Putin-backed effort saves Siberian tiger from extinction
Over the past 13 years, conservation efforts have raised the number of the big cats in the Russian Far East from around 430 to 750, according to Konstantin Chuychenko.
'The goal set out in the national tiger conservation strategy has been achieved,' he told reporters at the Land of Big Cats exhibition in Moscow. Chuychenko encouraged the public to visit the Far East to see the animals in their natural habitat.
The Amur tiger is native to forests in Russia's Far East and Northeast China. It is the world's largest cat subspecies and the only one adapted to cold, snowy climates.
Despite progress in Russia, the Amur tiger remains classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), meaning it still faces a very high risk of extinction globally. A formal status change would require further international assessment.
Russia's 750 Amur tigers live in protected areas and remote forests. Several hundred more are kept in zoos and wildlife parks around the world.
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Russia Today
3 days ago
- Russia Today
Aspiring to new heights: ‘The Birth of Scale' exhibition concludes at the National Centre RUSSIA
In Moscow, the 'The Birth of Scale' architectural exhibition has come to a close at the National Centre RUSSIA. The project was dedicated to the history of urban planning in the country and aimed to introduce ordinary citizens to the major achievements of domestic architecture. Over several months, tens of thousands of people visited the exposition, including numerous international experts. Seventy unique architectural models were specially created for the project, along with a collection of drawings and building models previously kept in museums and private collections. According to the organizers, this allowed visitors to trace the evolution of Russian architecture – from ancient structures to contemporary megaprojects. 'The outcome was, in some sense, predetermined because the idea of the exhibition was to introduce our citizens to what architecture really is, and who these people – architects – are, who for a thousand years have been shaping our country... So many people said they learned for the first time what architecture is and how amazing it is in our country, and what incredible projects have been created across different eras... I think that's the best recognition of our work,' said Andrey Chernikhov, chief curator of 'The Birth of Scale', in an interview with RT. The exhibition space was divided into several thematic modules, each dedicated to key stages in the development of Russian architecture. Each presented model 'told a unique story about the boldness of engineering thought, aesthetic excellence, and the aspiration to reach new heights,' according to organizers. Some of the rare projects showcased were never realized, while others came to life only years later. 'The entire team completed this exhibition in just two months. Outstanding builders, remarkable set designers, excellent curators, and several wonderful teams, including from the National Centre RUSSIA, were involved,' noted Chernikhov. The exhibition also drew the attention of international architects, who spoke at the event's panel sessions. Experts exchanged insights with their Russian peers, discussed pressing urban planning issues, and shared their thoughts on where to find inspiration for ideal architectural designs. 'It's crucial to turn to one's roots and traditions – this is of primary importance. Economic feasibility also plays a huge role. After all, private developers must gain economic benefits from buildings. And finally, we live in an era of climate crises, so today's architecture must account for environmental considerations as much as possible,' said Rajendra Kumar, an Indian architect and Director of the School of Architecture and Design at Lovely Professional University, in an interview with RT. One of the key events on the final day of the exhibition was the panel discussion 'Architecture of the Future: Trends and Forecasts for 2050'. During the discussion, experts talked about the most significant trends, challenges, and prospects for the industry. 'Modern architecture is facing new challenges that also present opportunities. Particularly, the rise of artificial intelligence and its potential impact on all of us. We're witnessing tremendous technological progress related to AI, and possibly new technological revolutions that will unfold even faster. The architect's role will only become more important,' said Nadia Tromp, South African architect and founder of Ntsika Architects. Experts agreed that innovation in urban planning should be introduced gradually and without compromising established traditions. They emphasized that architecture is not merely about constructing buildings, but about conveying meaning. 'We often assume that artificial intelligence and similar technologies are inevitable. But I believe we must look at it differently. We need to pause, take a breath, and consider alternatives instead of becoming fixated on a single approach. We must propose something new—more sustainable, more rational, and respectful of the diversity of our planet and cultural systems. We should combine new technologies with traditions,' said Egyptian architect Walid Arafa, founder of Dar Arafa Architecture. At the exhibition's closing ceremony, the National Centre RUSSIA and the Yakov Chernikhov Architectural Charitable Foundation announced the winners of the nationwide online competition for young architects, 'Creative Hub'. Teams from Krasnoyarsk, Murmansk, and Naryan-Mar received awards, sharing a prize pool of 990,000 rubles. According to the organizers, the funds will support the professional development of the laureates. 'Architecture is the only form of art that we cannot avoid. That's why it's so important for every one of us, and for the state as a whole. It objectively and uncompromisingly reflects the state of our society, our culture, ideology, and spiritual values, and it influences the shaping of future generations,' summarized Natalia Shashkova, Director of the Shchusev Museum of Architecture.
