Lydia Alexandrovna de Pashkov

Countess Lydia Pashkov

Countess Lydia Alexandrovna de Pashkov (or Paschkoff) was a Russian write who was an early friend of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.

Boris de Zirkoff wrote of her:

Russian woman-writer and traveller of the middle 19th century. she was neé Glinsky and had been first married to Teleshov. She travelled extensively in Egypt, Palestine and Syria, and was at one time correspondent of the Paris Figaro. Most of her works were written in French. Among them may be mentioned: La pension Vera Glinsky. – Un divorce en Russie. – Moeurs Russes (St. Petersburg, 1876-77). – En Orient, Drames et Paysages (St. Petersburg, 1879).

Once when she was travelling between Baalbek and the river Orontes, probably around 1872, the Countess met H. P. B. and her caravan. They camped together near Deir Mar Maroon between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon. That night a Syrian ascetic who accompanied H.P.B. evoked the astral picture of an old priest who had been connected with the ancient temple, ruins of which were in the vicinity. They were also shown the place as it was when the temple stood there; a vast city spread then far and wide over the plains.

H.P.B. and Countess de Pashkov travelled together for a while, and various curious phenomena took place at the command of H.P.B.

See H. S. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves I, 334-35, for a quotation from the New York World of April 21, 1878, and the Theosophist, Vol. V, April, 1884, p. 168.