Let's discuss the House of Romanov!

Here's the wikipedia entry re: Ipatiev House where they were executed.

Article about Russian Crown jewels..

Rasputin? Crazy grifter? Or crazy mystic??

Hard to know if the princesses were raped or fell in love with their first group of guards. Whatever happened those boys were replaced before the family's execution.

J'adore the noodles. (and The Tsar's eyes)

I am haunted by the Princess' beautiful photographs. Likely the older ones were pressured into activities with their guards. I hope not for the younger one, Anastasia, but who knows?

My maternal grandmother was born Warsaw 1903. Her parents dressed her and her sisters as little boys, cut their hair, etc. as the Russian Revolution raged through their front yard. And I recall my Baba telling me about when a soldier was shot dead in their front yard, and that her primary school had pillows on the blown out windows. Much like how children live today in Syria and Iraq, I would imagine. Never know when next strike is coming.

My maternal grandmother's name was also Anastasia, and I have a niece named for her as well.

How many of you would have fucked the Tsar. He loved his all male nude frolics.

Oh...those noodles!! A Romanov Stroganoff! On my hit list this week! #covidcarbs

[quote] Each daughter of Czar Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna more beautiful than the last.... Striking likeness to existing BRF members.

Well, if ever two phrases contradicted one another, it is these two.

R8 your frolicking boy def not loading up on the Noodles Romanoff...LOL

About a month ago I watched "The Last Czars" on Netflix. It's pretty good and worth watching.

That Nicholas was a hot looking Tsar!

R8 I certainly would if he took it up the coat. I'd try my best to wangle some noodles out of the deal as well. Cheers R9!

R10 Yes, LOL. But meant the Czar, and not the lovely princesses...Thinking of Prince Phil and Prince Michael, and even Prince Edward, Duke of Kent to a lesser degree!

R12 I will def watch the Netflix show. Yes, v. handsome IMHO.

Tsar Nicholas II — Rare photos from the Russian Archive

From what I've read, Nicholas & Alexandra had a genuinely loving marriage - a rarity for royals of that era.

There is something very healing that they gave them a full funeral and burial during Perestroika. I think it is lovely. And I love the music. Does anyone know the programme?

Their faberge egg collection!

Crazy to think that Alexandra’s older sister was Prince Philip’s grandmother. Or that Olga was considered a wife for Edward VIII (who wouldn’t then have had to abdicate) and Marie for Lord Mountbatten.

Crazy to think that Alexandra’s older sister was Prince Philip’s grandmother. Or that Olga was considered a wife for Edward VIII (who wouldn’t then have had to abdicate) and Marie for Lord Mountbatten.

Re: princesses "...emblems of a world that vanished forever in the Russian Revolution."

It just goes to show you R21 that this history isn't really that long ago

R16 Love that picture montage. Thank you!

R18 I don’t remember that at all during Angels in America, but it’s a long play, and the second one at that, perhaps I nodded off? I did see them both in the same day.

Dead, all dead, despite the rumors.

R19 I recall an authentic Faberge egg made for Tsarina showing up on Antiques Road Show...will try to find the clip!

[quote]Hard to know if the princesses were raped or fell in love with their first group of guards.

I have to admit that I too have wondered if the girls were raped--especially the older ones. There are so many myths about the family now. But, they seemed (or they are now portrayed as nice people. However, how nice could Nicky have really been to have been so detached from his people and to allow so much suffering among them?

This is not the egg I was thinking of, but this is also v. cool. A missing one of 8 imperial fabrege eggs!

Can you even legally own an authentic Faberge egg? Aren't they part of Russian's cultural heritage and have to be handed over to the Russian government?

R30 Not sure. Would be interesting to know. My guess is that after so much time it is likely Public Domain, as it were. But perhaps not.

Wasn’t it the Romanovs who were found dead on the Dyatlov Pass? Someone should start a thread about that.

R30 the late billionairess Malcolm Forbes collected Faberge eggs so I don't think your theory is correct. No idea what happened to them after he died, though.

R28 From my limited reading, I understand that "Nicky" Czar Nicholas II was in some ways quite progressive as a head of state, and had decent military training, but he totally misread the underlying political situation, which was something he likely could not stop regardless of his leanings. Brighter minds than me on DL, pls weigh in!

I was looking for a clip of the sled riding on the stairs to illustrate my remark about it being the first time I found out about Hemophilia, and I found this weird fan video of Alexei, that uses footage not from the film I originally watched, but the sled riding is very dramatic!

From photos and how he’s portrayed in movies, one gets the idea that Alexei would have been the ultimate twink had he lived. And if he was a live today, I bet he would be the highest earning Russian twink on Chaturbate, whose no limits shows practically melt the internet.

R7 One of my sister's is named Anastasia, but she was named after a Catholic Saint.

R33 The family sold them to a Russian billionaire, so there may be a right of first refusal by Russians or something like that attached to them as part of the cultural heritage and their present day sale. And to the person who said they entered into public domain, no, that applies to copyrighted material not cultural artifacts.

R17 Yes, they met and fell in love, then got married. What a concept!

Both had been more of less promised in marriage by their families to others. Queen Victoria Alexandra's grandmother pressured her to marry Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, who was her first cousin, but she turned down his proposal. He was supposed to marry someone else too.

Prior to his marriage, Nicholas II also carried on a long term relationship with a ballerina named Matilda Kshesinskaya. There are rumors that they even had a child together.

Forgot to mention: Alexandra likely turned down Albert Victor's proposal because he was gay.

As each year passes, Russia reveals what actually happened that night. I've read somewhere that the parents were killed instantly but the children survived a lot of the gunfire because of all of the jewels sewn within their clothing. The children were stabbed to death.

[quote]Prior to his marriage, Nicholas II also carried on a long term relationship with a ballerina named Matilda Kshesinskaya. There are rumors that they even had a child together.

There is someone who claims that he is the grandson of Nicholas

What a nonsense story being told about that found Faberge egg. A “scrap dealer” paid $14,000 in order to melt it down & sell it for the gold? How stupid do you have to be to believe that?

Oh yes R35, let’s imagine a murdered child masturbating for money.

I have sympathy with the kids but it's hard not to see some poetic justice in the Tzar and his family being murdered in the same way he murdered countless Jewish families.

MURDERERS!

There are hundreds of Romanov descendants currently living rent-free in Russian Americans' guest houses. Very much like grifters Harry and Meghan.

This documentary is very good for those interested in the Romanovs and the history of the Faberge eggs.

In 1972, when I was 15, I saw [italic] Nicholas and Alexandra{/italic]. I had a huge crush on Nicky, as portrayed by Michael Jayston - who, in full beard mode, did strongly resemble the real Nicholas II. For once, though, I think the real-life person was better looking than the actor who played him.

I read the book, too, and for a while was fascinated by Russian history. My high school offered a Russian history elective, which I took and enjoyed.* There's no doubt that Nicholas II was an anti-Semite and that some pretty awful stuff was done by his government. Then again, Russia was full of anti-Semites in those days, and probably still is. And the government that followed perpetrated crimes that make anything Nick II did pale by comparison. It would seem that Russia is just not a happy land, no matter who governs her.

Western governments, particularly the US under Wilson and the UK under Lloyd George, initially celebrated the tsar's overthrow, as his government was rightly regarded as despotic. They changed their tune quickly enough when the Bolshies took over. and of course everyone was horrified by the murders.

*Side DL note - 5 or 6 years later, I saw my Russian history teacher at the baths. It wasn't a big shock because he was obviously gay. I remember our eyes met, and it was plain that he recognized me as a former student but quickly looked away. I wonder what happened to him. Even if he survived the plague, he'd be in his 80s now.

Oh, dear. That wasn't supposed to be all in italics. Come the revolution, DL will have PREVIEW and EDIT functions!

Armie Hammer’s great-grandfather, industrialist Armand Hammer, bought a lot of Faberge items from the Russian nobility and brought them here for sale through high-end department stores.

The Forbes Eggs were sold and resold, and now belong to the ruler of Qatar.

"Anastasia" is a common Russian and Greek girls' name. It means "resurrection."

All four of the girls were pretty (although poor Maria looked more and more like her mother as she aged), but the courtiers all thought Tatiana was the most beautiful. I agree.

Damnit, I thought you meant ME

All five of the children were said at one time or another to have survived the assassinations, and there were many famous impostors--Anna Anderson for Anastasia being the most famous (Anastasia and Alexis were the youngest, and so had the most con artists impersonating them, since they would have looked the most different in adulthood).

I always wondered how big the Romanov fortune must be, and where it is kept, and who ultimately got to spend it.

The really tragic aspect to this whole grisly story is the abject stupidity of Nicholas and his wife. If anybody fiddled whilst Rome burnt, well... those two shoulda been bloody buskers in St. Petersburg, for all they paid attention to what was going down...

Their daughters weren’t all that

The problem was with the fact that Russia was far too big of a country to have an absolute monarchy by Nicholas's ascension to the throne. He should have become a constitutional monarch early during his reign.

Disgusting pigs. For a hundred years the serfs began rebelling, and NIcholas and his father and grandfather stirred up antisemitism to take the heat off of them. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered/burned alive due to NIcholas and his father/grandfather. The Czarina supported this. It was Rasputin who said to tone it down with encouraging the populace to kill Jews.

The chickens came home to roost. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving couple.

[quote] Their daughters weren’t all that ' A tiara and a title make a girl much more attractive than she would otherwise be.

Alix is complex difficult person to understand. Yes, she did everything to save her son but still she ignored all the warnings. Her sister traveled from Moscow to Tsarskoje Selo to warn her. The minute she mentioned Rasputin Alix turned cold and sent her away, her loving caring sister.

Not much was known about hemophilia in those days. Keep in mind, doctors were still bleeding people in some countries as a treatment for disease. The pain was excruciating when the joint spaces filled with blood. The kid used to scream and pray to die. His mother was very shy to begin with - probably suffered from a bit of an antisocial personality. She was hated by the Russian aristocracy and was hated by the russian people. She would’ve been fine in England as a princess or queen - her social aloofness would’ve been admired. But not Russia.

On top of all this, she had a kid who suffered a horrific chronic disease & anything could set off his bleeding - even a carriage ride. It was enough to send her around the bend. Rasputin had psychological power over the boy. Also, when he was called to the boy’s side he threw all the doctors out of the room - a good thing, because Alexandra would implore the doctors to do something to help her son, so they prodded & poked him and applied treatments. Rasputin would pray over the boy, let him lie still and basically hypnotize him with chanting & assurances that god was with him. He calmed the boy & a blood clot was able to form & stop the bleeding. That’s why Alexandra would defend Rasputin against all his detractors. Alexandra was an early 20th century deplorable who adored Rasputin, who was a conman (like Trump), but a conman who got results.

(R57) Yeah, right, comrade Boris Bolshevik...

Was the Royal Family indeed Russian blooded, or were they like the British royals who (at the time) were basically German?

Romanovs had very little russian blood. They were mostly German & Danish with random Swedish, Lithuanian & Polish blood here & there.

I lived not far from where the one Romanoff daughter lived in a small apartment above a store front in Toronto

That must have been Deirdre Romanov.

I knew Deirdre. She worked with Ginny, in billing.

R54 That was Nicholas' sister, Olga, who tied in Toronto in 1972, in a run-down apartment above a beauty parlor on Gerrard Street.

And, speaking of Nicholas swimming in the nude, I remember seeing on WPIX, Channel 11, in NYC in the late 50s or early 60s a documentary on the Russian Revoltuion and there was a home movie of Nicky swimming nude with his aides-de-camp. Hubba, hubba. And, they used a quote from Will Rodgers along the lines that "there is not one bathing suit in all of Russia.".

They were as Russian as Queen Vic was British.

The last female Romanov was Elisabeth I, daughter of Peter I. Her nephew, some Danico German prince, succeeded her and he was the one who married a B-list German princess later known as Catherine the Great.

The only good Romanov is a dead Romanov.

R34 Nicholas was not progressive. After his grand father Alexander II was killed in an attack his son Alexander III, who by the way looked like a giant bear, decided to stop all the liberal progress his father supported. A II was preparing same kind of constitution UK had. During Alexander III’s reign Russia took several steps back. He died suddenly and his eldest son, Nicholas, took over. There were hopes Russia would move on but in his coronation he promised to keep all the power to himself and one day give it to his son. He gave up in 1905 after the was against Japan and big riots in Russia but once things settled he took all the power back.

Nicky was loving father and husband but hopeless ruler. He couldn’t make decisions and keep his own mind. If he met three people with different opinions to the matter he would agree with all of them and then usually take a side with the last one he met. He also chose bad advisers. His son’s illness isolated him and his family. His wife had mental problems and she isolated them even from other Romanovs. When problems became bigger the more they isolated and escaped them to their palace. Right after abdication he asked one of his advisers if he things had been different had he given up some of his power.

Brits, tell me how the queen is related to Nicky Romonov.

A ruler is not progressive if his solution to his country's horrible ills is to encourage the mass slaughter of a small segment of the population.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. The czar and his wife had a fitting death.

—Anonymous

Four Grand Duchesses never saw real life. Because of fear of attack against the Imperial Family they lived isolated in Alexander Palace and its parks. Their mother kept them away from society and they lived outside official functions simple life. They never ordered servants but kindly asked if they had time to do something they wanted. They got little own money to undestand the value of it. During WWI they worked long days in Catherine’s Palace which was changed to a military hospital.

They once escaped in England to make a short trip of their own but of course secret police followed them very carefully. Their aunt took them on Sat mornings to St. Petersburg to see some life outside Tsarskoje Selo and then to lunch with their grandmother Maria. This was before she gave her son the ultimatum, either she or Rasputin would leave the capital. She lost and moved to Kiev.

Those four girls, or women, came closest to the normal life, when the family was moved from Tsarskoje Selo house arrest to Tobolsky. Their life was boring but those young women used to sit by the window watching average Russians walking in the street living their everyday life. They had never seen it and it interested them very much. They used to sit and watch for hours.

In 1909, a bronze equestrian statue of Alexander III sculpted by Paolo Troubetzkoy was placed in Znamenskaya Square in front of the Moscow Rail Terminal in St. Petersburg. Both the horse and rider were sculpted in massive form, leading to the nickname of "hippopotamus". Troubetzkoy envisioned the statue as a caricature, jesting that he wished "to portray an animal atop another animal", and it was quite controversial at the time, with many, including the members of the Imperial Family, opposed to the design, but it was approved because the Empress Dowager unexpectedly liked the monument. Following the Revolution of 1917 the statue remained in place as a symbol of tsarist autocracy until 1937 when it was placed in storage. In 1994 it was again put on public display, in front of the Marble Palace.[34] Another memorial is located in the city of Irkutsk at the Angara embankment.

R71: The Queen’s grandfather, George V, was Nicholas II’s first cousin. (Their mothers were sisters, both daughters of Victoria.) Therefore, she is Nicky’s first cousin twice removed.

Well, he'd be 116 years old, r35. Twink? I don't think so.

Why do DL people worship monarchy? I find it bizarre. Most of you people would have been miserable serfs under the Tsars, unless you're Jewish, then it would have been worse. How come there's no thread on the families of the Bolsheviks? I mean why don't we just have a thread on those lovely Southern belles who owned slaves? It's not that much more offensive.

"Four Grand Duchesses never saw real life. Because of fear of attack against the Imperial Family they lived isolated in Alexander Palace and its parks. Their mother kept them away from society and they lived outside official functions simple life."

The girls never entered society, they stayed at home with their parents, and worked as nurses. The official reason they never entered Society was that when they were old enough to make their debuts, there was a war on, and splashy parties would have been inappropriate. And Romanov Grand Duchesses couldn't possibly enter Society without a huge debut!

But I think their parents just didn't want to let them go. As the outside world got more threatening and harder to understand, and the need to keep Alexsei's secrets got more dire, they held the girls closer, and forgot all about their futures. The rational thing would have been to send the girls away, to the court of some royal relative who'd keep them away from war zones and maybe let them meet a young man or two, but obviously that didn't happens and the poor innocent princesses went down with the Romanov ship.

"Why do DL people worship monarchy? I find it bizarre. "

Taking an interest in history, royalty, or the fall of empires isn't "worship", you ninny.

Find one post on this thread where somebody says Nicholas was a good ruler!

R79 - Oh, please spare us the sanctimonious PC lecture.

DLers do not "worship" monarchy. But we do love gossip about Major Stars, and, unfortunately, royalty are a form of Star.

No threads on the families of the "Bolsheviks"? Please: feel free to start threads on the happy home lives of Lenin, Trotsky, and Kalinin. Then you can move on to Stalin.

Rasputin had 11 inches of uncut cock. That is the true tragedy, that the life of that cock was cut short.

^ That's been debunked.

There are those who dream of some form of Romanov restoration, the mythology of the murdered Imperial Family is a potent one, though there is definitely more interest outside of Russia than inside. The presumed Romanov dynastic heir is an inarticulate and fat 40 year old called George Mikhailovich, who is neither married nor has male heirs. He is definitely no JFK Jr.

Am I the only one who watched Matthew Weiner's Netflix series about Romanov descendants? It was interesting but erratic. Nice production values, what with all the Netflix money, Or was it Amazon?

In olden times the daughters of a tsar could not marry. Russian/polish aristocracy married within. Since no man was the equal of the tzar, his daughters could not marry because there were no male equivalent of a tsar’s daughter. The ended up in a convent

Peter the Great was the first tsar to open up marriage to foreigners.

Also, R87, the daughters of a Tsar could not marry outside the Russian Orthodox faith, and could not marry below their rank. Which left them with zero possible husbands on this planet, so they spent their lives in the women's quarters ("terem" to rhyme with harem), or convents.

Peter the Great may have changed the rule because of his sister Sofia Alekseuevna, who wasn't having that shit and who siezed power and install herself as regent, when Peter was a minor. He had a hell of a time getting the reins of power away from her and becoming Tsar in fact and not just in name, and I guess he decided that maybe having all these dissatisfied female relatives around might be a great idea.

"...having all these dissatisfied female relatives around might be a great idea. "

Might NOT be a great idea!

Fuck. I wish we had an edit function.

R80 Just minor detail, but I’ve read Olga had her debut just prior to the war in Livadia but the war began before Tatiana had hers.

Like most historical events writ large, the Romanov story is like the proverbial train wreck: you know you should look away but you can't.

Old news maxim: 1,000 deaths is a statistic: one death is a tragedy. And, Blood Sells, Sex Sells Even Better

Russia's history is a bloodbath of truly incredible proportions, even in barbaric Europe where stuff like the Wars of the Roses spilled blood like a Texas oil gusher, Russian power struggles dwarf the rest. The last of the Romanovs was no different.

The fall of dynasties is always news.

On a personal level, bayoneting unarmed people including a group of youngsters whose fault none of this was, is horrifying.

So was the long-past-its-sell-date condition of Russia's serfs, its history of virulent antisemitism, etc. (The latter, by the way, shared across most of Europe, but particularly Eastern Europe: just ask descendants of Polish, Hungarian, and Romanian Jews).

Slicing and dicing which horror was more horrible is somewhat, er, demeaning all around.

As far as dreaming about a return of the Romanovs: the number in Russia is still quite small, and Putin and his brethren, whilst publicly respectful to their memory (as one autocrat to another should be), would never allow such a return. It would be far too risky.

The return of the Russian Orthodox Church, however, has been both approved and welcomed by the government. It poses much less risk, yet revives the sense of tradition and tribalism and spiritual connection that the Great Unwashed seem to need. Religion and government have a long history of working well together, and Russia was no exception.

But a return of the monarchy? Very doubtful.

Empress Anna was a cruel dumpy fat hag that the nobles thought she could control

Off to the ice wedding palace with you, cunts!!! Don’t fuck with the Autocrat of ALL the Russias!

"Why do DL people worship monarchy?"

Queens loving other queens.

When young, George V and Nicholas had the distinction, unknown before or since Patty Duke, of being identical cousins. Nicholas was the better looking one even then (and became dishier with age), but many sets of identical twins have a slightly better looking one. The resemblance in some photos of them together is quite remarkable.

Alix wasn't complex, she was dumb as a box of rocks. The advice she gave Nicholas in their constant, loving letters, was moronic in the extreme. He was pretty stupid too. There were numerous revolts well before Nicholas took the throne: if the two of them had been canny strategists who understood the warning signs, the moment he was crowned probably still wouldn't have been too late to save the empire - remembering that the Russians aren't nearly as fussy as Americans about Liberty. It was Equality that brought the Romanovs down - and they'd been in power for 300 years, so what Nicholas achieved in a short time really took Trump levels of incompetence. (R92 is right: many of the predecessors were much more interesting.)

I've seen the tombs of Nicholas's family. They have their own chapel in the Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress, where all the other Tsars' tombs also are. Nicholas has been made a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church, apparently mainly for being martyred.

BTW, the recent TV series on the Romanovs didn't use any of the real locations, though there were occasional set-up shots in the Winter Palace and Catherine Palace. The real Petersburg locations are much more sumptuous than those in the show, and perfectly restored nowadays. Apparently The Great doesn't use any real locations either.

[quote]The last female Romanov was Elisabeth I, daughter of Peter I. Her nephew, some Danico German prince, succeeded her and he was the one who married a B-list German princess later known as Catherine the Great.

Total bullshit, Elisabeth was the daughter of Peter the Great, she was childless, but her sister bore a son, Peter, but she died shortly after his birth and he was raised by his aunt, the Empress. He was Peter the Great's grandson.

He married the minor German princess who became Catherine the Great, and he succeeded Elisabeth as Emperor (Peter III) for 6 months in 1762, before being deposed and murdered (?) in a coup which put Catherine on the throne.

Catherine wrote in her memories that the firstborn son, Pavel, was fathered by her lover and not by Peter III. Many historians doubt this because of the strong physical resemblance between Pavel and Peter III. If he were the son of the lover, then the Romanov line ended in 1762, not 150 years later in the Russian Revolution.

Upon Catherine's death in 1796, Pavel became Emperor Paul I and ruled for five years before being assassinated.

Damn! The dog survived

In winter 1916, Alexei poses with his dog, Joy. While many claim that the Bolsheviks executed the dog along with his family, the Siberian Times reports that Joy escaped after an executioner took pity on him, and was later taken to Windsor.

