Belosselsky-Belozersky family
The family traces its patrimonic, father-to-son roots throughout the ruling houses of Russia until the mid 16th century, to Yuri Dolgoruky (founder of Moscow) and his grandsons who were grand-dukes/princes of Kiev as well as of Rostov, Vladimir-Suzdal principality.
After the ascendance of Ivan Kalita ("Moneybags") and the Romanov dynasty, the family were rulers of the Belozersk (White Lake) principality, north of Moscow.
The offspring of Gleb and Feodora Sartakovna, the current Belosselsky-Belozersky family, are thus descendants of Genghis Khan as well as of the founder of Russia, Prince Rurik.
In early 1800 Alexander Mikhailovich Belosselsky-Belozersky, due to his significant contributions to Russia in diplomacy, science and culture, was granted the right to bear the double princely name of Belosselsky-Belozersky from Emperor Paul I, in recognition of the Belosselsky branch being the single remaining such branch of the princes having ruled Belo Ozero and being of the Belozersky dynasty.
His younger brother, Esper Konstantinovich was an avid sailor who won a bronze medal for Russia in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics in the 10 meter class.
Prince Konstantin (1847–1920) and his wife Nadezhda Dimitrievna (died 1920; née Skobeleva; sister of General Mikhail Skobelev[1][2]) had three daughters and two sons.
They had acquired a private multi-storey building by the Vyborg railway station where the family and their close relatives fled to from the unrest of Petrograd.
The second daughter, sister of Princess Olga Konstantinovna, Princess Elena Konstantinovna left for France and Paris, with her husband Prince Victor Sergeievich Kotchoubey, their estate "Dikanka" famous Kotchoubey estate in Ukraine, steeped in the Ukrainian/Russian history, near Poltava; eulogized by Pushkin and Gogol in poems in Ukraine.
In the fall of 1913 Belosselsky-Belozersky and Mannerheim, as Russian imperial military officers, had been chosen by the Chief of Staff and Commander in Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaievich as the two to attend the top French military cavalry riding school of L'école d'application de cavalerie in Saumur, on the Loire river.
Sergei Konstantinovich's attempts to persuade Mannerheim and the White Army of Finland to join the Yudenich army's attempt to take back Petrograd/Saint Petersburg, failed, because of the key issue for Finns, centering on the recognition of Finland's independence; the Whites did not want change in "status quo" while the "Red" government recognized Finnish independence.
Prince Sergei Konstantinovich's older son Prince Sergei Sergeievich Belosselsky-Belozersky (1898–1978), fought with the Horse Guard in the WW I battles, returned to then Petrograd in 1918 and after having been arrested in Petrograd in mid-1918 by Red Guards and imprisoned in both the Peter and Paul Fortress and Kronstadt island naval base, but released on the orders of Moisei Uritsky (See the Memoirs of Prince Serge Sergeevich Belosselsky-Belozersky published by Jacques Ferrand; edited by Marvin Lyons) fled to Finland at first, where he joined his father, grandfather and others of the Belosselsky-Belozersky family members.
In the summer of 1919 he went to Tallinn (former Reval) to join the Northwest white army in the final attempts to defeat the Reds and capture Petrograd.
