Hello my friends, I want to say sorry for being absent for over a year with posting anything Romanov. Throughout the year of me being absent, I’ve found my “Nicholas”/ “Nicky” haha. I met him April 13th 2021 and now we’re already engaged and planning our destination wedding! I’ve been so busy/distracted but it’s been the absolute best year but I’m going to try my hardest to keep posting pictures again. You guys are the greatest. Have a wonderful day. “My thoughts do not leave you for an instant and I can imagine with what feelings you approach Moscow. My heart aches for you and I know how your night will be - could I have flown over to clasp you in my arms and to shower kisses upon you and to tell you of my great love and how it daily grows and grows, filling up my whole life.” - Empress Alexandra Feodorovna to Tsar Nicholas II
Alexandra Feodorovna brought substantial changes to Nicholas´ life - she had troubles with her legs and was unable to ride or to play tennis and badminton; walks were a torment to her and she often took to carriage even for short distances. She spent much time sitting at home and now and then, especially during her pregnancies, the doctors advised her to restrict her movements. Nevertheless Nicholas accepted all this without a murmur and, moreover, had no feeling of it being an imposition on himself. He could push his wife for hours in a bath chair around the garden or park.
She was, in contrast to all the others whose efect on Nicholas may have been strong but did not last, the only person whose influence remained constant throughout practically all his reign. … Instruction …from her, becoming more cathegorical with time, would accompany Nicholas all the rest of his life. “As early as the late 90s,” Koni wrote, “I heard talk from Ye. A. Naryshkina about her various faits et gestes aimed at inculcating the idea in her husband that as autocrat he had the right to do everything, unhindered by anything or anybody.” That this was indeed the case is easily confirmed from the correspondence of the imperial couple in later years too.
“Thank God, our Emperor is an autocrat and should remain so, as you are doing - only show more force and decisiveness,” Alexandra Feodorovna wrote to Nicholas on 7th September 1915. “You are master and sovereign of Russia, Almoghty God set you in place, and they should all bow down before your wisdom and steadfastness,” she repeated in a letter two days later. “Be Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Emperor Paul - crush them all,” she demanded of her royal husbandon 14th December 1916. … “Above all exercise you will, my dear.”
Strongly interested in education in general and especially that of her children, Grand Duchess Alice explained her principles in her letters to her mother, Queen Victoria :
‘ It is a fault of the parents to educate daughters just to be married. It shall be my effort to educate my daughters in such a way not to see marriage as the only purpose of their future; life is also meaningful without being married. Marriage just for the sake of being married is one of the greatest mistakes a woman can make. ’ April 15, 1871
{ Her four daughters will have a marriage made of love and active lives in social work }
In the early hours of 17th July 1918, the entire Imperial Family along with their servants, were brutally murdered in the cellar of the Ipatiev House.
Around midnight, Yakov Yurovsky ordered the family physician, Eugene Botkin, to awaken the family and ask them to put on their clothes, under the pretext that the family would be moved to a safe location due to impending chaos in Ekaterinburg. They were led in the semi-darkness steep, narrow stairs to the ground floor. Instinctively the Romanovs followed the order of precedence instilled in them, the Tsar in front but refusing assistance as he struggled with the burden of Alexei, who winced with pain from his bandaged leg; then Alexandra leaning heavily on Olga’s arm, followed by Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. As they made their way to the stairs, the family paused and devoutly crossed themselves at the stuffed mother bear and her cubs that stood on the landing — a sign of respect for the dead, thinking as they did that they were going to be leaving the house.
Following the family came Dr Botkin, Alexei Trupp (Tsar’s footman), Anna Demidova (Tsarina’s maid), and Ivan Kharitonov (the family’s cook). They all exited the house, re-entering by another, adjacent door leading down into the basement. Nicholas asked if Yurovsky could bring two chairs, on which Tsarevich Alexei and Alexandra sat. Yurovsky’s assistant Grigory Nikulin remarked to him that the “heir wanted to die in a chair. Very well then, let him have one.”
The prisoners were told to wait in the cellar room while the truck that would transport them was being brought to the House. A few minutes later, an execution squad of secret police was brought in and Yurovsky read aloud the order given to him by the Ural Executive Committee:
“Nikolai Alexandrovich, in view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you.”
Nicholas, facing his family, turned and said “What? What?” Yurovsky quickly repeated the order and the weapons were raised.