The cellar of the Ipatiev House, where the family was systematically killed. Walsh describes the family's final days this way: "Under the moral torture and physical confinement—toward the end the prisoners were allowed but five minutes in the garden each day —the ex-Tsar maintained that astonishing external calm and passivity which characterized his whole life. His health did not seem to weaken, nor did his hair whiten. During the few minutes allowed for exercise in the open air, he carried [Alexei] in his arms, as the boy was unable to walk, and marched stolidly up and down until his precious five minutes were over. But the Empress never left the porch; she aged visibly, her health failed, and gray hairs appeared."

Under Nicky the Spineless 8 million Russian men,woman, children died. All because he couldn't say NO to his nutty wife. They got what they deserved.

R71 George V and and Nicholas were cousins, their mothers were sisters, but their mothers were not the daughters of Queen Victoria, their mothers were the daughters of Christian IX of Denmark. Alix was a granddaughter of Victoria, via her daughter Alice, so Alix and George V were also cousins. They're inbred so you really need a chart.

Edward VII (son of Victoria) + Alexandra of Denmark (Daughter of Christian IX) = George V Alexander III of Russia + Dagmar "Minnie" of Denmark (Daughter of Christian IX) = Nicholas Alice of the United Kingdom (daughter of Victoria) + Louis of Hesse = Alix

The queen is descended from Edward VII and Alexandra. Prince Philip is descended from Alice and Louis.

R98 And under the Communists, 20+ million Russian men, women, and children starved to death, all because of a twisted ideology. This is why Communism is mocked, and will be tainted with the deaths of millions, forever.

Of course this very basic website didn't keep my formatting ^^^ hopefully it's easy enough to read.

Frolicking Nicky at R8 looks pretty built for an inbred royal. Any more pix?

The Romanov men were all usually huge Russian bears. Nicholas was only about 5'7 at most and was considered to be practically a dwarf in his family.

if you haven't been to Hillwood house in DC it is worth the visit. It was Merry Weatherpost's house and she bailed Russia out when they were desperate for money by buying a lot of the Romanov items. They are astounding pieces. She had some of their bedroom pieces like closets which had inset porcelain hand painted pictures of the Czar and Empress which she had shipped but when they arrived the porcelain pieces had been removed from a number of her pieces.

I always think it is such a shame that Royals are all so far removed from the people that they can't see what is going on and lose their lives over it.

R102 Inbred? I don’t think so. Romanovs often married to small countries’ princesses to avoid it.

Sure Nicholas and George looked a lot alike, but it's still pretty easy to tell them apart. George is the bug eyed one with the narrower head.

Alix’s best friend Anna Vyrubova, who was naive but loving person was taken to prison from Alexander Palace where she had been healing herself. The rumor was she had had affairs with Nicholas and Rasputin. She proved it false in medical examination. She was a virgin. Her marriage had been short and unhappy. In 1920 she escaped to Finland where she lived in Viipuri and later Helsinki. During WWII she moved to Stockholm where Alix’s niece, later the queen of Sweden, supported her financially. She got money from the same niece when she returned to Helsinki. But like so many members of former rich society, she was poor and lived near poverty. She wrote her memories and was always proud of her close friendship with the Empress. She died in 1964 at the age of 80.

Is it true that Alix and the Princesses enjoyed that uncut Rasputin cock?

1906-1914: Home Movies of the Romanov Family (speed corrected w/ added sound)

They looked like the BRF because, duh, they’re directly related!

R100 Let's play your murderous despot is worse than mine because his daughters didn't wear pretty hats.

R107 Alexandra referred to her BFF Anna as "the stupid cow". All ya need to know.

Wow, R96. Good news. Shades of Saturn, Hitler's alligator (see other thread). So the Russian dog ended up in England, and the Nazi alligator ended up in Russia. Glad at least the animals made it.

I'm not usually that much of a fan of beards and moustaches, but damned if Nicholas didn't have the most beautifully kept facial hair. Fine moustachios!

R111 I would say no. All the family especially Alix were deeply religious. Alix loved Nicky. The daughters were young ladies but behaved very childlike because they were isolated and had no friends to show how young women of their age would talk and behave. Nobody knows for sure but no, Rasputin was their spiritual guide, however weird it sounds.

The Russian people and the world would have been so much better off if the Romanovs had stayed in power and communism had never taken root. Perhaps by the time Nicholas had died a natural death and Alexei had died without issue, the succession would have been changed to allow Olga to reign as Empress of all the Russias in a new golden age.

It's always amazed me how those European countries monarchies were filled by people who didn't even share the same ethnicity or blood of the country they ruled. How fucked up was that?

A lot of the jewelry that they managed to get out was "purchased" (read stolen) by Queen Mary, who never quite got around for paying for any it.

Have any of you read this?

I have met many distant relatives of Russian noble families who call themselves Prince or Princess. Typically they live in a culdesac in the Valley like the rest of the slobs

R122 Any book that has “twilight” in the title catches my attention, but no I haven’t read it.

"Perhaps by the time Nicholas had died a natural death and Alexei had died without issue, the succession would have been changed to allow Olga to reign as Empress of all the Russias in a new golden age. "

The succession would have gone to some Romanov male descended from the male line, there had to be some somewhere. And if they'd all been killed off and there was nobody left but the princesses, Olga would have been pressured to marry someone who could either rule in her name, or who would do what the power brokers told him to do.

Because those girls were far too sheltered and poorly educated to make better monarchs than their father.

He was quite stylish

Any fans of Ingrid Bergman as Anastasia? She won a well-deserved Oscar for it.

Is that a tattoo on his arm at R126?

In their heyday did Banana Republic ever pull off a Romanov themed line?

Big Bergman fan. I have not seen Anastasia in years, but remember Helen Hayes was quite good in her role as well.

R128 yes, he got a tattoo of a dragon in Japan in 1891 after a failed assassination attempt. He was an admirer of body art.

He'd have been perfect in today's world.

The Romanovs’ royal dinners

[quote]He'd have been perfect in today's world.

I so can imagine Nicky in leather with nipple piercings!

He was the Tsar With the Dragon Tattoo

I love Prince Yusupov. Everything about him including what a fun and insufferable snob he must have been. The richest man in Russia, dedicated cross dresser and size queen. And his Romanov wife Princess Irina Alexandrovna of Russia, who looked like a beautiful hermaphrodite.

sadly old Nicky was kind of a moron. He couldn't deal with the new world he'd blundered into. Communism was not a treat for anyone, but I don't think Nicky stumbling along, making stupid pronouncements, and wishing everything was just like when Daddy got to kill all the liberals would have worked either.

Anastasia's still fun r130. Turns out all complete hogwash, but still fun to watch, and Bergman is great in it.

I'm watching the Netflix series The Last Czars recommended upthread. It's very good, but it's so hard to watch him continually make terrible decisions. And to hell with that uncle of his, #1 bad advisor.

There isn’t a lost Romanov fortune. The czar donated much of his fortune to aid societies at the outbreak of the war and the Bolshevik’s confiscated the family property. The Soviets sold a lot of the Romanov goods in order to collect foreign currency. Marjorie Merrieweather Post bought whole collections when her husband was posted to Moscow as ambassador. The war interrupted any marriage opportunities for the czar’s daughters. Their parents didn’t want them to marry outside of Russia although King Alexander of Yugoslavia was seriously considered. It was understood that the daughters could make their own choice of husband.

Merry Wetherpost???

Oh dear!

I'm also watching The Last Czars after seeing it mentioned in this thread.

Robert Jack's AMAZING ass and legs in the second episode's sex scene was a nice surprise.

biggest mistake they could have made, but I do get why they made it r139. so sad, so lost. Getting those girls married off young, which actually did happen with royalty would've saved them. And like royalty, getting them married to foreign princes. But I get it, nobody knew what was coming. I don't really blame them. It's just sad and kind of frustrating.

Guillotine or revolution, monarchs got what was coming. Still many leeches to go.

and yet, r143, it's tragic. They just don't seem like they deserved a really brutal death penalty, especially the kids. Nicky was a moron and Alex wasn't a lot of help but shot to death in a basement. No, can't really go with you on that.

How would the Romanovs have fared against Germany in WWII?

Sorry—meaning how would Russia have fared against the Nazis with the Romanovs or some form of monarchy in charge — as opposed to Stalin and the Communist regime?

it seems like Stalin did everything wrong in that war r145, and yet Russia somehow pulled through. Maybe the Romanovs would have seen the same thing, despite themselves. They certainly fucked up the Russo-Japanese War and World War I though, so not sure.

I meant it in jest, but I do think monarchies are an insult to real democracy. That said, of course it's tragic that children were assassinated, like they didn't choose to be born into royalty, but I understand under a revolutionary mind why did killed them. They could have spared the children and raised them as simpletons.

[quote] it seems like Stalin did everything wrong in that war

Bullshit, stop this American exceptionalism revisionist crap. Stalin was the main reason Germany was defeated any serious historian in the world agrees with that, as terrible of a dictator as he was.

I don't know that they do r148. He killed a bunch of generals before the war for stupid ass reasons. Then he made the supreme mistake of trusting Hitler. I think somehow Russian stubborness persevered where stupid Russian government failed. It's been a pattern for that country. The peasants endure, even when the rulers suck, as they usually do.

What were their ties to the Amber room? Since it’s been recreated, if it was found today would the descendants be eligible to claim it and have a windfall, or was there some insurance payout and it would revert to the company?

Money was tight....

Russia: Lenin hides portrait of Tsar Nicholas II for almost 100 years

Lenin replaced Tsar Nicholas II in more ways than one, as a portrait of the last Tsar was discovered on the reverse side of the Bolshevik leader's portrait, as shown at St. Petersburg's Stieglitz Art and Industry Academy, on Thursday. The discovery was made by experts after an x-ray revealed a second face right next to Lenin's.

The portrait has been on loan at Stieglitz Academy since 2013 from the State Russian Museum for restoration works. The painting of the Tsar had gone undiscovered for the last 90 years as it had been masked beneath the paint used by Soviet artist Vladislav Izmailovich for Lenin's portrait.

Vasily Kichedzhi, Rector at Stieglitz Art and Industry Academy (Russian): "The artist [Vladislav Izmailovich] who painted Lenin was a very good artist. Even then he understood that times were changing and so he used washable paints and painted several layers and in so doing saved a beautiful portrait of Nicholas II. He clearly understood that he was risking his life for it, because in those times if somebody, spotted him whilst he was doing it and didn't trust him he would be shot."

What language did Nicholas and Alexandra speak to each other? I know Alix had to learn Russian when got married, but did they really speak Russian to each other privately? It seems likely that Nicky knew both German and English better than she knew Russian.

[quote] Bullshit, stop this American exceptionalism revisionist crap. Stalin was the main reason Germany was defeated any serious historian in the world agrees with that, as terrible of a dictator as he was.

The Russian trolls always rise to the WW2 bait

... and French. Didn't the Russian court speak French for a long time (although I seem to recall reading that they were finally speaking the language of their own country by the late 19th century).

they do, but I'm not even arguing that Russia wasn't a huge part of why World War II ended the way it did. I just don't think Stalin was some great leader. He actually collapsed for days after Hitler's invasion. But somehow Russia persevered, in the face of horror and misery. It's a pretty heroic story of a country, but I don't know that Stalin personally deserves a lot of the credit.

that was true for centuries r154, but I'm not sure it was still true by the time of Nicholas II. I suspect he did speak German and English, and that may be how they communicated a lot. I don't know that they had that whole French thing like Catherine the Great and Alexander I, but I'm not really sure.

Of course, someone who knows basically history is a Russian bot, because DL is such an important board Putin is investing millions on here. Im sorry if you're an ignorant who lacks basic knowledge of world history. Stalin might have been a cruel psychopath and dictator, but he also saved the world from Nazism, whether you like it or not.

The Tragic Story Of Maria Romanov, The Beautiful Daughter Of Russia’s Last Tsar

Though Anastasia is more widely remembered, here's why Maria Romanov remains the most captivating daughter of Tsar Nicholas II.

Born in June 1899, Maria Romanov was the third of the Russian royal family’s five children. The oldest daughters — Olga and Tatiana — made up the so-called “the Big Pair” while Maria and her younger sister Anastasia were referred to as “the Little Pair.” Collectively, the four sisters referred to themselves as OTMA (for the first letter of each of their names).

But of the four grand duchesses born to Nicholas and Alexandra, Maria Romanov was widely considered to be the most beautiful, known for her light hair and “dark blue eyes so large that they were known in the family as ‘Maria’s saucers.'” And in contrast to her younger sister, who was more mischievous and reckless, Maria (or “Mashka” as she was known to her family) was described as merry and good-natured. For example, when Anastasia roamed about teasing or even kicking people, Maria would follow behind to apologize profusely.

And although the story of Maria Romanov as a whole so often falls in the shadow of Anastasia’s, her life and untimely death provide a fascinating, lesser-known look at the story of Russia’s last royal family.

Maria Romanov The Flirtatious Young Duchess (She was the hussy)

As a young duchess, Maria Romanov reportedly loved to flirt and discuss her dreams of marriage and children. Her childhood nanny recalled how “One day the little Grand Duchess Mari[a] was looking out of the window at a regiment of soldiers marching past and exclaimed, ‘Oh! I love these dear soldiers; I should like to kiss them all.'”

As many of her contemporaries noted, “had she not been the daughter of the Tsar, this strong, warmhearted girl would have made some man an excellent wife.” Lord Mountbatten, who was cousin to the grand duchesses and met them when he was a young boy, would later reminisce, “I was crackers about Mari[a], and was determined to marry her. She was absolutely lovely.” Although the pair would never meet again, Mountbatten kept a picture of Maria Romanov near his bedside until his death.

Despite her wealth of adulation and her royal blood, Maria Romanov and her sisters had a surprisingly spartan young life. The Big Pair and the Little Pair each shared bedrooms with plain cots and started their days with a cold bath. Nonetheless, Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra were widely said to be caring parents who gave their children plenty of affection.

The family was not without its problems, however, namely Alexei’s hemophilia. The slightest bump could cause the boy to hemorrhage for days, with the tsarina often becoming hysterical and completely breaking down, shutting herself and the young prince away from the outside world. But everything changed in 1905 when a mysterious man entered the lives of Maria Romanov and her family.

Rasputin, The “Mad Monk”

Enter Grigori Rasputin, a Siberian peasant mystic who enjoyed great success passing himself off as a holy man with special powers to the ladies of Russian high society. Thanks to his elite connections, Rasputin was eventually introduced to the tsar himself.

The truth about Rasputin’s seemingly-magical ability to heal Alexei is still shrouded in mystery, but even the most skeptical historians agree that for whatever reason, when the “Mad Monk” prayed over the tsarevich, the boy’s bleeding stopped.

It’s always “the American exceptional recidivism. “

Always.

And it’s always Stalin who saved the world from the Nazis.

Always.

No mention of the British who fought for 6 years & never allowed Nazis to invade their land.

R156 Nicholas and Alix spoke and wrote to each other in English, as English was their best common language. Alix also spoke German, so if Nicholas spoke German his English was better than his German. Alix's cousin Kaiser Wilhelm also wrote and spoke to Nicholas in English.

Naturally, the imperial couple was overjoyed. Alexandra, in particular, fell under Rasputin’s spell, becoming entirely beholden to the only man who could heal her “baby sweet.” Soon enough, Rasputin was spending copious amounts of time with the royal family.

Maria Romanov and her sisters seemed to be equally taken with Rasputin, confiding in him and asking for advice on how to handle their teenage crushes. “My little Pearl,” Rasputin once wrote to Maria, “I miss your simple soul. We will see each other soon. Big Kiss.”

Affections such as these, however, were easily misinterpreted by the outside world, who had no idea of Alexei’s illness and could not understand how the Siberian mystic wielded such influence over the tsarina. Rumors even soon began circulating that Rasputin had actually seduced Alexandra and all four of her daughters.

With the rumors surrounding Rasputin complicating things for the Romanovs, their position grew more precarious still with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Olga and Tatiana began to work as nurses alongside their mother in a military hospital, while Maria and Anastasia visited wounded soldiers, cheering them up with their humor and lively personalities.

Nonetheless, Russia’s initial enthusiasm for the war began to fade as the casualties mounted. Soon, it was whispered that the tsar’s poor decisions were made at the behest of Rasputin.

The family’s fortunes began to truly unravel when Rasputin was murdered by one of their own relatives in 1916. Nicholas’s power, already tenuous due to the war, continued to weaken as popular discontent grew among the poor and disenfranchised who were increasingly angry with the bourgeoisie. Finally, full-blown revolution broke out in February 1917, forcing the tsar to abdicate, leaving the Romanov family at the mercy of the new provisional government.

Initially, Maria Romanov and the rest of the imperial family were exiled to Tobolsk, Siberia, where life was dull but bearable. However, when the Marxists revolutionaries known as the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917, they decided to move the family to Ekaterinburg, where the fervently-Bolshevik population would prevent any attempts at rescue or escape.

The Romanovs were kept inside a house with whitewashed windows and only allowed to go outside for one hour each day. Even Maria’s good nature was pushed to its limits; as she recorded, “It is difficult to write anything pleasant, there is little of that here.”

Yet, Maria Romanov soon found she was still able to pursue her favorite pastime in the “House of Special Purpose.” She began flirting with the teenage guards, one of whom later recalled her as “a girl who loved to have fun” and quickly became the guards’ favorite of the Romanov children.

Even Yakov Yurovsky, leader of the secret police who had been sent to guard the family, remembered how “[Maria’s] sincere modest character was very attractive to the men and she spent most of her time flirting with her jailers.” One of the guards, Ivan Skorokhodov, even smuggled in a cake for Maria’s 19th birthday, although when the pair were later discovered in a compromising position, the guards were replaced with a decidedly less-friendly set.

R92, wow, I just had a quick read of the story of the Ice Palace and that is nuts! I like how Wikipedia describes her as "strong willed and eccentric". More like a psychopath that would put Amon Goeth to shame!

I've had kidney stones twice and they are horrific, so I guess at least she got a bit of payback while she died, but still!

The Death And Legacy Of Maria Romanov

In the early hours of July 17, 1918, Yurovsky woke the family and told them to dress and go to the basement. The Romanovs hoped that this meant rescue by their supporters. While it was true that pro-Romanov forces were closing in on Ekaterinburg, the actual reason was far more grim.

The Bolsheviks had decided to execute the royal family rather than move them. Yurovsky read this news aloud to Nicholas who barely had time to cry “What?” before Russia’s last tsar was shot in the chest.

The basement rumbled with shots and screams, but when the smoke cleared, the terrified grand duchesses were all still alive. Unbeknownst to their captors, they had sewn the royal jewels into their corsets, turning them into a protective armor.

One of the executioners repeatedly attempted to stab Maria Romanov in the chest, but “the bayonet wouldn’t pierce her bodice” so he shot the sobbing girl directly in the head.

As the bodies were being carried outside, one of the girls — either Maria or Anastasia. account vary — “cried out and covered her face with her hands.” She was stabbed again in such a frenzy that several soldiers vomited while others fled the scene.

The final resting place of Russia’s last imperial family remained a secret for decades. For years, rumors abounded that at least one of the grand duchesses had survived. Although Anna Anderson (who claimed to be Anastasia) would ultimately make the youngest of the sisters the most famous, there were also several women who came forward claiming to be Maria Romanov.

However, the remains of the Romanovs were finally discovered in 1991, but the missing bodies of Alexei and one of the Little Pair breathed new life into old rumors. It wasn’t until 2008 that DNA testing conclusively proved that the two bodies found in a nearby shallow grave indeed belonged to Alexei and his sister, finally putting the ghost of Maria Romanov to rest once and for all.

R144 Nicholas, like his father, encourage his disgruntled subjects to turn their rage on Jews and Roma, who were burned alive and stabbed and so on, hundreds of thousands of them.

He deserved a far worse death. I wish they had burned him alive, so that he could get a taste of the type of murder and mayhem he aided and abetted. The Czarina also supported pogroms, and she, too, deserved to be burned. Small consolation to know they are now burning for eternity.

The explanation I read somewhere today of Rasputin's healing power over Alexei is that, when the boy was bleeding and in pain, he would take him away from the resulting chaos and make him lie quietly in a room with Rasputin watching over him. Rasputin would pray over him and comfort him, and with Alexei calmed and lying very still, it not only eased the pain but helped the blood begin clotting. Or, I suppose, at least slowed its flow greatly.

I also believe that some people do have that healing power; I don't mean they're literally miracle workers, but that they have such empathy and psychological power that their attentions cause the patient's body to get better. Psychosomatic healing.

I don’t think the Cossacks needed much prodding.

R167 Oh everyone knows the Cossacks were the prodders, never the prodded.

Nicholas had really rotten teeth. His breath must have stank to high heaven. He rarely grinned hence his famous "simpering smile" All the children had the Romanov gap between their front teeth. The reason why Anna Anderson had her front teeth yanked when she was faking it as Anastasia.

thanks r161. that is really interesting.

yeah, Czarist Russia was no picnic r165. Someday they might have a government that isn't shitty, but it ain't happened yet. Sadly.

Rasputin, the unkillable:

[quote]With powerful enemies in a court seething with intrigue, he was invited to a dinner by a few of the aristocracy on the late evening of 16 December 1916. According to Yusupov's account, Yusupov invited Rasputin to his home shortly after midnight, and ushered him into the basement. Yusupov offered Rasputin tea and cakes which had been laced with cyanide. At first, Rasputin refused the cakes, but then began to eat them. To Yusupov's surprise, Rasputin did not appear to be affected by the poison. Rasputin then asked for some Madeira wine (which had also been poisoned) and drank three glasses, but still showed no sign of distress. At around 2:30 am, Yusupov excused himself to go upstairs, where his fellow conspirators were waiting. Taking a revolver from Dmitry Pavlovich, Yusupov returned to the basement and, referring to a crucifix that was in the room, told Rasputin that he'd "better look at the crucifix and say a prayer," then shot him once in the chest. Believing him to be dead, they then drove to Rasputin's apartment, with Sukhotin wearing Rasputin's coat and hat, in an attempt to make it look as though Rasputin had returned home that night. Upon returning to the Moika Palace, Yusupov went back to the basement to ensure that Rasputin was dead. Suddenly, Rasputin leapt up and attacked Yusupov, who - with some effort - freed himself and fled upstairs. Rasputin followed, and made it into the palace's courtyard before being shot by Purishkevich and collapsing into a snowbank. The conspirators then wrapped Rasputin's body in cloth, drove it to the Petrovsky Bridge and dropped it into the Malaya Nevka River.

Not a fan of Rasputin, but I will say this for him. He was one of the only ones telling Nicholas II to stay out of that stupid war. That was the mistake that killed them all, literally. Not being in World War I was probably the last chance that tottering dynasty had. Sadly, they didn't take it, and everyone died.

