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Seraphina's Biography 

Woman posing in front of Winter Palace in SPB , KGB emblem, diadem Ears of Rye, red bow.

An Imprint of A Grand But Twisted Past​

Seraphina Michelina Aurélia Bogomolova-Huotelin was born a twin in Paris, - the city of lights once so beloved by the Russian aristocracy. She is the firstborn of heteropaternal twins with the same mother but different fathers. Her birth was shrouded in mystery of her parents’ clandestine love affair. Seraphina’s father happened to be a prominent figure of diplomatic circles with the ancestry rooted in the Imperial Russia.

 

Right after her birth, Seraphina was brought to the USSR, while her twin half-brother, and her mother of Russian aristocratic émigré circle, Sophie de PRITTWITZ, remained in France. Whilst Seraphina’s grandparents on her mother’s side were the Russian immigrants forced to flee the Soviet Russia, Seraphina was returned to their mother land by the same force that expelled them.

 

On the arrival to the USSR, she was placed with the medical research institution - the Institute Ott in Saint Petersburg, - that arranged the ‘official’ registration and documents for her to be placed with a chosen foster family of Russian-Ukrainian descent, a newly-wed couple with a newborn child who were residing in Saint-Petersburg.

Young girl eating apple, diplomas, thesis, and Astoria hotel building, Chinese characters.

Amalgamated Alma Mater​

 

When Seraphina turned 7 years old she faced a pressing choice - either to study in a school with a focus on the French language or a boarding school where she would master Chinese and English. At the time, she felt compelled to choose the French Language school. However, it failed to grow on her. As a result, already in her teenage years, Seraphina started an English language course, dreaming of becoming one day an international affairs reporter, travelling the world and sharing cultural and social news.

 

For that reason, a year before finishing school, Seraphina set her eyes on the field of journalism and joined the preparatory course at the Journalism Faculty of the Saint Petersburg State University. But, unconsciously faithful to her biological father’s ancestral roots, when presented with a task to write a short essay about a worker from one of the Leningrad factories, Seraphina halted. She then quit the course and re-planed her educational future.

 

This time, Seraphina’s choice fell on the Faculty of English Language and Literature at the State University, but the fate intervened when she was advised by a fellow applicant to try an innovative yet private Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL). Seraphina took the risk, followed the advice, and was accepted after passing all the exams.

 

​After four years of studying in IFL, she obtained her first academic degree - Bachelor of Arts in English Language and English and American Literature.

 

Soon after, Seraphina left Russia and headed for Finland. Whilst having a degree in such a classical field as linguistics, she was also drawn to the professional sphere of management and directing, and wished to develop skills needed for it. She applied to study in an international class at the Haaga Helia Institute in Helsinki and was accepted. In four years, after completing all courses, she conducted a research for her thesis dedicated to travelling preferences of elite clientele of Norvista Travel Agency. To do so she returned to Russia for three months and worked in Norvista office situated at one of the most elegant and upscale luxury hotels of Saint-Petersburg – Astoria Hotel (now owned by Rocco Forte).

 

On return to Finland, she presented her thesis and received her second academic degree - Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Management.

Various magazines, phones, and art objects with Hampton Court Palace in background.

Something Old, Something New

Seraphina’s career path is an intricate tapestry that mirrors her mother’s aristocratic background and associated with it themes paired with aspects of her father’s professional life such as independence, problem solving, innovation and leadership.

 

Her first proper job in London, where she had moved with her husband, was connected to antique jewellery. Seraphina worked as an Assistant to three Jewellery Dealers located on Bond Street. Her responsibilities brought her to the famous auction houses such as Christies, Bonhams, and Sothebys, allowing to deal with extraordinary pieces of jewellery created by Faberge, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels among others.

 

Keeping with the same theme, Seraphina continued her career as a Marketing and PR Manager in a non-profit membership based organisation under the patronage of HRH King Charles III – the Embroiderers Guild which was located in the world famous royal palace – The Hampton Court.

