The Romanov Sisters Read online

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  List of Illustrations

  Glossary of Names

  Author’s Note

  Epigraph

  Prologue – The Room of the First and Last Door

  One – Mother Love

  Two – La Petite Duchesse

  Three – My God! What a Disappointment!… A Fourth Girl!

  Four – The Hope of Russia

  Five – The Big Pair and The Little Pair

  Six – The Shtandart

  Seven – Our Friend

  Eight – Royal Cousins

  Nine – In St Petersburg We Work, But at Livadia We Live

  Ten – Cupid by the Thrones

  Eleven – The Little One Will Not Die

  Twelve – Lord Send Happiness to Him, My Beloved One

  Thirteen – God Save the Tsar!

  Fourteen – Sisters of Mercy

  Fifteen – We Cannot Drop Our Work in the Hospitals

  Sixteen – The Outside Life

  Seventeen – Terrible Things Are Going on in St Petersburg

  Eighteen – Goodbye. Don’t Forget Me

  Nineteen – On Freedom Street

  Twenty – Thank God We Are Still in Russia and All Together

  Twenty-one – They Knew It Was the End When I Was With Them

  Twenty-two – Prisoners of the Ural Regional Soviet

  Epilogue – Victims of Repressions

  Photographs

  Acknowledgements

  Bibliography

  Index

  Copyright

  In memory of

  Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia Romanova

  four extraordinary young women

  List of Illustrations

  1 Tsarevich Nicholas and Princess Alix of Hesse (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/GettyImages/Getty)

  2 Alexandra Feodorovna with the Grand Duchesses Olga and baby Maria, 1899 (By courtesy of Lotte Hoffmann-Kuhnt)

  3 The Tsarevich Alexey, aged about three, with a Box Brownie (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)

  4 Grand Duchess Olga, Guérin-Boutron chocolate company trade card, 1906 (By courtesy of Roger Short)

  5 Grand Duchess Tatiana, Guérin-Boutron chocolate company trade card, 1906 (By courtesy of Roger Short)

  6 Grand Duchess Maria, Guérin-Boutron chocolate company trade card, 1906 (By courtesy of Roger Short)

  7 Grand Duchess Anastasia, Guérin-Boutron chocolate company trade card, 1906 (By courtesy of Roger Short)

  8 The Imperial family on duty c. 1911 (Mary Evans Picture Library/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo)

  9 The Imperial family (By courtesy of Roger Short)

  10 The Tsaritsa in her boudoir with Anastasia, Tatiana and Maria (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)

  11 Tsar Nicholas II and the Grand Duchess Anastasia, smoking (By courtesy of the Siberian Times/Zlatoust Municipal Regional Studies Museum, Chelyabinsk)

  12 White Flower Day (By courtesy of Roger Short)

  13 Anastasia with members of the Imperial Entourage of the Shtandart (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)

  14 Olga and Tatiana ashore with courtiers (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)

  15 Olga at her lessons with Pierre Gilliard (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)

  16 Anastasia in the schoolroom (By courtesy of the author)

  17 The four Grand Duchesses with their father (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive/Russian Archives Online)

  18 Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia with officers aboard the imperial yacht, the Shtandart (By courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

  19 Profile portraits of the four Grand Duchesses, 1914. Clockwise from top left: Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia, Maria. (By courtesy of the Siberian Times/Zlatoust Municipal Regional Studies Museum)

  20 Olga and Tatiana in court dress c. 1913 (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)

  21 Olga and Tatiana in regimental uniform c. 1913 (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)

  22 Dmitri Pavlovich (By courtesy of Roger Short)

  23 Maria, Anastasia and Olga with young officers in Cossack dress (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive/Russian Archives Online)

  24 Tatiana and Olga picking grapes with their father Nicholas II and Anna Vyrubova (By courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

  25 Tatiana in fancy dress, 1916 (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive/Russian Archives Online)

  26 Olga in fancy dress, 1916 (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive/Russian Archives Online)

  27 Maria in fancy dress, 1916 (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive/Russian Archives Online)

  28 Anastasia in fancy dress, 1916 (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive/Russian Archives Online)

  29 Olga and Tatiana receiving donations for the Russian war effort (Stolitsa i usadba/By courtesy of New York Public Library)

