#young nicky
The Tsarevich
Putting together everything that I have read about Nicholas II as a young man, he emerges as…a relatively ordinary one, although he was not ordinary at all. In his childhood and early teenage years he was very shy (something not totally uncommon among boys that age); he evidently had outgrown the condition by the time he joined his Preobrajensky regiment. Nicholas would always remember the time with his regiment fondly. He caroused and drank like the best of them. His cousin Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich was his companion on many an escapade - Tsar Alexander III would complain when they went out together and stayed out overnight.
The Tsarevich loved to dance and apparently did so extremely well (I am sure his mother would not have had it otherwise). He is known to have attended many a ball and to have spent hours dancing. After he married, he would not dance with anybody other than his wife or with the wives of diplomats, etc., when protocol required it.
He enjoyed the opera and (of course) the ballet and attended frequently…sometimes every night. Once Mathilde came into the picture, he would also attend rehearsals and chat with her during brakes. During his time with Mathilde, he practically set up house with her, and although many of their nights were spent quietly, as he would tell Alix, there were also lively parties attended by some of the grand dukes (Sandro, Sergei, even Vladimir Alexandrovich, and possibly others.) And there were those nights, referenced here and there, when the boys would go out on their own, to listen to the Gypsies sing and watch them dance…
It seems that Nicholas took his marriage vows very seriously. And he married Alix and his country almost simultaneously. Tsar Nicholas drank very little, went to the ballet or the opera less than he should have and always with his wife or children or both, and only danced with his wife and counted others. The Gypsies were forgotten, and he had no Mistresses. Russia and Empress Alexandra were more than enough for him.
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