Olga Alexandrovna Romanova: unloved daughter and fictitious wife
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna and her self-portrait
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Romanova was the youngest daughter of Emperor Alexander III and sister of Emperor Nicholas II. However, she is known not only for her noble origin, but also for her active charity work and painting talent. She managed to avoid the terrible fate that befell her brother and his family - after the revolution, she remained alive and went abroad. However, life in exile was far from cloudless: for some time, paintings were her only means of subsistence.
On the left is Emperor Alexander III with his family. Right - Olga Alexandrovna with her brother |
Sister of Emperor Nicholas II Olga Alexandrovna
Olga Alexandrovna was born in 1882 and was the only purple-born child - that is, born at a time when her father was already a reigning monarch. Very early, Olga showed her talent as an artist. She recalled: "Even during the lessons of geography and arithmetic, I was allowed to sit with a pencil in my hand, because I listened better when I drew corn or wild flowers." Drawing in the royal family was taught to all children, but only Olga Alexandrovna began to paint professionally. Makovsky and Vinogradov became her teachers. The princess did not like the noisy life of the capital and secular entertainment, and instead of balls she preferred to spend time studying. 
V. Serov. Portrait of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, 1893
O. Kulikovskaya-Romanova. Self portrait, 1920
From an early age, Olga Romanova was also involved in charity work: vernissages were organized in the Gatchina Palace, where her works and paintings by young artists were presented, and the money received from their sale went to charity. During the First World War, she equipped a hospital at her own expense, where she went to work as a simple nurse. 
Grand Duchess in the hospital
Grand Duchess among the wounded
At the age of 18, at the behest of her mother, Olga Alexandrovna married the Prince of Oldenburg. The marriage was not happy, since the husband, as they said then, “was not interested in ladies,” and besides, he was a drunkard and a gambler: in the very first years after the wedding, he lost a million gold rubles in gambling houses. The Grand Duchess admitted: “We lived with him under the same roof for 15 years, but never became husband and wife, the Prince of Oldenburg and I have never been in a marital relationship.” 
Grand Duchess and her first husband Prince of Oldenburg
2 years after the wedding, Olga Alexandrovna met officer Nikolai Kulikovsky. It was love at first sight. She wanted to divorce her husband, but the family was against it, and the lovers had to wait for the opportunity to marry for 13 long years. Their wedding took place in 1916. At the same time, Olga Alexandrovna saw her brother, Emperor Nicholas II, for the last time. 
Grand Duchess with her husband and children
When in 1918 the English King George V sent a warship for his aunt (Empress Maria Fedorovna), the Kulikovskys refused to go with them and went to the Kuban, but two years later Olga Alexandrovna with her husband and sons still had to go to Denmark after mother. “I could not believe that I was leaving my homeland forever. I was sure that I would be back, - Olga Alexandrovna recalled. “I had the feeling that my flight was a cowardly act, although I came to this decision for the sake of my young children. And yet I was constantly tormented by shame. 
O. Kulikovskaya-Romanova. Pond
O. Kulikovskaya-Romanova. House surrounded by blooming lilacs
O. Kulikovskaya-Romanova. A room in Kuswil
In the 1920-1940s. the paintings became a serious help and livelihood for the emperor's sister. The eldest son of the Kulikovskys Tikhon recalled: “The Grand Duchess became the honorary chairman of a number of emigrant organizations, mainly charitable ones. At the same time, her artistic talent was appreciated and she began to exhibit her paintings not only in Denmark, but also in Paris, London, and Berlin. Much of the money raised went to charity. The icons painted by her did not go on sale - she only gave them. 
O. Kulikovskaya-Romanova. On the veranda
O. Kulikovskaya-Romanova. Cornflowers, daisies, poppies in a blue vase
O. Kulikovskaya-Romanova. Samovar
In exile, her house became a real center of the Danish Russian colony, where the compatriots of the Grand Duchess could turn for help, regardless of their political convictions. After the war, this caused a negative reaction from the USSR, the Danish authorities demanded the extradition of the Grand Duchess, accusing her of complicity with "enemies of the people." 
The Grand Duchess with her husband, Colonel Kulikovsky, and children
Therefore, in 1948, their family had to emigrate to Canada, where they spent their last years. There Olga Alexandrovna continued to paint, which she never left under any circumstances. Throughout her life, she painted over 2,000 paintings. 
