Anna Akimovna NOZADZE [1895-1979]

Nona Pio-Ulski writes:

Anna Akimovna Nozadze was my grandmother, a White Russian who fled Russia with her husband and daughters during the Revolution and ended up in Shanghai.

After Hong Kong was liberated, my parents organised for her to come to Hong Kong togther with her daughter Evgeniya.

When I first started speaking I couldn't say Baba Anya, which is Russian for 'Grandmother Anya', and called her Balia, and this name stuck with her for the rest of her life.

Anna Nozadze originally lived at 23 Cameron Road and began giving piano lessons, first to the Russian kids whose parents wanted them to learn, then to other Hong Kong children.

She had annual concerts for her pupils at the Peninsula Hotel and they took place from 1951 to 1965. My mother finally persuaded her that it would be good to retire so she came to live with us in  Broadwod Road in 1966 and went down to Perth, Western Australia, in January 1974 with my parents when my father retired.