Biography

Varvara Ivanovna Ornadskaya was born on February 14, 1901, in Saint Petersburg, into the family of Ivan Nikolaevich Ornatsky and Anna Semyonovna Malkina.

Her youth and education took place in pre-revolutionary Russia. Varvara received a brilliant education, graduating from the prestigious Smolny Institute - one of the primary educational institutions for noble maidens of that era.

Her life radically changed after the October Revolution. She married German businessman Evgeny Vilhelmovich Bauer, the owner of a paint and varnish factory. The couple had three children together, and Varvara also raised her husband's child from a previous marriage.

The family faced horrifying repressions during the Great Terror. In 1937, amid a wave of political purges and changes in power, Evgeny Vilhelmovich Bauer was executed by the communists, and his paint and varnish factory was confiscated.

Varvara Ivanovna’s fate was sealed: during the Second World War (Great Patriotic War), she, as the wife of an "enemy of the people," was exiled to Siberia along with her children. The journey to the place of exile was an ordeal: they were transported in freight cars, and the treatment was inhumane, "like cattle."

Exhaustion, cold, and hunger proved unbearable. Varvara Ivanovna Ornadskaya died from cold and exhaustion on April 9, 1942, along with her youngest son, Villi.

Their bodies were unceremoniously thrown from the train, which is why the exact location of the death and burial of Varvara Ivanovna and Villi Bauer remains unknown.

Despite the tragedy, her two other sons - Evgeny and Georgy - survived the exile. Varvara Ivanovna's life became one of the countless victims of political repressions and war, but her strength of spirit allowed two of her children to survive.