On the left - O. Kulikovskaya-Romanova. Self-portrait. On the right is the artist at work.
Grand Duchess with her husband
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna died in 1960 at the age of 78, having outlived her husband by 2 years and her older sister by 7 months.
Oldenburg - German dukes and duchesses of the Holstein-Gottorp dynasty, direct heirs of the Russian imperial family.
By the 19th century in Western Europe, the dynasties of all the major states (with the exception of the Austrian Habsburgs, the German Hohenzollerns and the Italian Savoy dynasty) were foreign.
Dynasties of Germanic origin ruled in Great Britain, Belgium, Portugal, Bulgaria.
Representatives of the German Oldenburg dynasty owned the thrones in Denmark and Greece, in Norway and Sweden, as of 1761 and in Russia.
For the first time, the Oldenburg family became related to the house of the Romanovs during the time of Peter I, when his daughter Anna Petrovna married Duke Karl-Friedrich of Holstein, the native nephew of the Swedish king Charles XII on the line of his mother Sophia Hedviga. This dynastic marriage forever linked the former worst enemies of Peter I and Charles XII, the dynasty of the Russian Romanov tsars and one of the branches of the Oldenburg family - the dynasty of Holstein-Gottorp dukes and duchesses.
A son was born from the marriage - Karl Peter Ulrich (Peter III), who was simultaneously the heir to the Swedish and Russian thrones, who from early childhood was prepared to inherit the Swedish throne, without paying due attention to familiarity with the language and customs of Russia.
In 1761, the Holstein-Gottorps, in the person of Peter III, reigned in Russia and began to bear the surname of the Romanov dynasty of Russian tsars and marry exclusively German princesses. But a year later they lost the throne.
From 1762 to 1796, Russia was ruled by the wife of Peter III - Catherine II (Princess Sophia-Frederika-Augustina Tserbskaya), a representative of the Anhalt-Tserbskaya line of the ancient German Ascanian dynasty.
His Imperial Highness Prince of Oldenburg is the great-grandson of Emperor Paul I, a member of the State Council, an infantry general (adjutant general). On the day of his birth, he was enrolled as ensign of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, in which he began military service in 1864. He was awarded a golden weapon and the Order of St. George. The son of Prince Peter Georgievich of Oldenburg, a well-known public and statesman in Russia, the grandson of Prince Georgy Petrovich, who moved to Russia in connection with his marriage to the daughter of Paul I, Ekaterina Pavlovna. In 1868, he repeated the story of his grandfather, again becoming related to the Romanovs, marrying Grand Duchess Evgenia Maximilianovna, granddaughter of Nicholas I.
According to contemporaries, Alexander Petrovich was an active and energetic person. Busy with his military and state affairs, he spent most of his life in the capital and military campaigns, and Yevgenia managed the affairs of the vast Ramon estate. In this, his role was insignificant. With the name of A.P. Oldenburgsky connected the foundation of the Gagra climatic station, the activities of the scientific - medical society. During the first imperialist war, he was appointed Supreme Head of the sanitary and evacuation unit of the Russian army. His residence was located in a special railway train that traveled around the rear of the front.
He was a trustee of the St. Petersburg Imperial School of Law, an orphanage of Prince Peter Georgievich of Oldenburg. In 1890, he opened the Imperial Institute of Experimental Medicine (now the Institute named after I.P. Pavlov). Buried at Barritz on the Atlantic coast.
The Grand Duchess is the youngest "porphyrogenic" daughter of Emperor Alexander III, born of all 7 children during the reign of her father, the sister of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II. Since 1901, she has been married to Prince Peter of Oldenburg, the son of Princess Eugenia. After marriage, she lived in her Ramon estate "Olgino" (now the territory of the hospital). In 1902 -1908. improved the estate. She built a "palace" (now a maternity hospital), new houses, outbuildings.
In 1902, she bought in her name an estate in Starozhivotinnoye - (the former estate of the Olenins). She was the chief and honorary colonel of the 12th royal Akhtyrsky regiment, the warehouse of which was located in Ramon.
With the outbreak of war with Germany, Prince Peter's adjutant, captain Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky (1881-1959), was in the active army as part of the Akhtyrsky regiment. Olga; followed him, went to the front as a sister of mercy. She was awarded the St. George medal - one of the signs of the St. George Order.
