The Prince is Back

Eugene Mechersky does not look like a prince at all. From morning to night he works with shovel, hammer and nails to make the former estate of his ancestors- the Meschersky dynasty-livable. Since 1917, the estate has been ransacked by peasants, turned into a camp for political prisoners in the 1930s, and destroyed in 1940 when soldiers blew it up for road construction. Meshersky fights a legal battle to get back the rights to his family’s considerable land holding: a cause filled with controversy in a country where the concept of private property has been forgetten.