Boris Ivanowsky

In my final post on Creede I noted that the “temperament and character of many of the men and women in Creede were similar to that of those who came with the Bethlehem Steel and US Steel to Venezuela about a half century later.”

Providentially, a week or so after that post a childhood friend sent me a link to a very brief blurb that someone had posted about Boris Ivanowsky. I replied to my friend that I remembered Mr. Ivanowsky from my childhood in El Pao but did not know much about him. I then promptly forgot about it.

However, a little over a week later, my friend sent me an email with several links he had found related to Mr. Ivanowsky and, perhaps counterintuitively, they immediately brought to my mind the research I had done for my posts on Creede. That was because the little we know about Mr. Ivanowsky’s life is still sufficient to allow us to see the similarities to the lives of the adventurous, risk-taking, and determined men who made Creede their home for long or brief periods of their lifetimes.

I thank my friend for having taken the time to look for more information about this enigmatic Russian, Mr. Ivanovsky. With the exception of my very brief — and poor — childhood recollections, all the information below was taken from the various public links my friend sent me. I also want to thank Mr. Nikolay Danilkin for the painstaking research he did in digging out much of the limited available data on Boris Ivanowski’s life.

Mr. Ivanowsky, according to my childhood memory — and childhood memories are notoriously imprecise if not outright false! — did not say much. I never had a conversation with him, but I was just a child and he had been born in Imperial Russia in January, 1893. I do recall when my father told me that Mr. Ivanowsky had been killed in a car accident on the road to San Félix (Palua). That was in 1967, when he was 74 years old, and I was 13.

From a child’s point of view, he was tall and burly and something of a mystery.

Which makes me regret that I did not have the foresight to seek to know more about him. I know that is a bit ridiculous: a child seeking to get to know a much older, foreign man of mystery. Nevertheless, I wish I had. But it seems no one had.

He was born Boris Ippolitovich Ivanowsky in Imperial Russia. His father was Hippolyte Ivanovsky, a Russian nobleman, born in 1857, who became a senior official in the Ministry of Railways. He led (or took part in) the Trans-Caspian “railway construction in the 1880s and later became head of that railroad”. This railway is still in use today — undergoing major developments to increase capacity — part of which runs along the historic Silk road and connects Southeast Asia and China to Europe via Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. For long stretches it skirts the country of Iran.

Hippolyte’s imperial duties necessitated frequent moves for him and his household. Boris was his eldest son, born in Ashgabat, Transcaspian Oblast of the Russian Empire. Two other sons were born in other locations and after his youngest’s birth in 1900, Boris’s mother died. Boris was 7.

Boris began his schooling in 1905 and the frequent moves meant numerous schools, including Siberia, where he became so ill with pneumonia, “which could easily be fatal at the time”, that his father sent him to a small town near St. Petersburg, where the climate was milder. Boris lived and studied there, midst the “royal residences and houses of aristocracy” for about a year before moving to the south with his family. Eventually the moves culminated in Moscow where Boris graduated from “one of the finest and most prestigious educational institutions in imperial Russia.”

He succeeded in entering the recently-opened Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic Institute where he focused on electromechanics — in one of his very few interviews he said he chose that career because of his childhood spent “among trains and other machines”.

The First World War exploded upon the scene at the end of Boris’s third year; he volunteered for a military vehicle company the day after the war began in July, 1914. He was in the front lines for 12 months during which neither his family nor the university could find him. He reappeared a year later, entering the Nikolaevsky Engineering Academy in St. Petersburg, to get a military degree which he achieved, graduating in March, 1916.

Not much is known beyond this other than that his self-identification as a “former imperial guard” is very likely not self-aggrandizement but quite true.

Regardless, to the pitiless Leninists of the 1917 Revolution, Boris’s achievements and faithfulness to Russia were not only irrelevant but very dangerous. He was forced to leave his country due to persecution by the Bolsheviks. Like many before and after him, he escaped through Finland and settled in France in 1919. He started “as a car washer in a Parisian car repair shop. Later, he became a mechanic, and then took the position of technical director of the garage”.

This period marks the beginning of his era of fame, which is recognized to this day by car racing professionals and enthusiasts, but remains unknown to most of the rest of the world.

