Today was the day they were leaving the miserable Wales countryside with no prospects. What was the use of going to school? There was nothing to do but get pregnant by the time they were 13 or 14 as real woman. Or go to work in a factory of some sort, for most no longer owned any land at all not even the small village plots where they once grew enough to feed themselves.
Off she was going with her dad to a new place on the other side of Italy. No longer Britian's commonwealth was good enough, but they were going to travel around France, Spain and then turn when they got to Italy. The schoolteacher had explained it to them all, about where this new place was on the Aztov Sea.
Russia was not a bad place, at least not as bad as Germany which was still trying to gain England. Even though they had a young Queen Victoria, and her German husband there still was not enough for them on the tip of Wales.
Mr. John James Hughes, they called him, he came from Wales. He had started at the local iron works working for his own father. But had risen to having his own boat and port. He had acquired a prestige's standing with his patents and armament works. Not just iron troughs for pigs but metal objects for protection and other things that went boom.
He had worked for the Royal house of England but now had a contract with the Tsar himself. He had been given a Russian grant to build an iron foundry in the Baltic Sea for a Russian naval port. He was an important man now and had acquired a wife of equal standing who had blessed him with eight children.
He was taking eight boats with him today to this new place to start a new life under the Russian Tsar. God bless the Queen, but he was going to be a richer man than most with this new contract. He also hired a hired specialist for his new foundry. Thier families were coming along or some of them and the rest to follow.
She arrived at the port with her father and carried her belongings on board to stand next to him. It was decided because he had a daughter, he could have a cabin instead of remaining top side. The cooking was done downstairs, and the little girl could be taught how to do it by one of the wives while she stayed with him at night.
Smart man to bring his daughter while the wife was finishing up the family business. It meant he would not have to put up with women who did not know their place, nor would he be considered an unmarried man. His pay would be substantial above that, and he would also be one of the first to acquire a cabin to live and then be able to bring his wife more quickly.
The trip had been breathtaking, first all of the British fog they had crossed over to Europe and then it cleared they could see France in the distance. Then they ventured out of ocean itself with nothing but water and sky. Now they had crossed to the Mediterranean Sea with the stories from her Sunday primer in her head. Not only of Moses in the desert but also of Greece and Rome.
Finally, they arrived in Turkey where they had to go through a channel or straight into the Baltic Sea. It had been a splendid journey for her and her father. It seems most get seasick or worse. They were healthy specimens and her cooking had turned to top side viewing of the geography and astronomy as being taught by the some on board.
Thier arrival at this spot on the map, it was a barren landscape with no buildings. They said the Scythians once ruled the area they were stepping onto. The long boat trip was now replaced with a unloading process and building project. The first part of the foundry had to go up immediately. Meanwhile tents were erected for the women and children while the men used their muscles.
It was a different environment with new animals and birds. She was inquisitive one and wanted to be an engineer herself one day. Following her father around with his lunch she had made the night before kept her out of the tent village where there was trouble brewing.
Then the day occurred when they revolted, they wanted homes to live in. Hughes himself came to speak to them, he promised English churches would be built and English schools for the children and English hospitals as well. If they would give it some time to prepare the works in order to begin making money for the new Russian foundation he had established. They could bring their families and live comfortably without having to become Russian or give up their Welsh.
And so, they proceeded to lay the foundations that day for the first English church in the remote realms of Russia. And not a catholic one either but a proper Protestant one. The foundry was completed in the basic form, and they began to produce things which meant her engineer father was not too busy for her to follow. She had to begin to attend the English school which was first in a tent and then in a cabin and then in a whole school as in London with separate rooms for each grade.
The Hospital had been set up in a tent finally got a building to move into with Welsh doctors and nurses who had arrived on the next group from Wales. Fifty thousand Welsh people came to this new place to help produce iron works for the Tsar of Russia. They flourished in the Sunshine and learned what snow was meant to kept inside. They acquired real homes, and their city grew out of a tent village into a metropolis.
She had her own mother and brothers show up as she was getting too old to be left alone. She did finish her schooling but there was little hope of her becoming a girl engineer. That would be left to her brothers. She did however gain a teacher's license and worked first at the schools and then made the first female professor at the university. Where she taught engineering design never marrying but remaining single as no man was equal to her own experience.
Hughes was a great man, moving them in 1855 to this new place. On a trip to Saint Petersburg, he suddenly died. His sons had to go and get his body to remove it to Wales where he was buried. They took over the running of the business and everyone was still happy with their choice. Til the Queen died in England and the Tsar was assassinated.
There were stories abounding of the trouble to come. Men showed up wanting to start a rebellion against the factory owners. What good would that do? Then they would have no work nor place to live. But they continued and one bad day in October, they took Moscow by storm.
