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Darya Opochinina

Saint Petersburg, 19 Mar 1845 – Saint Petersburg, 19 Mar 1870

8 facts1 source

Facts and their sources

A life in time

  1. 19 Mar 1845

    Born in Saint Petersburg

  2. 19 Mar 1870

    Dies in Saint Petersburg, aged 25

Family

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Parents

Partner

During her lifetime

She lived through 4 decades. Pick one to hear and see what it was like around Saint Petersburg.

General history, not a record about the family: each item says where it comes from.

The 1840s · Darya is born in Saint Petersburg

In the news1848

Cholera and Crop Failures in 1848

In 1848, a major cholera epidemic, coupled with a bad harvest and dry weather that caused widespread town fires, severely disrupted the lives of the agrarian population.

Getting around

Four-day coach journeys between capitals

Traveling between St. Petersburg and Moscow by stagecoach took four days of constant travel before the railway was completed.

In Europe1845–1852

The Great Famine in Ireland

Potato blight ruined harvests: a million Irish people died and a million more emigrated, many to America.

Daily life

Low rates of peasant literacy and education

Literacy among serfs was extremely low, with estimates not exceeding 1%. Education was largely confined to home training by local sextons or clerks, often limited to reading, writing, and basic arithmetic.

What people wore

A single lifetime festive outfit

Peasants often prepared one high-quality outfit in their youth that was kept for their entire lives to be worn only on the most important feast days.

Music

Improvisational pliaska dances and percussion

Fast-paced pliaska dances were characterized by individual improvisations, sometimes accompanied by improvised percussion like wooden spoons or metal pots when standard instruments were unavailable.

At the table

Meal Customs in Peasant Households

Peasant families frequently ate from common dishes without individual cutlery, often eating in a set order led by the head of the household. Hygiene was minimal; dishes were typically rinsed in cold water after use rather than thoroughly washed.