Nobleman Flees Bolsheviks, Finds Homes for Displaced Russians
To Baron Vladimir Kuhn von Poushental, the area of southern Maine along the Kennebec River brought back memories of the Moscow countryside. Von Poushental fled Russia after the Bolsheviks came to power. He firmly believed that "we must justify our existence by helping others," and so he formed the Alexander Nevsky Foundation, named after a Russian warrior-saint, to purchase abandoned farms.
Poushental placed advertisements in Russian language newspapers in the U.S. and Canada that promoted Richmond, Maine as a relocation spot for Russian refugees. Some settlers included: Lydia Rennenkampf, whose father was a Czarist general of the Great War who was executed by the Bolsheviks; Colonel Anatole Rogoshin, who headed the White Russian Corps of former Imperial Army officers dedicated to the overthrow of communism; and the grandson of Leo Tolstoy.
Poushental had joined the Imperial Russian Army at age 16, during the height of World War I. After training he became one of the first combat pilots in the Russian Army, making bombing runs over the drydocks in Constantinople. By January, 1969, Pushental was president of Kennebec Realty, a member of the Androscroggin Valley Board of REALTORS®, and living with hundreds of Russian neighbors. That month “REALTOR'S Headlines” printed the Baron’s story.
