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Background
The Tolstoy Foundation has been operating in France since l949 as a relief organization assisting refugees and displaced persons. The post-war period was one of unrelenting activity for the Foundation. The small staff in Europe accomplished immense tasks. Thousands of refugees throughout Western Europe, Trieste and the Middle East were interviewed, processed for emigration or placed in homes for the aged in France. The Tolstoy Foundation worked in constant cooperation with various European governmental representatives as well as with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. In addition, Tolstoy Foundation was a founding member of CARE.

Cooperation with European governmental representatives and the UNHCR continued through the l950's. Four homes for the aged were established in France to provide permanent accomodation for some 500 elderly Russians from Yugoslavia and the Middle East. Another was established in West Berlin with the aid of the British and West German governments. The Tolstoy Foundation was the founding member of both the Association de la Maison de Retraite de Cannes et d'autres etablissements pour Refugies Etrangers in Paris and the Association "La Residence des Sapins" in Rouen.

PARIS ACTIVITIES TODAY
Today, our affiliate the Comite de Soutien de la Tolstoy Foundation provides immigration counseling, practical assistance, translation services and welfare assistance to persons from Russia and the newly independent states seeking entry into France.

Since l995, a new phenomenon has become increasingly evident in the demographics and make-up of new immigrants arriving in France and Western Europe from Russia and the newly independent states. The "economic" immigrants of prior years have become rapidly replaced by a new more vulnerable category of refugees and displaced persons, including: (l) religious and ethnic minorities no longer welcome in the place of their birth and (2) displaced persons escaping war and violence in their homeland.

The burden to assist these desperate people has been falling entirely on small humanitarian and charitable organizations to fill the void left by the individual governments and their administrations. The Tolstoy Foundation operating in France is one such organization. It is the only organization of its kind in France today that assists people from Russia and from the newly independent states unfortunate victims caught in the crossfire of changing world conditions and borders.

In addition, the Tolstoy Foundation continues to be on the Board of Administration of TF's homes for the aged in Cannes, Sainte-Raphael, Le Perreux and Rouen. Only the Cannes and Sainte-Raphael homes still have Russian-speaking residents, however.

Address:

Foundacion Tolstoy

24 rue Sainte Martin,

75004 Paris

Mme Marie Ivanov, Director