In June, 1924, Boris finished second behind famed French racing driver, Robert Sénéchal at the Saint Germain race track. Sources note that, before this achievement, Boris “participated in motorcycle racing”; however, any details of this period are lost to history.

In 1928 Boris “won at least three major competitions: famous Spa 24h, Coupe Georges Boillot, and Circuit des Routes Ravées in Lille, and a year later he won the first Irish International Grand Prix, held in Phoenix Park, driving an Alfa Romeo.

Perhaps his greatest achievement was his silver medal in the 24 Hours Le Mans endurance race with teammate, French driver, Henri Stoffel.

“The 1930 Automobile Club de France (ACF) directory lists Ivanovsky’s residence as Château Sans-Souci in the Parisian suburb of Meudon. This place is notable because it was owned at the time by Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich and his wife, Zinaida Sergeevna Rashevskaya, who also left the Russian Empire after the Revolution of 1917. The chateau building has not survived to this day, but it has been captured in photographs.”

“Early in his racing career, Ivanowsky frequently raced Ratier cars. There is reason to believe that Boris Ippolitovich was very close to the company’s management, particularly its founder, Paulin Ratier. The company museum in Figeac still holds a letter of condolence Ivanowsky sent to Mr. Ratier’s son after his father’s death in January 1940. Ratier has long since moved away from automobile manufacturing and racing, focusing on its original object—aircraft manufacturing. Today, this once small family-owned company is part of the large American corporation Collins Aerospace. According to Ivanovsky, after ending his collaboration with Ratier, he moved to Alfa Romeo.

“Clearly, cars were more than just a job or a hobby for Ivanowsky: in 1927, in France, together with his compatriot, Said Tukayev, he patented an invention: a special spare tire for automobiles.”

When the Second World War burst upon the scene, Boris once again enlisted in the French army and his military career eventually sent him to Asia, where his last official post was Army Captain in General Leclerc’s headquarters in Calcutta. His last known address was in Singalong, Manila, Philippines.

However, before the war, available records indicate he married Irene (Iraide) Focht Romanoff in 1930, which marriage had one daughter, Marina Ivanowsky. I was unable to look further into this other than to see that Marina had several marriages and remained in France.

Also, my recollection was that Boris’s wife in El Pao was named Gabrielle (“Gabby”), not Irene. So either this was a nickname or there must have been a divorce and remarriage. But I cannot confirm anything other than that Boris was awarded the Croix de Guerre with a silver star in the war and that he stayed in Asia from where he traveled several times to the United States from whence he booked passage on SS Santa Rosa cruise ship (Grace Line) from New York to La Guira, Venezuela in 1949.

The last known documentation was found by Nikolay Danilkin — an excellent Russian sleuth! — it indicated that Boris was found guilty of espionage in 1950 and was sentenced in absentia “to confiscation of all present and future property” in France. However, no other information is available, not even on whose behalf he was supposed to be spying!

All available records go dark after this; even his death is an unknown to many, other than a few sources who say he “may” have died in Venezuela in 1967.

However, we who lived in El Pao remember him.

A family friend tells me he worked in the mines either in vehicles maintenance and repairs or with the locomotives. Or both. This memory is very much in line with his background where he himself had said he chose his career after growing up among large machinery and trains!

Our friend also recalls that Boris and his wife were very educated and refined. He would purchase cases of fine wine from Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a small village in southeastern France known for its fine wines. Her recollection was that Boris was the primary customer of the particular vineyard from which his wines were shipped. His wife gave piano and ballet classes and also directed the choir at Christmastimes. Personally, I do very much recall the year she directed the school Christmas play, which was principally a ballet.

The last time I saw Mrs. Ivanowsky was during my visit to Venezuela in 1978. While in Puerto Ordaz, I dropped in to the Joyería Braun to give my regards to the husband and wife owners and providentially, Mrs. Ivanowsky was also there. It was good to have seen and greeted her.

As a thirteen-year-old, I had no idea of the life behind the man who was killed on that road in 1967. However, I now see that, although a very full life indeed, much of it is still a mystery to us.

But not to God.