In 1916, the marriage of Olga and Peter was annulled. In the same year, Olga married Kulikovsky, sold the Starozhivotinnovskoye estate and left Ramon.
The Kulikovsky couple ended up in the Crimea. In 1919 they emigrated to Denmark. In 1948 they moved to Canada. Their sons Tikhon (1917-1993) and Gury (1919-1984) became officers of the Danish Guard.
In 1958, Olga Aleksandrovna Oldenburgskaya was widowed, and on November 24, 1960, she died in Toronto.
Oldenburgsky Peter gay porn Alexandrovich (1868-1924)
Prince, son of Alexander and Eugenia of Oldenburg, since 1901 married to Olga Romanova. Major General of the Infantry "Prince of Oldenburg Regiment". He was assigned to the Ministry of Agriculture. The 30-year-old prince ycrpoil in Ramon "experimental field", later it acquired a scientific character thanks to the agronomist I.N. Klingen. In 1915 he was awarded the St. George weapon for participation in the First World War.
After the dissolution of his marriage with Olga in 1916, he became the owner of the Olgino estate. In 1917 he joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. At the end of 1917 he emigrated abroad to France. He died of transient consumption at the age of 56, was buried in Cannes in the dungeon of the Russian Church of Michael the Archangel.
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the only porphyry child of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna, was born on June 1, 1882 in Peterhof. The baby, baptized by Olga, was of delicate build. On the advice of her sister, the Princess of Wales, and guided by the example of her mother-in-law, the girl's mother decided to take an Englishwoman as a nanny. Elizabeth Franklin soon arrived from England, bringing with her a suitcase full of starched caps and aprons. "Nana, throughout my childhood, was my protector and adviser, and later a faithful friend. I can’t even imagine what I would do without her. It was she who helped me survive the chaos that reigned during the years of the revolution. She was an intelligent woman , brave, tactful; although she performed the duties of my nanny, both my brothers and sister experienced her influence. - recalled the Grand Duchess.
In the photo: Grand Duchess Olga in childhood
Educators and nannies followed the instructions of Alexander III: "I don't need porcelain. I need normal, healthy Russian children." In the early autumn of 1888, Olga left her dear Gatchina for the first time. The entire Imperial family was going to go to the Caucasus. She was due to return in October. On October 29, the long Tsar's train was in full swing towards Kharkov. There was a train wreck near Borki station. The princess was thrown out of the window. She saw the wagons collide, heard the screams and groans of the wounded, and rushed to run. She, a 6-year-old, ran wherever her eyes looked and shouted: "Now they will come and kill us all!" In the early spring of 1894, the Imperial family was in Gatchina. One afternoon the Emperor and his youngest daughter went for a walk in the forest. Olga ran ahead, hoping to find violets. Her father tried to overtake her, but after a few seconds the girl noticed that her father could barely keep up with her. Sensing something was wrong, Olga stopped. The emperor looked at his daughter with a faint smile.
“Baby, you won’t give away my secret, right? I feel tired, let's go home.
Both turned back towards the palace. She kept looking at her father. It had never happened before that he admitted that he was even a little tired. But today he looked exhausted. It seemed that the words uttered by the Sovereign had aged him. With difficulty holding back tears, the girl promised that everything would remain a secret. The emperor began to fade. In the autumn in Livadia, the Emperor slowly, painfully died. One of the last days, he asked the princess to bring him ice cream. Olga wanted to please her father, but ice cream was under the strictest ban, and she ran to ask permission from the nanny. "Of course, bring it," the nanny reasoned, "a little ice cream won't change anything." The death of the Emperor plunged the princess into hopeless despair and loneliness, but she tried to support the young Sovereign and His bride. Olga immediately fell in love with Princess Alix, resenting the unfair treatment of her relatives and always claimed that Sunny lit up the life of the Sovereign with sunlight.