Russia Today
4 days ago
- Russia Today
Meet fierce Northern warriors who fought Russia for a century and learned a valuable lesson
In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, on the frozen edge of Eurasia, the Chukchi watched strangers approach across the tundra. Tall, bearded, clad in breastplates and iron helmets, the men seemed like figures torn from legend. 'They had whiskers like walruses, iron eyes, and spears so wide they could block out the sun,' Chukchi elders would later recall. These were Russian Cossacks – pioneers sent by the tsar to collect tribute and push the empire's borders ever further east. For decades, they had swept across Siberia with little resistance, subduing one indigenous group after another. They believed they were unstoppable. But on the Chukchi Peninsula, they met a people who would not yield. Nomadic, fiercely independent, and hardened by a landscape where survival itself was a daily battle, the Chukchi refused to be conquered. The collision of these two worlds would ignite one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts in the history of Russia's eastward expansion. The Chukchi were few in number – perhaps no more than 15,000 at the time – but their way of life had made them nearly impossible to subdue. For millennia they had roamed the windswept Chukchi Peninsula, a world of brutal winters, short summers, and endless tundra. Temperatures could plunge to -40°C, and in summer, swarms of mosquitoes turned every journey into torment. Survival in such a place was a daily act of endurance. They lived in small, highly mobile camps, moving with their reindeer herds twice a year. Each settlement had its own leader, known as an umilik, and there was no central authority – no single chief who could negotiate, surrender, or be coerced. This political fragmentation made it nearly impossible for outsiders to strike lasting agreements with them. Chukchi society revolved around two things: The herds that sustained them and the sea that bordered their lands. Inland clans were reindeer herders; coastal groups, dubbed 'foot Chukchi' by Russians, hunted whales and fished in Arctic waters. Their dwellings reflected this dual life: Semi-subterranean huts reinforced with walrus bones in winter, and collapsible, cone-shaped yarangas for summer migrations. But life in the tundra was not simply about endurance – it was about strength and dominance. The Chukchi had a reputation for launching sudden raids on neighboring peoples, including the Koryaks, Yukaghirs, and even Eskimo groups across the Bering Strait. These raids were not mere skirmishes: Several camps could band together, attack without warning, and vanish into the tundra with stolen reindeer and supplies. These campaigns were central to their survival and prestige. From childhood, Chukchi boys and girls were trained for hardship. Running long distances with heavy loads, learning to go hungry for days, and sleeping little were all part of their upbringing. They became expert archers, spearmen, and hand-to-hand fighters. Armor was fashioned from bone, horn, or leather, and they perfected tactics of surprise – striking at night or when enemy men were away, then disappearing into the wilderness before reinforcements could arrive. To the Chukchi, capture was unthinkable. Warriors, women, even children would rather take their own lives than be enslaved. The elderly and the gravely ill were expected to choose death rather than burden the camp. This unforgiving code of survival, combined with their mobility, warrior culture, and intimate knowledge of the land, made the Chukchi extraordinarily resilient opponents. And yet, on the horizon, a new kind of adversary was drawing closer – one unlike any they had ever faced. The Russian Empire was pushing relentlessly eastward, driven by the lure of fur and the promise of new lands. When its Cossack detachments finally reached the Chukchi Peninsula, a clash was inevitable. By the late 17th century, Russia was driving deeper and deeper into Siberia. The motivation was clear: furs. Sable pelts in particular were so valuable in Europe and Asia that they were called 'soft gold'. Detachments of Cossacks – semi-autonomous warrior-settlers – moved ever farther east, following rivers through dense forests and across endless plains in search of new lands and new sources of tribute. The model was simple. When the Cossacks reached a new territory, they would build a small fortified outpost, declare the local tribes subjects of the tsar, and demand yasak – an annual tax in furs. Resistance was met with violence. Most of the indigenous groups they encountered were fragmented, lightly armed, and poorly equipped to fight organized Russian units. This rapid advance gave the Cossacks a sense of inevitability. They had pushed