Seraphina's Biography
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 across borders and ideological divides. Seraphina’s father happened to be a prominent figure of shadows - a Soviet undercover agent of the diplomatic circles with the ancestry rooted in the Imperial Russia.
Right after her birth, she 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.
Seraphina’s father, being in sensitive government operations, could not raise Seraphina himself. As a result, the ‘official’ registration and documents were arranged for her to be placed with a foster family of Russian-Ukrainian descent, a newly-wed couple with a newborn child who were residing in Saint-Petersburg.
Amalgamated Alma Mater
When Seraphina turned 7 years old she faced with a pressing choice - either 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.
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 career thread, a ‘hard to come by’ one, 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.
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 digitalization of book publishing. Some months later, on the Christmas Eve of 2010, her New York acquaintance’s dream about a man and a woman writing a book together 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 first person narrating 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 and way of thinking of her father.
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, who in fact was unconsciously drawn by her from her own father, she spent a whole year re-evaluating and re-writing it. This resulted in the second version of the original publication which she called ‘A Tricky Game’ (2012).
Years later, Seraphina arrived at a profound realisation that the dream of her New York Scottish acquaintance was not about the two people writing a book but about a woman with a mindset of a Soviet undercover agent, – Seraphina herself.
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 mystery, 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.
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 a carefully fabricated official version that stemmed from demanding political pressure on the Soviet government in 1918. The astounding results of her private investigation Seraphina revealed in a series of articles published on Medium platform under the common title ‘The In-Famous Romanovs’.
Secrecy, power struggles, dramatic relationships, and foreign countries. These themes have always been present in Seraphina's professional life. Their intertwining complexity represents Seraphina's invisible ties to her biological father, his status, his work, and his mindset. A charismatic, intelligent, strategic thinker - a Soviet undercover agent.
Although Seraphina has never known her biological father, she has been carrying his professional DNA imprint for decades without even realising it. Seraphina’s unconscious knowledge of her father’s professional DNA has recently turned into a conscious realisation of her inherited capabilities. Her charisma, intensity, and ability to command attention and respect without even trying now make absolute sense to her.
Having inherited her father's strategic thinking, psychological insight, and navigating complex dynamics, Seraphina, over years, enhanced her father’s ‘inheritance’, adding to the traditional spy’s toolkit emotional intelligence, detective skills, psychic insights, and natural symbolic thinking. The killer combination that her father could not have even envisaged.