In the photo: Grand Duchess Olga with her brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich
With Alexandra Fedorovna, Olga Alexandrovna was also brought together by a dislike for noisy amusements and social life. As soon as the ballroom season began, Olga was already looking forward to its end. The young aunt loved her nephews. I ran and played with the Grand Duchesses every day in the park. Since 1906, she took the girls to St. Petersburg every Sunday. At first, they dignified breakfast with their grandmother in Anichkov, then tea, games and dances awaited them in the palace of the Grand Duchess on Sergievskaya. The marriage of Tsarevna Olga Alexandrovna shook both capitals. She married at the end of July 1901 to Prince Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg. In the evening after the betrothal, she cried with her brother Mikhail Alexandrovich. The marriage was unhappy: "We lived with him under the same roof for 15 years, but never became husband and wife," Olga Alexandrovna admitted. This marriage was concluded for two reasons: obedience to the will of the mother and unwillingness to leave Russia.
In the photo: V.K. Olga with P.A. Oldenburg
In April 1903, the 22-year-old Grand Duchess met Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky, captain of the Life Guards Cuirassier Regiment. She asked her husband to give her a divorce, but he said that he would return to this conversation in 7 years. Olga and Nikolai waited 13 years.
Pictured: Grand Duchess Olga in 1914
Only in 1916 her marriage was declared invalid. In November 1916, she became Kulikovsky's wife. In the early days of the First World War, Olga Alexandrovna accompanied her sponsored Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment to the front. She blessed and escorted Captain Nikolai Kulikovsky to the front. And she herself left as a sister of mercy in the area of \u200b\u200bthe city of Proskurov. For personal courage, General Mannerheim awarded her the St. George medal. The Grand Duchess immediately put the medal in her pocket and agreed to wear it only after the requests and assurances of the officers that by rewarding the chief of the regiment, the entire regiment was also awarded. However, even among the sisters of mercy, the Bolshevik infection had already begun to spread. She of the sisters even tried to kill the Grand Duchess.
In the photo: Grand Duchess - sister of mercy
In 1915, Olga Alexandrovna visited Tsarskoye Selo for the last time, saw the Empress for the last time, and in November 1916 saw the Sovereign Emperor for the last time. After the October coup, all the Romanovs, except for the Kulikovsky family, were arrested. The authorities did not consider the wife of Colonel Kulikovsky a member of the Imperial House. “I would never have thought that it was so profitable to be mere mortals,” Olga Alexandrovna joked. In 1917, the son of Tikhon was born to the Kulikovsky couple.
The situation in the Crimea, where Olga and her family lived at that time, worsened. Not far from the estate of Ai-Todor was the mansion of the Guzhons, large Petrograd industrialists of French origin. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna and Colonel Kulikovsky were friends with them and often spent evenings at their villa. One night, a doctor from the Guzhonov family ran to Ai-Todor and said that a gang of Bolsheviks had attacked their villa, plundered the mansion, killed the owner, and beat his wife unconscious. It was a bloody prelude to a long and terrible drama. Soon the Black Sea Fleet was under the influence of the Bolsheviks, who fell into the hands of the two largest cities in the Crimea - Sevastopol and Yalta. The inhabitants of Ai-Todor learned about one massacre, then another. In the end, the Sevastopol Soviet forced the Provisional Government to issue him a warrant that would allow its representatives to enter Ai-Todor and investigate the "counter-revolutionary activities" of those living there. One day at four o'clock in the morning the Grand Duchess and her husband were awakened by two sailors who entered their room. Both were ordered not to make noise. The room was searched. Then one sailor left, and the other sat down on the sofa. Soon he got tired of guarding two harmless people and he told them that his superiors suspected that German spies were hiding in Ai-Todor. "And we're looking for firearms and a covert telegraph," he added. A few hours later, the two younger sons of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich crept into the room and said that Empress Maria Feodorovna was full of sailors in the room, and she was scolding them for nothing. “Knowing Mother’s character, I was frightened that the worst might not happen,” the Grand Duchess said, “and, not paying attention to our guard, I rushed into her room. Olga found her mother in bed, and her room in a terrible mess. All dresser drawers are empty. Clothes and underwear on the floor. Pieces of wood have been torn off from the wardrobe, the table, and the secretary. Curtains torn off. The carpet that covered the floor, on which things lay in disarray, was torn, bare boards were visible. The mattress and bed linen had been half-pulled off the bed, on which the miniature Empress Mother still lay. Anger flashed in her eyes. To the scolding with which Maria Fedorovna poured water on the pogromists, they did not pay the slightest attention. They continued with their dastardly work until a particularly vitriolic remark they heard from an elderly woman lying on the bed led them to hint that it would be easy for them to arrest the old hag. Only the intervention of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich saved the Dowager Empress. However, when leaving, the Bolsheviks took with them all the family photographs, letters and the family Bible, which Maria Feodorovna cherished so much.