I attended an exhibit at the New Orleans Art Museum (might not be correct name). They had a Faberge exhibit that included those owned by Malcomb Forbes and Joan Rivers. Does anyone remember this? The museum was in a lovely park.

R173 Raspy was not as stupid as he looked. How else do you think he made it all the way to Alexei's bedside?

no, he definitely wasn't stupid r175. A charlatan and a dick, but not stupid. definitely not stupid.

R174 Part of what you may have seen was the collection of a Louisiana heiress that we’re show, but are currently on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

R166, see R60

It’s my favorite way to prepare beef!

[quote]He deserved a far worse death.

Nicholas was a man of his times, so we can't judge him by current standards.

R30, I found one at a Sotheby's auction!

R180 that's a ridiculous statement and also few historians would agree. We cannot legally judge in 2020 centuries old historical figures. We can argue about moral failings EVEN with taking into context the historical moment.

The tradition of the Tsar giving his Empress a surprise Easter egg by Carl Fabergé continued. From 1887, it appears that Carl Fabergé was given complete freedom as to the design of the Imperial Easter eggs as they became more elaborate. According to the Fabergé Family tradition, not even the Tsar knew what egg form they would take: the only stipulation was that each one should contain a surprise. The House of Fabergé completed 50 Imperial eggs for Alexander III to present to his Empress and for Nicholas II to present to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and his wife the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Of these, 43 are known to have survived.

[quote]Nicholas was a man of his times, so we can't judge him by current standards.

IMHO, Micky and his family have been romanticized because of the extensive documentation ie letters, diaries, photos, movies, etc. From these sources it is obvious that he genuinely loved his wife and children. Then you have the brutality of the murders.

However, we cannot just overlook the suffering and death that happened to the Russian people under his watch.

^Nicky

To poster upthread - I don't believe any "Golden Age" would have been possible for Russia even if the revolution had failed and the monarchy retained. The unheavals of the Industrial Revolution and the early 20th century were not limited to Russia. But quite apart from that, the Russian monarchy's doom was written in its lingering autocracy.

Russia both is and is not part of Europe. In the rest of Europe, monarchies who has survived the 18th and 19th centuries (Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, post-Franco Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, had retooled themselves in time as "constitutional" "representative" entities. The day of autocratic monarchies was over in Europe, the Romanovs failed to heed the handwriting on the wall until it was too late.

Russia remained feudal for far too long. It's huge size made rendered all but violent upheaval capable of catapulting it into modernity. Most revolution breeds other forms of autocracy, at least for awhile.

Style of thing. Never seems to change. The Romanovs were doomed.

R123 ...don't forget Countess

When they were transferring the Romanovs westward to Ipatiev, the girls were sexually molested on the train. Even worse, after they were killed, some of the killers fondled Alexandra, one sticking his finger you know where. Disgusting.

It's not "American exceptionalism" to observe that Stalin fucked up. He locked himself in his dacha after the Nazis invaded for days, paralyzed with fear and dread. When the Central Committee came to see him and ask him what to do, he assumed that they were going to shoot him.

Holy crap, R178, I'm losing my mind. Thanks.

[quote]some of the killers fondled Alexandra, one sticking his finger you know where.

Where?

R188 Do you have any sources to these? I have never read about those. Might have happened but reliable source would be important to see.

R151 thank you for the fascinating video! I wish more threads had interesting content like this! 🙏

As Nicky and his family were led into that basement room, he looked around and said "Atrocious. Unacceptable. Either that wallpaper goes or we do."

"Fine" replied Yurovsky. "As you wish."

R192 - Like you, I never heard of the sexual molestation of the Grand Duchesses on the train, either.

Source, poster, please?

I've read the rumors over the years but can't give you a source without googling and you can do that as well as I can.

The irony was Nicholas was much the same Victorian gentleman as his british cousin George V. He would have made a good constitutional monarch like his cousin. Nicky was a faithful husband,loving father, and Russian patriot. But he was a lousy autocratic Tsar. Millions died because he could not say NO to his batshit crazy wife Alexandra. Had he married a woman like Mary of Teck the history of the 20th century would have been different.

R197, I agree that Nicholas would have made a good constitutional monarch, but his downfall was not entirely, or even mostly, because of his wife. It was World War I that really put the nail in the coffin of both Imperial Russia and the Provisional Government that followed the February Revolution. The country was too poor and lacked the industry to conduct war on such a vast scale.

Even a constitutional Tsar Nicholas would probably have gone to war, as all his royal cousins did. Revolution was inevitable at that point.

No, blaming Alexandra for the fall of the Romanovs is a gross oversimplification, the fact is that Nicholas was neither capable of ruling as an autocrat or turning the decision-making over to competent experts. Even though he was a weak and waffling ruler who couldn't wield power, throughout his reign he was determined to "preserve the autocracy" into the new century, to keep power in the hands of the Tsar alone, even though he couldn't do anything useful it and his son couldn't have either.

Alexandra was, of course, a massive failure as an impress. Her most important job was to secure the succession, look what a hash she made of that.

Sunny was a bobcat in the sack.

R199 I Alexandra was the #1 influence on Nicholas decisions. It was she who constantly nagged and pushed him into resisting reforms prior to WWI. She was a politically stupid woman who used her love for him and the heir as a weapon. Her mother in law Marie was a far more astute Empress and blamed the fall of the Romanov's on "that foolish woman" ( Alexandra.)

I’ve seen parents turned into absolute loons when their kids were hospitalized for something like appendicitis. I can imagine what it was like watching your hemophiliac kid in the early 1900s when there was no treatment. “Please excuse me. My child is bleeding to death again. I might not be back until after the funeral.” For those who haven’t read the accounts, Alexei was at death’s door several times & it was deemed miraculous that he recovered. That’s why Rasputin was so important.

The romanovs kept his disease secret because they were afraid it would end the dynasty. Russians were superstitious and already disliked Alexandra because she & Nicholas were married immediately after death of Czar Alexander III (“she comes to us behind a coffin”) and because of the disastrous wedding stampede in Moscow. She was German & Russia was now at war with Germany. She seemed to be “entranced” by Rasputin to those who didn’t know why he was allowed to follow the royal family.

My guess is they hoped to keep Alexei alive long enough to marry him off & impregnate a bride with a son. Or Alexandra held out hope that Rasputin would cure her son. These were far fetched hopes & Nicholas should have abdicated and demanded the church allow a more popular family member to take the royal title.

The plan to have the Tsarevich inherit the monarchy could never have worked out. The monarchy was doomed as soon as Alexei was born.

I caught The Last Czars on Netflix. Right as you are getting into it (and before a sex scene between Alix and Nicholas) they suddenly cut to narrations from random historians, WTF.

She liked mauve.

Are those even historians, R203? I thought they might be actors playing historians,

R205 Whatever they were it ruined the pacing. I don’t even know if I will keep watching.

[quote]She liked mauve.

Well who doesn't, r204? What's wrong with you?

The historians are legit

On the whole, the history in The Last Czars is accurate, although the (Russian state-owned) Russia Beyond website lists its “48 most glaring mistakes”. Some characters have been stripped out, presumably to avoid over-complicating the story: this is particularly notable in the execution scene, where only Dr Eugene Botkin joins the family and not the other three servants we know were present.

In the final analysis, the mixture of dramatisation, footage and talking heads didn’t work for me. I’d have preferred either a well-scripted drama or an in-depth documentary with intelligent analysis. Trying to combine them meant both were compromised. Shame! But if anyone from Netflix is reading, the rights to my two Romanov novels are still available…

Gill Paul has written two novels about the Romanovs: The Lost Daughter (2018 in the UK, 2019 in the US) and The Secret Wife (2016). She has also written about the family in her non-fiction book Royal Love Stories and in a number of newspaper articles.

R204 Mauve was the first synthetic dye to be created. It changed everything and revolutionized textiles. It was very fashionable for quite awhile.

But, they really didn't like the series in Russia!

AUGUST 03, 2019

"The Last Czars" is a Disgrace to Russian History

I was recommended The Last Czars by a coworker, of all people. Upon learning that I studied Russian history, he said to me the following: “Oh, I love Russian history. I love Nicholas, Alexandra, Rasputin, the revolution — that’s my favorite period. Have you seen The Last Czars? I think it captures that period really well.”

With all due respect to my coworker, I am saddened that The Last Czars is what passes for Russian history in our society. The thing is, there’s Russian history, and then there’s Romanov hagiography. Russian history, like all history, recognizes the sheer complexity surrounding every event and every person it studies and sheds light on those nuances. Think Yuri Slezkine’s House of Government. Without even reading it, you can see its approach to a complex period in Russian history. It takes as its starting point a house (as the title says) and the loyal Bolsheviks who lived in it. Then, it uses documents to trace their lives and illuminate their context. Ultimately, Slezkine leverages evidence to construct an argument about the subtle but powerful ways Communism changed people’s relationships to each other. That’s what a work of history does: It makes an argument using specific evidence and reasoning that takes into account context.

Sure, The Last Czar isn’t pure history. But consider HBO’s Chernobyl. Chernobyl makes no pretenses to documentary, yet even Russian audiences praise its attention to historical and emotional detail. It examines a contentious historical event through the lenses of individuals, individuals with highly varied career paths and personal values. Some, like Masha Gessen, have criticized its portrayal of the Soviet system.

(more)

R208 It is worth watching but Netflix should have made a seperate special with the historians using real photographs and videos of the Romanovs. Editing the show and the historian narrations together is messy and makes no sense.

OPINION: Everything wrong with Netflix’s ‘The Last Czars’

The show tried to combine a meticulous historical explainer with an unforgettable spectacle full of beauty, tragedy, sex, and violence. The result, however, looks sloppy to the point of being pathetic.

For us Russians, any chance of approaching The Last Czars with any kind of seriousness was doomed the moment someone posted this screenshot from the Netflix show on the web.

Nicholas and Alexandra were a true love match. If only they'd been Russian peasants! Because as rulers they were the worst; their stupidity brought down a 300 year old dynasty. Their union was truly doomed. Alexandra, due to inbreeding, carried the hemophilia gene, passing it on to their only son, the heir to the throne. Alexandra, who was said to be "strong willed but weak witted" fell under the spell of the gross Rasputin, who seemed to be able to help her son's condition. She called him "Our Friend", like he was God or something. She did everything he told her to do, and this included decisions related to the government of Russia. Alexander would listen to the advice of no one except Rasputin; she isolated herself and her family and had few friends and the few (Anna Vyrubova, a "stupid cow", was one of them) she had were as dumb as she was. Nicholas was a dimwitted milquetoast; he did whatever his "wifey" told him. She called him, the Czar of All Russia, "darling boysy." Yech! At any rate their incompetence finally resulted in Nicholas' abdication and the arrest of the Royal family. They hoped to be rescued by their relatives in England but no such such. They were imprisoned and eventually ALL of them (including, yes, Anastasia) were shot and stabbed to death in a cellar. The end.

Looking at photos of the Grand Duchesses are eerie. Perpetually dressed in white, they look like little ghosts; although they were royalty their lives were not enviable. They were isolated from the real world by their bizarre mother. They knew new anything approaching a normal life. And their lives were snuffed out so horribly. Some people call the Romanov's lives were a "fairytale" but to me it sounded more like a horror movie.

'The Last Czars' debunked: 48 most glaring mistakes in Netflix’s series

Keep in mind that this is Russia. It's like the Chinese government that put a stop to those non-ending docu-series because they did not approve of how China was being portrayed and the morals, etc

[quote]although they were royalty their lives were not enviable

Well, that Alexander Palace looks rather comfy

It's one of the photos I remember from Nicholas & Alexandra, r207. She had a mauve boudoir.

"Well, that Alexander Palace looks rather comfy."

Doesn't look "comfy" to me. It looks very impersonal and cold. At any rate, the Grand Duchesses were kept away from the real world, unable to have normal relationships with people, especially young males. Maria, who was very "earthy", particularly chafed under the restrictions. While imprisoned she was caught in a compromising position with one of the guards, which caused great embarrassment to her haughty mother and disapproving older sisters. It was said that Maria would have made a wonderful wife and mother. Too bad she never got the chance.

He was rabidly anti-Semitic, so they probably all were.

Good riddance.

Some things to remember about Alix. Her mother died when she was 6 and she spent a lot of time with her grandmother Queen Victoria. Victoria was completely batshit. She was a better grandmother than mother but she was still an odious woman who you wouldn't want influencing your child.

She had a brother who was also hemophiliac who died as a toddler and she had hemophiliac nephew who died at the age 4 of just a few months before Alexei was born. She had every reason to believe her son would die young. Very young.

Alexei was born after his 4 sisters, they really needed to have a boy to be heir and they finally get that son and he's born with a deadly disease that had killed her uncle, brother and nephew that SHE gave him. How horrible would that be? It'd drive any sane woman nuts to feel so helpless and responsible for your son's suffering and the pressure they must have felt to keep him safe not just because he was their son but because he was the future czar must have been immense.

[quote]R219 Some things to remember about Alix...

Was she a virulent anti-Semite, like her husband? What did they teach their children... that pogroms were groovy?

[quote]R59 Alix .. did everything to save her son but still she ignored all the warnings.

She was basically a big Karen.

R22 While plain by todays beauty standards the princesses (except fugly Anastasia) showed that some of the inbred descendants of Queen Victoria could actually be semi good looking (unlike the ones in G Britain)

Lilibeth looked like a transvestite at the same age in comparison.

R141 Wow you were not kidding. Jack’s ass is incredible. I wanna lick it.

I read "The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov" by Paul Russell. I was wondering how much of it was true in regards to the "pederast" balls and such? Also in the chapter of the ball, the following names were mentioned Grand Duke Nicolay, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, and Prince Yussupov.

So... if Nicholas had been honest and told the world that his son was too ill to inherit the throne and that he was appointing some male relative as a successor... what would have happened?

And BTW it was extremely unlikely that Alexei was fertile, and that Nick's Hope's for a healthy grandson were at all realistic. The kid couldn't walk by his teens because he'd bleed into his own joints so often that they froze up, I believe the poor sprat had had episodes of bleeding into the scrotum, which would have damaged the testes and/or ducts.

R226 Alexei lost his ability to walk in Tobolsky when he had injury. Under those conditions he didn’t heal.

I agree that the combination of drama and cutaways to real experts in The Last Czars was strange, but it was relatively well done. Usually in these things, there's amateurish reenactment like in an old educational film for schoolkids (or a true-crime TV show), but this one is basically professional drama series with experts butting in from time to time to explain more about the story. I don't have that much of a problem with it.

[quote]R226 The kid couldn't walk by his teens because he'd bleed into his own joints so often that they froze up. I believe the poor sprat had had episodes of bleeding into the scrotum, which would have damaged the testes and/or ducts.

A lot of kids fake stuff like that, for attention.

"While plain by todays beauty standards the princesses (except fugly Anastasia) showed that some of the inbred descendants of Queen Victoria could actually be semi good looking (unlike the ones in G Britain)."

"Plain by today's standards? Although they didn't look drop dead gorgeous in every photo. Tatiana and Maria were both lovely. Olga was not as good looking as they were, but she was attractive. Anastasia was the only "plain" one.

That child could've walked if he had to. Sniveling little shit.

The Last Czars is garbage. Could not stomach even 30 minutes of it. Stay away from it

"He was rabidly anti-Semitic, so they probably all were.

Good riddance"

He and his wife were rabidly antisemitic. They encouraged their impoverished, malnourished populace to turn on Jews and Gypsies - under Nicholas , hundreds of thousands of Jews were burned, impaled and otherwise killed, often under horrific conditions. Nicholas believed that this would keep anger away from him.

The chickens came home to roost, and Nicolas and Alexandra were lucky to be killed in such a merciful fashion, for they deserved far worse.

"I recall an authentic Faberge egg made for Tsarina showing up on Antiques Road Show...will try to find the clip!"

Are you sure about that? I don't remember a real Faberge egg being featured on the Antiques Roadshow. I DO remember a woman being on that show with what she thought might be a Faberge egg. She paid $15,000 for it. But my God, you could take one look at the thing and see it was not made by Faberge. Those Faberge eggs are amazing creations, works of art. The egg that woman had looked kind of, well, tacky. She was informed it was not a Faberge egg, but what it was made of (precious and semi-precious materials) made it worth $5000.

"Can you even legally own an authentic Faberge egg? Aren't they part of Russian's cultural heritage and have to be handed over to the Russian government?"

If it's up for auction and you can afford it, yes, you can be the proud owner of a Faberge egg. My favorite Faberge egg, The Winter Egg, is in the possession of a private collector.

R233 Correct Russians are notorious anti semites. One of the last books Nicholas was reading at Ekaterinberg was the Protocols of Zion a forged manifesto of the Jewish "takeover" of the west. Also found in Alexandra's diary was a list of all the Bolshevik leaders with their "real" Jewish names. Nicholas thought is wasn't Russians but Jews and Germans who were responsible for the revolution. Sadly under Putin's revisionist history most Russians believe this.

Vladimir Nabokov:

“...my family despised Faberge objects as emblems of grotesque garishness.”

Was there a special Pogrom Egg?

I wouldn't be surprised.

The Antiques Roadshow episode of Frasier was on last night. The one where Frasier and Niles believe, for a very brief period, that they're a Romanov.

This makes me quite reflective. I knew Tatiana.Faberge Not terribly well but I was lucky to be invited to a number of her open house gatherings in Versonnex. She had a gift for bringing together interesting people from different fields

She spent many years traveling the world to disvuss the life and work of her great grandfather.

"Vladimir Nabokov:

“...my family despised Faberge objects as emblems of grotesque garishness.”

Faberge objects were/are obscenely valuable, but they were certainly not "emblems of grotesque garishness." Some people might see them that way, but it can't be denied they were incredible creations by a master craftsman. Faberge was a genius at what he did.

Pier 1. $4.99 USD

[quote]When young, George V and Nicholas had the distinction, unknown before or since Patty Duke, of being identical cousins.

Did a bratwurst make him lose control?

AnYAAAAAA....

Maria was kind and pretty.

Tatiana was beautiful and maternal, but could be flirtatious.

Olga was studious and intense, prone to moodiness.

Anastasia was funny, quite a little Schwipsig.

Those hefty fat rolls in R240's post proves Tatiana knew her way around deviled, scrambled, boiled and creped eggs as well.

Alexei, the doomed little hemophiliac heir to the Russian throne, was a spoiled little whelp. Of course he would be; he was the heir, the answer to his parent's prayers. There's footage of him slapping both children and adults. Of course he was never reprimanded for his behavior. It was sicking how his Mumsy and Daddy and adoring sisters worshipped him. He lived to be 13 years old, and to the end of his life they called him "Baby." Boy, what an emotional mess he would have been had he grown to adulthood.

They were removed from power and their fortune taken away. What was the point of killing them?

The Whites were nearby and the Reds feared that they would rescue the family and then use them to rally the people.

"What was the point of killing them?"

They were REALLY hated, that is, Nicholas and Alexandra were. I think the killing of the whole family was to make sure that there would never be any chance of a Romanov ruling Russia, ever again. The children's fate was all the fault of their idiot parents, both of whom were absolute fools who believed the Romanovs were Gods who would rule forever. Or at least Alexandra thought that; I don't think clueless NIcky ever thought anything.

I can perhaps understand Nicholas and Alexandra, but killing the children went way too far.

As a historian I can confirm [R250]'s point. At the time, the Bolsheviks considered that Nicholas and his son had to be executed to end the Romanov dynasty. The British government expected that course of action and made half-hearted inquiries into taking custody of Alexandra and her daughters. In the end, the order was given to kill the entire family to prevent any claimants to the throne. Obviously, other Romanov cousins could present claims, but nothing as strong as a child or grandchild of the last Tsar. Historically, royal families do not fare well in revolutions.

You can say that again, R252!

Exactly. Tough times, tough calls. So get off my posthumous ass.

"They were removed from power and their fortune taken away. What was the point of killing them? "

As long as Nicholas or his son were alive, there was a danger that someone would start a counterrevolution in the name of restoring the Tsar. And of course Alexandra was so unpopular that some people probably thought she just deserved to be executed.

There was really no political justification for killing the girls, the throne was inherited through the male line and they had no real claim to rule, and since they'd been kept away from the public they weren't popular in their own rights. It would have been perfectly reasonable to execute the Tsar, the Tsarina, and Tsarevich, and dump the girls at the British embassy or something, in fact the Bolsheviks probably lost more political capital by executing the innocent girls than they gained. Of course Alexei was innocent too, but putting him down was politically necessary.

There was a White Russian counterrevolution in play at the end of WW I. Churchill and I believe Pres. Wilson provides some military support. The Romanovs were murdered because counterrevolutionaries were closing in on Ekaterinburg. The czar and his family expected a rescue.

"The Romanovs were murdered because counterrevolutionaries were closing in on Ekaterinburg. The czar and his family expected a rescue."

They expected (or hoped) for a rescue but none was forthcoming. I don't think there were any "counterrevolutionaries closing in on Ekaterinburg." I don't anybody cared enough about the Romanovs to try and rescue them. Even their own relatives in England didn't want to be involved in any rescue. They were considered pariahs.

The sky was so blue that day....

They were pariahs but various parties still tried. The Danish royal family, the Spanish royal family, bit of effort by Britain in various quarters. Even kaiser Wilhelm tried-ish. This link is to a book I read called the race to save the Romanoffs. The review explains who tried to do what and the things that got in the way of it. No surprise the Romanoffs were a big obstacle themselves. I remember reading down to the girls they all said they would never leave Russia no matter what came. Well, they got that right.

[quote]They were removed from power and their fortune taken away. What was the point of killing them?

Closure?

Read the Massie biography. The threat of counterrevolutionary forces moving on Ekaterinburg was real. They actually discovered evidence of the murders when they entered the city.

" The threat of counterrevolutionary forces moving on Ekaterinburg was real."

I still find that hard to believe. At any rate, I understand why the whole family was wiped out. If they had just killed the Czar and his son and his despised wife and let the Grand Duchesses live then there would always be the possibility of someone coming forward and laying claim to power in Russia. If the Grand Duchesses had lived and given birth to male children that may well have happened.

Of course the counterrevolutionary forces were real -They were fighting the revolution! Saving the tsar and his family wasn't their primary goal. They wanted military victory. Remember, the location of the Romanovs was not well known at that time. The approaching White Russian forces were a military threat, to be sure, but the Bolsheviks knew that if the town, and subsequently the royal family, was captured it could well turn the tide of the revolution. Having a tsar or tsarevich as a figurehead could unite some of the disparate anti-bolshevik groups. That's why the orders to execute everyone came through suddenly and immediately.

