Helene Dolgoruki

Helene Dolgoruki, more correctly Elena Pavlovna Dolgorukaya, married name Fadeeva (1789–1860), was a Russian noblewoman who was the grandmother of both Sergei Witte and Madame Blavatsky. Birth and marriage Helene was the daughter of Prince Paul Vassilyevich Dolgorukov (1755–1837) and Henrietta Adolfovna de Bandre du Plessis (d. 1812). In 1813 she married Andrei Mikhailovich Fadeyev (1789–1867) and the family resided near the village of Rzhishchevo, in the Province of Kiev, where the estate of the Dolgorukovs was located. Helene's eldest daughter Helena Fadeyev married in 1830 the Russian nobleman Peter von Hahn, then a Captain of Horse Artillery in the Russian Army, who was more than twice her age. Soon after the wedding, the Captain received orders to join his regiment for service in the notably ruthless campaign to put down the Polish insurrection of 1831.