Soon, disturbing rumors about the fate of the Royal Family, the Alapaevsk prisoners and Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich began to come at all. One February morning in 1920, Olga Alexandrovna, together with her family, finally boarded a merchant ship that was supposed to take her from Russia to a safer place. Although the ship was full of refugees, they, along with other passengers, occupied a cramped cabin. “I could not believe that I was leaving my homeland forever. I was sure that I would be back, - Olga Alexandrovna recalled. “I had the feeling that my flight was a cowardly act, although I came to this decision for the sake of my young children. And yet I was constantly tormented by shame. After emigration, Olga Alexandrovna with her husband and children began to live in Denmark. She was convinced that the entire Royal Family had died, but despite the persuasion of her mother and husband, she rushed to Berlin to see the impostor Anna Anderson. "I left Denmark with some hope. I left Berlin with no hope." - the Grand Duchess recalled this. She forced herself to come to terms with the terrible thought that the entire Family had perished. Anastasia Nikolaevna's small gifts were kept in her old box: a silver pencil on a thin chain, a tiny perfume bottle, a brooch for a hat. But the sister of the last Russian monarch, apparently, was not destined to peacefully meet the sunset of her life. The thunderstorms of 1939 swept over Europe, and by the end of 1940, the Nazis had captured all of Denmark. At first everything was relatively calm, but then King Christian X was interned for his stubborn unwillingness to cooperate with the invaders. The Danish army was disbanded, and the sons of Olga Alexandrovna spent several months in prison. - Then the base of the Luftwaffe was created in Ballerup. Having learned that I was the sister of the Russian Tsar, German officers came to pay their respects. I had no other choice, and I accepted them, - said Olga Alexandrovna.
To top it off, Stalin's troops approached almost the borders of Denmark. The Communists repeatedly demanded that the Danish authorities extradite the Grand Duchess, accusing her of helping her countrymen take refuge in the West, and the Danish government at that time could hardly have resisted the Kremlin's demands. The accusation was not completely unfounded, although in the eyes of other people there was no crime in the actions of the Grand Duchess. After the defeat of Hitler, many Russians who fought on his side came to Kundsminne, hoping to gain asylum. Olga Aleksandrovna could not render real help to all of them, although in a conversation with me she admitted that one of these people had been hiding in her attic for several weeks. But these emigrants had truly fallen out of the fire and into the frying pan, and those of them who arrived from the allied countries were aware that not every door in Europe would open before them. A threat hung over the life of the Grand Duchess and her loved ones. The demands of the Russians were more and more insistent. The atmosphere in Ballerup became more and more tense, and it became obvious that the days of Olga Alexandrovna's family in Denmark were numbered. It was not very easy for the Grand Duchess, who was sixty-six years old, to break away from her habitable place. After much thought and family meetings, they decided to emigrate to Canada. The Danish government understood that the Kulikovsky family should leave the country as soon as possible and discreetly. There was a real danger of the Grand Duchess being kidnapped.
In the photo: Grand Duchess Olga with S.N.A. Kulikovsky and sons Tikhon and Gury
At the age of 66, the Grand Duchess again radically changes her life, moves to Canada and settles on a farm near Toronto. Her neighbors called her "Olga", and a neighbor's child once asked if it was true that she was a princess, to which Olga Alexandrovna replied: "Well, of course, I'm not a princess. I'm the Russian Grand Duchess." Olga Alexandrovna invariably received letters from all over the world, and even from Russia. An old Cossack officer who had served 10 years in prison, whose next letter could end in a new term, continued to send them, because "all I have left in my life is to write to you."
The Grand Duchess was not afraid of hard work, but she invariably lost in battles with the kitchen - she prepared the most uncomplicated dishes. Fortunately, neither she nor her husband were gluttons. In exile, the Grand Duchess had a new hobby - painting. She painted beautifully while still living in Russia, but her best works were created outside of Russia. However, painting in the life of Olga Alexandrovna is a separate issue. In 1958, Nikolai Alexandrovich fell seriously ill and died. Olga Alexandrovna survived him by only 2 years. She passed away on November 24, 1960. On guard at the coffin were officers of Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Akhtyrka Regiment, of which she became chief back in 1901. Olga Alexandrovna often heard the banal accusation that the Romanovs were Russians only by name, to which she invariably answered: “How much English blood flows in the veins of George VI? It’s not about blood. It’s about the soil on which you grew up, faith in which you were brought up, in the language you speak."