"Anna Anderson" was an impostor, BTW, not the Grand Duchess Anastasia.

This was not only confirmed by genetic analysis after her death, but anyone with eyes in their head could see that she didn't resemble the real Anastasia all that closely. Look at the mouth in the two photos - Anastasia has rather thin lips, a little rosebud mouth, Anna Anderson had a wide mouth with full lips. Lips don't get fuller between the early teens and the twenties, at least, they didn't before lip injections became common.

I find it unbelievable that so many people believed Anna Anderson was Anastasia. She didn't even look like her and her "story" of escaping the massacre of her family could not be substantiated in any way, shape or form. I guess there were people who just wanted to "believe the fairytale." By the way, Anna Anderson was totally nuts, a psychotic. Some "princess!"

Why to people believe in Donald Trump and his conspiracy theories? People want an easy, happy ending -Where they don't have to think about the terrors of real life or realities of those less fortunate than themselves. Anna Anderson had many supporters in her heyday, including some of the Romanov cousins. Of course they were using her as much as she was using them. Rumors of a great fortune to be obtained; the hope that a living royal could somehow reverse the revolution... Physical resemblance varied a great deal from picture to picture. In some, the resemblance seems obvious -In others, impossible. Before modern forensic science, there was just no way to prove someone's identity without fingerprints. Anna Anderson had a romantically plausible story and enough information about the real Anastasia to convince a lot of people, including her eventual American husband, who died protesting the authenticity of his wife's claims.

They all had hot asses but they weren't going to live forever.

Let’s hope in 100 years they will be talking about “The Trumps” in the same context!

"Anna Anderson had a romantically plausible story."

Actually it was not plausible at all. She claimed that during the shooting/stabbings of her family she was only wounded. Her sister fell on top of her. When the bodies were removed a Russian soldier named "Tchaikovsky" saw she was still alive and since he didn't want to "bury a live body" he somehow (how? That was never explained) smuggled her out of there. She was taken to live with his family and her wounds healed quickly with "cold compresses and cold water." She married the soldier and had his baby. He was killed in a knife fight. And that is "the story." And none if it could be proven, although attempts were made to. You had to take her story "on faith." And a lot of people did, incredibly. But thankfully DNA solved the issue once and for all; Anna "Anastasia" Anderson was in reality a nutso Polish factory worker named Franziska Schanzkowska. A very clever psychotic, she pulled the wool over gullible people's eyes for decades. But she was a total fraud.

I can't remember what happened to my souvenir book. I think I sold it on eBay years ago. It was originally supposed to be Roadshow, but Roadshows had gone kaput.

Alexi was a spoiled brat. The family called him "Baby" although he was almost 14yo.

What an appropriate time to discuss this.

Nicky

R265 Anastasia’s aunt, either Olga or Xenia, met Anna and said she was lovely woman but not Anastasia. Maria never met her.

Tip to Trump: When they offer to give you a tour of the cellar at 2am... decline.

^LOL!!!!!

R276 what’s so funny in R274’s reply?

Two clods, Peter Kurth and James Blair Lovell, both wrote books about how Anna Anderson WAS the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov. They both wanted "the fairytale." Their books are ridiculous; they bend over backwards trying to convince the reader that Anderson was indeed Anastasia. Lovell's tome is especially ludicrous; he actually met Anna Anderson (and her equally bonkers husband Jack Manahan) and no matter how psychotic she behaved (at one point she told him that the Royal family was NOT killed; their exact doubles were and the real Romanovs were spirited away and rescued) he always deferred to her as "the Grand Duchess." Kurth is nutso, too; after the DNA proved once and for all that Anderson was not Anastasia he still hangs onto the possibility of conspiracy theories designed to keep Anastasia from being recognized as the only survivor of the massacre that killed her family. Well, the DNA proved beyond any doubt that Anderson was a crazy Polish factory worker. Boy, did that ever leave Kurth and Lovell with egg on their faces!

I remember reading somewhere where the Tsar agreed to let his captors fuck him in front of his family, in exchange for them leaving little Alexi alone

"I remember reading somewhere where the Tsar agreed to let his captors fuck him in front of his family, in exchange for them leaving little Alexi alone."

That was probably from James Blair Lovell's nutty book "Anastasia; the Lost Princess." Anna Anderson told him a tale about how the entire Royal family (except Alexei) was raped by the Bolsheviks: "they made us NO LONGER LADIES!" She said the Czar was unable to walk for days due to the rapes. There is no evidence to suggest such a thing happened, but he swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Lovell also said in his book that there was a FIFTH Romanov daughter; due to the disappointment of having another Romanov daughter she was taken away and hidden somewhere. Don't ask me to explain this; it was just more of the insanity that can be found in this book.

There was another book, "The File On The Czar" by a tabloid writer named Anthony Summers. In that , he also claimed Anderson was Anastasia, offering as proof a couple of photos. One is of Anastasia, her face contorted in a toothless smile. The other photo is of Anderson as an old woman, her wrinkled face somewhat appropriating the look on Anastasia's face in the photo. Doesn't prove a thing. Summers also said that all the female members of the family survived and the only ones killed were the Czar and Alexei. More hogwash that has been thoroughly disproved.

The File On the Tsar, by Anthony Summers and Tom Mangold, is based on the premise that the imperial family was alive for some time after their reported deaths in Ekaturinburg. It speculates that Alexandra and her daughters were initially moved after the executions of Nicholas and Alexei, but that they were eventually killed later. It explores the idea of an escaping daughter, usually Anastasia, and examines some of the claimants, with Anna Anderson being the most prominent. The book's research and scholarship is excellent -Up to a point. While its premise has ultimately been proven wrong, it is a worthwhile read for the details about the involvement of the British and German governments, and their dealings with the various Russian governments. It is heavily footnoted with the sources cited. Written at a time before DNA evidence, it stands as a great example of how historians can do great research, gather a great deal of evidence, and still be wrong!

Remember seeing the Anastasia documentary when Lovell was confronted with the DNA evidence that Anderson was not Anastasia. He clutched his pearls and screeched " I just can KNOW she is not a Polish factory worker! She is every inch a Princess!" And he was every inch a Queen. Think he died of the AIDS

Yeah, Lovell was a crackpot. "Every inch a Princess?" Anna Anderson was toothless and a hoarder who liked to live in filth. Her husband, Jack Manahan, had a very nice house on a piece of property he owned in Charlottesville, Va. The property became disgustingly ill-maintained due to the multitude of cats Anderson had. Inside the house was filth and disorder. There was a TREE STUMP in the house. And when one of the cats died Anderson would cremate it in the fireplace. When asked why he and his wife lived in such grotesque conditions Manahan would just say "that's the way Anastasia wants to live." They were a couple of loonies.

The whole Romanov saga is so astonishing that if you didn't know it had really happened, and someone put it into a novel or a film, people wouldn't buy it.

And, yet it did.

Imagine, if Alexei had gotten the OTHER X chromosome, how different things might have been.

R284 or a woman could have followed Nicholas. Olga would have been a great Empress.

I like the whole gay gang bang angle It would be amazing to see a big budget period porn. I’m thinking something like the Herero movies pirates

Why has no one may a big craptastic musical on the scale of Les Mis from this story? It’s got like the best ending with the stage littered in bodies and drenched in blood.

Too soon, R287

R188 here Sorry for the delay wasn't able to post for a week due to the primetime lockdown. SO, Here you go, R192 and R195. There's 2 links, second in next post.

R188 again. Here is the second link.

They certainly were a regal looking family. Especially Alexandra; she always had a haughty, queen-like demeanor and look on her face. Guess she got that from her grandmother, Queen Victoria.

Alexandra's nickname as a child was "Sunny" due to her happy disposition. It's ironic, since as an adult she was neurotic, reclusive and melancholy, totally unsuited for her role as Queen (except for her looks, which were regal). I think Nicholas may have called her "Sunny", too, because he was so enamored with her. Anyway, she was so not inclined to be the social creature that the role of Queen of Russia required she would break out in red blotches when at a public function or event. She was so stiff and unfriendly that she got the reputation for being stuck up and with social graces. If there was anyone who should NOT have been the wife of the ruler of Russia it was Alexandra. But they her poor dimwitted hubby Nicky never should have been in a position of power, either.

I would not call Alix regal looking she looked like a farmer’s wife or a scullery maid. Tatiana and maria were lucky to look more like their father.

"I would not call Alix regal looking she looked like a farmer’s wife or a scullery maid."

Oh, come on. She had a very sculpted face.She did NOT ahve the look of a peasant.

R289 Thanks. It is said there in the article. Three girls were molested on the train to Ekaterineburg. I still need more sources. Sorry.

R291 When with her family and few friends she became another person, warm, funny etc. Sunny. I agree, she was the worst possible Empress. She hated public functions and court life. She couldn’t fake a smile so she was stone faced and looked miserable. People thought she hated them. She is complexed fascinating person.

R295 What current actress would be good to play her today?

I thought that Susanna Herbert did a great job playing her in The Last Czars

R296 20 years ago Meryl but today I don’t know. The films usually get her wrong. She was dominating person in her marriage. Strong and stuborn to the end.

Claire Foy

Rooney Mara

R298 here, 20 years ago Meryl could have played her, Daniel Day-Lewis Rasputin and LuPone Nicky’s emotional yet strong mother Maria.

Those actresses are too beautiful and too young. Chloe Sevigny would be great. She is usually cast as white trash characters but her looks fits Alix.

Stalin did understand how to run an economy, certainly better than Alan Greenspan ever did. It was the 11 million industrial jobs he created between 1924 and 1939 that saved their bacon.

Did anyone else see the Rasputin movie with Alan Rickman as the mad monk and Greta Scacchi as the tsarina?

I saw the Rasputin movie with Alan Rickman. It was ok, nothing special. I thought the movie "Nicholas and Alexandra" was a good production and Janet Suzman gave a very good performance as Alexandra.

So did he seriously allow a bunch of guards to gangbang him?

My fave is Tatiana, the second girl. But they were all lovely. And little Alexie was a total brat. Shame on King George VI for refusing to allow them asylum. The coward.

[quote]So did he seriously allow a bunch of guards to gangbang him?

While I don't believe this re Nicky it isn't so far fetched. The Romans, Greeks, and I guess others, were known to do this to a King/Leader of a conquered nation.

Betty Crocker pays tribute....

R306 As terrible as Alix was as an Empress she raised her children very well. Surrounded with endless luxury they managed to be a normal family with unstable mother. The children are told to be nice well mannered, nothing like many children of society.

How was the Countess Framboise related to the Romanovs?

There needs to be some correcting here. Yes, the story of a loving couple with four, pretty daughters in their late teens and early twenties and a sickly fourteen-year-old son murdered in the dark of the night is indeed tragic...much like the end of the French royal family in 1793.

Nicholas II was a simple-minded, bigoted, anti-semitic, racist who in the early 20th century could not understand after a century of revolution...political...economic...technological...social...that the people mattered.

Alexandra...another simple-minded person who became a religious fanatic and relied upon a succession of quacks. The fact that the last quack influenced national policy was a symptom of the absurdity of the system in 1917.

Now for the personal stuff...the daughters were completely sheltered and had the collective, emotional maturity of 12 year-old girls. It was the third daughter...Marie...who may have been caught in a compromising position with one of the guards. It was probably all rather innocen to us..

Because of his illness, the parents overindulged the boy. He was a spoiled brat.

And as for their British cousins...Lloyd George was willing to take the political heat, if the British accepted the family at the Provisional Gov't's behest. George V...another simpleton...fearing the security of his own throne told his PM not to accept them. The Windsors would rather cut their losses!

Hmm... over 300 postings...

Have any of you read any of the letters of Alix, Nicky, or the diaries of the girls? Or, Nicky and Alix's diaries?

There have been no books written by survivors of the Romanov family Russian massacre?

Has anyone read the Tutor's book?

It just seems to me the this thread is becoming circular now and that nothing new and fresh is being discussed.

"As terrible as Alix was as an Empress she raised her children very well."

Well, no. She raised them to be affectionate within the family and the girls were well-behaved, but she totally failed in a parent's duty to launch her children into the larger world. Her daughters grew to adulthood having so little contact with the outside world that they were practically little girls in adult bodies, staring out the palace windows at the sort of regular people who'd they'd never spoken to, never been kissed and verging on old maid-hood by the standards of the day.

Of course special circumstances demanded that the Empress keep her only son stiflingly close. But if she'd let the girls into society they might have had a friend or lover in their lives who could have stepped in to help them, if they'd ever been allowed to meet their relatives across Europe they might have been offered a refuge in time, if they'd been exposed to the public they might have been popular in their own right. But I don't suppose anyone outside the court saw the princesses as anything but extensions of their unpopular mother.

r284 Astonishing? Perhaps, but also potentially deathly dull. The other night I tried to watch the 1971 film 'Nicholas and Alexandra', and it is ponderously boring. Fairly good production values, but that's about it. Tedious and bloated.

R294

R294

R294

Last one, but there's more. From hereon in, Google is your friend.

R312 New and fresh, it’s not like they are going to find a pedophile in a German prison to tie to the murders and molestations.

"So did he seriously allow a bunch of guards to gangbang him?"

NO. That was a crazy story made up by crazy Anna Anderson that crazy James Blair Lovell recounted in his crazy book about her. There has never been any real evidence, anywhere, that confirmed the Russian Royal family was "gang raped" or raped at all.

I'm curious as to why there is so much interest in i this topic, as opposed to the assassinations of other royals during revolutions? As a youngster, I was intrigued at the possibility of a living Anastasia, but that fantasy has been laid to rest -Quite literally. One would think there were a ton of Russian trolls on Datalounge, given 300+ posts!

Alix might have been the world’s first Karen. Nicky was hot. Tatiana and Maria were model pretty. Plus a sickly spoiled prince, Rasputin and the Anastasia imposters etc.. lots for DL to discuss

"I'm curious as to why there is so much interest in i this topic, as opposed to the assassinations of other royals during revolutions?"

We here at the Datalounge have always been interested in the more glamorous sort of history.

We don't give a rat's ass about the assassination of Alexander II, for instance, he wasn't at all hot.

true, r311, but the story I read was that Queen Mary was the one that ultimately said No to taking in the Romanovs, and like Alix was at least sometimes the stronger one in that marriage. And the more ruthless.

and yeah, I actually agree r322, but I'd go further and say we way overdo the royalty thing altogether, including me. I'm fascinated by old royal gossip, but a decent series about the rise of Lenin and the subsequent rise of Stalin might tell us a lot more about the current world than yet another rehash of the tragedy of Nicky and Sunny.

[quote]but the story I read was that Queen Mary was the one that ultimately said No to taking in the Romanovs,

But, she took the jewels and the jewelry...

R323 Queen Mary was a stone cold cunt. She did not care about her own children so no surprise she would not care about her “Russian” cousins and their children.

That’s actually not entirely true. She was a remote figure but she was not indifferent to her children. Edward VIII in his autobiography said one of the happiest moments of his day was the time they spent with his mother alone in her boudoir in the late afternoon. Not trying to make her a great mother because she wasn’t but I don’t think she was a purposeful monster or a stone cold cunt either, from what I’ve read.

hmmm, I dunno about the dutiful son's memoirs, especially such a snake always scheming to get back into everyone's good graces as Edward VIII, r327. By most accounts, she was pretty aloof.

[quote][R312] New and fresh, it’s not like they are going to find a pedophile in a German prison to tie to the murders and molestations.

Not that. I just thought that some of you might have had a better insight into what and how Nicky or Alix were thinking by reading through their writings. But... I guess not.

"I'm curious as to why there is so much interest in i this topic, as opposed to the assassinations of other royals during revolutions?"

Well, it really is an incredible story, isn't it? The Romanov Dynasty, ruling for 300 years, its rulers living in unimaginable luxury...and then along comes Nicholas II who was a dullard and totally inept. He didn't WANT to be Czar, and when he was, he was totally unprepared for it. He falls in love with an inbred German princess; it's a love match, but a disastrous union. Although she was no mental heavyweight either, she was strong-willed and stubborn as a mule, whereas he was weak and easily swayed. She ran ripshod over him and he did what she wanted. She was terrible Czaring, remote and stuck up, isolating herself and her children from the court social scene. Being inbred, she carried the hemophilia gene and passed it on to her only son, the all-important heir to the throne. Looking for any way to relieve him of his suffering she fell under the spell of Rasputin, the debauched holy man. His ministrations seemed to help young Alexei, and Alexandra worshipped him. She did everything he told her to do, and that including decisions that affected the governing of Russia. She and Nicky became more and more hated. Finally revolution occured, the Romanovs were out and their fate was truly a horrible one; the whole family shot and stabbed to death, their bodies doused with acid and disposed of like garbage. What a story! No wonder people are endlessly facinated by it.

R326 Didn't Mary abandon her sickly child? The complete opposite of Alix. Although prince John wasn’t the heir like Alexei.

Meant to quote r327 sorry

R330 It really was I hope they make a good film or series sometime. Netflix’s “the last of the czars” was not very good. Maybe the creators of the crown will tackle it.

The last child, John, was epileptic and probably developmentally Delay. He was essentially exiled to a cottage on the grounds at Sandringham and raised by a nurse until he died somewhere in his young teens. It’s not nice but that’s what everybody did back then.

again, r333, why just them? Would you watch a series on Lenin and the rise of the Soviet Union? why, or why not? Nicky and Sunny had their day, but doesn't the Soviet Union matter more?

My God, is someone shopping a Lenin script or something? Shut the fuck up.

unless there are vampires

no, nobody is r336, but seriously, why not? don't just react. tell me.

Lenin was beyond ugly and evil.

Maybe this was discussed earlier, but I'm just not up to going over more than 300 posts right now. OK. My question is, How did the Queen mother Nicholas' mother, manage to escape notice? She traveled out of the country, spirited treasures out (her personal shit) and managed to survive. And she lived in Europe,. So was she accepted by Royals in foreign countries? Was some kind of deal made? And why didn't she take the girls with her. Surely traveling with Grandma ought to have been easy? Fine the revolutionaries wanted Nicholas and his lunatic Wife. And the son had hemophilia. So what? They die, but the girls could have gotten out. The whole thing was tragic and pointless and sad. To this day I have no sympathy for Nicholas and Alexandra. They were both fools. Arrogant disgusting fool. But the kids deserved to live.

oh, guys, oh, why do homos have to constantly affirm the stereotype. Oh, well.

R340 Nicky and Alix were stubborn about keeping the family together. They really were clueless to the danger they were in.

this is the problem, we focus on the irrelevant. We need to stop that and focus on the things that matter.

If Alix and Nicky treated their children like the cold British monarchy the girls and Alexei would have been off in boarding schools and the older girls married . It would have been easier for them to escape.

I agree, ironically, if they had been the typical cold nasty royal parents, r344, they might have save at least a couple of the daughters.

Rasputin's ghost encountered at the Imperial Hotel in Moscow by Alan Thicke!

The oldest daughter Olga became very thin and depressed after the family arrived in Yekaterinburg. She rarely spoke and kept to herself. She appeared to have resigned herself to the fact they were all going to be killed. The rumor was that on the boat ride from Tobolsk Olga had been raped by the Bolshevic guards. The third daughter Marie apparently was hot to trot. She was caught in the act with a guard and cold shouldered by the rest of the family.

everyone stop drooling over the idea that everyone was raped.

TIA.

R348 I only drool about daddy Nicky getting raped by a dozen swarthy guards ,half his age. The girls all liked swarthy scruffy guards ,they must have gotten it from their daddy.

R340 Maria had moved to Kiev. She had given Nicholas ultimatum, either she or Rasputin would move out of the capital. Because of Alix Nicholas couldn’t order Rasputin out. When the revolution began Maria was in Kiev. She was forced to move out of the city and she traveled to Crimea where the Imperial Family had a residence, Livadia. When the red army got closer her sister Alexandra, the queen of England sent a military ship there.

Maria actually didn’t want to leave and was almost forced to do so. She departed with two of her daughters, Olga and Xenia. She first lived in England where her sister was the queen. She then moved back to Denmark where her brother’s son was the king. She lived there the rest of her life. They were sad years because she had lost all of her sons to the revolution. She couldn’t accept it and refused to believe Nicky and his family were murdered.

In 2005, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and President Vladimir Putin of Russia and their respective governments agreed that the Empress's remains should be returned to St. Petersburg in accordance with her wish to be interred next to her husband. It took place in 2006.

What about us? WHAT ABOUT US?????

Rescue of the Imperial family from Yalta 1919 was carried out by the Royal Navy under orders from George V, not Queen Mary who had no authority much less say so in the matter.

HM may have failed his cousin Nicholas II and his wife/family, but he did take action to save what Romanovs he could including his dear "aunt Minnie".

Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna was an imperial PITA to put it mildly. Causing all sorts of delays until Red Army was literally at the gates as it were. Dowager Empress refused to board as Red Army drew closer (all ships had their guns drawn upon the town and would have fired if necessary IIRC), until spoken to rather severely. It was put to the Dowager Empress that "they are going to kill you"....; with that Empress Marie got on that ship.

While Romanovs and their servants brought along crates of their belongings (jewels, clothing, furnishings, etc...) so much was left on shore due to lack of room onboard (these were warships after all, not ocean liners), one princess or someone looking back at shore at some glittering objects left behind asked what they were. Servants informed it was her china that they left behind to make more room for passengers....

Sadly the devoted Russian peasants/servants who didn't make it on board those British warships were left to the Russian army. Those not killed on spot were sent to gulags (men, women and children) were orders were given to others not to share their food or in any other way give them succor. They were seen as enemies of state were to die slow deaths.

Nicholas II was weak and pussy whipped, while Empress Alexandra was a prig and hysteric; love match maybe, but it also was a union that Russia didn't need.

Empress Alexandra had a thing for queen Marie-Antoinette of France and Navarre. Her Imperial Majesty kept a portriat of the murdered French queen in her mauve boudoir; this despite gentle noise that she really shouldn't.

In the end Alexandra was blind to the parallels that would lead herself, husband and family murdered by their own people, just as French revolution had done to the Bourbons except the daughter.

Contrary to popular myth there were many Romanovs, members of nobility and others who saw urgent need for Russia to move towards a constitutional monarchy. This even if it meant getting shot of Nicholas II (who always vetoed most of any such measures), and his hysteric of a German wife. In fact time and time again Nicholas II was urged at least to send Alexandra back to Germany or shut her up in a convent somewhere, but of course the czar wouldn't hear of such things.