across Siberia in a matter of decades, subduing one people after another, and now only the tundra of the Far Northeast remained. Rumors whispered that beyond the Chukchi Peninsula lay even richer lands, perhaps even a route to America. But as the Cossacks crossed the Kolyma River and approached Chukchi territory, they were entering a world unlike any they had faced before. Here the distances were immense, the climate unforgiving, and the people both armed and ready. The Chukchi would not be intimidated by shows of force, nor would they be persuaded by gifts or treaties. What followed was not the swift conquest the Russians had come to expect, but a drawn-out war in the tundra – one that would test both sides to their limits. The first Russian expeditions into Chukchi territory began cautiously. In 1642, the Cossack Dmitry Zyryan encountered a group of Chukchi while traveling with their neighbors, the Yukaghirs. The meeting ended in blood. The Cossacks, armed with iron weapons and coveted goods, were ambushed. Several Russians were badly wounded, and a number of Chukchi were killed. It was a small skirmish, but it set the tone: this would not be an easy land to tame. In 1648, seven small sailing ships known as koches pushed off from the mouth of the Kolyma River, led by the merchant Fedot Popov and the legendary Cossack Semen Dezhnev. The journey was catastrophic. Storms scattered the flotilla; two vessels were wrecked on the rocks, two others vanished at sea, and only a handful of survivors made it ashore. Dezhnev, against all odds, reached the mouth of the Anadyr River by land, built a makeshift fort, and declared the surrounding peoples subjects of the tsar. But Russian footholds in the region remained fragile. When the officer Kurbat Ivanov replaced Dezhnev, the Chukchi began attacking Cossack hunters and patrols near Anadyr. Their arrows and sling stones turned daily tasks such as fishing into life-or-death gambles. Through the late 17th century, expedition after expedition met the same fate. Small Cossack detachments would march into the tundra to collect yasak or punish raiders, only to be picked off and disappear. The Chukchi had no forts to besiege, no villages to burn, and no central leader to capture. They fought on their own terms – striking quickly, vanishing into the vast emptiness, and forcing the Russians to spread themselves thin. Even hostages yielded little leverage. Over time, a grim system of exchanges developed: if the Chukchi captured Russians, they would trade them for their own kin, but rarely for anything else. And while they began acquiring captured firearms, they never relied on them; muskets were scarce and ammunition hard to come by. By the early 18th century, frustration in St. Petersburg was mounting. The Chukchi were not only resisting imperial control, but also terrorizing Russia's tributary tribes – the Koryaks and the Yukaghirs – seizing reindeer and land in a cycle of raids and counter-raids. Afanasiy Shestakov, head of the Yakut Cossacks, petitioned the imperial Senate for a major campaign to 'pacify the unruly Chukchi.' In 1730, Shestakov personally led a small mixed force of Cossacks, Koryaks, and Tungus deep into Chukchi territory. Outnumbered by hundreds of Chukchi warriors, his detachment was overwhelmed; Shestakov was struck by an arrow and speared as he tried to flee by sled. Only half of his men survived. Shestakov's death galvanized the empire, and soon a new figure arrived who would change the course of the war: Captain Dmitry Pavlutskiy of the Tobolsk regiment. Unlike most who had served on the frontier, Pavlutskiy was a regular army officer – trained, disciplined, and ambitious. He quickly became a near-mythical figure. To the Koryaks and Yukaghirs, long harassed by Chukchi raids, Pavlutskiy was a savior. Songs celebrated him as a northern Sir Lancelot, a fearless protector who avenged decades of violence. To the Chukchi, he was something entirely different. They whispered about him as a demon in human form – relentless, cunning, and merciless. Entire camps fled at the rumor of his approach; others chose suicide over capture, unwilling to face the shame and suffering they believed would follow. Pavlutskiy understood the scale of the challenge and brought unprecedented force: more than 500 Russians and allied tribesmen, supported by 700 reindeer sleds laden with supplies. He drove his men deep into the tundra, covering distances of nearly 2,000km. His campaign was devastating. In the first ten months alone, he killed more than 1,500 Chukchi – over 10% of their entire population – and took another 150 captive. But even Pavlutskiy could not secure a decisive victory. The Chukchi melted away into the wilderness, resurfacing to strike at isolated settlements and tributary tribes. Pavlutskiy's