Russia has a rich history in literature, opera, art, poetry and drama. The Kingdom before the Russian revolution was out of touch with reality and the people. Most of the politicians were telling the Czar that his people were not happy. “We thought very soon something will happen,” but the King was busy with his lavish parties and womanizing. He didn’t care what his people thought and did not listen to them. The Czar continued doing the same thing.
My grandfather was traveling back and forth to Russia during that time because he had an import and export business with his dad. They were trading with merchants in Baku. My grandfather was not in touch with real people in Russia. He was engaged with wealthy merchants any time he went to Baku. Either he stayed with them or in a nice hotel. Among all those wealthy people was the thought that an uprising would be temporary the Czar would prevail, and then everything would be all right.
After the revolution, my grandfather got in touch with the people who knew. They were confident this situation would pass in a few months, and everything would go back to normal. Russian money started to lose value, but my grandfather and his dad thought the revolution was impossible, so instead of selling, getting rid of all the Russian money, they bought more and more. After a few years all their Russian money was worthless. A couple of years after that my great grandfather died, and at the same time, an uneducated military general, with the help of the English, made a coup and became the Shah of Iran.
After becoming the Shah, he started to get rid of people who were against him. He either killed them or put them in jail. People who saw him said he had scary eyes - no one could look at his eyes. After the Shah became powerful he got greedy and started to gather wealth. One day the Shah was driving out of Tehran and he saw a beautiful, well-groomed and maintained ranch. He asked who the ranch belonged to. The ranch belonged to my grandfather. It was the only thing he had left after losing his Russian investment.
The Shah decided he had to have that ranch. He approached my grandfather, and told him he liked the ranch. When the Shah wanted something no one could say no. My grandfather told the Shah what happened to him. He had a big family and this was the only thing he had left, but the Shah offered him a penny for dollar, and took the ranch over.
My grandfather was left almost with nothing to support himself. Then one day he decided to get rid of the worthless Russian money. He brought it out and burned it. Then he became schizophrenic. I remember when I was about seven years old he used to come visit us. He told me lots of stories about Russia, and took me to the Bazaar, and he showed me how to buy ripe watermelon and Persian melon. When I was older I noticed he was little bit different. When my grandfather was talking about somebody he was the nicest person in the world. The next minute he was the worst person in the world. Later on he got worse and worse, and my parents had a hard time dealing with his problem.
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