In the summer of 2017, the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in the city of Montreal, of which I am a parishioner, celebrated its 110th anniversary. Being in his book depository, I accidentally came across one album of photographs from the times of the Russian Empire, and in it - one portrait photograph, which attracted my attention. The sister of the last Russian tsar, the passion-bearer Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, was looking at me from her. Yes, it was a photo of Olga Alexandrovna Romanova, the Grand Duchess.
I became curious, and I began to carefully leaf through the archive. And I found in it a record that Olga Alexandrovna also visited our cathedral, and lived just a few hours drive from Montreal in her last years.
Being interested in the history of the royal family for a long time, I decided to find everything that Russian Canada keeps about the life of the Grand Duchess and tell my reader about it. Perhaps something written here will already be known, and something, perhaps, will be news to readers. In any case, today is my story about Olga Alexandrovna - from birth to the feast.
So, let's begin. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Romanova was born in St. Petersburg on June 14, 1882. She was the youngest daughter of Emperor Alexander III and his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna, born a Danish princess. 101 volleys from the bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress sounded in her honor, on her birthday. In addition, as time will tell and as she will later say about herself, she was the last porphyritic, or, as they also said, purple-born member of the dynasty. The term applied only to sons and daughters born to a reigning monarch. Of all the children of Alexander III, only the youngest daughter Olga was porphyrogenic, since all her older brothers and sisters were born before their father became the sovereign of Russia. All the children of her brother Nicholas II were porphyry-born, since they were born after their father's accession to the throne. But we know the ending of their tragic destinies.
But back to Olga. Like all children of the reigning dynasty, her childhood was filled with luxury, wealth, happiness and carelessness. From an early age, her relatives noticed her penchant for painting, and the best professors of this art were immediately hired for her to teach her craft. I must say that later this skill helped her and her family a lot, since her watercolors, which were in demand, sold well, and the proceeds helped to feed Olga Alexandrovna's family.
Little Olga was very fond of horses. And they appear in large numbers in her first paintings. She associated everything with drawing, even mathematics.
An English governess was hired to raise the girl. It was this woman who became a friend, adviser, assistant, inspirer and comforter for the Grand Duchess.
Olga was closest to her sister Xenia, who was a little older than her. The girls played together, dressed up, rode horses and studied science. By the will of fate, both sisters will leave this world in the same year with a difference of only a few weeks.
The end of the century before last was not easy for the Romanov family. The threat of terrorism haunted the royal family. Therefore, children were kept away from the palace. Girls - Xenia and Olga - were brought up outside the city, in the Gatchina Palace. It was called a palace very conditionally, because the girls, accustomed to effeminacy and abundance, had to sleep almost on camping hard beds, and eat oatmeal on the water. But in such a difficult time for the family, it was impossible to choose the conditions. And the girls meekly accepted the living conditions offered to them.
And the fact that these are not empty fears, Olga realized very soon. The family went on vacation to the Caucasus. On the way back, their train derailed. The compartment in which the family was traveling was destroyed, and the collapsing roof almost fell on the sitting frightened children. The tsar-bogatyr, thanks to his gigantic physique, managed to keep the crumbling roof. For this, he subsequently paid with his health - the overload was reflected in the sovereign's kidneys, which gradually began to fail.
When Olga was 12 years old, her father died. Being very close to him, often talking a lot with her father on various topics, she deeply experienced the loss.
With the beginning of the last century, the question arose about the marriage of Olga, who by that time had already turned 18 years old. But the mother, who loved her youngest daughter with some special love, never wanted her to go abroad. They found her a prince in Russia. He was a distant relative of the Romanovs, a Russified German prince. At that time he was 32 years old. The wedding was played. But she did not bring happiness. The prince was not only an avid gambler who often lost large sums of money, but also a gay man. In other words, he had absolutely no interest in women.
The princess was helped to overcome loneliness by painting and little nieces, daughters of Nicholas II, to whom Olga Alexandrovna gave all her unspent love to the full.
