Elena Georgian left the country when she was just nineteen years old. Elena had been raised in Georgia but had family in Russia and therefore spent her younger years there. Elena was studying mathematics at a college in Georgia when a man from England visited her there and proposed marriage. Elena did not want to marry an immigrant, so her mother took the unusual step of getting a marriage proposal from him.
Elena was shocked by the reaction in England but also by the proposal itself. Elena’s father had told her that if she went to marry an immigrant she would live in a poor house and be forced to work long hours as a housekeeper. Elena’s father was a very rich man and the proposal made a lot of people in England angry with Elena. Elena’s mother tried to stop the marriage but failed.
Elena became extremely unhappy about this turn of events and blamed herself for the marriage. Elena’s mother took her to live with them in England, which was far better than staying with her father and these poor people with their ‘aristocratic’ ways tried to sell Elena on the Russian fantasy of a white collar career and a big house. Elena could have easily married a British national but chose to stay with her native country. Elena was able to return to her mother and lived happily in England for the next fourteen years. Elena had been promised a big future by the English government and by the time she was sixteen she was studying law at university in Georgia.