  30 Anastasia and Maria with wounded soldiers (By courtesy of the author)

  31 Tatiana, nursing a wounded officer (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive/Russian Archives Online)

  32 Tatiana with Vladimir Kiknadze (By courtesy of the Siberian Times/Zlatoust Municipal Regional Studies Museum)

  33 Olga and Tatiana nursing the wounded (By courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

  34 Maria and Olga, 1916 (By courtesy of the author)

  35 Tatiana recuperating from typhoid fever in 1913 (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive/Russian Archives Online)

  36 Anastasia, with shaven head (Ekaterina Erastovna Zborovskaia collection, Box 1, Hoover Institution Archives)

  37 The last photograph taken of the Tsar and Tsaritsa, Tobolsk 1917 (Mary Evans Picture Library)

  38 Olga and Alexey in captivity at Tobolsk (By courtesy of the author)

  39 Father Ivan Storozhev (By courtesy of John Storojev)

  40 Father Storozhev’s missal (By courtesy of John Storojev)

  Glossary of Names

  Listed below are the most frequently occurring names in the text, in the form in which they are generally cited.

  OTMA = the sisters’ own acronym for Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia

  AKSH: acronym of Alexander Konstantinovich Shvedov, one of Olga’s favourite officers in the Tsar’s Escort

  ALEXANDRA (SHURA) TEGLEVA: OTMA’s nurse and later general maid; married Pierre Gilliard

  ALICE: Princess Alice of Great Britain, later Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine, Alexandra’s mother

  ALICKY: Queen Victoria’s pet name for Alexandra, used to distinguish her from Alix, who in the British royal family was Alexandra, Princess of Wales

  ALIX: Nicholas’s pet name for his wife Alexandra

  ANNA (NYUTA) DEMIDOVA: Alexandra’s maid in waiting

  ANNA VYRUBOVA: Alexandra’s close friend and confidante; later appointed a maid of honour

  BIBI: pet name for Varvara Vilchikovskaya, OT’s friend and nurse at the annexe

  CHEMODUROV: Terenty Chemodurov, Nicholas’s valet

  COUNT BENKENDORF: Pavel Benkendorf, chief marshal and master of ceremonies at the imperial court

  COUNT FREEDERICKSZ:
Vladimir Freedericksz, head of the imperial household

  COUNT GRABBE: Nikolay Grabbe, commander of the Tsar’s Escort

  DEREVENKO: Andrey Derevenko, Alexey’s sailor dyadka

  DICKIE: Louis of Battenberg, later Lord Mountbatten, OTMA’s cousin

  DMITRI PAVLOVICH: Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, OTMA’s cousin

  DMITRI (MITYA) MALAMA: Tatiana’s favourite wounded officer at the hospital

  DMITRI (MITYA) SHAKH-BAGOV: Olga’s favourite wounded officer at the hospital

  DOLGORUKOV: Prince Vasili Dolgorukov, adjutant general, with Nicholas at Stavka

  DR BOTKIN: Evgeny Botkin, physician to the Imperial Family

  DR DEREVENKO: Vladimir Derevenko, Alexey’s personal physician (no relation to Andrey Derevenko)

  DR GEDROITS: Princess Vera Gedroits, senior surgeon at the Court Hospital

  DUCHESS OF SAXE-COBURG: formerly Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, also Duchess of Edinburgh

  DUCKY: pet name for Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg, first wife of Ernie, Alexandra’s brother

  ELIZAVETA ERSBERG: Alexandra’s maid in waiting

  ELIZAVETA NARYSHKINA: Alexandra’s mistress of the robes from 1910; the most senior lady at court

  ELIZAVETA OBOLENSKAYA: Alexandra’s lady in waiting

  ERNIE: Grand Duke Ernest of Hesse and by Rhine, Alexandra’s brother

  GENERAL MOSOLOV: Alexander Mosolov, head of the Court Chancellery

  GENERAL SPIRIDOVICH: Alexander Spiridovich, Chief of the Kiev section of the Okhrana; from 1906 head of the tsar’s personal security services

  GLEB BOTKIN: son of Dr Botkin; with him at Tobolsk

  GRAND DUCHESS VLADIMIR: Maria Pavlovna the elder, wife of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich; also known in the family as Miechen

  GRAND DUKE GEORGIY: Georgiy Alexandrovich, Nicholas’s younger brother and tsarevich till his death in 1899

  GRAND DUKE KONSTANTIN: Konstantin Konstantinovich, father of Ioannchik

  GRAND DUKE MIKHAIL: Mikhail Alexandrovich, Nicholas’s youngest brother

  GRAND DUKE NIKOLAY: Nikolay Nikolaevich; Nicholas’s uncle, and until 1915 C-in-C of the Russian Army. Second husband of Stana