And in 1903, love knocked on her heart. At the parade in the Pavlovsk Palace, the Grand Duchess saw the captain of the Life Guards Nikolai Kulikovsky. Olga's feelings turned out to be mutual, and young people began to fight for their happiness.
She could not get a divorce for a very long time. But finally, the sovereign took pity on his sister, and at the end of 1916, Olga, then working as a nurse in the hospital, finally received a letter from her brother about the dissolution of her marriage.
Later, she will remember this moment and say that at that moment she will say the phrase:
“In fifteen years of marriage, I have never been in a marital relationship with my lawful husband ...”
The same letter contained a royal blessing for the wedding of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna and Colonel Kulikovsky.
But 1917 was approaching, the terrible year of the Red Terror, the year that decided the fate of the Russian Empire. The year that signed the verdict of the entire royal dynasty.
Olga Alexandrovna in August of this year gave birth to a son, who was named Tikhon. The happiness of the young family was overshadowed by the terrible news of the death of the family of the sovereign's brother in 1918. And the Kulikovskys began to seriously think about leaving Russia, which was unsafe for them. A year and a half later, their second son, Gury, is born.
Shortly after the birth of their second son, Olga's family, bypassing Constantinople, Belgrade and Vienna, lands in Denmark.
Very often, Olga Alexandrovna was visited by moments of repentance for her cowardice, for her fear, for her flight ... But the life of children, so beloved, long-awaited and desired, was above all.
At first they lived in the royal palace of Amalienborg in Copenhagen, together with the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and the Danish King Christian X, who was her nephew. Then they moved to a house bought for the Empress, which was called Vidor Castle, on the outskirts of Copenhagen. After the death of Maria Feodorovna here in 1928, Olga Alexandrovna did not want to stay there. They moved first to a small farmhouse where they stayed for about 2 years. And when all the formalities with the inheritance of Maria Feodorovna were resolved and Olga Alexandrovna received her share, for the first time in her life she bought her own house in Knudsminde in Bollerul. In those days, it was just a small village 24 kilometers from Copenhagen, but gradually Copenhagen expanded, and now this place, Bollerul, is already a suburb of Copenhagen, practically part of the city. While they lived there, Tikhon and Gury grew up, went to an ordinary Danish school. But in addition to this, they also went to a Russian school.
The days of everyday, nothing like and unremarkable life flowed by. But the thunder in this family struck again. Many years later, after World War II. The Grand Duchess was accused of helping Russian prisoners of war and declared an enemy of the Soviet people.
Denmark did not want to extradite Olga to the Soviet Union, but at the same time did not want to spoil diplomatic relations with him. Therefore, using their connections, the Danish royal family sent the Kulikovsky family to Canada.
So, at the age of 66, the Grand Duchess starts a new life again. Together with her family, she bought a 200-acre plot of land in the province of Ontario, as well as a small farm: cows and horses - Olga's childhood love.
Neighbors called her simply Olga. And when one day a neighbor's child asked her if it was true that she was a princess, Olga Alexandrovna answered:
"No. I am not a princess. I am a Russian Grand Duchess"
Every Sunday, the Kulikovsky family visited the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Toronto. Periodically leaving the city, Olga Alexandrovna visited other churches in different cities of Canada. Including she repeatedly visited our St. Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Living rather poorly, Olga Alexandrovna still sought out funds to help her cathedral, painted icons for the iconostasis. A portrait of the Grand Duchess now hangs in the museum of the cathedral. Those few very elderly parishioners who were lucky enough to be acquainted with her remember Olga Alexandrovna with great warmth and tenderness. Sunday church school is now named after her.
The aged spouses no longer had the strength to work on the farm, and they decided to sell it. And having sold, they moved to the suburbs of Toronto, where Olga Alexandrovna showed her talent as an artist to the fullest. She wrote about two thousand works. Many exhibitions of her work have been organized.
The works by Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna are now in the gallery of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, in the collection of the Duke of Edinburgh, King Harald of Norway, in the Ballerup Museum, which is located in Denmark, as well as in private collections in the USA, Canada and Europe. Her paintings can also be seen in the residence of the Russian ambassador in Washington and in the New Tretyakov Gallery.
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna ended her earthly journey in eastern Toronto, in a family of Russian emigrants, surrounded by former compatriots and a huge number of icons.
