Question Hi Alyona!
Where are you from in Siberia? I was there four years ago! ie Irkutsk, Lake Baikal, Yekaterina, the Urals and then onto Moscow/St P. on the Trans-Siberian. I loved it... but for some reason my friend and I (We're Dutch and Australian) got yelled at a lot (in Russian). We couldn't understand what was said to us but it happened nearly every day?
I have a question about the name KLECHKIN. Does it mean anything in Russian? My Grandfather was Serge Klechkin and was a music teacher c.1900. I don't know which part of Russia he was from but from the old family pics, there's lots of countryside, (he was also a hunter), the old timber-style houses, and even a sea with an industrial factory on it (I thought it could be somewhere in Siberia, even Vladivostok, because I know the family was there in 1921/1922. His three daughters lived in Shanghai in 1930s.
1) DOES "KLECHKIN" name mean anything?
2) Do you know where I can find a marriage certificate for IVANOFF to KLECHKINA in VLADIVOSTOK c. 1921?
Thank you for any help you can give!
Roberta
Answer Dear Roberta,
I was born in Tomsk, or, rather, in its secret satellite town now known as Seversk. Transsiberian goes via Novosibirsk, which is not terribly far from Tomsk. You say, you were yelled at a lot?:) In my experience when people realise that you speak a different language they tend to talk to you louder, I don know why!:)
Now to your questions. 1) The name Klechkin could have been written and/or pronounced "Klyachkin" in Cyrillic, in which case it would have a meaning, or, rather, a vague reference to "klyacha" or "klyachka", which means something like "an old weak horse". There are names like "Klyachkin", "Klyachko" and others, similar in sound. However, it can well be that the name of your grandfather derives from a geographical name, there may have been a village somewhere named "Klechkino" or "Klechki". Many peopleś surnames originate from names of places they come from. I can not tell you for sure, as I am not a professional in this area, names are not my specialty. I could do more research but it so happens that yesterday was my wedding day and things are a bit hectic here, so I do not have much time and will probably have to put myself on vacation again:)
2) That would be hard but perhaps you are lucky. Thing is, the name "Ivanov" in Russia is as common as "Smith" and "Jones" for English speakers. There are literally billions of Ivanovs and it would help if you had more information about those people. Their full names (with patronimics, i.e. "a derivative from a person's father`s name", usually ending in -ich for a man or -na for a woman, eg. Vladimir Ilyich Ivanov or Elena Ilyinichna Ivanova), their dates of birth, places of birth, anything. You could try to write to an office which registers marriages in Russia, known in Russian as "ZAGS". In a big city like Vladivostok they will have several, but perhaps there is something like a central office there where you could send an inquiry. You never know, perhaps they managed to keep their archives. Try to google out the information about Vladivostok, it may even have an internet page in English.
