On the train...

There's so much I love about Easter. For one, Mama receives such a elaborate, beautiful Easter Egg from Papa - made of jewels and enamel, not chocolate, and made specially by a clever man named Karl Faberge. Secondly, the sun shines for hours and hours and all the pretty flowers bloom so our gardens look like scenes from paintings. And third, we get to go to our favourite place ever: Livadia!
 Livadia is our palace in the Crimea. All is white and spacious and airy, made of fine stone and decorated with palm trees and exotic greenery. Our bedrooms see out to the vast beach - all that sea and sand, for us! No one is sad but bathed in happiness. Papa only works hours rather than days, cooped up in his study, and Mama lets us wear the short white dresses that billow around our knees - we love those. Plus there is kulich and pashka - the lightest, fluffiest bread and sweet cheese mixed with nuts and fruit that is spread on it - on our table, and Butterweek of course. All you can eat blini! Little pancakes in their pool of butter. Nastya (that's our Anastasia, if you didn't know), Alexei (our little brother, he's only ten) and I smother ourselves in them, and we won't leave the table unless we've consumed five. Or over (in Alexei's case).
 But right now, we're one day away from our Crimean paradise. Our Imperial Train crosses the steps to the Ukraine as I type to you. It's lovely and cosy here. Nastya and Olga are playing charades, I think Olga is some sort of fish (?), and Tatiana laughs until she cries. She's sat in the corner with her embroidery, I don't think she wants to play since she's 'sophisticated' and charades is 'immature', and she'll probably talk to you next (lucky you!).Believe it or not, she enjoys herself at the beach. I think it's the sea air that gets her giddy.
 Mama and Alexei are hidden away and Papa is with his suite playing cards. Dr. Botkin and Mr Gibbes, our doctor and English tutor, are out on the balcony having some air. It is stuffy. Soon we shall have our supper and then go to bed. No camp beds - proper ones instead. Nastya and I share and so do the Big Pair in the room next door. Alexei and his sailor friend Derevenko share down the corridor.
 Ah, speaking of the devil. Alexei has just come in complaining of a headache. He's carrying a mug of juice with a paracetamol inside - I can see it fizz, like a burst of a firework. Nastya is trying to get him to join in with their charades - he's a sucker for fun. I might go and play too since their recruiting new players.
 Yours for as long as we are friends,

Maria.

21st April, 1914.

Being raised like a boy...