In 1958, she buried her husband, who was seriously ill and did not recover from his illness. And two years later, on the night of November 24-25, 1960, she herself departed to the Lord. The princess was buried at the North York Russian cemetery in Toronto next to her husband Nikolai Kulikovsky.
The eldest son Tikhon wrote a few days later in a letter to an old acquaintance of the family that in the last days his mother suffered greatly, there was an internal hemorrhage. She has been unconscious for the last two days. But before that, God vouchsafed the Grand Duchess to partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.
In a remote part of the North York cemetery, you can see graves with inscriptions in Russian. You will definitely see a massive stone cross with an Orthodox icon. This is the grave of Olga Alexandrovna Romanova, Nikolai Alexandrovich and Tikhon Nikolaevich Kulikovsky. Here they found their last refuge. The letters EIV under the cross mean: Her Imperial Highness.
The life of the Grand Duchess was full of humiliations, falls and catastrophes. But only the art of painting, the love for which she carried through her whole life, and faith in God, which deeply and firmly settled in her mind from childhood to the last days, saved her, did not let her break, helped her survive, no matter what!
Eternal memory to you, Your Imperial Highness, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna! And forgive all of us, whose ancestors, not knowing what they were doing, brought so much grief and blood to your family!
Pray for us before the Almighty! We need forgiveness...
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Grand Duchess Romanova Olga Alexandrovna (1882 - 1960)
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Romanova went down in history not only as the last daughter of the Sovereign Emperor Alexander III, but also as an ascetic of mercy, and as a talented artist.
Flower watercolor and the hard fate of the Grand Duchess
All I have to do is cry and I might never stop. That's why I prefer to laugh.
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna
The Grand Duchess was ugly, she knew about it and did not even try to hide her unattractiveness. She cared little. The girl preferred to mess around with dogs and horses, spending many hours secretly from her mother in the stables.
The royal children were often given animals, sometimes very exotic ones - cubs, wolf cubs, elks, lynxes. The august father gave the little princess Olga a white crow, whom she loved very much.
The little princess began to get involved in newfangled photography: she developed and printed pictures herself. But the main thing for her was painting. As soon as the opportunity arose, she made sketches and sketches.
To form the artistic talent that manifested itself in young Olga, the leading teachers of the Academy of Arts, including Makovsky, Zhukovsky and Vinogradov, were involved.
A distant relative, fourteen years older than her, Prince of Oldenburg, was chosen as the suitor of 19-year-old Olga Alexandrovna. The first wedding night in 1901, the prince spent not on the marital bed, but at the gambling table with fellow officers.
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna and her first husband, Prince Peter of Oldenburg
The marriage was unhappy ... It was concluded for two reasons: obedience to the will of the mother and unwillingness to leave Russia. Such was her family life, and therefore she gave all her unspent love to her nieces, daughters of Nicholas II.
Art helped fight loneliness. Olga Alexandrovna began to draw avidly. She took an easel, two of her favorite dogs and went on long walks around St. Petersburg. During this period of her life, she painted a lot, her paintings are whimsical and bright.
In April 1903, brother Mikhail took 22-year-old Olga with him to a military parade. Olga returned from the parade... a happy and in love woman. And this love lasted a lifetime. A chance meeting at the parade with Nikolai Kulikovsky, colonel of the guards cuirassiers, brought her happiness.
She asked her husband to give her a divorce, but he said that he would return to this conversation in 7 years. Olga and Nikolai waited 13 years... Only in 1916 her marriage was declared invalid. In November 1916, she became Kulikovsky's wife. They had 2 sons Tikhon and Gury.
In 1920, Olga Alexandrovna immigrated to Denmark with her family, and then the bitter bread of exile far from her homeland, her own farm in Denmark, started from scratch, the Second World War and the capture of the sons of Tikhon and Guria by German invaders, the end of the war and then the persecution of the KGB , an almost impossible escape... emigrating to Canada.
So in 1948, at the age of 66, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna found her last refuge in Toronto. And all this time they painted pictures. They are surprisingly airy, light, and you can’t tell from them that the one who wrote them suffers.
But such is art - it can often hide the true state of a person's soul.
Olga Alexandrovna often heard the banal accusation that the Romanovs were Russians only by name, to which she invariably answered: “How much English blood flows in the veins of George VI? It's not about the blood. It's about the soil on which you grew up, the faith in which you were brought up, the language you speak. "