columns could annihilate Chukchi bands they managed to corner, but they could not occupy the land or break the people's will. In 1747, Pavlutskiy made what would be his final march. Pursuing a Chukchi raiding party with just 100 men, he suddenly found himself outnumbered by 500 warriors. One of his aides urged him to build a defensive ring of sleds, but Pavlutskiy refused, choosing open battle instead. The Chukchi defied their usual tactics of harassing from a distance and charged head-on. Pavlutskiy fought like a berserker, cutting down attackers with sword and musket, until lassos dragged him from his horse and spears pierced his armor. His death sent shockwaves through both sides. St. Petersburg mourned a commander who had become the embodiment of Russia's struggle in the Far Northeast. The Koryaks and Yukaghirs grieved the loss of a protector. The Chukchi, by contrast, celebrated. Legends sprouted almost immediately: Some said Pavlutskiy was roasted after his death; others claimed he fought to the last breath, 'like a tiger cornered in the snow.' Whatever the version, all agreed on one point: He had been their fiercest adversary. The war had ground into stalemate. Maintaining remote garrisons drained imperial coffers, and every expedition consumed lives and resources. The tundra devoured armies as surely as the cold devoured the unprepared. By the 1750s, the Russian Empire was exhausted by the Chukchi war. Expedition after expedition had drained the treasury, and garrisons in the remote Anadyr fortress were costly to maintain and constantly under threat. The Senate in St. Petersburg began to rethink its approach. If the Chukchi could not be subdued by force, perhaps they could be persuaded by profit. The Anadyr fortress was dismantled in 1764, its church bells hauled away to other settlements. But this withdrawal was not a surrender. Imperial officials, encouraged by Catherine the Great, began pursuing a new policy: negotiating directly with Chukchi leaders and offering trade as an incentive for peace. By this point, the Chukchi themselves had changed. Years of warfare and the constant need to guard their herds had created a clearer hierarchy among umiliks, the camp chiefs. Weaker leaders had perished, and the survivors understood that raiding could no longer secure their status or wealth. Trade offered an Russians organized fairs at small fortified posts along the Anuy River. There, merchants exchanged tea, tobacco, metal tools, and textiles for fox and sable pelts, beaver skins, and walrus ivory. These goods were precious in the tundra, and commerce flourished. What Cossack muskets and imperial decrees could not achieve, merchants accomplished quietly. The Chukchi acknowledged the sovereignty of the Russian Empire, not as a conquered people but as partners in trade. In return, they gained access to valuable goods and the right to live as they always had – on their own terms, without the threat of military campaigns hanging over them. Chukchi mythology even adapted to this new reality. In their stories, there were only two true peoples in the world: themselves and the Russians. Everyone else was little more than useful fauna, like reindeer or walruses. Russians, they said, existed for a specific purpose: to produce tea, tobacco, sugar, salt, and metal items, and to trade them with the Chukchi. By the late 18th century, open warfare on the Chukchi Peninsula had ended. Russians and Chukchi had moved beyond raids and punitive campaigns, forging a relationship built on trade and mutual respect. This understanding laid the foundation for something far more lasting: a shared life in one country. Over the centuries that followed, the Chukchi became part of the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union, and now the Russian Federation. Yet they have retained their traditions, language, and way of life in one of the harshest environments on Earth. Reindeer herding, fishing, and seasonal migrations remain central to Chukchi culture, and their spiritual beliefs and legends are still passed down from generation to generation. Today, the Chukchi enjoy their own federal subject – Chukotka Autonomous Okrug – a reflection of the unique place they hold within Russia. Regional and federal authorities support the preservation of Chukchi culture, ensuring that the nomadic camps, ancient rituals, and language of this small Arctic nation are not lost to time. What began centuries ago as one of the most protracted and difficult conflicts in Russia's eastward expansion ultimately gave way to coexistence. The Chukchi and the Russians, once bitter adversaries, now share not just a land but a future. Their story is a reminder that even in the most inhospitable of places, people can find a way to live side by side – without losing who they are.