Even without the upheaval of war with Japan and WWI, it would have taken decades to move Russia towards any sort of constitutional monarchy. To do so for a start you need a strong and large enough educated middle class; something Russia simply did not have. People forget how long it took Britain to evolve post restoration of the Stuarts to say Victoria I to develop the sort of monarchy it had.

Anna Anderson's story about having "given herself" to some unknown or whatever Russian military man who saved her from that cellar set off alarm bells within Romanov family.

First and foremost there had long been rumors circulating that one or all of the grand duchesses (and possibly the empress herself) had been criminally interfered with in the most intimate manner. Considering what was going on to Russian noble and other high born women at the time (read book Former People) this wasn't that far fetched.

But that a daughter of czar willingly gave herself before marriage to some peasant, and worse bore him a son afterwards was too dreadful for many Romanovs to endure. For one thing it would lend credence to above, but then there was that other problem. What happened to the child? The baby boy would have been grandson of czar and all Anna Anderson would say is he was "left behind" somewhere.

In any event Romanovs wanted answers and soon enough had them; Anna Anderson was Franziska Schanzkowska, a mentally unstable Polish factory worker. Almost sixty years later the world knew what Romanovs long had sorted; DNA testing proved Anna Anderson was not related in anyway to Nicholas II and his family, but to that of Franziska Schanzkowska . Interesting what detective work could do in 1920's Europe isn't it?

There was much controversy over burial of Romanov remains.

First the Russian Orthodox church didn't believe results of DNA testing and wanted more proof these were indeed remains of Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra and their children.

Then many objected to the remains of the servants who were murdered with the Romanovs being buried in same grave. It just wasn't done they said; servants buried with their masters....

Just as with Louis XVI and his queen Marie-Antoinette there has been a sort of gradual rehabilitation of Nicholas II and Romanovs, especially post break of Soviet Union. For years Lenin, Stalin and rest painted Nicholas II and his family as blood thirsty tyrants (look who was talking), and enemies of Russia. Now archives and other things are opening up giving people access to things they didn't know previously.

Putin has co-opted many elements of the Romanovs/czars to legitimate his rule (that is exactly what it is) over Russia.

R354 Eyesight should have been enough to prove that crazy woman was a fraud.

"Then many objected to the remains of the servants who were murdered with the Romanovs being buried in same grave. It just wasn't done they said; servants buried with their masters.... "

Damn those Bolsheviks, for treating corpses as if they were social equals!

R357 So did they DNA check every shard to make sure they were separated out?

It disturbs me that Maria and Alexei’s bodies were completely dismembered, burned and buried seperately from the others(who were mostly intact) They must have had horrible things done to them after the others were already dead.

There must be photo evidence of the afternath locked up somewhere in Russia. They had to show Lenin evidence that the “special purpose” was completed.

You know I read about Nicholas's mother, and all the British connections and how intermarried and all the visiting back and forth, etc. and if you put the refusal of George V to allow Nicholas Alexandra and their kids into the country, it was really criminal what the British Royal family did to the Romanovs. How his mother could live there even for a few years baffles me. They say she clung to the hope Nicholas and his family survived, but as time passed she knew better. Just check out the Wiki page for his mother. They were always hanging out with the British branch.

R360 I might be wrong but read somewhere it was a secret kept by little circle that the Imperial Family wasn’t allowed the access to England. It means Maria didn’t know when she lived there.

yeah, really cold blooded r360. Of course, they could have gone to the US too, I'm sure, although by the time they knew they had to flee, it was too late. Like Louis and Marie Antoinette. You just don't know generally until it's too late. (I worry about that, these days.)

[R270]: If you’re interested, there are still copies of the souvenir program for “Nicholas and Alexandra” available on E-bay.

I still have my copy, which I got at the Palace Theatre in New York, where I saw the movie in its roadshow version, which at that time was listed as running 188 mins. Apparently, it was later cut by some 15 -20 minutes, presumably to accommodate more scheduled showings.

I mostly enjoyed it; good production values and performances. But, overall, a pretty stodgy, slow-moving film. Best sequence was the montage of different European rulers, marching off to WWI, just before the intermission.

The music score by Richard Rodney Bennett was exceptional, earning an Oscar nomination, though he didn’t win. An lp of soundtrack excerpts was released, but has never been available on CD.

R359 all of the bodies were ripped apart. They threw bombs down the mineshaft for god's sake. None of them could've had an open casket funeral.

R361, I also read the same, that Marie, the Dowager Empress and a number of others didn't know. But the point is, long before they were executed even some of the Russian Revolution's early political leaders, Kerensky among them, were trying to get them out and asked the UK on their behalf, and it was King George and his wife who refused out of fear for their own futures. I thought that was the most cowardly ugly shit imaginable given that they were not just family, but they KNEW one another, socialized gossiped vacationed together ,etc

As for Nicholas and Alexandra, yes they waited too long, but I do think it was not all their fault. It was due to the fact that the Russian government such as it was attempting to arrange their departure, and then later when the monarchists were closing in on Ekaterinberg, Lenin, who had toppled Kerensky's government, ordered their execution. The Red army held them for a while too. It was a shit mess.

Personally I think the kids should have left when his mother invited the girls and Alexei to go on a vacation with her months before all hell broke loose. They could have just stayed put. vacationing in London or WTF ever. I believe the Czar's death was inevitable. His wife too. But those kids didn't have to die and their granny could have begged her sister or WTF ever to take them. Shit they had enough money and jewels to bribe their way out. Other royals did.

"Personally I think the kids should have left when his mother invited the girls and Alexei to go on a vacation with her months before all hell broke loose."

Yeah, if the Tsar and Tsarina had their children's best interests at heart, they would have sent the children away, at least the girls. I know the girls wanted to stay, they'd never left Russia or lived outside the family circle or even met most of their relatives, but their parents should have ordered them to go.

But Nicholas and Alexandra didn't want to break up their close family circle, obviously they didn't trust distant relatives to take proper care of Alexei or to keep his secrets, and they didn't want to send the girls away because that would have been a public sign of weakness. Fools.

When Kerensky’s government put Nicholas and Alix to house arrest the children stayed with them. Children were not in house arrest. It happened later in Tobolsky probably after Lenin had taken over. They were very close family and the children wanted to stay together with their parents. It was their number one thing, staying together. Finnish boarder was near and they could have sent away via Finland to Denmark or England. But they didn’t and there really are no ifs in history. At the time Nicholas thought they would be sent to Livadia and then abroad. At first he has thought they could stay in Russia. He was naive gentleman, who at the same time was able to make some terrible and brutal decisions.

R323, through diplomatic channels the Provisional Government approached the British government about possibly accepting Nicholas, Alexandra and their children. The prime minister Lloyd George turned to George V and said that his government would accept them as exiles if the king so wished. The former tsar (Please do not spell it "czar." That is incorrect, and TNYT only spells it so out of consistency.) was a deeply unpopular figure in Britain to many -- to the working classes especially, but also to a larger segment of the population because of the War. TheWar had by then was seen as against autocracy. Despite him being a former ally, he was still linked to autocracy. George V was first cousin to both N&A. Fearing the loss of his own crown, George V said no.

It was very disingenuous when the conservative British press wrote about the Queen's first state visit to Russia after the fall of the USSR, or when before the fall she met Gorbachev. Stories abounded about her meeting leaders whose predecessors executed her relatives or going to the land that had overthrown and murdered her relatives. Bollocks! Her grandfather made a political decision to save his own crown out of fear of stirring up the British masses.. Only after the murders of Cousins Nicky and Alix and their children became known did Cousin Georgie send a battleship to pick up dear Aunt Minnie and whatever relatives remained alive in the midst of the Civil War in Russia.

When they buried the remains in St. Petersburg and when they reburied the Dowager Empress there, representing the Queen was her cousin Prince Michael of Kent. It was like the relative who turned his back on you when you needed him most, show up as chief mourner at your funeral. Of course, this fool has nothing better to do than unveil plaques or accept invitations from disreputable sorts.

Interesting stuff r368, but damn, cold, cold, cold. I still think the US could have taken them without too much grief, or really a lot of other countries. But still, for the British Royal Family to say no ... And wasn't Alix Victoria's favorite grandchild? Bet she wouldn't have said No.

In captivity, Nicholas was suffering mightly from hemorrhoids. "Shit or get off the throne." Yakov Yurovsky

Nicholas and Alexandra were fools and it cost their children their lives. Of course, in a complete lack of karma, the parents died quickly and the children were tortured.

As with Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette the end of Nicholas II and his family came in large part due to a system of errors, miscalculations and missteps.

As WWI raged on and things became bad in St. Petersburg, Nicholas II and others urged the empress and her children to move from Tarskeo Selo to the Crimea or another of the imperial residences far from harm. Alexandra refused at first because of her being her stubborn self wouldn't move for various reasons. Then all the imperial children came down with measles and couldn't be moved.

After word got out around Europe Nicholas II had abdicated no one at first believed the Romanovs were in any great danger. While Kerensky's Provisional Government was working to find a European country willing to offer asylum to Nicholas II and his family, there were also forces planning to put the former czar and his wife on trail (again not far removed from the fate of Bourbons).

Initially however British government did offer Nicholas II and his family asylum, but again the children were still recovering from measles and couldn't be moved (so said Alexandra), and all while clock was ticking. In end offer of asylum was taken up too late and Britain (on direct advice from HM George V) withdrew offer of asylum. France (Russia's ally during war) refused to have a " tyrant and his hysteric wife", so that avenue was closed.

"One of the many telegrams received by the Saint Petersburg soviet stated, “The Kuragino [a town in central Russia] general assembly protests the departure of Nicholas Romanov and his wife for England without trial in light of proof that they betrayed the fatherland….” George V and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George ultimately withdrew their offer of asylum, fearing that the “residence of the ex-Emperor and Empress would be strongly resented by the public, and would undoubtedly compromise the position of the King and Queen,” leaving Kerensky free to conduct his investigation."

Yes, Nicholas was George V's cousin, but HM's first duty was to his throne and country. At a time when dynasties that ruled for hundreds of years all over Europe were falling, George V simply felt he couldn't risk fueling already loud republican sentiments in his own lands by having a bloody tyrant and his German wife.

It is important to remember all this love fest for Romanovs occurs largely well after Nicholas II, Alexandra and their family (along with other Romanovs) were murdered. Prior to this Nicholas II along with his father, grandfather, etc.. were all seen as bloody tyrants, and Russia a backwards feudal nation.

Sadly for Nicholas II Kerensky's provisional government was overthrown and Lenin and his Bolsheviks sized power. Things were about to go from bad to horribly worse for the Romanovs.

Lenin had major bones to pick with the Romanovs for one thing because his brother had been executed by government.

Thanks, R369, yes it was a cold-blooded response on George V's part. It was made to preserve the monarchy. In 1917 due to the a simmering popular unease with the growing cost in human terms of the War, the Royal Family anglicized its name. Alexandra's oldest sister was married to Prince Louis of Battenberg, First Lord of the Admiralty. They anglicized their name too. And George V gave them British titles in exchange for their German ones. This was done not only because they were fighting Germany, but because of a simmering unpopularity with the war and fear that revolution breaking out in Russia would spread to GB. As politics, it's understandable. For family relations...well that's another matter!

In 1919 they began to craft another narrative...George V saving his beloved aunt and doing everything they could to help poor Nicky, Alix, those beautiful girls and sickly boy...but those murderous Bolsheviks! Yes, the Bolsheviks were murderous, but before they took over, Cousin George had already thrown his cousins under the bus (or omnibus as Georgie would have called it)! Later on you have Battenberg's son...the famous Lord Mountbatten...getting plenty of traction from his stories of his beloved Russian cousins...of falling in love with the third daughter Maria and keeping her photo on his nightstand for the rest of his life. PR nonsense

Though Spain was neutral during WWI, Alfonso XIII and his government worked behind the scenes to get the Romanovs out of Russia.

Forgot link:

There is no honor among Kings.

R366

It is impossible to image today how tightly knit Nicholas II, Alexandra and their family were, even for a RF. They virtually were never apart, or at least for long. The family travelled, vactioned together or otherwise were shut up inTsarsko Selo (or another of the imperial palaces) .

Much of this was fault of Empress Alexandra who was painfully shy and basically hated performing her duties as empress consort of all the Russias. Alix of Hesse Darmstadt of and by the Rhine was basically an English lady (after being brought up in proxy by her grandmother Queen Victoria) who was far more suited to being a lady of an English estate than empress.

The two eldest grand duchesses should have been married off by time of revolution, but Alexandra kept dithering there as well. When war broke out it would have been natural for Nicholas and Alexandra to send their children far out of danger; but again the empress wouldn't hear of it.

Even as revolution was taking hold in Saint Petersburg and elsewhere various members of Romanov family and other noblemen made their way in and out; they came returned largely to check on their homes/estates and of course the jewels of their ladies/families. So up until things got really bad the imperial children could have been smuggled or just taken out of St. Petersburg.

Strange that the only monarch who offered the Romanovs asylum was the gay King of Spain Alfonso XIII.

Mr. Kerensky was questioned, vilified and otherwise abused for his decision to move Nicholas II and his family to Tobolsk by train instead of Crimea where rest of Romanov family was holed up.

The Windsors did the same thing with Big Liz and Margaret during WWII only with a much happier outcome.

One thing to keep in mind is that among monarchs there is something discrediting or even cowardly about fleeing their country even if due to a revolution. Historically it doesn't work out well....

Bad as things were for Louis XVI, they became far worse after that aborted attempt to flee (flight to Varennes).

Mary, Queen of Scots fled to England, ended up imprisoned for nearly 20 years then executed by Elizabeth I

In the end it usually always comes down to the heirs won't go without the consort, she won't go without the "king", and of course the king won't go....

Marie-Antoinette and her children could have fled Versaillies along with great many nobles and other Bourbons before that rabble reached royal palace, in fact the king pleaded with his queen to do so; but MA wouldn't go, nor would she send her children. So that was that.

Nicholas II knew that if any of those offers of asylum panned out he would have to leave Russia because otherwise Alexandra and most likely the children wouldn't go either.

Ok, so they all would have been alive, but that could be cold comfort to a man once in control of an empire that spanned large part of world. Being reduced to relying upon charity for himself and family as all means of income (lands, revenue from taxes or whatever) were now gone with his throne.

Only wealth any of the Romanovs had were largely the jewels smuggled out of Russia. Art, furnishings, and other assets were all left behind in Russia and were either sold off or are in various museums.

Unlike other monarchies the Romanov family got their money distributed from tsar's purse, that was their "civil list" if you will. It would have been impossible even with the amount of jewels Romanovs did manage to get out (including what was taken off bodies of Alexandra and her daughters after their murders, and what was looted from their trunks) , for an ex-tsar wandering around Europe to support entire extended family.

As it was even after George V sent that warship to rescue his Aunt Minnie and others there wasn't any huge love feast afterwards. The king soon bucked and kicked about financial provisions for his aunt and cousins. Story goes HM flat out old one Grand Duke he was only in HM's country because the king made it possible.

None of the Romanovs largely had a clue as how to manage money or assets. Why would they? That sort of thing was all manged for them, but now faced fending for themselves it was often not going well. GD Olga was fleeced out of a large portion of her jewels by a con man.

This is from Robert Massie's "Nicholas and Alexandra." It's an exchange between Nicholas and the President of the Duma, Michael Rodzianko. It really sums up everything, and Rodzianko really tells hapless Nicky what's what:

"Your Majesty," said Rodzianko, "I consider the state of the country to have become critical and menacing than every. The spirit of all the people is such that the gravest upheavals may be expected. All Russia is unanimous in claiming a change of government and the appointment of a responsible premier invested with the confidence of the nation. Sire, there is not a single honest or reliable man left in your entourage; all the best have either been eliminated or resigned. It is an open secret that the Empress issues orders without your knowledge, that Ministers report to her on matters of state. Indignation against and hatred of the Empress are growing throughout the country. She is looked upon as German's champion. Even the common people are speaking of it.."

Nicholas interrupted: "Give me the facts. There are no facts to confirm your statements."

"There are no facts," Rodzianko admitted, "but the whole trend of policy directed by Her Majesty gives ground for such ideas. To save your family, Your Majesty ought to find some way of preventing the Empress from exercising any influence on politics. Your Majesty, do not compel the people to choose between you and the good of the country."

Nicolas pressed his head between his hands. "Is it possible," he asked, "that for twenty-two years I tried to act for the best and that for twenty-two years it was all a mistake?"

The question was astonishing. It was completely beyond the bounds of propriety for Rodzianko to answer, yet, realizing that it had been asked honestly, man to man, he summoned his courage and said, "Yes, Your Majesty, for twenty-two years you followed a wrong course."

A month later, on February 23, Rodzianko saw Nicholas for the last time. This time, this Tsar's attitude was "positively harsh" and Rodzianko, in turn, was blunt. Announcing that revolution was imminent, he declared, "I consider it my duty, Sire, to express to you my profound foreboding and conviction that this will be my last report to you."

Nicholas said nothing and Rodzianko was curtly dismissed.

Rodzianko's was the last of the great warnings to the Tsar. Nicholas rejected them all.

I can spell czar however I want, douchebag. The Cyrillic letter does not have exact transliteration into English. But thanks for being ridiculously pedantic and still incorrect.

Lots of exiled Royals got to live out their lives in Monte Carlo r381. Exile may be "shameful" but it's a lot less shameful than seeing your whole family slaughtered in front of you. The thing is, you just don't know quite when to flee. Ask the German Jews in 1933. As I said, been thinking of this lately. When do you know the shit has really hit the fan? Ain't easy.

and also too, Royal poverty is itself an interesting thing. There have been a lot over the last 500 years or so. It's a weird thing. I kinda wish somebody would write a book about it. I don't think royalty is ever truly starving or homeless or in rags. But they are definitely poor at some points. And it ain't just in the last century. There have been royalty kicked out of their countries before that, but somehow they get by. The future Charles II and his brother James and his mother Henrietta Maria were definitely poor and in exile, but they were poor and in exile in a palace. It's a weird phenomenon, but I think Nicky and Alexandra would have experienced something like that.

Did Nicholas and family only live in St a Petersburg? Or did they also spend time in Moscow?

And still wish they had gone to the United States. We talk a good game of being Democratic, but we love, love, love Royalty. They would have been a hit.

The kind and beautiful Zinaida Yusupova, Felix's mother, as well as Sunny's own sister, the nun (founder in 1909 of The Marfo-Mariinsky Convent for women ONLY), and other members of the Romanov family pleaded with the Empress in 1916 to get rid of Rasputin and to give Russia a constitutional monarchy but she refused. Autocratic power must be passed on intact to Baby.

This interesting tidbit from Princess Katya Galitzine's book, St. Petersburg, The Hidden Interiors: "Nicholas consulted Dr. Badmaev, who prescribed hashish and henbane tea as an old Mongolian remedy: Felix Yusupov believed it was making the Tsar into a complete cretin."

R384

Exiled or whatever Romanovs may not have been welcome in Russia by the tsar, but they still got their share from civil list or other payments, and also still held onto ancestral lands/property which gave them income. This is why so many of the remaining Romanovs were literally "poor" after the revolution.

They were not alone, most of the nobility and wealthy families of Russia also found themselves either as exiles abroad or if they remain in Russia in reduced circumstances. Those who remained in Russia were largely worse off because once Lenin came to power they were literally stripped of lands, property, assets etc.. often right down to their wedding rings. Again read book "Former People" for more information.

Here are Empress Alexandra's expenses for last few years of the monarchy. There was no way such spending could have been maintained in exile. Not unless tsar was able to move entire palaces of art, jewels, gold and other assets abroad (either prior or after war), then sold much of them on investing proceeds wisely.

R386

List of imperial residences in czarist Russia:

More about Nicholas II's wealth.

Interesting chatter from another site on matter of Romanov wealth.

We now come to the very sad fate of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, only surviving daughter of Alexander II of Russia.

This was a princess so grand she informed her MIL Queen Victoria that due to her rank as daughter of a tsar she should take precedence over the Princess of Wales (vetoed).

GD MA went on moaning to QV that she was born an imperial highness and that style should take precedence over mere HRH. QV responded she didn't care where imperial was used, long as it came after royal. Egged on by his daughter Alexander II joined piling onto HM also stating his daughter's style as Imperial Highness ought to take precedence. QV was not moved nor did she budge .....

To get at her English princess relations GD MA took great delight in showing off her vast and exquisite collection of jewels. Russian women both imperial and noble were known for their fantastic jewel collections and the Duchess of Edinburgh was no slacker in that area. Sadly it was all not to last.

With the revolution went GD MA funds that were held in trust in Russian banks, as of course did end of Romanov rule meant there would be no more money from Russia. Nearly all or most of her fabulous jewel collection had been sold off since her income as widow was small and she never saw any of it anyway.

[quote]Strange that the only monarch who offered the Romanovs asylum was the gay King of Spain Alfonso XIII.

Nicky knew what he really wanted R378

Nicky was dimwitted but he probably threw a mean fuck.

I wonder how Alix and the girls handled their monthlys during such a difficult time...

What?

It's a legitimate question and inquiry.

We'll never know but I don't think that the Royal Family were treated as civilly as we think that they were. Nicky and Alix were hated by the people and their captors.

And, we know how men are...

R397 I am afraid Maria and Alexei were repeatedly raped. It was a once in a lifetime oppurtunity for those soldiers to fuck a beautiful grand dutchess or a twinky future czar. That is why they were buried seperately at a different time.

Practically speaking, rough treatment of a haemophiliac would probably have killed him long before the execution.

Thank you, R398. I mean... I hope for the best but rape and torture isn't some oddity. It was quite common to many of those who are captured. The Romanovs were HATED! Why would the captors hold any type of reverence for them? I think that the family suffered much more than we will ever know while they were captives.

Alexei was invalid when he was in Ekaterineburg. His father carried him everywhere. He had had an accident in Tobolsk and afterwards couldn’t walk. The reason Nicholas Alix and Maria were transfered to Ekaterineburg before the rest of the children was Alexei’s poor condition. The minute he was better the rest of the children were taken to Ekaterineburg. Even then getting him there alive was risky. Abuse would have killed him.

The children were liked by guards. They were honest childlike innocent and many of the guards felt sorry for them. Even in Ekaterineburg hard time bolshevik guards felt sorry for the kids and Nicholas. Alix was a different matter. Maria and one of the guards have something going on and he even brought a cake to her. Alix was furious and the guards were changed because it was obvious they had come too close to the kids.

