Sources

1. Interview with Irene Shegoleff 2008
2. Interview with Mary Ellen Kositzin 2008
3. Journal of Russian American Studies: Keeping to the Truth: A Jewish Lutheran White Russian in San Francisco, Nina Bogdan, May 2021.
4. Images of America Russian San Francisco; Lydia B. Zaverukha and Nina Bogdan; Arcadia Publishing; 2010
5. The Secret History of the Russian Consulate in San Francisco; Zach Dorfman; ForeignPolicy.com; 2017
6. Encyclopedia Britannica (https://www.brittanica.com)
7. Ancestry (https://ancestry.com)
   • U.S. Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists
   • Index to Alien Case Files
   • Social Security Death Index
8. United Nations High Commission For Refugees
9. Notary Public in and for the City and County of San Francisco
10. National Archives (www.archives.gov)
11. The Alien Registration Act of 1940; Carol Silver, University of New Mexico doctorate thesis, 1963.
12. Matthew Roland, San Diego Unified School District, History Teacher

NOTE: For geopolitical reasons, accessing archival material, locating and retrieving documents from Russian sources was not available. The Russian Consulate in San Francisco was closed in August of 2017. San Francisco was embroiled in the increasingly feverish diplomatic confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers. In July of 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin had announced, in an interview on state-run television, that he was decreasing by 755 the total number of personnel working at U.S. diplomatic facilities in his country. Closing the San Francisco consulate (and two smaller diplomatic annexes) was the Trump administration’s retaliation for this move. The closing of the S.F. embassy and increasing restricted communications between the two countries has made it difficult to gather genealogical information about our families. Most of the information gathered came from firsthand original documents found in the homes of George and Mary Ellen and interviews or from websites (see list of sources).

This description of the Russian Consulate building is from The Secret History of the Russian Consulate in San Francisco: “The first thing you need to understand about the building that, until very recently, housed the Russian Consulate in San Francisco — a city where topography is destiny, where wealth and power concentrate, quite literally, at the top — is its sense of elevation. Brick-fronted, sentinel-like, and six stories high, it sits on a hill in Pacific Heights, within one of the city’s toniest zip codes. This is a neighborhood that radiates a type of wealth, power, and prestige that long predates the current wave of nouveau riche tech millionaires, or the wave before that, or the one before that. It is old and solid and comfortable with its privilege; its denizens know they have a right to rule. Indeed, from Pacific Heights, one can simultaneously gaze out on the city, the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge — and, beyond, the vast, frigid Pacific.” The first picture shown here is from 2017 just before the embassy closed, and the other two pictures are from 2023 six years later after the embassy closed. Notice in the 2023 pictures there are no flags on the roof, the building is not maintained evidenced by the dirty and mildewy walls. Lastly, in the lower right corner of the picture there is a small closed sign.