Zinovi Pechkoff

Older brother of the Bolshevik Yakov Sverdlov. To circumvent the law which limited the movement and establishment of Jews in the empire but also to mark his link with the writer, Zinovy ​​Sverdlov was baptized on September 30, 1902 in the city church. He officially changed his name, adopting the real surname of Gorky (real name Pechkov) who was his official godfather and his adoptive father who gave him his name. The pseudonym Gorky meant “bitter”.

In 1914, Zinovi, who spent a vacation in Italy, joined the French Foreign Legion as a volunteer. He went to the front at the start of the war and on May 9, 1915, he was injured in one arm and amputated up to the shoulder. He returned to the Legion in 1916, participated in several battles, was decorated, then, with the rank of Colonel, he was sent with a French mission to China, Japan and Manchuria. He traveled the whole world, going several times to the United States and Africa where he commanded the Legion in the colonial war against Abdel Krum.

At the time of the Second World War, he was General of the French Army. In 1940, he went to London where he placed himself at the disposal of De Gaulle who sent him to represent him to General MacArthur.

In 1964, De Gaulle called him back and asked him to become diplomatic advisor in Taiwan (People's Republic of China). He still led a French mission in Japan and then died in 1966.

Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.

At his request there is only one inscription on his grave below his name, “Legionnaire”.

He rests with Archpriest Nicolas Obolensky (1900-1979) and Bogdan Bakochi Eghiazaroff (1894-1977), founding president from 1947 to 1967.

On the stele it is engraved “In memory of Princess N. OBOLENSKY Vicky Lt F.F.C (1911 – 1944) Shot by the Nazis in Berlin” in reality Vicky had her head cut off.