Welcome to Russian History Retold, episode number 272, Fabrige, More and Just Eggs.

Last time we covered the history of one of the world's greatest museums, the Hermitage.

Today, we cover the history of one of the world's greatest jewelers,

was one of their creations, the Rothschild Egg, displayed at that very St. Petersburg Museum.

Fabrige.

The House of Fabrige was a jewelry firm founded in 1842 in St. Petersburg, Russia, by Gustav Fabrige.

Gustav Sons, Peter Karl, and Agathon, as well as his grandsons, followed him and running the business,

until it was nationalized by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

The story of how they became the jewelers to the last source is what we'll be talking about today,

along with describing some of those very expensive and beautiful eggs.

The Fabrige family can be traced back to France in the 1600s, under the name of Favry.

They were based in the region of Picardy, in the town of Labouté, and northern France.

However, being Protestants, they were forced to leave the country after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by King Louis XIV.

As a result, an estimated 250,000 fellow Huguenots, as the movement of French Protestants was known, became refugees.

As they began their trek eastward, the family would gradually change their last name.

It changes to Fabry, Fabry, Fabrige, Fabrige, and then Fabrige without an accent.

By 1800, an artisan named Pierre Fabry, later Fabry-Air, had settled in Parneau,

in the Baltic Conference of Province of Livonia, now known as Estonia.

Gustaf Fabry-Air was born there in 1814.

By 1825, the family's name had evolved to Fabrige.

In the 1830s, Gustaf Fabry-Air moved to St. Petersburg to train as a goldsmith, specializing in making gold boxes.

Later, he continued his training, with the celebrated firm of Kaible, Goldsmiths, and Jewelers to the Zars.

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