Yevgenia Zaitseva

## Yevgenia Dmitrievna Zaitseva (née Pavlova)

**Yevgania Dmitrievna Zaitseva (née Pavlova)** (1895-1965) was a Russian pure-blood witch, socialite and the first daughter and child of Dmitri Pavlov and Maria Pavlova (née Smirnova). She was said to have her father's features, but inherited her mother's striking golden-blonde hair. She was born into the rich Pavlov family (although their wealth started declining during the early 1920s) and was thrust into the social scene at a very young age. Yevgenia was a frail girl and often got sick, so she had to stay at home a lot. She spent a lot of time with her nanny, Olga, forming a strong relationship with her. Olga was someone she always confided in, even after she got older.

Yevgenia was childhood friends with her future husband Artem. Their parents arranged their marriage and they got married in 1913. Yevgenia was eighteen and Artem was nineteen. Out of the blue, Yevgenia's father died two months before the wedding. Devastated (as she was very much closer to her father than the rest of her family), Yevgenia was in a bad state to attend the wedding, but she was forced to proceed with the plans anyway.

After their marriage, Yevgenia and Artem slowly fell in love with each other. After a year and a half, Artem and Yevgenia were the love of each other's lives. Artem became one of the only people Yevgenia trusted (along with her nanny Olga and her best friend Tatiana) and Artem was the only one who could calm her down whenever she had mental breakdowns. He was also the only one that - as Yevgenia wrote in a letter to Olga - 'the only one in the whole wide world that understands me'.

The next year, they had their first child and son, Daniil. Yevgenia was only nineteen. They were pressured by their parents to have a baby quickly, and it had to be a boy. Yevgenia, already deeply saddened by her father's death, often had anxiety attacks because of the constant pressure and her mental health went spiralling down during and after the pregnancy. Two years later, they had twin boys, Vasily and Vitaly. Yevgenia went on to have four miscarriages, which deeply affected her mental health.

After the fourth miscarriage, her mental health was at a whole time low and Yevgenia contracted a serious fever soon after. With her frail body and terrible state of mind, she tragically died at the young age of 32. Daniil was only thirteen and their twins Vasily and Vitaly were only eleven.

Yevgenia's children were devastated by her death, especially Daniil, who never fully recovered from this event. In a letter from Artem to his friend Alexey, he said 'The children, especially Vasily, cannot seem to sleep. Vitaly frequently tells me that he has nightmares and Daniil turns much more in his sleep. At times, a servant reports to me after their curfew that Daniil would be found reading in the library. And when asked the reason, he said that he could not sleep because he 'misses his mother too much'. Vitaly is occasionally found in the garden, zoned out and staring at the daisies - Yevgenia's favourite flowers. Vasily sometimes stays up after his curfew to talk to me about Yevgenia, and in truth, I do not mind, as I often cannot sleep either.' To honour Yevgenia, Vasily later named his first daughter after her.

Artem, blaming his parents and Yevgenia's mother for his wife's death, refused to let them attend her funeral and only invited other relatives of both their families and their friends. After Artem died many years later, he requested to be buried next to her, along with their unmarried son Vitaly, who had died a year prior.