 

Her next thread in the career tapestry was a start-up company ‘Rising Star’ founded by an enigmatic young entrepreneur of Icelandic-Lebanese descent. Seraphina’s job as Marketing Director of a luxury travel magazine ‘Exclusive Traveller’ in Russian, and a professional publication ‘Oil and Gas Investor’ in English, had a perfect combination of such elements as entrepreneurial spirit, independent thinking, vision, luxury, journalism, design, and travel.​​​

After the start-up experience, Seraphina ventured into a predominantly male ‘arena’ of cigars and business. Having moved to Moscow, she joined the Board of Directors of a cigar and luxury life style magazine ‘Hecho A Mano’, purchasing 10% of its shares. The magazine was initially founded by Arsen Gasparyan, a former Armenian diplomat and a Senior Advisor to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Acting as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Seraphina represented the magazine at Moscow and international official social and cultural events, and participated in creating and putting together editorial for each issue.  

 

Having gained some experience in the traditional publishing sphere Seraphina, on her return to London in 2006, launched her own publication – 'Avantoure: Life is a Game', - one of the first digital only lifestyle magazines, that utilised the latest developments in digital publishing, such as inclusion of rich media into the layout of the publication, and selling digital subscriptions. The theme of the magazine itself was a nod to Seraphina's experience with the start-up company 'Rising Star'.  In the course of producing Avantoure, Seraphina worked with freelance journalists and artists in New York, Moscow, London, and Rome mirroring her multinational background and identity.

Woman, Seraphina Michelina Aurelia, smiles, books, flowers in the background

Tales from The Subconscious​​

Being born out of the clandestine romance of her parents meant that Seraphina encapsulated in her an untold story of their love, and her and her twin brother’s birth, and background. These secrets hidden for decades within Seraphina’s subconscious were asking to be let out. They were eventually released, although, at first, by pure chance.  

 

In 2010, while in New York, Seraphina met a man of Scottish ancestral background who befriended her at one of the networking events dedicated to digitalisation of book publishing. Some months later, on the Christmas Eve of 2010, the dream of Seraphina's New York acquaintance about a man and a woman writing a book together that he shared with her prompted their literary collaboration. They teamed up to write a book from the first persons perspectives of the two narrators – a man and a woman. The collaboration, though a short lived one, led Seraphina to finishing and publishing her first book in English which she called ‘My Trickster’ (2011).

 

The book contained several fractured narratives which were presented in the form of the narrated in the first person episodes. In the book, without consciously realising, Seraphina created male archetypes of power which reflected her biological father’s professional and personal ambiguous world. She perfectly and realistically depicted the powerful men she did not have in her immediate environment, yet being present in her subconscious. But the most extraordinary thing was that she, while writing from the female first person perspective as one of the main characters, – Angela Moreaux, – was actually channelling the behaviour of her biological mother's lover - a former KGB operative, an ambiguous and manipulative man.

In spite of her first book having raised some interest and positive reviews from the readers, Seraphina was not happy with it and, in 2012, took it out of circulation. The reason for the dissatisfaction and unhappiness was the main character of the book. Trying to process her complex feelings towards Angela Moreaux, she spent a whole year re-evaluating and re-writing it. This resulted in the second version of the original publication which Seraphina called ‘A Tricky Game’ (2013).

Years later, she arrived at a profound realisation that the dream of her New York Scottish acquaintance was not, in fact, about two people writing a book together, but about a woman with specific behavioural traits - Seraphina's biological mother, and a man with the mindset of a Soviet undercover agent, –  her KGB lover. The combination that Seraphina unconsciously carried within her due to the fact that she's born a chimera - having more than one genome including her mother's.

In December 2013, Seraphina moved to Geneva, Switzerland, hoping to make it her home. The place, although failing to fulfil the original wish, was destined to become a catalyst and an inspirational force for uncovering another secret held in Seraphina’s subconscious.  The truth about her twin half-brother.

Right after her move, Seraphina compelled to write a series of romantic mysteries, a trilogy, yet again examining the theme of the two narrators – a woman and a man.

Within the course of a year – 2014 – she finished two books – Головоломка (Puzzled) and Задача с неизвестными (The Unknowns), adding to the series, in 2015, a third book - Загадка Восточного Экспресса (The Orient Express Mystery).  