..gets on your nerves. I mean, until five years ago we had to take COLD baths. Can't that give you pneumonia or something? They felt unhealthy, swimming around in icy water, and it only meant that Mama had to apply more blush to our cheeks because we had not receive a rosy glow as you do when you bathe in hot water, surrounded in all the steam. For breakfast it is always tasteless black bread and herring, some sort of meat, which is 'good Russian nosh'. Mama's English upbringing is rubbing off on him - 'nosh' is very British! Papa tells us we should honour of country by eating the glorious food our people make and our land is famed for. But I'd much rather stomach pastries and chocolate, as would my sisters. We do not need to be raised as soldiers, since the only thing we will ever do is marry and have children and live in palaces with her noble husbands. Palaces with proper beds and not our hard campbeds! But we daren't complain because Mama gets tired and headachey, and Baroness Buxhoveden snaps at us and we're sent away. Mama appears at dinner grey and old beyond her years. Retires immediatley. She does not permit anyone to see her unless it is Alexei, and he never goes because he likes to stay in his teepee and play with his soldiers. Tatiana tries to go but never gets anywhere, and I'm not going. I haven't the patience with sick people.
But these are bad things. The good things are very good, spectacular - we take hot baths in big silver tubs scented with flowery oils. We have no reason to complain, so Mama is not ill. Baroness Buxhoveden keeps on walking in her prudish way and does not scold us. Herring does not taste so bad. Alexei is not ill. We steal cushions from the parlour to make our campbeds more comfy.
Today we were all in the classroom we share with Mr Gibbes, our English tutor. Maria was reading her novel, Oliver Twist by an Englishman called Charles Dickins, aloud for us all to hear. Tatiana and I were finishing our sentances on nouns and verbs, and Anastasia was tapping the table with her pencil. Mr Gibbes told her to stop making a racket, so she did - for about five minutes. Then she started again. 'Anastasia Nikolaevna, stop making noise,' Mr Gibbes repeated, going quite red in the face. Nastya nodded and examined her textbook, turning the pages slowly so they make creasing sounds. Mr Gibbes went even redder, so he rivalled the cushions in the Crimson Parlour. He put down his pen and observed Nastya flicking through her book. Maria stopped reading aloud, and Tati and I began to giggle. Nastya's mouth turned up in a small smirk.
Then the door opened and Alexei's kitten, Zubrovka, came in. She jumped gracefully onto the table and watched Nastya, who began to tease the poor little kitty with her pencil. The cat watched the pencil with eagle eyes. Maria, in a fit of laughter, slammed down her book with her head on it, wobbling the desk and flying the pencil out of Nastya's fingers. It flew accross the room in east direction - towards Mr Gibbes! The cat launched herself after it and landed on Mr Gibbes' chest, who panicked. His face swelled like a balloon and turned violently crimson, and when the cat released herself from his chest small marks where her paws had been appeared on his shirt. Mr Gibbes rushed out of the classroom with force, bright red, while the kitten nibbled on Anastasia's pencil in the corner, innocently looking over at the room. We rolled about laughing, and Nastya sat there glowing with pride in her 'accidental' trick.
It's always like this.Mama calls us to her boudoir afterwards and scolds us for acting childish. She tells us repeatedly young ladies do not act as such and laugh at such silly actions. Especially me and Tati, women in their prime. Mashka gets frowned at and Nastya gets a warning. We write apologises to Mr Gibbes in neat handwriting. When Papa hears of it, we swear to him we shan't ever act like that again. He tells us that is what naughty, mischievous little boys do.
Which leads me to a rather strange conclusion that being a boy must be terribly fun, and that being raised like boys like we were years ago was the closest we ever got to being one.
Signing off now, yours,

Olga.

17TH APRIL 1914.

The Memory Bank

Maria, Anastasia, Olga and Tatiana (in the chair)

A hundred and two years ago, a large country to the east of England celebrated three-hundred years of Romanov rule. The Romanovs were the ruling dynasty of Imperial Russia. The current Emperor had honourable decendants such as Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, figures of history who revolutionised Russia. Nicholas II, tsar (king) of Russia, was destined to do the same - but in a completely different way.
Nicholas walked down the grand procession with the company of his wife, Alexandra. She was a German princess and great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain. Beside her is Alexis Nikolaevich - the heir to the throne, the little boy who bleeds. Further behind, in the company of their glamourous grandmother, are four sisters. The elder is eighteen, her arm linked with her sixteen-year-old sister, while the girl next to her, age fourteen, giggles. She's laughing at the mischievous antics of her twelve-year-old sister, who pulls faces at the cossack guards. They follow the procession smiling at the people who would, in five years time, take their lives in the cold name of murder.
Those sisters are known for their closeness, their beauty and their tragic ending. Their names are frequently mensioned by historians as important figures in Russian history. Their papa's reign would crash and burn in 1917, as revolution and civil war stirred and started in the next year, followed by the blood-stilling assassination of a captive family paying for centuries of hardship on the poor. Gunshots and bayonets silenced eleven citizens, prisoners to the bloodcurdling new rule of soviet leaders Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. A fairytale turned tragedy.
This site is dedicated to the memory of those four girls, deprived of marriage and children, young women who were killed for their sirname. Olga - the reader, the learner, the elder. Tatiana - the beauty, the governess, the mother's companion. Maria - the angel, the follower, the middle child. Anastasia - the imp, the leader, the famed one. Did she survive?
'Memories of a Grand Duchess' is devoted to the seven members of the Imperial Family. Decorated poems and photographs, these are fictional accounts of day-to-day life of OTMA and their brother Alexei. Some of these really happened, too. I hope you enjoy readings the daily antics of the lost heirs of Russia. you learn about their enchanting story and grow to love them as much as I do. Drop in a comment here and there. You can vote in the poll of your favourite Romanov. Fall in love with the handsome men of the Imperial branch (just not supercutefitgorgeoushandsome Alexei *drool*)
Enjoy.

Katherine.x