  GRAND DUKE PAVEL: Pavel Alexandrovich, Nicholas’s uncle; father of Dmitri Pavlovich and Maria Pavlovna

  GRAND DUKE PETR: Petr Nikolaevich, husband of Militza

  GRIGORY/FATHER GRIGORY: Grigory Rasputin, the imperial family’s religious guru

  IOANNCHIK: Prince Ioann Konstantinovich, OTMA’s second cousin

  IVAN SEDNEV: OTMA’s footman; Leonid Sednev’s uncle

  IZA BUXHOEVEDEN: Baroness Sophia Buxhoeveden, Alexandra’s honorary lady in waiting; the post was made official in 1914

  KATYA: Ekaterina Zborovskaya, sister of Viktor Zborovsky, Anastasia’s most regular correspondent in captivity

  KHARITONOV: Ivan Kharitonov, cook; with the family at Tobolsk and Ekaterinburg

  KLAVDIYA BITNER: the children’s tutor at Tobolsk; later married Evgeny Kobylinsky

  KOBYLINSKY: Evgeny Kobylinsky, commander of the guard at Tsarskoe Selo. Commandant of the Governor’s House at Tobolsk

  LEONID SEDNEV: kitchen boy; with the family at Tobolsk and Ekaterinburg. Nephew of Ivan Sednev

  LILI DEHN: Yuliya Dehn, one of the ladies closest to Alexandra in the final years, but who held no official position at court

  LOUISE: Princess Louise of Battenberg; daughter of Alexandra’s sister Victoria; later Queen Louise of Sweden; OTMA’s second cousin

  MADELEINE (MAGDALINA) ZANOTTI: Alexandra’s most senior personal maid, who had come with her from Darmstadt

  MARGARETTA EAGAR: OTMA’s governess; dismissed in 1904

  MARIYA BARYATINSKAYA: Princess Mariya Baryatinskaya, Alexandra’s maid of honour

  MARIA FEODOROVNA: the dowager empress, Nicholas’s mother; a sister of the Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra. Also known in the family as Minny

  MARIYA GERINGER: Alexandra’s principal lady in waiting, responsible for her jewellery

  MARIA PAVLOVNA: Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna the younger, sister of Dmitri Pavlovich and OTMA’s cousin

  MARIYA (TUDELS/TOODLES) TUTELBERG: Alexandra’s maid in waiting

  MARIYA VASILCHIKOVA: Alexandra’s lady in waiting; dismissed 1916

  MARIYA VISHNYAKOVA (MARY): OTMA’s under nursemaid; later nursemaid to Alexey

  MASHKA: Maria’s pet name in the family

  MERIEL BUCHANAN: daughter of the British ambassador to St Petersburg, Sir George Buchanan

  MILITZA: Princess Militza of Montenegro; wife of Grand Duke Petr

  NAGORNY: Klementy Nagorny, Alexey’s sailor dyadka

  NASTYA/NASTASKA: Anastasia’s pet name in the family

  NASTENKA (ANASTASIA) HENDRIKOVA: Alexandra’s personal maid of honour

  NIKOLAY (KOLYA) DEMENKOV: Maria’s favourite officer from the Guards Equipage

  NIKOLAY RODIONOV: officer on the Shtandart, Tatiana’s favourite tennis partner

  NIKOLAY SABLIN: Nikolay Pavlovich Sablin, officer on the Shtandart and a close friend of the imperial family. No relation to Nikolay Vasilievich Sablin

  NIKOLAY VASILIEVICH SABLIN: a favourite officer on the Shtandart. No relation to Nikolay Pavlovich Sablin

  OLGA ALEXANDROVNA: Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, OTMA’s aunt, Nicholas’s youngest sister

  ONOR: Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hoensolms-Lich, second wife of Alexandra’s brother Ernie

  PANKRATOV: Vasily Pankratov, commissar in charge of the imperial family at Tobolsk; dismissed January 1918

  PAVEL VORONOV: officer on the Shtandart with whom Olga fell in love in 1913

  PHILIPPE: Maitre or Monsieur Philippe; Nizier Anthelme Philippe, French ‘healer’ and mystic

  PIERRE GILLIARD: the girls’ Swiss tutor in French

  PRINCESS HELENA OF SERBIA: wife of Ioannchik

  PRINCESS GOLITSYNA: Mariya Golitsyna, Alexandra’s mistress of the robes till her death in 1910

