Prince Obolenski, Credo, 'Creed', 100 ml. or 3.51 oz. Flacon, Eau de Parfum, 1938, New York, NY, USA ..

Parfums Chevalier Garde, lnc. was established by Alexandre "Sasha" Georgievich Tarsaidze in 1940 at 750 Fifth Ave, New York. Tarsaidze was an officer in the Czar's Imperial Navy and in the 1930's joined Prince Matchabelli's perfumery. Together with a fellow friend, Prince Serge Obolensky, he started Parfums Chevalier Garde.

Tarsaidze was born in 1901 in a town called Gori, near Stalin's birthplace, Tiflis, Russia, into a family of old Georgian nobility. He claimed that the name Tarsaidze means "the son of the early Christians" in Persian and that his family was subjugated by Persia in the fifteenth century, and that he was kin to the Celts and the Basques. His father, Dr. George A. Tarsaidze, was an oculist and his mother, the former Elizabeth Eristoff, was a princess who descended from King Irakli II, of what had once been the kingdom of Georgia before it was absorbed by czarist Russia early in the nineteenth century.

As a child, he read Jack London's stories about windjammers going to Alaska and the Klondike, so he decided to become a naval officer. In 1918, he graduated from the Imperial Naval Academy, Petrograd, which was founded by Peter the Great on November 19, 1701. Wherever the graduates are, he said, " in Siam or China or Brazil," they gather on November 19 to celebrate with a banquet of goose and apples. Empress Anna, the wife of Peter the Great, sent goose and apples to the first Academy dinner in 1701.

In 1934, he worked for Prince Matchabelli Perfumes as a sales promotion and advertising manager. Matchabelli died the following year while Tarsaidze was organizing a London office for Serge Obolensky. In 1937, he severed his connections with Prince Matchabelli Products Corporation, New York, as treasurer, a director of the American and French companies, director of sales, advertising, promotion and publicity.

He created Parfums Chevalier Garde in 1937 along with Serge Obolensky. Chevalier Garde was intended to be a company that produced a small, but complete line of French perfumes, cosmetics and other toiletries. He was president of Parfums Chevalier Garde until 1940, when the war cut them off from French imports.

Prince Serge Obolensky aslo produced some perfumes under his own name, and the most well known of them was his Cuir de Russie. They are so rare now, and almost impossible to find.

Offered here is a bottle of Obolensky's Credo, which was launched in 1938. There are no perfume notes available, but it is a very masculine fragrance, and very Russian. I can pick out the following notes .. Bergamot, Patchouli, Sandalwood, Labdanum, Oak Moss, Amber ..

Prince Obolensky's perfume was launched with a tiny change in the spelling of the name, adding an 'i' to the end, instead of a 'y'. The perfume name is Prince Obolenski. No box ..

Very rare .. I've listed a few of these extraordinary Russian Prince perfumes, including Chevalier Garde .. and will be listing some Prince Matchabelli pieces soon .. as well as a couple by Orloff ..