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RUSSIAN PRESIDENT WILL HAND RUSSIAN PASSPORT TO EMIGRANT ANDREI SHMEMAN

MOSCOW/PARIS, June 6 (RIA Novosti) - As part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy in WWII, Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet first-wave Russian emigrant (i.e. who emigrated after the October Revolution of 1917 During the Civil War in Russia - Ed.) Andrei Shmeman to hand him a Russian passport, a high-ranking Kremlin source said.

"For many years I could not feel comfortable, for I was absolutely Russian in my mind but had no citizenship. And now I am happy that I have found my Motherland at last," Shmeman told RIA Novosti in Paris. Recently he has been given Russian citizenship under a presidential decree.

Anrei Shmeman was one of two twin brothers born on September 13, 1921 in Revel (currently Tallinn) in Estonia. Their father Dmitry Shmeman had been an officer with the Russian Life Guards Semyonovsky regiment (one of two oldest regiments in Russia, set up by young tsar Peter the Great - Ed.) until the October Revolution of 1917. In 1929 the Shmemans emigrated to France bit neither his parents who are buried at Ste-Genevieve-des-Bois Cemetery near Paris nor Andrei himself ever applied for French citizenship. Andrei Shmeman has lived through his life with a so-called Nansen Passport - a temporary identity card for stateless refugees. Nansen Passports were introduced by the League of Nations in 1922 (on the initiative of famous Norwegian Arctic explorer and human rights activist Fridtjof Nansen - Ed.) on the basis of the Geneva Agreements.

"At those times Revel was part of the Russian Empire, so I was raised in an environment of Russian traditions, culture, and Orthodox Christianity. Everyone lives his own way in emigration, but my parents had never lost spiritual connection with the Motherland. They had always been genuine Russians, and, believing they would come back some day, they did not apply for French citizenship because they did not want to cease to be Russians, rather than because they did not love France," Shmeman says. Unlike many emigrants, he speaks accurate and fluent, accent-free Russian. He is old, but his clear voice and straight spine reveal a military record.

To say "a cadet record" will be more exact. In 1930 Andrei was sent to Emperor Nicholas II's Cadet Corps in Versailles. Instructors in that corps were selected among emigrant officers of the tsarist Russian Army, and they inculcated not only straight set-up into cadets' spines, but also trademark Russian officers' intelligence and love for their remote but not lost Motherland into their minds.

Shmeman graduated from the Corps in 1939 and then was busy with strengthening the brotherhood of former cadets; he advocated raising Russian youth in the West according to the traditions of Russian Army officers. Today he is head of the Association of Emperor Nicholas II's Cadets. He also keeps many unique relics and documents on the history of Russian emigrants.

Smeman who has three children - a son, Vasily Kochubey (the son of his first wife) and two daughters, Natalia and Elena - went to Russia for the first time in 1995. At that time he went to St. Petersburg where his parents had been born and to Moscow. Then he came a few more times to Rostov-on-Don and Novocherkassk to meet cadets of the local cadet corps.

About two months ago he applied for Russian citizenship, and a relevant presidential decree has been issued recently. Now Shmeman is looking forward to being handed a Russian passport. "I don't think many can understand what I am feeling now. It is a great happiness, and I thank God for it, to live my whole life as a man without a homeland, as a refugee, to become legally Russian at last, to join the nation I have always associated myself with," he says.

A religious man, Shmeman has been principal of the Paris-based Church of the Sign of Our Lady for half a century now, and he is ranked Subdeacon in the Orthodox Church. Recently he has co-founded the non-governmental Movement for Local Russian Orthodox Christianity in Western Europe. He argues that emigrants should return to Russian Orthodox faith. His brother, Archpriest Alexander Shmeman who left France for America and died there in 1983, is considered to be a leading theologian of modern times. He wrote a great number of monographs and articles on theology and Orthodox Christian traditions.

Serge Shmeman of the next Shmeman generation has also proved worthy of belonging to the family - he is a famous American journalist, a Pulitzer Prize winner.