  PVP: Petr Vasilievich Petrov, the girls’ tutor in Russian language and literature

  RITA KHITROVO: Margarita Khitrovo, Olga’s friend and fellow nurse at the annexe hospital

  SANDRO: Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, Xenia’s husband

  SERGEY MELIK-ADAMOV: a favourite of Tatiana’s at the hospital

  SHURIK: pet name for Alexander Shvedov

  SHVYBZIG: Anastasia’s pet name, given to her by her aunt Olga; also the name of her dog that died in May 1915

  SOFYA TYUTCHEVA: OTMA’s maid of honour and unofficial governess; dismissed in 1912

  STANA: Princess Anastasia of Montenegro; wife of the Duke of Leuchtenberg; remarried 1907 to Grand Duke Nikolay

  SYDNEY GIBBES (SIG): English tutor to OTMA and later Alexey

  TATIANA BOTKINA: Dr Botkin’s daughter, with him at Tobolsk

  TATISHCHEV: Count Ilya Tatishchev, an adjutant general in the imperial suite; with Nicholas at Stavka

  THORA: Helena Victoria, daughter of Princess Helena and Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, OTMA’s second cousin

  TRINA SCHNEIDER: Ekaterina Schneider, Alexandra’s lectrice, who often acted as chaperone to OTMA

  VALENTINA CHEBOTAREVA: senior nurse at OT’s annexe hospital

  VIKTOR (VITYA) ZBOROVSKY: Anastasia’s favourite officer in the Tsar’s Escort

  VLADIMIR (VOLODYA) KIKNADZE: a favourite officer of Tatiana’s at the annexe hospital

  VOLKOV: Alexey Volkov, Alexandra’s valet

  XENIA: Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, the girls’ aunt, Nicholas’s sister

  ZINAIDA TOLSTAYA: family friend of OTMA; a correspondent in captivity

  Author’s Note

  Readers familiar with Russian history will know that any author taking on the pre-revolutionary period has to deal with the frustrations of two dating systems – the Julian calendar in use in Russia until February 1918 and the Gregorian calendar, then in use in most of the rest of the world, and which was adopted in Russia on 14 February 1918. For
the sake of clarity, all dates relating to events taking place in Russia prior to this date are given in the Julian (Old Style) form (which was 13 days behind the Gregorian system); all events taking place in Europe during that period and reported in the foreign press or letters written outside Russia are given in the Gregorian (New Style). In cases where confusion might occur both dates are given, or qualified as OS or NS.

  The transliteration of Russian words and proper names is a minefield of confusion, disagreement, and perceived error – depending on which transliteration system one favours. No single system has been set in stone as the correct one although authors are regularly belaboured for getting their transliteration supposedly wrong. Some systems are decidedly unattractive to the non Russian-speaking lay reader; many are unnecessarily pedantic. For this reason I have made the decision to drop the use of the Russian soft and hard signs, represented by the apostrophe, which in the main serve only to confuse and are a distraction to the eye. I have in the end gone with my own slightly modified version of the Oxford Slavonic Papers transliteration system, opting for example to represent the name Aleksandr as Alexander, in hopes of sparing the reader. I have also avoided using patronymics unless needed to differentiate one person of the same name from another.

  When I first began writing The Romanov Sisters I had to make a very clear decision about where my story was going to end, having already written about the Romanovs in my 2008 book Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs. In that book I undertook a close-up examination of the last fourteen days in the lives of the family at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg and charted in forensic detail the horrific circumstances of their murder and the disposal of their bodies. I shall not repeat that part of the story here. Judging when and where exactly to end my narrative has therefore been difficult and I take full responsibility for the decision I have made about when to stop. I hope that readers will find that the Epilogue ties up the most important loose ends.

  Finally, and most importantly, it is not my intention in the narrative that follows to give space to any of the numerous false claimants, a trail of whom, since Berlin in 1920, have variously attempted to persuade the world that they are one or other of the four sisters – somehow miraculously escaped from the bloodbath at the Ipatiev House. This book is not for anyone wanting to read more about the much mythologized Anna Anderson aka Franziska Szankowska, nor does it give the oxygen of publicity to the conspiracy theorists who continue to claim Anastasia’s survival – or that of any of her sisters – in the face of extensive and rigorous scientific analysis and DNA testing undertaken since the most recent discoveries in the Koptyaki Forest in 2007.