"The Romanovs were HATED! Why would the captors hold any type of reverence for them? "

No reverence, but the kids and servants were innocent of any known wrongdoing, so the guards wouldn't hate *them*. And the kids were nice, and probably too gormless to hate or resent. And even the tsar and tsarina were reportedly nice people in person, and the guards would have seen how sweet and loving they were with their children and each other. It would actually take an above-average degree of political fervor or resentment to maintain the hate at close quarters.

[Sigh.] It's always such a mistake for an absolute monarch to marry for love. Even a constitutional monarch needs to marry someone who will be good at the job of Royal Consort, but an absolute monarch has to marry someone who can play the game of fucking thrones, where you win or you die! A brilliant spouse might have had a chance of saving Nick, but Alix couldn't play the game and, well.

^"At Least They Seemed to Like Us a Little"; The Sad Last Days of the Romanovs, coming soon to the Hallmark Channel.

What's all this fixation on the Romanovs being raped? It's pretty gross. And no matter what kind of fantasies some people might have there's no historical evidence that anyone in the Russian royal family was raped. Wasn't what happened to them bad enough with having rumors spread about them all being gang raped?

[quote]What's all this fixation on the Romanovs being raped? It's pretty gross.

IMHO, it's not a fixation and it's beyond gross. But, here's the thing... The Russian "whomevers" want to be portrayed in an honorable light when it comes to the Romanovs--even given the atrocity of the murders. TELL THE TRUTH! TELL WHAT YOU DID TO THAT FAMILY!!!!

Why didn't Denmark offer to take them in?

Massie 's Nicholas & Alexndra is the gold standard for bios on the Romanovs

From 1971 Nicholas and Alexandra:

Alexandra: " Nicky I can't go! I don't have my things! My icons! My pictures!"

Kerensky: Frau Romanov you have your head. Be grateful.

R406

Crown heads of Europe at that time had to thread a very narrow path.

Yes, Nicholas II and Alexandra were family to most of them, but there were larger considerations.

First and foremost as stated several times in this thread Tsar Nicholas II was see by large numbers of people worldwide as "Bloody Nicholas" a tyrant who recently gave orders for his own people to be mowed down by gun fire.

Then there was Alexandra; it always comes down to the empress; she was an arrogant, stuck-up, high riding bitch (to put it bluntly) who simply rubbed many people even her Romanov family and other royal relations the wrong way.

Early on everyone from loyal Russian ministers, advisors to tsar, their family both in Russia and outside of it urged Nicholas II and his wife to grab their children and flee. Nicholas wouldn't, and Alix wouldn't go without her husband, the children not without their parents......

Best chance any of them had was that week between Nicholas II abdicating and train ride back to Saint Petersburg, or maybe a bit longer. As noted in above post the children certainly could have been sent not far to Finland then from there made their way deeper into western Europe. Denmark, Sweden, or UK royals would have taken the children without question.

Other major issue was WWI was still raging, and UK, along with others didn't want to piss off Russia (whoever was now running the place) because they needed that nation to remain engaged. If Russia pulled out of the war at that stage it would have changed entire balance of things. As it was Germany had tried (and succeeded more than they guessed in end) in their aim to destabilize Imperial Russia by packing Lenin off on that sealed train back to his homeland.

No one imagined regicide and certainly not the children being murdered. George V like others believed their would be some sort of sham trial for Nicholas II and his consort, then they would be sent to some distant part of Russia to live out their days, or maybe then allowed to emigrate. By that time feelings may have cooled about the tsar and his wife that places would be more open to taking them in.

Did ANYONE aside from Nick and the kids like Alexandra?

They do seem to have been TRUE LOVE, but could she have been any worse suited as an Empress?

R408

Grand Duchess Anastasia requested permission from one of her jailers to retrive a new pair of shoes from trunks family had brought with them. His reply was that the shoes she had on would last her the rest of her life... Message sent and received.

[quote]Tsar Nicholas II was see by large numbers of people worldwide as "Bloody Nicholas" a tyrant who recently gave orders for his own people to be mowed down by gun fire.

And, you see? How could Nicky not of known of this? I mean there is isolation and out of touch but, PLEASE....

Before the Old Oh Dear Troll starts "retrieve" obviously should replace retrive above.

R412

For most of history that Romanovs ruled over Russia that same opinion was generally shared about nearly all tsars with a few exceptions like Peter the Great.

Alexander II was assassinated even though by Romanov standards he was one of the most progressive rulers.

It has been intriguing how this 100 years plus Russian history has become a hot bed of discussion and counter arguments on the level of which of Brittany Spear’s or Madonna’s tours were the best of career. Is there some heretofore known connection between homosexuality and Russian Royal Family history that was not uncovered? Can we take little boys and lay out pictures of royal families from history and ask which is their favorite and if they pick Nicholas and Alexandra know conclusively they are gay? Or is it just two or three gay guys who fell into Russian studies in college arguing amongst themselves or is this all a grand plan to expose the Russian trolls on this site by provoking them to expose themselves justifying the extermination of the Russian Royal Family?

“Girls! Alexi! Show us on these matryoshka dolls where the bad Bolshevik guards touched you.”

Mittens Romney's childhood home in Detroit, now torn down.

Sorry, wrong thread!

R415 Alix’s sister Ella married Nicholas uncle Grand Duke Sergei, who was gay. Gay relations in society were open and well known. In fact society seemed to be in unending heat. Affairs were many and after some huge parties of 3000 guests many of them continued in small islands of the capital to have sex. Gays had their own circles. I can imagine how difficult it must have been not to touch those handsome and elegant officiers wearing very very tight uniforms showing every bone of their legs. Heat was all around. Puritan Alix raised in Victorian court was totally unprepared to Russian court and its endless love affairs. She disapproved heavily but the court didn’t care.

Grand Duke Sergei, super rich Romanov, surely had his share of gentlemen in his bed.

If Alix's father was Louis of Hesse why did she use the patronymic Fedorovna?

It always seemed odd to me.

Is there no Louisevna patronymic?

I had to laugh at the Downton Abbey storyline of the highly “scandalous” affair between Violet & a Russian count. Affairs were completely fine among the aristocracy, as long as you pretended to be discreet about them. It’s always mentioned that Nicholas & Alexandra were a love match & that it was highly unusual in those days. Because it was rare. People married in order to keep their status or to increase their status. The higher you were in the aristocracy, the less likely it was that you had much to say about who you might marry. So affairs were numerous, expected and the subject of much juicy gossip. You were ruined only if you were female and had an affair that was beneath you - a stableboy, for example. OTOH, it was fine for a man to have sex with a woman who was far beneath him in status. A pretty maid, for example. An actress. A cook. King Edward 7th had an affair with the cockney cook Rosa Lewis. That was fine for him.

Even Oscar Wilde would have been fine if he’d been a little more discreet. He could’ve buggered stable boys to his heart’s content except that he was the married father of several children & was very flamboyant about his buggery of an upper class young man whose father disapproved. If they’d been on the DL people would’ve known about the affair & probably snickered about it. But he wouldn’t have been tried & jailed.

I have lived my life for flamboyant buggery.

R421

"Feodor is the Saint of Russia so all the tsarina who are not in the Russian Orthodox Church are going to choose the name "fëdorovna"

R424 THANK YOU!

I would be so exasperated while reading Massie's book--not due to his writing or research but by N&A's stupidity. I read the book ages ago and had forgotten about it until I came across this thread and remembered I stopped additional reading about the last Romanovs because I couldn't invest any more time into people that stupid.

R410

Perhaps good as any online read about Alix of Hesse and by Rhine.

The empress did have a good number of close friends both within Romanov RF and extended, along with others. She just had ways that annoyed people no end.

One of many was her insistence on keeping Nicholas and their children always largely together shut away at Tsarsko Selo or any of the other imperial residences. The Romanovs were a tight knit and loving family with Nicholas's cousins, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, etc... all used to visiting and so forth each other. Things grew only more restrictive after birth of the heir and his hemophilia revealed itself. That became a dirty shameful family secret that consumed Alix and to some extent Nicholas. Both feared what would happen to the dynasty if word got out, so they retreated deeper into the bosom of immediate family.

Travel was by no means easy as today in early part of last century, but it certainly was better than early 1800's, especially as Russia built out its rail network. But Nicholas and Alexandra rarely visited their royal relatives for the sort of long stays that were common really for anyone back then. After all when it took a week or more to get from one country to another you hardly were going to stay only for a weekend.

Gradually as wont to happen various members of royal families simply stopped asking Nicholas and Alix to stay. One can see why as ruling monarch Nicholas wouldn't always be free to go on long holidays abroad; but that didn't mean Alix and the children couldn't go; as many other empresses, queens and their children did. Of course once the heir was born with his little secret then there was a good reason not go travel away from home base. Other royal palaces had prying eyes (family, servants, etc....) who would likely ask questions such as why the kid was carried around everywhere.

George V and Queen Mary had their own problem child, Prince John, but he was shut up far away from court for most of his young life.

One reason Anna Anderson and other fake Romanovs got far as they did was because many members of extended royal families hadn't seen the Romanov children often or for very long periods before their demise.

Germans are often seen as stubborn and bull-necked. That pretty much summed up empress Alexandra. She simply wouldn't be told and her position meant Alexandra couldn't be challenged. Only person remotely capable of keeping Alexandra in line was Nicholas who as hopeless on that score.

That clip in R353 (which was largely fiction) shows what people were up against. Nicholas was simply incapable of standing up to Alexandra and or telling her "no". She only had to remotely look ticked off or sad and the emperor caved in at once.

The look on Queen Mary's face (played by the wonderful Miranda Richardson) as Alexandra says "there must be some other shoes" is priceless and telling. It summed up what plenty of other royal ladies must have thought about Alix.

I think the Romanovs are like the Titanic and DL Fave Betty Broderick. All the pieces for disaster were there, all the warnings were ignored, and nobody did anything to avert catastrophe. It's fascinating in hindsight.

R428 hmmm sounds like the USA at this moment...

"Did ANYONE aside from Nick and the kids like Alexandra?"

Doesn't seem like it. Alexandra did have one friend, a woman named Anna Vyrubova. She was a stupid fat cow, but did have a certain knowledge of how to suck up in order to gain position. Alexandra was an easy mark for her; Alexandra didn't like intelligent people, she liked submissive, fawning ones. This is what Felix Yussupov, who took part in the assassination of Rasputin, had to say about her:

"Anna the eldest Taneev girl, was tall and stout with a puffy, shiny face, and no charm whatsoever. Although she was not at all intelligent, she was extremely crafty and rather sly. It was quite a problem to find partners for her. No one could have foreseen that this unattractive girl would one day become the intimate friend and evil genius of the Tsarina. It was largely due to her that Rasputin owed his amazing rise to favour."

Here's Anna Vyrubova, the Tsarina's only intimate friend.

The tsarina was beautiful as a young woman, and Anna was... definitely no threat.

Anna Vyrubova, now there's a story worth telling.

For all her loyalty to the Imperial Family and especially empress Alexandra the AV was hated by both Soviets and (remaining) Russian exile community.

Her escape to Finland after much horrors of WWI, didn't bring much peace. AV had to flee again as WWII raged for fear Soviet troops would capture her again and or just outright kill her on spot.

AV memoirs are perhaps some of the few out there that give true insight to the lives of Nicholas II and Alexandra along with their family.

Unlike others who offered themselves (and or their stories) about the last tsar and his family for profit, AV never betrayed the memory of her dear friend empress Alexandra and IF. What she did tell was to set certain records straight and give insight for most part.

Anna Vyrubova looks like Rebel Wilson.

She was a childhood playmate of Felix Yussupov, who later spearheaded the murder of Rasputin. Yussupov found her unattractive:

Anna the eldest Taneev girl, was tall and stout with a puffy, shiny face, and no charm whatsoever. Although she was not at all intelligent, she was extremely crafty and rather sly. It was quite a problem to find partners for her. No one could have foreseen that this unattractive girl would one day become the intimate friend and evil genius of the Tsarina. It was largely due to her that Rasputin owed his amazing rise to favour.[2]

For Pierre Gilliard and Alexander Spiridovich, Vyrubova had been ignorant and devoid of common sense when she entered the court. The latter said she openly became Rasputin's "fanatical admirer, the driving force of his cult, and was at the head of his loyalists"

What an ideal confidante for the Empress.

Is Tsarskoe Selo and the Alexander Palace the same place?

The young Alexandra was lovely, but every single picture of her as a young woman shows her looking glum. And she only got more morose with age!

Really, Nick's family would have done him a huge favor if they'd forbidden him to marry someone so unsuited for the role of co-monarch. Nicholas was dim and weak-willed but desperately wanted to hold onto absolute power, to do that, he needed a Livia or Theodora, not someone who'd manage to alienate the public, the court, and the politicians. AND who failed to breed a healthy son, WTF was he thinking marrying someone with a ton of hemophiliac relatives?

Most of the great ladies of Russian society had no use for Alexandra, and that went double for the empress other way around.

First salvo over the bow came at a ball given in honor of Nicholas and Alix engagement (or maybe marriage). The German princess was shocked at the behaviour of high living Russian ladies in particular the low decolletage of their gowns. Spying one particularly extreme offender Alix dispatched one of her ladies to deliver this message "Her Imperial (or still royal) Highness wishes me to inform you that at Hesse-Darmstadt we do not wear our gowns that way..." The lady in question shot back "tell her Imperial (or still royal) Highness that at Saint Petersburg we do"! With that she yanked down her bodice still lower and carried on dancing.

Alix was shy, which many took for aloofness and standoffish behavior. Early on she would glance down receiving lines to see how many more were coming, something that those waiting to be presented noticed and ticked them off.

Alexandra's main problem (among many) was that via her grandmother Queen Victoria, she was raised to be an English lady (even if wholly German). Well Russian imperial society had very little use for English ladies outside of perhaps as governess and nannies.

During Japan war empress Alexandra tried to organize a sewing circle as her grandmother and Queen Victoria's ladies, daughters, and other women attached to her court had done to make socks and things for soldiers. The great ladies of Russian society replied to nearly a one they had better things to do with their time.

What really ticked people off both Romanovs and Russians at court or society in general was the nasty habit Alix had of throwing herself into everything with great zeal.

After much dithering about being forced to change her religion in order to marry Nicholas , Princess Alix finally consented and began to receive instruction. Fine enough, but along the way she became something of a super Russian Orthodox, telling members of Romanov family, Russian nobles, and others how to practice a religion they had known since birth. Her was this German princess going around instructing and or correcting people about how they practiced their religion. This and Alexandra had to take things to extremes with various prayers, icons, etc.. They simply couldn't have it....

If you've seen films like "When Catherine Was Great" or various Catherine the Great films like the one with Marlene Dietrich, one of the things mostly correct is how louche Russian imperial court actually was, something along lines of the Bourbons in France. Alix simply found this distasteful and exercised her rights as first lady in land to strike offending ladies (and gentlemen) off. That didn't do her any favors....

R436

Yes, Alexander Palace is located in or rather near enough to Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar's Village) . Catherine Palace is also located in/near same town.

If tsar Nicholas didn't start (yes I said it) WWII and or otherwise send Russia in to war things likely would have been far different for himself and that country.

By signing the order for Russia to mobilize her military (while on summer holiday no less), Nicholas II set off a chain of events that basically began WWI.

Until that act there was just lots of heated air zooming about Europe; but monarchs, royal families, government ministers, governments and military officers were all on summer holidays. All would have remained so unless or until someone did something stupid; cue Nicholas II to always fulfill that role.

Basically stuff hit the fan on 31 July 1914 when Russia began full mobilization of her military. Next day Germany declared war on Russia and France began to mobilize fully.

Russia had absolutely no business going to war or even getting military involved period; but Nicholas and others Russian pride was smarting after the humiliation that was Japan-Russo war and wanted to get their own back.

Prince Felix was not fond of the weaker sex.

1932 Rasputin and The Empress. Staring the "Royal Family" of Hollywood the Barrymores. This is the film Yussopov sued MGM and won £25,000. Claimed the John Barrymore character was based on him. Considering it was made only 14 years after the fact and many of the principals were still very much alive. It is a bizzaro version of the Romanovs. Rasputin talks Nicky into declaring war. Alexandra played by Ethel Barrymore plots Rasputin's murder in revenge for him slapping her daughter in front of her. Nicholas demands democratic reforms but Raspy sabotages his attempts.. Alexis is called Aloysius. Since LB Mayer as was Jewish he must have loathed the Romanovs but in this mess they come off as marytred saints. Lionel Barrymore Rasputin with his glued on beard and nasal mid western twang is hilarious. Pretty much a Carol Burnett sketch.

Theres a reason russian rulers rule with an iron fist, it's because the russian people are always starving and poor and thus will always want to blame the guy in charge. Alexander didn't pay attention to his people and didn't go after his enemies and thus was dethroned. At least they could have found a way to get their kids out of the country just in case, measles or not, but they couldn't/wouldn't even do that.

R442 Victoria warned her favorite granddaughter about the dangerous Russian people but Alix was too dickmatized.

I wish the Russian were not fucking sexist. Olga would have made a great ruler!

"Victoria warned her favorite granddaughter about the dangerous Russian people but Alix was too dickmatized."

I don't think Victoria warned Alexandra about how "dangerous" Russians were. She just didn't think Alexandra was a good candidate to be the Empress of Russia. She mused that it was so unbelievable that the "simple little Alicky" could be in such an exalted position. She didn't think "Alicky" was cut out for it. She was right.

The idea that Alexandra was driven over the edge by the illness of her only son is problematic. As young bride Alix quickly accessed her milk toast hubby could easily be pussy whipped. As early has her arrival for Alexander III's funeral she was already brow beating poor weak willed Nicky. Both the Hesse princesses Alix and her sister Elizabeth appear to have had a predisposition for hyper religiosity. One with her superstitious devotion to quacks and faith healers and the other after her sadistic gay husband was blown up, just gave it all up and became a nun. Did we mention the flaming gay brother Ernie and his stable boys. House of Hesse was wack-a-doodle.

Both Victoria and Maria were against the marriage. They thought Alix wouldn’t handle the duties of Empress and they were right, as mentioned here before. Victoria and Alix wrote lots of letter to each other. Victoria tried to guide Alix but she wouldn’t listen to her grandmother.

Right after the revolution Alix burnt all her diaries and letters to Victoria (they were sent back to her after Victoria had died), because she was afraid there would be a trial and they would be used against her and Nicholas. It was understandable decision but historians lost valuable source of material what Alix was thinking when she made certain choices and decisions.

R430 I’ve posted what happened to AV later in Finland and Sweden. Not much really. It is somewhere in this threa. Even bolshevicks who investigated her for months thought she was too stupid to be a part of any political agendas.

Naturally Alexandra didn’t want her son to suffer & die. No mother wants that. But the thing is, if he died another male Romanov would’ve become Tsarevich. One of Nicolas’s male relatives. But Alexandra & the girls would become superfluous. They would no longer be the wife/mother or the daughters/sisters of a tsar. They’d be kicked out of the palaces and put on pensions. The girls would have to marry much further down the social scale. To be the daughter of a dead tsar was to be a nobody if the new tsar was your second cousin. So keeping Alexei alive was advantageous for many reasons.

So who was Nick's male next of kin after Alexei? That never seemed to come up, in the biographies I've read, it was all about N&A trying desperately to save the monarchy for their son and heir, refusing to compromise (AGAIN) in any way, even though the poor sprat was obviously incapable of holding power or ruling. And not just Alexandra, Nicholas didn't want to admit he needed a backup heir, his entire focus was on saving his absolute power and keeping it within his immediate family.

As for the common idea that Alexei's illness sent Alexandra over the edge... it'd have sent anybody over the edge! Even if the fate of empires hadn't been hinging on the child's health, as was the case, his parents had to live with a child who could spend weeks in agony or fucking die because they let him play like a normal child for one minute. Anyone would lose their shit after years of that, empire or not.

[quote] Alexander didn't pay attention to his people and didn't go after his enemies and thus was dethroned.

Which Alexander? Alexander II was assassinated. Alexander III died of kidney failure.

Seriously, who WAS next in the line of succession after Alexei?

Nicholas younger brother Micheal was next in line to succed. Prior to the birth of Alexi hes was the designated successor. Michael actually became Tsar Micheal II for about 6 hours after Nicholas abdicated. But he immediately dropped the hot potato and abdicated. He was the first member of the royals executed by the Bolsheviks. His body was dumped in the woods, Despite 30 years hunting for it, his bones have never been found. Probably eaten by bears.

R454 Fuck Lenin and the Bolsheviks , he was gorgeous!

What seems odd is there had been quite a few female rulers in the House of Romanov, Catherine I and II, Elizabeth, an Anne I think. When did that change? Why not just have one of the daughters take over?

That changed after Catherine the Great, r456. Her son grew up and didn’t exactly appreciate how she had treated his father, so he changed the laws so females could no longer rule.

For those with Amazon prime video, there is a wonderful documentary on Fabergé available to watch right now. It’s called Fabergé: A Life of Its Own. It’s truly stunning and has wonderful footage of many of the eggs— even some of the ones in private collections.

Of course, once it became clear that Alexei was a hemophiliac and was unlikely to outlive his father, and that Alexandra wasn't producing any more sons, was to bring Prince Michael into the inner circle. Include him in the highest level of politicians and advisers, make him a public figure, get the public to accept him as 3rd in line to the throne, introduce him to the crowned heads of Europe and international politics. Get the princesses out into society and send them to visit their relatives in other countries, encourage them to marry lest they find themselves as the niece of a Tsar rather than the daughter of one. Keep Alexei's secret, of course, but get a sensible backup plan in place.

Of course, Nick and Alex didn't do the sensible thing, instead they made their family insular and secretive, brought in Rasputin and convinced themselves that Alexei could inherit, and generally clung blindly to Plan A. They did it out of love for their son, but those two had an absolute fucking genius for doing the wrong thing for the right reason.

This has been fascinating. Appreciate the knowledgeable input.

I had no Idea Lord Mountbatten had a major crush on Maria.

Olga and Tatiana had the worst choices for suitors. Karol of Romania, Alexander of Serbia, Edward VIII, YUCK! It is no wonder they prefered to stay in Russia.

[quote]It is no wonder they prefered to stay in Russia.

In retrospect, I'd like to reconsider that choice. Prince Eddie wasn't really so bad.

