Romanov Secrets

Some of the Romanov family palaces in St. Petersburg are instantly recognizable and widely known. Some, however, are hidden behind nondescript architecture, their former glory fallen away. Yet all the Romanov palaces (there were, after all, a lot of Romanovs – and they all needed somewhere to live) housed secrets and scandals, of the sort expected in any family with such immense power and possessions. Many of the Romanov family’s secrets will never be known. But behind these palace walls, one can catch a sordid glimpse into the private affairs of the illustrious dynasty.

Winter Palace, Palace Square

The Woman Who Refused a Grand Duke

“Decency doesn’t allow the retelling of what those fiends, starting with the Grand Duke, did with her! Even when Arauzha was deprived of life from the violence done to her by twenty or more people, the fiends – Shulgin and Chicherin, precisely – continued their acts! The lifeless body of Arauzha, with broken joints in her hands and feet, was taken to her mother’s house and cast into the bedroom hall.”

So wrote Alexander Mikhailovich Turgenev, an official known for his colorful, if often inaccurate, memoirs of the nineteenth century Romanovs.

The Winter Palace – today St. Petersburg’s main tourist destination, known to house countless beautiful wonders – is also home to the lurking spirits of a darker history.

It was 1820, and Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich (1779-1831), libertine in the worst sense and unused to rejection, was attempting to woo Arauzha, a young widow with two daughters. The beauty, however, refused to be swayed. Under the pretense that Konstantin Bauer – Prince Konstantin’s adjutant and a close friend of Arauzha’s family – was ill, the prince allegedly sent a coach to fetch her. When she got to the Winter Palace, she didn’t find a sick Bauer, but a group of drunken officers, including Konstantin, waiting to receive her.

Her death was officially chalked up to an epileptic episode, during which she’d broken her hands and feet.

Another, perhaps more truthful, version of the story goes that Arauzha was not, in fact, widowed, but had both a husband, a French merchant, and a lover at the time – so had no time for Konstantin. Every Thursday the same coach came to her house, allegedly to take her to enjoy the company of a female friend. In reality it took her to her lover’s house. Konstantin got wind of this and this and sent his aide-de-camp, Bauer, in the usual coach – but it took her not to her lover’s house, but to the Winter Palace, where the misdeed took place.

Despite the blood on his hands following the incident, and long untreated syphilis, Konstantin (whose abortive 25-day reign as tsar in 1825 spurred the Decembrist revolt) was said to continue his orgies with little abatement.

Marble Palace – Millionaya ul. 5/1

The Case of the Stolen Diamonds

“Not a hint of repentance, not a hint of recognition, except when denial became impossible, and even then it had to be dragged out of him. We invoked everything that he still holds sacred so that he might ease his fate through penitence and confession! Nothing helped!”

These words were written in the journal of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich’s father (Grand Prince Konstantin Nikolayevich, younger brother of Alexander II) in April of 1874. His son had just gotten himself into a spot of trouble from which he wouldn’t soon recover.

Nikolai was a womanizer and a big spender. He’d taken up with an American dancer, Fanny Lear, and the expenses soon ran far beyond the sum at his disposal. What to do?

Nikolai snuck into the Marble Palace and stole three diamonds from the Romanov family icons. He hocked the jewels for a pretty penny; they were later found in a St. Petersburg pawnshop.

After Nikolai’s long and difficult interrogation (it is not clear why the police were brought in, rather than just sorting things out “within the family”), Emperor Alexander II declared his nephew insane and exiled him from the capital.

Nikolai Konstantinovich’s banishment eventually landed him in Tashkent, after a disgraceful marriage to the Cossack daughter of the Orenburg police chief. He died there in 1918.

Ulitsa Glinki 13

An Unsavory Union

“My dear Mama. This week a drama occurred in the family concerning Kirill’s unfortunate marriage...”

So wrote Emperor Nicholas II (his cousin) in a letter to his mother in October of 1905. He went on to describe how he had warned Kirill Vladimirovoch that, if he went forth with this ill-advised marriage, he would be stripped of his title of Duke, removed from service in the Marine Corps, deprived of money, and banished from Russia.

From a young age, Kirill had had an interest in ships. After passing his naval exams, he became a sergeant, then a lieutenant, and then a captain during the Russian-Japanese War in 1904. He left the palace on Glinka street in St. Petersburg – today a kindergarten – to serve as a captain on the Petropavlovsk. Only a few months later, the ship hit a mine. Kirill was one of 80 out of 711 to survive, pulled from the freezing water after 40 minutes. Badly burnt, his back injured, he was deeply traumatized by the experience.

The family drama began before that, however, when he was on a visit to his aunt Maria Alexandrovna in Darmstadt, Germany. There, a certain lady caught his eye. The lady happened to be his first cousin, Victoria, granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

Despite stern warnings, the two married in 1905 and Kirill was banished from Russia. Two years later, the couple had a daughter, Mary. By that time, Nicholas II, maybe softening in his old age, came around, and the daughter was declared noble. A year later, Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich died, which made Kirill third in line to the throne. The kissing cousins were then allowed to return to Russia. They stayed at Tsarskoye Selo, and Kirill was even given an officer’s post as captain of the Oleg.

After the revolution, Kirill and family fled to France, where they lived out their days, and where Kirill became seen by many as the main claimant to the Romanov throne. He died in 1938. RL