Maria Abryutina

Maria Abryutina (Lerch-Larina; 21st of October/2nd of November 1885, Courland Governorate, Russian Empire – 6th of February 1945, Riga, Latvian SSR) – the owner of a private gymnasium from 1909 to 1918 and private Russian primary school in Riga from 1922 to 1934.

Maria Lerch was born in Kurzeme (Courland), in the parish of Ezere. She was Latvian. In 1905, she graduated from the Lomonosov Girls’ Gymnasium in Riga, having completed 8 grades. From 1905 to 1909, she taught geography, drawing, and history at O. Smirnova’s first-class school in Riga. From 1909 to 1915, she was the owner and headmistress of the Maria Lerch Private Girls’ Gymnasium at 28 Grecinieku Street, Riga.

In 1915, the gymnasium was evacuated to Moscow, where it was located near Chistye Prudy. In 1918, the gymnasium was reorganized into a Soviet labor school, where she continued to teach until 1922.

While living in Moscow, Maria Lerch married Vladimir Abryutin, born in 1872 in Riga, who had been appointed as a teacher at her gymnasium in 1917.

In 1922, the couple returned to Latvia.

From the 1922/23 to 1933/34 academic years, a Russian private primary school operated in Riga under the name M. Lerch-Abryutina School, located at 4 Meža Street (near the Holy Trinity Church in Pārdaugava). Maria was the owner of the school and taught needlework, while her husband served as the school principal.

In the second half of the 1930s, the Abryutin couple retired and lived in rented apartments in Mežaparks (a district of Riga).

Maria Abryutina died in Riga, in a psychiatric hospital, on February 6, 1945, just a few months after her husband’s death.

Text by Tatjana Feigmane

Sources of information:

ЛГИА, ф. 1632, оп.1, д. 185.

ЛГИА, ф. 2996, оп. 1, д. 3158.

ЛГИА, ф. 2942, оп. 1, д.15475.