Grand Duke Michael was exiled because he married far beneath him and without Nicholas' permission. He was only allowed back to Russia when WWI started. GDM was the black sheep for quite awhile. Bad luck really, if he had stayed abroad, he wouldn't have been murdered the Red Russians.

[quote] I had no Idea Lord Mountbatten had a major crush on Maria.

He was gay

damn, that really is frustrating r463. He could have survived, and probably led a government in exile.

R431 Alix had another dear friend called Lili Dehn. They wrote to each other when IF was in exile in Tobolsk. When she and Anna was taken to prison she was kept just few hours and never brought back. Alix was godmother to Lili’s son Titi. She left Russia and after spending years in Latin America ended to Rome. She has been called realistic, but I have my doubts. She was sceptic about Rasputin until she thought he healed Titi, until she met Anna Andersson and said she was Anastasia and she was antisemitist blaming Jewish people on Russian revolution.

R463 The main reason Maria Xenia and Olga survived was living in Kiev when the revolution broke.

So who is Tsar now?

R468 Putin, Rose.

R468, it's complicated. I'll leave it to the more knowledgeable to answer. The last male descendant of Alexander III was George, GDM's son. He was born illegitimate, but eventually recognized by Nicholas and made a count. Still, he was cut from the succession queue. He died young in a car accident in France.

R462 Lol Well when you put it that way Olga. I would gladly ride Eddie’s baby dick as well.

The British Royals would be SO much better looking if Olga had married Edward and Tatiana married Albert.

The Grand Duchess Anastasia was a most gracious and welcome house guest—in the loony bin!

There are two lines to two somewhat dodgy legitimate heirs to the Imperial throne.

I leave it here for someone else to explain.

Exactly who is head of Romanov house is much in dispute, they have been squabbling among themselves for decades.

Major issue is that Romanov house rules forbade morganatic marriages; members could only marry other royals, not commoners and certainly not dead commoners.

Royalty defined as a family that currently or once ruled; so while the Bourbons would qualify, none of the various princely houses in Russia or elsewhere in Europe would. This was one reason so many Romanov brides (or grooms) came from Germany. All those postage stamp sized areas ruled over by princes, grand dukes, etc... met the criteria because families actually (or once had) ruled. Alix came from the Grand Duchy of Hesse of and by the Rhine/Hesse-Darmstadt

Speaking of gay connections; Alix's brother, Grand Duke Ernest Louis was homosexual or at least bisexual. Though he did his best no living male heirs were produced, and the grand dukedom of Hesse of and By the Rhine is now extinct.

I've got a great idea for the Tzar... he's related, really likeable when he's a good mood and not likely to interfere in any meaningful way in your politics! What more do you want in a king? And yes, the title change is part of my rider. My people will call. But after that you've got to call them. This is going to be awesome! Fuck you, KATE!

R468 This guy on youtube explains it.

R448

Nearly every imperial, royal and serene highness or majesty was against Nicholas marrying Alix; their courtship occupied conversations in palaces, castles letters, drawing rooms, ..... all over Europe. Everyone could see Alix was the worst possible choice for such an exalted position and would be in way over her head. But Nicholas had made his choice and stood firm.

Alexander III and Empress Marie did their best but Nicholas simply told them if he couldn't marry Alix at once he would wait until becoming tsar. In hindsight that event occurred sooner than anyone imagined and thus either way Nicholas wouldn't have long to wait.

Issue with Alexandra was (again) not unlike Marie-Antoinette. Yes, they were royal women, but they were also married women as well; thus by laws and customs of the time answered largely if not wholly only to their husbands. Nicholas could have done so many things differently in regards to his wife, but he simply loved her too much and was weak willed far as that was concerned.

Doubling down on things Alix introduced a horrible disease into the Romanov family and presented her husband with a sickly heir. As Alix's baby making days were pretty much done Nicholas had to face some very nasty facts. Chief among them that he would not pass on the throne to his child, but a lateral pass to one of his brothers or nephews would occur upon demise in the crown.

While Alix was waiting for one of her children to be born (likely one of the grand duchesses) she asked one of her sisters in law who was in the room with her what would happen if Nicholas died before child was born, in short who would be the tsar. Response was who ever was in line at the time, which was a shock to the empress. Alix expected (or hoped) that things would go like England and some other thrones like France were children born posthumously inherited.

I'm not sure if we've ever discussed Sofka Skipwith on DL, and she is only very, very tangentially connected to the Romanovs (they attended her parent's wedding) but she is an extraordinary, courageous woman and deserves a film / tv series, or at least her own DL thread.

Mr. Belvedere had a Faberge egg that Wesley sold at a garage sale.

Even if women weren't barred from the throne, N&A basically stunted their daughters' growth and treated them as children until the day they died. Barring the revolution, the girls would likely have ended up like Louis XVI's aunts, just hanging around court until their clocks ran out.

R478 Speaking of France I find it interesting how much Alix had in common with Marie Antoinette. Their queen mother figures both knew they were destined for doom. Queen Victoria even wrote a letter to Alix to recommend she read a book(of the letters that Maria Antionia wrote to Marie Antoinette) In that letter she also told Alix that Maria Antonia’s advise to Marie Antoinette was so good and she was a very wise mother...(Hint Hint Alix)

Both their husbands were very weak mentally who never wanted to be king or be in charge so they both tried to “lead” in their place and made terrible mistakes that fueled their countries revolutions.

Thanks everyone, even you r469. That made me chuckle.

But actually with Putin always trying to pick presidents, maybe Biden can pick a Romanov and try to put him on the Russian throne.

The current head of the House of Romanov is Grand Duchess Marie Vladomivitch or "Tiny" as she is known in the family.

^^ Alexandra loathed the Vladimici branch of the family as they openly had contempt for her and conspired to have her sent to a nunnery after Rasputin was murdered. The Grand Duchess Maria had next to the Crown jewels the greates collection of jewels in Russia. She had to sell them to eat after the revelution. Queen Elizabeth often wears the Vladimar baubles.

I wonder what the Russians did with all of Nicky's clothing and other artifacts? There are lots of the children's items in museums, etc but very, very, little (if any) of Nicky's. I've read someplace that he was a clothes horse and had LOTS of uniforms.

He was only 5' 7"

Hmm... I wonder if he had a big cock... err... penis?

OH! Nicky's expenses

The accounts detailed below relate to the Tsar's truly personal expenses and the detailed entries will indicate. They extracts from Nicholas's expenses are from several years and come from specific bills submitted by these vendors to the Imperial Court for payment. Imperial vendors usually had a long tradition of supplying the court and Nicholas was often saddled with suppliers with little regard to his own personal tastes or desires. However, Nicholas had very conservative - almost passive - tastes which resulted from years of upbringing in the Romanov tradition of accepting whatever food or suit of clothes was laid before you. The Tsar inherited many of the suppliers of his father, who had inherited many of these relationships from his own father. Changing a supplier or a traditional order from a long established vendor created vast problems for Nicholas and his staff. The Tsar once remarked that it would take ten men to simply change the color of one pair of his tennis socks. In the face of such a glacial system the Tsar seldom made the initiative to alter things. He put up with the established order and let his valet and ministers make decisions about his wardrobe.

Nicholas was very concerned about the appearance of extravagance. He wore his suits until they were threadbare and had his shirts recuffed and recollared until the fabric was nearly worn out. This made things quite difficult for his valet, who had the responsibility of keeping the Emperor's clothes perfectly cleaned and pressed. In one regard Nicholas was extravagant in his wardrobe - uniforms. His collection was and remains one of the finest in the world.

R481

Not exactly true.

All the grand duchesses had extensive and rather good educations for royal princesses of the time.

On the marriage front yes, the eldest GD was 19 or 20 when WWI broke out, and by some scores yes should have been married. OTOH at least two Romanov princess (sisters or close to Nicholas II) didn't marry until they were 19 or early 20's. Alix didn't marry until she was 22, so by that alone the tsar and empress may have seen no huge rush for their eldest girls to marry.

Then there was that complication of Pauline/Romanov house rules about unequal marriages. In order to preserve what limited succession rights any of the grand duchesses had they would have to marry other royals. That would mean leaving Russia and all they knew for Germany, perhaps England or another European court.

More issues still in that thanks to Queen Victoria and Christian IX of Denmark (father in-law to Europe) the Romanov children were already closely related to most of the royal houses in Europe, and look what that got them; hemophilia. That disease by then having manifested itself not just in Russia, but Spain and a few other royal houses made some royal mothers suspect of an alliance with Nicholas's daughters. They had "bad blood", and families worried about the chief aim of such marriages; the breeding of healthy heirs.

R480

Well I did go the Choreographers Ball dressed as Grand Duchess Anastasia

There education was very limited. After the revolution outside tutors were brought in to help with the Romanov children's lessons in Tobolsk. These tutors were aghast that the daughters of the Tsar were preforming at much lower academic level then their ages would require. Even by a a normal bourgeois standard the girls were not well educated and totally ignorant of the most common knowledge of the outside world.

When you think about it things were probably for the best. Not the mass murder of Romanovs of course, but that Nicholas and his family were removed from power.

We know what the world didn't; that the Great War to end all wars was not the last; barely two decades later Europe would explode in war again dragging rest of world into that carnage yet again as well.

Nicholas II having already lead his country into two disastrous wars (Japan-Russo and WWI) likely would have learned nothing twenty years later. Don't have much hope any of his family who inherited (should then tsar had died), would have done any better.

Stalin may not have been the most likable person in world, but he managed WWII far better than Nicholas II with WWI.

Well I knew what my hoohaski was for...

R486 Good question. OT to this, but Alix had 6 or 8 female servants to take care of her fantastic and massive wardrobe. They were mostly Germans and kept away from other staff. They didn’t even learn Russian in 20 years! Alix hated to buy new gowns but as Empress she needed certain number of dresses etc. They were made from finest materials and therefore needed speacial attention.

Even though Alix isolated herself a lot she changed her dresses 6 or 7 times per day. Next dress needed to be ready at certain moment and as many dressers as she needed. (Those speacial staff she had.) For dinners she always dressed formally with diamonds etc. even when there were no guests. She had big dressing room which was alwayd kept warmer than other rooms because she undress there.

Once a week she went through her schedule with the head of her wardrobe. They decided which gowns she wanted to wear. She also had hairdressers and at make up team. She met them at mornings after her bath. She didn’t buy jewels herself but got lots of them as gifts. Their value in 1917 was approx. $50 million. How much would they be today? She prefered pearls and she wore lots of them every day. She had back up plan with jewels and she and her daughters took massive number of them along to sell and get money if necessary.

When IF was taken away from Alexander Palace the main lady of her personal staff stayed there for a month or two to take care of all the things Alix didn’t have time. She then traveled to Tobolsk but wasn’t allowed to enter the house.

[quote] The Queen’s grandfather, George V, was Nicholas II’s first cousin.

They could go to Folsom Street Fair as gay twins.

R494 They would look like a normal gay white look alike couple nowadays. If Nicky was barely 5’7, George V must have been about 5’5. No wonder Queen Mary seemed to tower over him.

Not sure why Nicky was such a runt when his father was 6’3 tall.

R489, you look more like Tugboat Annie!

(You beat me to posting this, Roger.)

R484, keep the Grand Duchess, it's that bear Prince Georgi Mikhailovich next to her I want!

That one guy who has a claim to the throne, Prince Andrew Andreyevich Romanov, is now 97, but he was really hot when he was young. I vote for his Romanov genes to be re-installed.

The Mauve "Boudoir" was Alexandra's favorite room and for 20 years it was the center of her family's life in the palace. At the time it was the most celebrated room in Russia and the subject of much gossip as to the events that were supposed to have taken place there. Even today it remains a room of mystery and it is the room of the palace which interests the public the most. The room was also much derided for its' style and family atmosphere by elite society of the time. Elegant Petersburg thought proper Romanov Empresses should live semi-publically in splendid rooms graciously decorated in the latest style with fine art and sophisticated furnishings.

For 21 years - though changes in style and decorating came and went, Alexandra resisted any suggestions to remodel this room. It held too many memories for her and she was determined to keep it just as it had been when she was married. This meant the Mauve Room, which was considered lovely, modern and very chic in 1896, was hopelessly outdated, quaintly old-fashioned and something of an inside family joke by 1917. The opal tones, art glass and delicate furniture had long since gone out of style in favor of bolder effects.

The Mauve Room received its' name from the opal-colored silk on the walls, which was made by Charles Berger's firm in Paris, a company which still exists today at the same address in the French capital. The fabric was described as a Lampas Violet Reseda and it was extremely expensive. The total cost of the silk and trim in the Mauve Room exceeded the cost of any of the Imperial Fabergé easter eggs. Matching fabric from a Moscow firm was used to cover the furniture. This fabric differed slightly from the French material as it was slightly lighter in tone and had a raised floral motif woven into it. Both fabrics were of lampas silk, which is a raised reflective weave which gives the material a unusual soft glimmer - particularly at night by artificial light.

Alexandra liked the color mauve and she personally picked the fabric and hue. It is said she asked for a color to match a favorite sprig of lilac given to her by Nicholas. In Russia the color mauve is called "lilac" and there this room is called the "lilac" boudoir. Mauve was popular at the time and it became increasing so during the Edwardian era. Its' delicate tint can range from 'ashes of roses' to a light lavender. It was not only a color of the spring garden but also a sentimental color of mourning and remembrance. The inherent sadness and introspection of the color would have appealed to Alexandra's shy personality, which was immersed in sadness from a young age.

Dining With the Tsars

The waiters at the Imperial table were always men, selected for height, cleanliness, breeding and good looks. The waiters were looked upon as adornments to the splendidly decorated table of the Tsar. They were dressed in ceremonial livery, white tie, gloves, breeches, tall socks and shoes with non-slip soles. Waiters needed strong arms and legs as well, for they were expected to race about with heavy trays through the palace corridors. It was a prestigious position as far as Imperial servants were concerned for it involved daily service upon the person of the Tsar himself. Only the most senior of waiters could be permitted to serve the Tsar and his family and these men were attached permanently to each member of the family. They travelled with them from palace to palace and were not attached to any particular building. The Russian seniority system meant that sometimes the most august waiter was also the oldest. Nicholas suffered in silence with an old waiter he had inherited from his father. The poor man had failing eyesight and Nicholas carefully supported the faithful servant's arm while he poured the wines for want of mishap.

The main course of the day was luncheon and this was the chief opportunity for formal entertaining at meals. Imperial luncheons began between 12:00 noon and 1:00 PM. According to tradition they lasted 50 minutes on the dot. The entire meal service was set on this schedule and it involved a fine choreography that was centered on the Tsar himself, who had been trained since childhood in the fine nuances of signalling the staff.

Tables for formal meals were arranged in the Semi-circular Hall or occasionally in Aleksandra's Formal Reception Room. They were arranged in two set-ups. The way they were arranged generally depended on the type of guests and the occasion. Round tables, which sat 10 to 11 people each, were ordered when the Tsar wanted more interaction or conversation with his guests. In a round table set-up the Tsar would move from one table to the next, eating different courses along the way. This enabled all of his guests to be able to say they had dined at the Tsar's table.

A long table in the shape of a squared off U was used on more formal occasions. In these setups the most senior members of the Court by position, visiting royalty according to rank , or Romanov family members according to age were placed nearest the Tsar and his wife, who stayed in one seat during the meal. This could lead to dreadfully boring conversations and it was often used to shield the Tsar from people he didn't want to talk to.

Hors d'oevres, called zakuski in Russian, were usually served in the adjoining Portrait Hall, or sometimes in the Small Library. Zakuski were either served buffet style, standing up, or served by waiters with rotating trays and were a complete meal in and of themselves. The consisted of many tasty things, including German salads, rare caviars, mushrooms and other wonderful things - all washed down with various kinds of vodkas.

While the guests enjoyed their zakuski they could see the Imperial tables set for them in the next room, glittering with silver, porcelain and crystal, crowned with candelabra and masses of fragrant flowers.

Dining tables were not permanent fixtures and were brought into the palace and set up especially for events. The gilded white Neo-classical chairs covered in yellow silk were kept in the Semi-circular Hall all the time and where arranged against the walls. When more chairs were required additional ones were brought over from the Catherine Palace. Tables were covered in splendid pure white linens woven with Imperial monograms. Guests had large matching white napkins set for them.

Dining With the Tsars

The heavy silver came from a variety of sources and there was lots of it. Court documents indicate the Yekaterinoslav, Moscow and Kazan silver sets were used most often. These sets had been presented by Catherine the Great to her provincial governors. Her son, Paul, thought these services were too rich for men that were his servants and had it recalled to Petersburg for use in his own palaces. The cutlery came from the Crown set or had Imperial monograms stamped on it. It was very weighty and massive. The table was also dotted with unique decorative silver pieces and vases. At each setting there were numerous little silver bowls and trays, each with a special purpose in the meal

China at the Imperial table during the time of Nicholas II usually came from the Gorbeyev set. The famous Babigon set was used only once, to celebrate the German Emperor's birthday in 1912. Twice in 1909 they used the Purple set for luncheons. As a rule matching china was used for desserts and coffee, but the blue and gilt edged Tsarskoe Selo china service was used also. Massive quantities of china were ordered from the Imperial Porcelain Factory on an annual basis and stored in the Alexander Palace basement. Pieces were marked on the bottom with the cypher of the ruling monarch and the year produced. Breakage was extensive during meals. Plus the china had to look perfect at all times for the Tsar and his guests. Damaged, cracked or imperfect china was smashed and discarded.

Magnificent crystal bowls and settings of glasses, glinted on the table. Wide-faced Tsarskoe Selo crystal decorated with enamelled Romanov Coat-of Arms was most often used for gala events. It too was ordered in large quantities.

Flowers were arranged in a special room of the palace and were an important part of the decor of the table. They were arrayed in vases and bowls while artistic sprays and individual stems of fragrant roses were strewn about. Most flowers came from the nearby Imperial Greenhouses, but others were brought in by special order. Large baskets thickly filled with rare blooms were set on the table as gifts from guests. They carried elegantly painted ribbons indicating the presentor and the occasion.

Guests were escorted by Palace servants to their appointed places at table while court musicians played in adjoining rooms. No one sat down until the Tsar had done so first.

Meals were served in three to four courses and started immediately. The Tsar did not request special foods to be served. Ever since childhood he had been taught to accept and eat was placed before him without question. His menus were selected by court officials and the chef who were generally familiar with his tastes. Aleksandra's meals were prepared and served separately. She was on a special diet established by her doctors and was usually a vegetarian. She strictly followed all of the church fasts as well.

The first course was a soup, generally a rich cream soup with small meat pies. Then followed an intermidiate course of fish. People who knew Nicholas say he loved oysters, but there is no record of them being served at meals. Perhaps they were part of the zakuski. The fish dish served most often was Dviena sterlet in champagne sauce. Next came a course of chicken in rich sauces followed by another course of either beef, mutton or ham. This course could also be game, such as pheasant, wild goat, duck or partridge.

Before dessert came hot and cold sweet dishes, such as compotes, peaches, fresh strawberries jellies and ice creams. Then came the dessert which consisted of fresh fruits, strawberries and sometimes iced cherries.

After dinner coffee was served in the Portrait Hall with rich tables set with piles of chocolates, delicate sponge cakes of different sorts and shapes, and candies made in the Imperial confectionery. On separate tables there were also an assortment of liqueurs and brandies. Court brandy was usually the brandy of 1875 from Montleau and Hesse.

Dining With the Tsars

Although they don't appear on the menus we know from receipts that mineral waters and a wide array of soft drinks were served at table. At some point even Coca-Cola had made it into the palace, although we don't know if it was offered to guests.

As soon as the Tsar left the meal officially ended. There was no lingering about and sipping one's coffee or going back for another serving of torte before leaving.

Enormous amounts of food were prepared and there was usually lots left over. According to tradition whatever was left could be sold by the kitchen staff and the money earned was their own. Crowds sometimes gathered at the palace kitchens awaiting the potential leftovers from the Tsar's tables. The customers included members of the highest aristocracy.

I would be interested to know about the Royal Golitsyns of Russia. Are they related to the Romanovs?

R498's guy is obviously the only legitimate claimant to the throne, as long as the male-descent-only rule is in force. And he has male heirs, too, but only a granddaughter, so in a couple of generations this whole problem will resurface again unless these royalist losers amend the line of succession.

R501 Do fresh lilacs go with children's heads?

The despot Tzar Nick II must be a role model for tRump. In 1905, known as Bloody/Red Sunday, peaceful demonstrators led by a priest outside the Winter Palace were shot, stabbed and trampled by the Tzarist forces. This led to outrage across Russia, massive strikes, and the impetus for the revolutionary movement that would end Nick's autocratic rule.

Many of you don't seem to have much knowledge of the history of the Romanovs. There are many Romanov females who became rulers of Russia. Peter the Great's wife - an illiterate peasant at that - became ruler upon his death as Catherine I. She reigned until her death. Catherine's daughter, Elizabeth ruled Russia until her death. Anna, daughter of Ivan V ruled Russia. Catherine II ruled Russia and is considered one the mightiest of Russian rulers. There was no prohibition on women becoming rulers.

R508 you're the ignorant one. Catherine the Great's son hated her so much that when he ascended the throne, he passed a law barring female rulers. The law is named after him.

r508 The rules were changed by Catherine the Greats son that no female could inherit unless they were the last possible claimant after all male claims were exhausted.

I think R507 reminds us of a good point that is missing in this thread. Nicky had to have been one of the horrible of horrible monarchs. Yep, the family seems nice and lovely and their deaths were tragic. But, what did Nicky do to the people that brought about so much hatred? It's great to romanticize the family but...

R509 You stupid shit - any of the Tzars could have changed that rule, Nick II could have passed a new law allowing his daughters to inherit.

The point you missed, you ass, was that Russia was used to female rulers. They had many female rulers.

R511 it's generally accepted he was a good husband and father but a SHIT emperor.

R507 Nicky was not at the palace and did not order the troops to shoot the protesters . He literally had no clue and yet got all the blame but he was a bit unsympathetic with his actions afterwards, attending a party the day after etc.

Wrong R514. Read up on Russian history.

I get that R513. But, I guess I don't think there's been any discussion about how the people fared under his rule. Was there mass starvation? Unemployment, etc? I mean... apparently the guy never really got outside of the various palaces and his "circle" to get any sense about what was happening in his own country. I believe that there was 1-2 assassination attempts (that should have woken him up) but that's about it. Were there massive protests? Were his people giving him bad reports?