All three books featured a young French aristocrat, Luke Edward Allen, and a female journalist of French-Russian descent – Lina Brig.  Lina was partially drawn from Seraphina herself, whilst Luke was drawn from Seraphina’s subconscious images of her twin half-brother. At the moment of writing the book Seraphina was not aware of the fact, yet found it extraordinary that his image, personal characteristics, way of behaving, talking, and thinking came so naturally to her, transmitting themselves with ease on to the pages of her book.

Vladimir Lenin, Nicholas II, a woman, vintage phone, flowers, and background posters.

The Whodunnit Mysteries

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Born into a world of secrets and divided loyalties, herself being a ‘disappeared’ child with changed identity, Seraphina naturally felt inclined to similar real life, historical, and fictional events. With the time, the inclination grew into actions translated into historical detective investigations and solving of literal mysteries.

 

In 2021, Seraphina started working on a series of non-fiction essays under the title 'Menabilly, My Love...' In essence, a literary detective investigation focused on analysing and decoding of the text of the phycological thriller 'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier. Having a special lens of her own background allowing for a different vision, Seraphina was able see that the story 'Rebecca' is, in fact, an encoded record of tragic events associated with real life people - Jonathan Rashleigh and his family, and their Cornwall estate Menabilly. 

As in Seraphina’s case of tapping into her own subconscious for drawing her main characters of My Trickster (2011) and Головоломка  (2013) book, Daphne du Maurier, while writing her most famous book, accessed the collective subconscious, mixing fictional events of her book with real life events of the place she had spent years observing from a far, and admiring.

 

In the autumn of 2023, Seraphina was prompted to look into the Romanovs disappearance case. At first, she was reluctant to approach the subject, as she felt that the officially fabricated storyline was an unpleasant reminder of her own real life experience. Overcoming her initial fear and reluctance, Seraphina dived into the maze of ‘official’ story lines, available pieces of information and scattered across different archives Soviet documentation.

Using available material, her reading between the lines, and psychological skills to reconstruct certain events leading to Romanovs’ disappearance, Seraphina was able to demonstrate that a 100 year murder mystery was nothing more than a carefully fabricated official version that stemmed from demanding political pressure on the Soviet government in 1918. Some of the astounding results of her private investigation Seraphina revealed in a series of articles published on Medium platform under the common title Romanovs Traces.

Composite image with key, multiple faces, and glowing effects against a dark background.

The Truth and Secrets

Solving of great historical and literally mysteries was just a preparation and a launching platform for Seraphina's personal investigation looking into circumstances of her birth, her true background, and her ancestral heritage on her maternal and paternal sides. 

Using her intuition, the results of her DNA tests and the comparisons of the three genomes (her own, her mother's, and her unborn twin brother's) that she carries, as well as her analytical skills, research, creative thinking, and logic, Seraphina was able to reconstruct the events that surrounded her conception and birth, and trace her biological parents, at least her biological mother. In the course of one year - March 2022- March 2023, Seraphina was able to build her mother's Family tree (Sophie de PRITTWITZ) and publish it on such DNA and ancestry related platform as GENEANETGENI, WIKITree, and GedMatch.

 

Her biological father, however, is more difficult to find information about due to his indirect links to the Soviet intelligence services and his confidential diplomatic work. 

But the real help in itself as it turned out was the very fact that Seraphina went public with her story in social media and via her appeals to Russia state organisations and institutional bodies, as this prompted counter actions on the side of her biological mother via Seraphina's half-twin, and one of her past lovers who was involved in the original clandestine love story, - a former secret service operative. The very counter actions that made them visible to Seraphina and gave them and their secrets away. 

As a result of her own investigation, as well as her biological family counter actions, Seraphina has come to a profound realisation: her self-discovery journey's aim was not only to potentially reconcile with her biological family but to also free herself from their past deeds, choices, and decisions. Seraphina's own chosen path is the path of enlightenment, illumination, brilliance, and clarity. Everything that 'Ears of Rye' Diadem, - one of her favourite Russian Imperial Crown Jewels, - embody as a symbol of Seraphina's new business - SMA Crown Confidential which specialises in creating Bespoke AI Confidantes tailored for Executives and High-Net-Worth Individuals (HNWIs) in the areas of Art Collection, Luxury Hotel Management, and Legacy and Estate Management.

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