The new Tsar and his wife were arrested, and their daughters deported without guards. They were now in Siberia far to the north where the sun almost never shined. They would eventually be murdered and left in the fields for the animals to feast upon.
Meanwhile, the brothers Hughes could not retain control of their foundry nor their city that their father had built. In 1917 it was over the Welsh dream of a new life in an area not wracked with starvation as most of Ireland poor had immigrated to America. They were too poor to own anything at all even passage on a boat. They were selling themselves to become servants in houses on the other side of the Atlantic. Those stories were not good ones either but at least they were speaking English.
The first thing that occurred was that English was no longer to be spoken in their city but Russian. And Orthodox religion would now be taught instead of protestant. What difference did it make? They were antigod and atheist this movement of Bolsheviks.
Stalin came and decided he like the city and kept the residents from returning to their own land. Some had made it out in the first hours of the bizarre take over along with the Hughes family who had not remained behind. There was no hope of the family at all having control of their factory nor their bank accounts. All were seized and lost.
Her family had remained happily, and her brothers had married and had children. Her nieces were well educated and able to conquer anything. A few of them had gone exploring the world even to America. the rest stayed and built the family fortunes. They were quicker than the others in retrieving their monies and valuables. Some were not on the first boat out but across the border to Italy and then to Switzerland. There they were safe from everyone and had one family become bankers while the one had gone home to find nothing to do at all in old Wales which was given over to great poverty.
Without the Queen attending to her people. there was little hope of their lives. It was best to remain where they were until something else occurred. As it was this Great war was tearing apart Europe. In the end, Germany had to admit defeat which was good for England and Russia. Except they were no longer Russia but the Soviet Union.
There was now no escape for those left behind. Over the years a few of her family would make it out but she stayed true to their new city. Her great nieces took up the cause as they new war took the land by storm. This time they were also involved, and their precious foundry was producing things for the war.
It only remained for a hundred years to go by and find them a completely different people. No longer Welsh nor even Russian but Donbas a merged group of both Slavic and Celtic. The remains of her family had survived the Soviets and become Russian Federation. Now they were Ukrainians and free of the terrible leaders who killed without thinking.
Female warriors were not unknown in the past to save a people. Nor little girls to lead a group to safety and prosperity. The rise of the machines only gave the impression that woman was no longer needed. But the new century proved too much for the men to handle. They wanted their freedom. They fought in Kiev for freedom. Then in the Crimea for freedom. Then they turned to Donbas who wanted their freedom.
But they were not granted the same freedom of the others. Not real people anyways but these descendants of thw Welsh. The Princess of Wales won't even come to visit them. Nor will she stand up for the discrimination against them. Why can't they have their freedom as well? Why does this man i Kiev insist they are slaves? Just because they signed over their lives to Hughes who is long gone except for his stature, does he believe he owns them as well?
The city has changed its name so many times. It has survived so many different things. War and famine were the things they fled and now they are at their doorsteps. There is no place for the women nor the children. Those fleeing are cut down by their own neighbors who dress it up as the enemy.
Where will they go now? This is their home. They don't have a home in Wales anymore, long left by the very ones who supported their move. They are not allowed to speak English nor go to protestant churches. They even altered their Christmas leaving the Russian Orthodox traditions for a Catholic one.
The Catholic President of America was provided a blessing he might not want in the future. No longer Orthodox nor Protestant but Catholic, it would be better if they all became Jewish themselves!
At least then the world would listen to their plight of no freedom. How come such a nice guy got stuck? He is probably just doing what his group wants which was not to free them but to take on the Russians. Just as before they want to rule the universe from Kiev instead of Moscow.
And by a Jewish man who knows not the difference between the churches. He seems honest and his wife pathetic, but they sold them as well. Even his mother received the dream of the little girl to become a female engineer a hundred years after the Welsh girl was told she could not. Maybe they are related to the little girl from Wales whose family held out against all the invaders for their newly acquired life and property.
When will they learn? One little girl learned on her voyage thee signs of the heavens and workings of metal. She made her family survive an ordeal that could have cost them, and her relatives are now in danger of being removed completely with no place to go.
Kate will never come for them as a warrior or a princess unlike her mother-in-law who brought to the world notice many things about war and freedoms. Only to lose hers over a few bad decisions which is what life is about.
It would take a Scythian female Princess warrior to rise up out of the ground to finish this debate off. But which side would she choose? The cute guy in his fatigues with the beautiful wife and kids? Or the old balding suited former intelligence officer with no wife and too many stories of his misbehavior and bastards?
Should she choose between a once handsome man who has grown older than the population wants or the upcoming young guy who might turn out fat and ugly before his time is up?
Maybe she would want peace and prosperity. Maybe she would want freedom to choose her own house of worship and her own language as well as other things such as what day to celebrate the birth of Christ.
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