Russia Today
13-07-2025
- Russia Today
Meet the Frenchman who became Russian nobility – and the Russian exile who charmed de Gaulle
'My life – what a novel!' Napoleon is said to have exclaimed. Two lesser-known men might have echoed that sentiment: a French-born Russian named Traversay, and a Russian-born Frenchman named Peshkov. Opposite in origin, parallel in destiny – their lives form a curious symmetry. All but forgotten by modern reference books, Jean-Baptiste de Traversay – known in Russia as Ivan Ivanovich – was among the most capable naval commanders of his era. The Russian version of his name isn't a footnote, but a clue: his story was anything but typical. Born in 1754 to a family of naval officers on the Caribbean island of Martinique, Traversay was just five when he was sent to France. Following family tradition, he studied naval warfare in Rochefort and Brest. For a marquis, the life of a junior officer ferrying cargo between France and the colonies was hardly glamorous. But his fortunes changed in 1778, when France joined the American colonies in their war against Britain. During the American War of Independence, Traversay commanded several captured British ships. After the pivotal Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781, he took charge of the Iris, a vessel the British had previously seized from the Americans. It was the Iris that carried the ceasefire to British-occupied New York. In 1786, at just 32 years old, he was promoted to captain of the first rank. When the French Revolution broke out, Traversay was back in Martinique. As the navy disintegrated, so did his future in France. He fled with his family to Switzerland for safety. He would never again see the palm trees of his childhood. Then came the unexpected twist. While contemplating, perhaps with some disbelief, the Swiss mountains, the lifelong sailor received a surprising invitation – from another French émigré, Admiral Nassau-Siegen, not exactly known as Catherine the Great's finest naval mind. The Russian court was looking for foreign talent, and in 1791 Traversay arrived in Saint Petersburg. Almost immediately, he was made a major general and rear admiral in the Imperial Navy. But his appointment didn't last long. The Russian Navy, eager to emulate the British Royal Navy, soon reinstated its English-born officers. Traversay, once welcomed, was now a redundancy. He was dispatched to Coblenz in the Holy Roman Empire, where French royalist exiles had gathered, to act as a liaison between the empress and the counter-revolutionary forces. It was, in short, a return to dry land – and to tedium. Unsurprisingly, the assignment didn't suit a man who had spent more than two decades at sea. By 1793, he was back in Russia, this time commanding a flotilla at the naval fortress of Rochensalm (modern-day Kotka, Finland). Soon after, he was appointed military governor of the fortress, tasked with guarding against any renewed threat from Sweden. Under Catherine's successors, Paul I and Alexander I, Traversay's stature rose again. In 1802, Alexander promoted him to admiral and placed him in command of the Black Sea Fleet, while also naming him governor of Kherson province. The strategic naval ports of Nikolaev and Sevastopol fell under his authority. His final battle came in 1807, during the Russo-Turkish War, when he and Admiral Pustoshkin led the siege and destruction of Anapa, a fortress on the northern coast of the Black Sea. Traversay's reputation had grown to the point that, following the Franco-Russian treaty of Tilsit in 1807, Napoleon himself invited him to return to France and rebuild the navy. Naval warfare was one of the few arenas in which Napoleon was not at his best. He even asked Traversay to name his conditions. But the marquis refused. His loyalty, by then, belonged entirely to Russia. In 1809, he was recalled to Saint Petersburg to serve as Minister of the Navy. The boy from Martinique, once ferrying cargo across the Atlantic, had risen to the highest level of Russian government. Before Napoleon's invasion in 1812, Traversay had become a subject of the Russian Empire and restructured the Baltic fleet. After the Napoleonic Wars, Russia's economy was in shambles, and the