Imperial Russia

Once upon a time there was a vast Empire stretching from the beaches of the Crimea to the deep Siberian forests. Its capital never knew the darkness of the night in summer, its countryside flourished with myths and folk legends.... It was a country of great men and of small, a land where beauty and suffering lived side by side. A world swept away, imprisoned forever in books and pictures.

[diemelusine]

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1913) by Bernhard Österman. Sörmland Museum.

[immortalotma]

Baby Grand Duchess Olga’s weight chart

The weight chart (in grams) of baby Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna. Written in English, presumably by Tsarina Alexandra.

[elsalouisa]

"In this terrible year 1918, my parents had a hard time surviving the murder of the Imperial family. On the night of July 17th to 18th (note: the author got the date wrong by 1 day) the whole family was tortured in the basement of the Ipatievsky house in Yekaterinburg. It was the first time in my life that I saw my mother crying.: "The unfortunate ones," she said, "the unfortunate ones…" At that time she still did not know the details of the brutal murder. She recalled that she had sometimes seen these now-tormented children in St. Petersburg, smiling at passers-by, simple and friendly. It seemed that Russia's past had been destroyed! That Russia no longer existed. Even as a young child, I understood that "everything had been lost" around me."

Anastasia Manstein-Shirinskaya

[imperial-russia]

Unfortunately, available only in Russian (so far), here is a 5-part series ‘The Romanovs. The Final Word‘, documentary.

In 1964, members of the firing squad Grigory Petrovich Nikulin (1894-1965) and Isai Radzinsky, on the orders of Nikita Khrushchev, recorded their memories of the execution of the Imperial Family in July 1918. These audio recordings were subsequently ordered sealed and stamped “SECRET” and placed in the archives. These important historical recordings are now made public for the first time in the documentary series ‘The Romanovs. The Last Word.’

For the first time, this documentary series reconstructs in detail one of one of the most notorious crimes in 20th century Russian history – the murders of Emperor Nicholas II and his family – based on the memories of the killers. as well as the circumstances of hiding the bodies by a team of executioners. The project was narrated by Sergey Minaev.

(from Paul Gilbert´s website)

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Princess Irina Youssoupoff

[kootyl]

Tsar Nicholas II looking through a telescope.

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Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, Zvenigorod, Moscow Region, February 23, 2026

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Queen Olga Constantinovna of Greece (1851 - 1926)

[historicalroyalresearcher]

from George V’s diary

‘Young Prince George of Wales is said to be covered with tattooings of mermaids and dolphins’ and George wrote underneath this cut out from a newspaper: ‘How the devil do they know?’

[ohsoromanov]

In 1881, a 16-year-old Prince George and his older brother, Prince Albert Victor, visited Japan as naval cadets aboard the HMS Bacchante. Despite the Meiji government having officially banned tattooing for its own citizens, foreign dignitaries were permitted to meet local master craftsmen. During the trip, George got not one but two tattoos:

The Dragon: Prince George met with a master tattooist (believed to be Karakusa Gonta) in Tokyo. In his personal diaries, George described the ink as a "large dragon in blue and red writhing all down the arm," a process that took roughly three hours. 

The Tiger: Later in the same trip, George visited Kyoto and received a tiger on his opposite arm to complete a symbolic representation of the East and the West. His brother Albert Victor chose a dancing crane instead.

King George V's first cousin and lookalike, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, also had a large traditional Japanese dragon tattooed on his forearm. Nicholas received his during a state visit to Japan in 1891, a meticulous design with yellow horns and a red belly that required seven hours of work.

Nicholas described the experience in his diary:

April 16, Tuesday. I awoke to a wonderful day, and the shore was irresistibly inviting. The streets and houses of Nagasaki make an exceptionally pleasant impression: everything is spotlessly clean and tidy, and it is a pleasure to enter their homes. The Japanese people, both men and women, are so warm and welcoming. We returned to the frigate around five o'clock for tea. After dinner, I decided to have a dragon tattooed on my right arm. It took exactly seven hours—from 9 p.m. until 4 a.m. Once is quite enough of that sort of pleasure to cure one of any desire to repeat it! The dragon turned out splendidly, and my arm did not hurt at all.

Dragons were a popular subject among Japanese ink-painters and tattooists. Said to control thunder and rain, they were also a powerful symbol of the East, and often paired with a prowling tiger representing the West.

The matching nature of their tattoos became a famous anecdote highlighting the close cultural and familial ties between the British and Russian royal families before World War I. Read more here.

[imperial-russia]

And during the [Vienna] Congress Elizabeth ... saw Adam Czartoryski again; ... and they fell in love with each other again. In the GARF archives lies Elizabeth´s draft of a moving letter (dated February 13, 1815) that tells us much about the empress´s feelings for him. She complains of the destiny that forces her "to sacrifice to the legal order the true happiness of her life, in separating her from the being who[m] she had been accustomed during the fourteen best years of her existence to regard as another self." On March 8, when Elizabeth was to leave Vienna the same day, Czartoryski begged her to divorce Alexander and marry him; out of loyalty he informed Alexander of his request for marriage. But Alexander was hostile to the plan, less out of attachment to Elizabeth than for reasons of state: while difficult negotiations were opening in Vienna about the future of Poland, the divorce and remarriage of the empress of Russia with a Polish prince known for his commitment to reestablishing the Polish state, would not be accepted by Russian public opinion and would risk compromising the current Russo-Polish rapprochement. This argument ultimately convinced the dutiful Elizabeth to renounce her own happiness, and in November 1815 she went back to St. Petersburg for good. After having traversed a deep crisis and envisaging retiring to a convent or even ending her life, she decided by the end of 1815 or the beginning of 1816 to remain in Russia, "to suffer in silence," and to "submit herself entirely to the will of Providence."

Alexander I: The Tsar Who Defeated Napoleon by Marie-Pierre Rey

[adini-nikolaevna]

Detail from a group portrait of the Oldenburg children by Hau.

[ohsoromanov]

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, 1898. Shared by Ilya.

[leifgrandeduchesse]

My cousin [Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich], who was then a young man of twenty-two, was a very keen soldier and a real sportsman; his jovial nature endeared him to all. [...] Misha hated oysters more than anything. One day for lunch Emperor Nicholas's chef prepared what he imagined to be a particularly savoury dish, consisting of boiled oysters covered with jelly. It looked "murderous". Misha was nearly sick when he looked at them. The Emperor asked him if he would eat three of these oysters for a wager. His brother hesitated; but the Emperor repeated his challenge, adding, "You can ask for whatever you like." Misha closed his eyes, and with disgust written all over his face, gulped down three oysters, one by one. After he had successfully performed the operation, and recovered, he declared that he wished to have a motor-boat as a reward for his feat. The Emperor, of course, kept his promise.

My Fifty Years by Prince Nicholas of Greece

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Alexei at window with Olga and Tatiana.

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Alexei in Livadia; 1914.

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Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich of Russia, 1889

(source: www.coutaubegarie.com)

[lookingbackatfashionhistory]

• Headdress.

Date: early 19th century

Culture: Russian

Medium: Silk, pearls, metal, cotton, paper.