4 is not many female rulers and 1 only ruled for a few months. Russia wasn't used to women at all. And neither the sickly boy or the uber-sheletered daughters were being adequately raised for leadership. It's nice to imagine that there was an Elizabeth I in OTMA, but it's unlikely.

With all of these humongous and beautiful palaces which one is the official Russian palace where Putin lays his head at night?

I think we can all agree he was naive, unprepared, ignorant, sure great father but he needed to be a strong leader of a country that desires murderous thugs who take control. The times were changing and i guess he couldn't see it

R515 I have it was his uncle that ordered the bloody sunday shootings, Nicky was out of town and clueless as usual.

What about that morgamatic, non-morganatic question? Is that an issue?

Basic problem for Nicholas II and Romanovs (which many of them actually knew) was like Ancien Régime France feudalism as practiced by the Bourbon kings and Russian tsars had to go. That Imperial Russia lasted long as it did against forces unleashed by French Revolution is a miracle.

Other problem was same as Austro-Hungarian empire; Russia was simply too big and full of so many various persons who had nothing really in common with each other. It gave the Tsar of All The Russias great bragging rights among his peers that when sun set on one part of his empire it was rising on the other. However keeping a lid on such a vast empire required resources and often a very heavy hand.

Nicholas II's full title was:

By the Grace of God, We, NN, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod; Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Poland, Tsar of Siberia, Tsar of Chersonese Taurian, Tsar of Georgia; Lord of Pskov and Grand Prince of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia, Finland; Prince of Estland, Livland, Courland, Semigalia, Samogitia, Belostok, Karelia, Tver, Yugorsky land, Perm, Vyatka, Bolgar and others; Lord and Grand Prince of Nizhny Novgorod, Chernigov, Ryazan, Polotsk, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Belozersk, Udorsky land, Obdorsk, Kondia, Vitebsk, Mstislav, and all of the northern countries Master; and Lord of Iberia, Kartli, and Kabardia lands and Armenian provinces; hereditary Sovereign and ruler of the Circassian and Mountainous Princes and of others; Lord of Turkestan; Heir of Norway; Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, Stormarn, Dithmarschen, and Oldenburg, and others, and others, and others.

Since his grandfather's and fathers time there had been rumblings within certain areas of Romanov family about moving towards a consitutional monarchy. This grew louder during Nicholas II's rule, in particular the last decade or so as seemingly disaster upon disaster piled up. That and the increasing outright hatred in some quarters towards the empress. Of course Alexandra wouldn't hear of such things and egged her husband on to continue being the absolute monarch he was, if various ministers or whoever didn't like it, they could go.

In order to have a thriving constitutional monarchy such as GB you need a pretty good sized educated middle class. Something under last years of Romanov rule Russia did not have. By most counts nation could only count about less than two percent of population as solid middle class. However though late in taking hold the industrial revolution was working as it had across Europe and United States. Raising people up and expanding the educated classes.

Problem was the largest class besides royals, nobles and clergy were the poor/peasants. These were simple uneducated people and it would take a generation or to to move their children up and out into higher socio-economic classes.

r518, every palace Putin rests his head at becomes Putin Selo.

R521

Morganatic marriages are basically unequal unions. As it relates to this thread a marriage between royalty and commoner.

Prince Charles and CPB is an morganatic marriage.

Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer (ditto)

Prince William and Kate Middleton (ditto)

Prince Harry and MM (ditto)

Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson (ditto)

In fact most Windsor or Windsor-Mountbatten marriages have been unequal except Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip of Greece and maybe a few others.

It is worth remembering prior to arrival of the Hanoverians English/British monarchs often married commoners (as in nobility, not dead common). Only two of Henry VIII's wives were royal princesses (and look what happened to them), for instance.

German royalty are big on blood lines and purity; hence now as British monarchs they married a constant stream of imported German or other European royal princes and princesses.

It does get confusing imperial, royal and serene highness and who is what level of royalty or common. Complicating matters more is that monarchs can (and have) risen up a grandchild from say a morganatic marriage from serene to royal highness.

Tying this all into the Romanov discussion, Queen Victoria's grand daughter, Victoria Eugeine of Battenberg was product of an unequal marriage. QV however gave her rank of HRH at birth so she was not a serene highness.

Princess Eugenie was married to Alfonso XIII of Spain (yes the same as mentioned above who tried to save the Romanovs), and her branch of the Battenberg house was related to the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt of and by the Rhine which was Empress Alexandra's family.

Since we're discussing death, religion and Russia anyway; most only know this bit of music from first scenes in Dr. Zhivago when young Yuri's mother is being buried. Here is the full Kontakion of the Departed

Now is life's artful triumph of vanities destroyed... ...for the spirit has vanished from its tabernacle... ...its clay groweth black. The vessel is shattered, voiceless, emotionless, dead. Committing which unto the grave, let us beseech the Lord... ..

Since we're discussing death, religion and Russia anyway; most only know this bit of music from first scenes in Dr. Zhivago when young Yuri's mother is being buried. Here is the full Kontakion of the Departed

Now is life's artful triumph of vanities destroyed... ...for the spirit has vanished from its tabernacle... ...its clay groweth black. The vessel is shattered, voiceless, emotionless, dead. Committing which unto the grave, let us beseech the Lord... ..

Putin isn't living in some old drafty and perhaps in need of work former imperial palace, he's got better digs.

List of reported Putin residences.

Of course, Nicholas could have solved the problem of having only one sick son to inherit his throne, by changing the succession laws to the eldest child inheriting regardless of sex. That would have put Alexei 5th in line, and made his illness a political non-issue!

But no, Nick didn't have the brains to think of that, and probably didn't think women could rule. And he wouldn't want his sweet sheltered daughters to be stuck with the monarchy, and didn't see the bigger problem of sticking a sickly, spoiled, traumatized, frightened boy with the same damn thing.

Removing Alexei from immediate succession would have set of alarms not just in Russia but royal courts of Europe. You don't alter succession for current heir unless something is very wrong. Even Elizabeth didn't change law of succession for either Prince William or Harry, but their children (allowing females to inherit in order or birth, not presumptive in lieu of male being born).

Remember few outside immediate imperial family or their court much less courts of Europe or world for that matter knew what was wrong with Alexei. People gossiped about why he was always carried around, but full extent of things was hidden.

More to the point Nicholas II had plenty of brothers, uncles, and cousins, thus the succession was assured. It may not have been a direct pass from father to son, but lateral or other passes were not unheard of during Romanov dynasty.

Speaking of hemophilia anyone else who grew up in 1970's remember television and other media campaigns for clotting factor?

Next time heard about hemophilia was during HIV/AIDs epidemic where those who got infected blood came down with the disease.

Have the Russians ever considered having a Tsar back again, someone to keep Putin in check?

Addendum to R475. Alix's brother, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig (Ernst Ludwig Karl Albrecht Wilhelm) had his own tale of woe visited upon him by his ever-meddling Gramma Queen Victoria. She enthusiastically encouraged a match between him and one of her granddaughters Victoria Melita (Ducky), who's Father, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was the brother of Ernst's mother, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (yep, another first cousin marriage). The match was an unmitigated disaster, lasted 7 years, produced two children, a daughter who died at age 8 of typhoid and a stillborn son. After 7 years of agony, they divorced.

Ernst Ludwig went on to marry Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich, a far happier match, which produced two sons, one of whom married Prince Philip's ill-fated sister Cecilie.

Victora Melita went on to marry Grand Duke Kirill of Russia, Nicky's first cousin. The match was vehemently objected to by Kirill's mother, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna ("Keep Ducky as a mistress and marry someone else"). Ducky and Kirill produced three daughters.

R535 Alix with her normal public look. Always sad uncomfortable. No wonder people didn’t understand her. She couldn’t fake a smile, something very important to public figures.

Boy, he really was an itty bitty thing.

and as many have pointed out r536, she was called "Sunny" when she was younger. She's a sad case, falls in love with a guy who will be a great husband to her, but along with him comes a position that she just was hopeless at and probably never really wanted. I do feel sorry for her that way, but damn she caused a lot of problems for herself and everyone around her too.

"Sunny" encouraged, along with her husband, the menacing and brutal killing of certain segments of the Russian population. It's no wonder they executed her - she was hated.

[quote]Anna, daughter of Ivan V ruled Russia.

Never heard of her. She must be the Jan Brady of Russian Empresses.

R540 Are you the Mariah Carey of Russian aristocracy?

I am changing my opinion based on R541.

She's the Chrissy Metz of Russian Empresses.

Well Anne might have been Jan, or Chrissy, with a really mean streak. Oh those Romanovs.

R535 Tsar of Russia accompanied by a nasty Rose Bowl float.

Antisemitisim long was rife in Russia, reaching highs during Alexander III's time when some of the harshest treatment was meted out.

Jews were blamed for the murder of Alexander II and thus his successor had even more reason to hate and pile on which included pogroms.

that moved huge numbers of Jewish persons eihe

Son like father had no great love for Jewish people, and while no new laws were passed against the Jews during Nicholas II's time as tsar, that boot wasn't loosened off their necks by much either.

At least two of those responsible for murder of Nicholas II wife, family and servants were Jewish. Ever since there has been both quiet and sometimes loud noises that Jews "murdered the tsar" to get their own back. That noise has not totally gone away with even today persons in high positions within Russian Orthodox church making such claims and calling for investigations.

Life for Jews in Soviet Union/Russia even after the tsars hasn't ever been that great, and this sort of thing is totally not needed.

Nicholas and "Sunny" were rabid antisemites who purposefully encouraged the slaughter of Jews in Russia, to take the heat off themselves. I am heartened to hear that Jews killed them. Justice served!

Few of Nicholas II's murderers......

Now this is how ex-royals live in exile.

Late Iranian Princess Ashraf Pahlavi didn't suffer that much after her brother and family got booted out of Iran.

[quote] She couldn’t fake a smile, something very important to public figures.

Someone on Datalounge said that you’re not supposed to smile in Eastern Europe or they will think you are insane. Official portraits never have people smiling and it’s unlikely the tsar or his wife would smile at a public event.

Nicky was reading the notorious fake The Protocols of Zion in Yekaterinburg. In her processions were found Alexandra's diaries where she listed all the Bolsheviks by name next to their "real" Jewish names. Obviously the Romanovs blamed the Jews for the revolution.

If there were ever two people who should NOT have been rulers it was Nicholas and Alexandra. They were two of the worst monarchs in the history of the world. Nicholas should have been a farmer and Alexandra a housewife. That was what they were meant for.

"Obviously the Romanovs blamed the Jews for the revolution. "

People with guilty consciences

he was a hawt pocket emperor.

R554 Rubbish. They wore pretty hats.

Sorry if this has already been posted. I didn't had time to wade thru it all.

Despite his great wealth and position, Nicholas had really horrible dental issues which would indicate that he often suffered from halitosis. In fact, his dental health was so bad that it was used to to confirm the identity of his corpse. Conversely, Alexandra has only the best German dental care that money could buy. Her platinum bridgework was also used to confirm her the identity of her remains.

Cute butt, fat wallet, rather attractive but short and with bad breath..

Fail R557

"Cute butt, fat wallet, rather attractive but short and with bad breath."

Also dumb as a bag of hammers. He was such a witless lump that someone called him "a human oyster." I think that's an apt description of his personality.

Also discontinued.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Michael Romanoff... and those noodles

Harry F. Gerguson (born Hershel Geguzin, February 20, 1890 – September 1, 1971), known as Michael Romanoff, was a Hollywood restaurateur, con man and actor born in Lithuania. He is perhaps best remembered as the owner of the now-defunct Romanoff's, a Beverly Hills restaurant popular with Hollywood stars in the 1940s and 1950s.

He claimed to be a member of Russia's royal House of Romanov (sometimes spelled "Romanoff" in English). This was widely known to be untrue throughout his career, but press reports tended to treat the deception as a humorous matter.

The New Yorker ran a series of five profiles, starting October 29, 1932, tracing Romanoff's history from birth until date of publication, including his having been deported to France in May of that year to serve time for fraud.

According to U.S.A Confidential (Mortimer and Lait, 1952), though Romanoff pretended to be Russian royalty, he was actually a former Brooklyn pants presser.

Geguzin immigrated to New York City at age 10. He changed his name from Hershel to Harry F. Gerguson some time after 1900 and married Gloria Lister in 1948.

At times, he passed himself off as "Count Gladstone the son of William Gladstone, "Prince Michael Dimitri Alexandrovich Obolensky-Romanoff", nephew of Tsar Nicholas II, William Wellington or Arthur Wellesley.

Romanoff died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California, in 1971 aged 81.

From 1941 to 1962, Romanoff's was located at 326 North Rodeo Drive, and had another location at 140 South Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. In 1951, it moved to a new location at 240 South Rodeo Drive.

Romanoff generally snubbed his clientele, and preferred to lunch with his dogs.

KCET's Hadley Meares writes of the restaurant, which used an elegant monogram consisting of a crown sitting over two capital letter 'R's back to back: "The décor was masculine and clubby with comfortable booths, the dance floor well waxed, the cigarette girls lovely, and the waiters well-trained and Jeeves-like."

While Romanoff's featured a typical country club-style menu with items like Waldorf salad, tomatoes stuffed with crab, filet mignon, frog legs, eggs Benedict and sausages on toast, the restaurant became known for its chocolate soufflés, which were served to each guest in an individual portion. Although Romanoff's restaurant is also known for popularizing the "American version" of the famous dessert Strawberries Romanoff, it was actually created by Escoffier when he was the chef at the Carlton Hotel in London – where he had originally called it "Strawberries Americaine Style" - strawberries in Grand Marnier, blended into whipped cream and softened ice cream.

Noodles Romanoff, a dish of noodles and cheeses that originally appeared at Romanoff's in the mid-1950s, became a popular item often mentioned in Hollywood reporting. Later, after Romanoff's went out of business, the dish was served at Stouffer's Top of the Rock Restaurant in Chicago. When Stouffer's closed that restaurant, the company transferred Noodles Romanoff to its newly formed frozen food grocery division. Soon, various companies' versions of Noodles Romanoff could be purchased in grocery stores for preparation at home. It was a popular side dish on American dinner tables through the 1960s, and recipes for it are widely available on the Internet.

David Niven had a chapter about Mike Romanoff in one of his hilarious autobiographies. He said that Romanoff was widely known to be an impostor and joked about it himself, and that everyone in Hollywood liked him anyway, and admired his chutzpah.

Niven said that once Romanoff showed him a set of expensive men's combs and brushes with the monogram of some British nobleman, and said they'd been a gift from the Duke of Whatever (?). Niven actually met the Duke of Whatever and asked him about the brushes, and the Duke said that his expensive vanity set had vanished when some local coal miners had been admitted to the house. Niven asked what the hell Romanoff was doing down a coal mine, when he'd supposedly been living the life of an impostor in Paris!

I have actually made Noodles Romanov from scratch and it's quite good albeit rich. Three or four types of cheese. I don't remember which.

How is that different from fettuccine Alfredo?

You don't have to shoot your guests after dessert, r565.

I was hoping someone would come on and tell the tale of Mike Romanoff.

More noodles please! (but hold the Fabergé eggs please)

R567

Whatdaya want to know?

More:

NYT Obit

Thanks, I know the story (or as much as I care to)---I meant that I was hoping it would make its appearance in this thread. My posting privileges come and go. Much appreciated, though.

Funny how people spend so much time thinking about the sad fate of the last Romanovs, but the suffering beyond measure of the people who lived under them doesn't count for shit.

Agreed, someone needs to do a bio or maybe a film about Michael Romanoff; what he was able to accomplish probably never could happen today.

Then again I dunno; there was that fake Rockerfeller, then Saudi or whatever prince down in Florida, so guess people still can be had.

Recipes from Romanoff's Supper Club

Any of your girls game to give them a try and report back?

R573

People were suffering under the Tudors, Bourbons, Hapsburgs, and for a good part of their rule the Hanoverians so what is your point?

Far as Russia/Soviet Union goes people continued to suffer under Lenin and Stalin who between them killed, starved, put into forced labor, forced into exile or whatever more than the Romanovs ever did. Putin and his cronies (the new Russian nobility) have looted that country and kept more of Russia's wealth for themselves while poverty, disease, infant mortality, and other ills run rampant.

I'm definitely going to try Strawberries Romanoff sometime, R575. I am partial to a macédoine de fruits.

Think about it, 100 years from now, future DLers will lament the disappearance of the entire Trump clan in 2020. Sure, they were stupid, corrupt, racist and oblivious but couldn't the bloodthirsty murderers spared the children? And there will some asking about Trump's peen.

[quote]Putin and his cronies (the new Russian nobility) have looted that country and kept more of Russia's wealth for themselves while poverty, disease, infant mortality, and other ills run rampant.

and whores--they're everywhere, including at the dinner table!

[quote] WTF was he thinking marrying someone with a ton of hemophiliac relatives?

Nicholas & Alexandra were second cousins. Her relatives were his relatives. The whole of Northern European royal families were related to each other. Czars married women from countries where religion was not extremely important. They married women who would readily convert to Russian Orthodoxy. That left out the Catholic royalty in Spain & France. It left out Great Britain, where the religion was integral to nationality.

I’m not sure, but I think czars had to marry into families who had ruled the area they came from, meaning they couldn’t marry aristocratic women who weren’t from “princely” families. Let’s say a family in England became rich in the 1600s, so the king gave the family a title. Duke of Swanley. Even if that family was a very very rich & well respected aristocratic family, no woman from that family could ever marry a czar.

EXCELLENT thread. Harkens back to old royal discussion threads of yore here, when we discussed all kinds of esoterica re royalty and didn't only bang on about the current soapy tales of the BRF. Nice to see it get to almost 600 posts - the last Romanov thread here a while back met a bad end (deletion for no reason).

r561 re Pamela Hick's memory of Princess Alice writing to the UK PM re the Russian Grand Duchesses: that would have been her mother, Victoria Marchioness of Milford-Haven and the GD's aunt (Alix's eldest sister), and not their 1st cousin Alice. Alice at that time was living in Greece with her young family (her son Prince Philip was yet to be born). Victoria's husband was retired from the British Navy and they lived on the Isle of Wight.

Either Pamela is losing her memory in her dotage or her daughter India isn't keen on reporting clear facts.

For r410 and others asking if any of her royal relatives liked Alix: the answer all around seems to be no. Someplace on the web is an essay written by Queen Marie of Romania, herself like George V a 'double cousin' of both Nicholas and Alix: her father Alfred was a close brother to Alix's mother Alice, both children of Queen Victoria; her mother was the only sister of Nicholas's father Alexander III.

In her essay she waxes nostalgic re her childhood memories of "Nicky" in Russia, from when she visited that country as a child. She also discusses his visit to Romania as Tsar and how wonderful their family ties was. Not once I believe dose she even mention that Alix is also her 1st cousin; she and her siblings all grew up in the UK and so must have spent much time with Alix during her long visits with QV. One can only surmise she wasn't too fond of the Tsarina.

I think Alexandra was so clinicaly depressed that in her last moments (she died instantanously and just after Nicholas) she must have been relieved that all of them were going to die together.

She used to be a very sunny and happy child until her mother and youngest sister died when she was six. After that I think she suffered from untreated depression. And it was that melancholy what made her Queen Victoria's favorite grandchild. Victoria liked for people to mourn eternally.... just like she was doing Albert since he died. In photographs of them together, Victoria always is looking adoringly at Alexandra.

Also an interesting scientific side note, in honor of the Duke of Edinburgh's birthday today (99 years old): his DNA, along with one other male relative, was needed in the 90s and in 2007 by scientists in order to firmly determine identity of the Romanov remains recovered from Ekaterinberg, so that they could finally be interred. This is because he was one of the final surviving relatives to Alix and her children in the female line, therefore making his mitochondrial DNA useful for identification.

Philips mother's mother was Alix's eldest sister. His Aunt Louise had passed away in the 1960s with no offspring, and his uncles' families didn't count. The only other sister Alix had - Grand Duchess Elisabeth - of course died childless in Russia during the big purge.

The other relative who contributed DNA for this purpose was James, Duke of FIfe, who was related in a maternal straight line to Queen Alexandra, the elder sister of Empress Marie. His DNA was used to id Nicholas and the children, as well as matched to one of Nicholas's brothers.

Some poster upthread said that Alexandra's dispositon made her unqualified for a Russian Empress, specially following her mother-in-law, who relished the position and was pretty much loved by the population. But taking a quick at the other women who had been empresses, most of them were exactly like her, melancholy and sad women. The wives of Alexander (Elizabeth), Nicholas I (Alexandra) and Alexander II (Maria) were in various degrees depresssed and melancholy.

Philip's mother was a niece of Alexandra not her sister. Her sister was Philip's grandmother.

R586 read 584 closer.

R583 She reminded me of me, except stupid.

R585 Depressed and melancholy is acceptable but meddling in politics, religious fanaticism,producing a diseased heir and being bat shit crazy is not.

The Tsar of all the Russias presents hole

Nicholas had a hawt bod. The Bolsheviks commented on how muscular has naked corpse was. No mention of his cockski so assume he was no Rasputin.

Alexandra looks like a baby Putin in R583.

I would advice to read Pierre Gilliard’s memoirs of his years with Imperial Family. He taught the kids French. He followed them all the way Ekaterineburg but wasn’t allowed to enter the house. He stayed in Russia with white army for few years trying to find evidence of the murder of IF. He was very close with Alexei and his murder along with his sisters hit him hard. He later married Anastasia’s former nanny and they moved to France, where Gilliard became professor of French at Lausanne university.

I don’t believe Vyrubova’s or Lili Dehn’s or von Buxenhoevden’s memoirs for many reasons. I am sure majority of the writing is correct but not all. Gilliard’s is another thing. It can be found online and it is not too long. All these memoirs are on alexanderpalace.org

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Today in 1897, Grand Duchess Tatiana was born.

More photos of Tatiana.

R593 Interesting read.

Again it is worth saying this love fest for Nicholas II and his family largely came *after* news of their murders. While living people thought so little of them few wanted to help get them out of Russia. Getting the news that Lenin and his henchmen dispatched Nicholas, wife and children (along with any other Romanovs they could lay hands upon), lit fire under George V to send warships to rescue "Aunt Minnie".

Had all this great affection existed in world in 1917 or so Nicholas and his family not only might have lived, but seen the Romanov dynasty put back on throne.

The French were remorseful enough to take back the Bourbons twice, both opportunities they squandered, but it shows even hated monarch or dynasty one day, can be redeemed the next.

Of the Bourbons it was said "They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing."

well, in fairness, wasn't entirely up to the "the French" r598