Everyone loves “then and now” photographs. Here is another digital “keepsake” album dedicated to the places associated with the Romanov family.
Read more ROMANOV FAMILY PLACES: THEN AND NOW KEEPSAKE ALBUM
I just love looking at “then and now” photographs of places that have survived the years intact, and almost unchanged and compare what they looked like… And I know many of you do too, so here you go! Read more ROMANOV FAMILY PLACES: THEN AND NOW
The City of Odessa, in southern Ukraine, located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea, was founded by a decree of the Empress Catherine the Great in 1794. From 1819 to 1858 Odessa was a free warm water port, a southern “window to the west”. During the 19th century it was the fourth largest city in imperial Russia, after Moscow, St Petersburg and Warsaw.
Odessa was initially introduced to the west via “Battleship Potemkin” – the 1924 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein – where the famous “Odessa Steps” were immortalized in the baby carriage scene.
In early June of 1914, a few weeks before the breakout of the First World War, the Romanov family visited Odessa. Read more ROMANOV FAMILY IN ODESSA
A skerry is a small rocky island, usually too small for habitation, or simply a rocky reef. Each summer the Romanov family boarded the imperial yacht and spent a holiday in Finland, where skerries are prevalent. Grand Duchess Tatiana loved the skerries, she even fondly wrote about her beloved skerries in letters from captivity.
From the letters of Tatiana Romanov: Read more TATIANA ROMANOV: “BELOVED TIME” IN THE SKERRIES
From the 1913 diary of Tatiana Romanov: Read more DIARY OF TATIANA ROMANOV: RUINS OF OREANDA, CRIMEA.
I was doing some major cleaning and came across this. Two small stones I “smuggled” from Russia back in 2004. Don’t worry, I picked these stones off the ground: they actually fell off from Georgievsky Cathedral at Russia’s oldest monastery – Yuriev Monastery (or Yurievsky Monastery) just outside of Novgorod (founded in 1119). Unfortunately this historic building is in much disrepair, at least it was in 2004 when I was there, which is why loose stones were constantly falling off it. The Romanov family made a pilgrimage there in December of 1916, shortly before the Russian revolution broke out. Grand Duchess Olga Romanov wrote about this experience in her diary. For some reason that day’s entry is missing from the 1916 diary of Tsar Nicholas II.
From the 1916 diary of Olga Romanov: Read more DIARY OF OLGA ROMANOV: YURIEVSKY MONASTERY, NOVGOROD