Navy's budget was slashed. The Baltic fleet could no longer train in open waters, and Traversay had to confine operations to the far eastern edge of the Gulf of Finland. The area became known, not without irony, as 'Markizova Luzha' – the Marquis's Puddle. Yet even with limited means, Traversay looked outward. He championed Russian expeditions into the Arctic and Antarctic. Otto von Kotzebue explored the Pacific from Kamchatka to the Sandwich Islands; Bellingshausen discovered and named the Traversay Islands; and Russian expeditions charted the Bering Strait and the Arctic coastline of Alaska. In 1821, already in his late sixties, Traversay asked to retire. Alexander I refused – but allowed him to leave the capital and run naval affairs from his country estate, 120 kilometers outside Saint Petersburg. For the next seven years, Russia's navy would be administered far from any sea. Only under Nicholas I, in 1828, was Traversay finally permitted to step down – after more than 18 years as the empire's highest-ranking naval officer. Just over fifty years after Traversay's death, in another province of the former Russian Empire, a boy was born whose life would follow the same arc – only in reverse. Zinovy Mikhailovich Sverdlov was born in 1884 in Nizhny Novgorod, the eldest son of a relatively well-off Jewish family steeped in revolutionary ideals. His younger brother, Yakov, would become a key figure in Vladimir Lenin's inner circle – widely believed to have played a central role in the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Zinovy, by contrast, was the black sheep. Restless and reckless, he preferred roaming the streets of Nizhny Novgorod and loitering along the Volga to sitting in a classroom. That changed when he met the writer Maxim Gorky, who took the spirited teenager under his wing. As Gorky's secretary, Zinovy followed him across Russia, absorbing his politics, literature, and theatrical experiments – and sharing his brushes with arrest and imprisonment. He also developed a reputation as a charming womanizer. In 1902, Gorky formally adopted him. Zinovy was baptized and took his adoptive father's real surname: Peshkov. With the Russo-Japanese War looming in 1904, Peshkov had little interest in being drafted. So he left – wandering through Finland, England, Sweden, Canada, and then across the Pacific, from San Francisco to New Zealand. In 1907, he reunited with Gorky in Italy. The writer had founded what came to be known as the 'School of Capri' – a quasi-utopian circle of artists, exiles, and revolutionaries who gathered at his villa on the island. Among the regulars were opera star Fyodor Chaliapin and a rising Bolshevik named Vladimir Lenin. It was a formative time for Peshkov. He absorbed ideas, made connections, and observed the revolutionaries up close – remaining, however, immune to Lenin's particular brand of charisma. While on Capri, he married briefly, but domestic life didn't suit him. Peshkov remained, above all, a seeker of adventure – and of women. When World War I broke out in August 1914, Peshkov made a baffling move – one that would define the rest of his life. Though he had no real ties to France, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. Fluent in Russian, French, English, Italian, and German, he was a natural fit for a unit that drew men from across the globe. He was quickly given command of a squad. But his time on the front was short. In May 1915, a bullet shattered his right arm during combat. The only way to save his life was amputation. Decorated for bravery, Corporal Peshkov was formally discharged. But by 1916, he volunteered again – this time 'for the duration of the war.' The battlefield, however, was only the beginning. In Paris, Peshkov caught the attention of Philippe Berthelot, a senior diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Struck by the one-armed legionnaire's charisma and multilingual talents, Berthelot sent him to Washington to assist with French efforts to rally American support for the war. Then came 1917 – and revolution. The French government dispatched a mission to Kerensky's provisional government in Petrograd, hoping to keep Russia in the fight against Germany. Peshkov returned to