Collection: The Nicolas Skriabin Collection; Medals & Tokens Of Imperial Russia

Nikolai Ivanovich Skriabin was born in 1891 in St Petersburg, then the capital of Imperial Russia to a family of scientists. His older brother Konstantin was a member of several Soviet and many international academies, specializing in veterinary medicine. Nikolai fled after the Russian revolution and settled in France where, in 1928, he earned a degree in agronomy at the Université de Nancy. Nikolai’s lifelong passion, starting in his days in Russia, was collecting pre- revolutionary Russian medals commemorating royalty, famous people, historical events, founding of churches, expositions, etc. Given the substantial number of White Russian émigrés including nobility who fled the revolution to France, while living in that country Nikolai was able to continue to add to his collection as they started to sell off their valuables. After WWII, as a displaced person, he moved to the USA and met his future wife, also from St. Petersburg, Natalia Vassilievna Ushakova. They settled in Paterson, NJ. He was a devoted husband and not only a stepfather, but a real father to Natalia’s children and grandchildren. In 1963 they moved to Valley Cottage, NY, to the Tolstoy Foundation Adult Home where he worked as a librarian and Natalia as a nurse. He passed away in 1965 and was buried at Novo-Diveevo Russian Cemetery in Nanuet, New York.