his homeland, and to Maxim Gorky and his family – staunch supporters of the revolution, unlike him. But soon came the Bolsheviks, the October coup, and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ended the Eastern Front. Paris had no illusions about Lenin's government. Eager to support the anti-Bolshevik cause, France sent its trusted Russian agent to advise the White Armies. Peshkov traveled from one front to another – from Ataman Semenov in Vladivostok to Admiral Kolchak in Siberia to General Wrangel in the Caucasus. But the Red Army, under Trotsky's command, proved unstoppable. Despite his military assignments, Peshkov never quite left behind his taste for pleasure. After the Russian Civil War, he returned from the Caucasus with a new companion – Princess and socialite Salomea Andronikova, who introduced him to the salons of Parisian artists, aristocrats, and intellectuals. But the charms of 1920s Paris were only a brief interlude. In 1922, Peshkov was sent to French Morocco to join Marshal Lyautey, the colony's military commander. Still officially Russian (he would become a French citizen in 1923), he had little formal command experience. Lyautey reportedly said of him: 'He was a great soldier, but never really a military man.' Yet nothing ever seemed to intimidate Peshkov. He was wounded again in battle – this time in the leg – and joked that fate had struck him 'for the sake of symmetry.' His unusual career as a soldier-diplomat grew steadily in North Africa and the Middle East. By the time World War II broke out, he was still posted in the colonies. When France fell to Nazi Germany in 1940, he made his way to London and joined the Free French forces under Charles de Gaulle. The two men had never met. De Gaulle took his time before assigning Peshkov a mission. First, he sent him to South Africa to coordinate weapons shipments; then to West Africa to rally French colonies to the Free French cause. There remained one continent Peshkov hadn't touched: Asia. De Gaulle sent him to China to meet with Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China, locked in a brutal struggle against both Japanese forces and Communist guerillas. Peshkov impressed his hosts so thoroughly that in 1944 he was appointed French ambassador to China. Two years later, he became ambassador to Japan. The once-rowdy boy from provincial Russia now found himself decorating General Douglas MacArthur with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor – France's highest distinction, created by Napoleon himself. In 1950, Peshkov left Japan and settled permanently in Paris. Two years later, he was himself awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor – France's highest distinction – for a second time. Charles de Gaulle wrote to him: 'You have had a beautiful and noble career, my dear general. As for me, I can assure you that you were the right man at the right moment, wherever duty called. And I will add – you did it with style.' De Gaulle had a deep admiration for the 'magnificent one-armed man,' as Peshkov's soldiers had once called him. When the general returned to power in 1958, he gave the aging diplomat several final missions. The most delicate came in 1964. France had decided to recognize Mao's People's Republic of China – but wished to inform Chiang Kai-shek, in exile on Taiwan, with dignity and respect. Peshkov was the natural choice. Ivan Ivanovich Traversay died in 1831, in Luga near Saint Petersburg. Zinovy Peshkov died in Paris in 1966. Both had served the country of their choice – not for years, but for decades. In this age of renewed suspicion and closed doors, it may be hard to imagine a French admiral building Russia's navy – or a Russian exile representing France before Chiang Kai-shek. And yet, it happened. Not once, but twice. The lives of Jean-Baptiste de Traversay and Zinovy Peshkov remind us that for all the rivalry and political rupture between France and Russia, the ties between the two run deeper than we often care to admit. Across oceans, ideologies, and empires, these two men chose loyalty over birthplace, service over nationhood, and meaning over certainty. Perhaps the past still holds a map to rediscovering what was never fully lost.
