We pray together. Empress Maria Alexandrovna in the memoirs of the chamber-jungfer A.I.

not-experienced 14-year-old de-vush-ka-l-l-l-l-ka-ko, pre-la-gai, that the prince is-ku-shen-ny nab-lu-da-em behind her in ENT, no.
And the is-ku-shen-no-mu prince was 21 years old.

She was very tall and so thin and fragile that it was breathtaking
and she was unusually graceful, like the Madonna of Albrecht Durer ..
Her features weren't right. But her wonderful hair, her delicate complexion, her big blue, slightly bulging eyes, looked meek and soulful, were beautiful. The mouth was thin, with compressed lips, which indicated restraint, and the barely perceptible ironic smile made a strange contrast to the expression in her eyes.

**********

Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna.

After much deliberation, Empress Mother Alexandra Feodorovna, having decided to “save Russia,” reconsidered her attitude towards her future daughter-in-law, and, considering that the marriage of her son with Maria of Darmstadt was the most acceptable of all subsequent options, she herself rushed to Darmstadt to fetch a bride for her son.

With this decisive step, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna made a sensation, personally rolling to Darmstadt for Princess Maria Sophia. The envious people of all European courts could not forgive the Darmstadt princess for such happiness not by her origin.

In September 1840, im-perat-tsa brought Mary to Russia, to Tsarskoe Selo.

Ma-riya was surprised-la-las and p-ra-zha-las ab-so-lut-but all-mu, po-de, pri-ro-de, language-ku, bo-gats-tvu im- pe-ra-tor-skoy family, on-ry-ladies and dra-go-tsen-nos-tyam, mother-in-law in-da-ri-la to her un-usual-no-ven-no dress. After that, it suckled, and there were a lot of balls on this occasion. 5 de-cab-rya 1940 co-ver-sh-los mi-ro-po-ma-za-nie and darm-stad princess-sa in the right-vos-la-vii st-la-ma-ri Alec-san-drov-noy. And on April 16, 1841, there was a wreath of tse-sa-re-vi-cha of Alek-san-dra and ne-re-resurrection in the right-of-Sunday la-vie princess-ni Ma-rii Alek-san-drov-ny.
Although after the marriage, the marriage was okay because of the love of the Russian tsar and endless ills -ney soup-ru-gi, he nevertheless, for some reason, considered it gar-mon-nich-ny.

Ma-riya Alek-san-drov-na in de-vi-ches-tva Mac-si-mi-li-ana-Ville-gel-mi-na-Av-gus-t a-Sophia-Maria-ria Darm-shtad-sky, feeling-your-va-la-se-bya is very lonely and not so good with the Russian tsar's dvor, not many knew that she developed a disease of the heart and lungs, not because of the disease.

And the tsar-twen-ny soup-friend is so on-cha-lo-legged by her, in the farther-she is not particularly vos-hi-hi-si-sia her pre-forest-ty- mi, was uv-le-chen in-li-ti-coy and de-la-mi go-su-dars-twain-mi, as well as other-gi-mi women-schi-na-mi, taking little notice of the same.
In addition to this, su-ro-vy pe-ter-burg-sky climate-mat she didn’t fit in, it was too cold in the tsar's ways -no, im-pe-rat-ri-tsa Ma-riya Alek-san-drov-for ever-but just-that-zha-las. Her eyes, because of the dep-res-sii, sickness, and one-but-ah-tva would always be in a wet place, she was la-ka-la "rain- dy-mi Darm-shtad-ta "more often than uly-ba-las, but so that it would be quicker to put it in the row-dock after the turn-red-no- go ti-ho-go sop-ro-li-tii, Marya from-to-va-la ok-but in to-ko-yah, got up-wa-la to no-mo close and about -ma-hi-wa-las fan. In re-zul-ta-te, on her face, there was a huge fu-run-kul, which did not go through for a long time, and how lo, from such airy pro-tse-fools, she pod-tse-pi-la sleep-cha-la two-t-ron-nay-pa-le-nie lungs, and for -then managed-ri-las for-ra-zit-Xia tu-ber-ku-le-zom.
Sa-ma Mak-si-mi-li-ana-Ville-gel-mi-na-Av-gus-t a - Ma-riya-Sofia Darm-shtad-sky, and in za-mu-zhes-tv im-pe-rat-ri-tsa Marya Alek-san-drov-na Ro-ma-no-va all my life feeling-you-wa-la my prejudice, lack of confidence in the se- Be, but it was-la-la-go-dar-na Alec-san-dru II for taking her out of his soup-ru-goy, the mother of us-ice-nikov.

Hard-but-objective-ek-tiv-but estimate-thread im-pe-rat-ri-tsu Maria Alek-san-drov-well, because among her sov-re-men-no-kov to-hang-tni-ki and not-to-hang-tni-ki and, on-about-mouth, those who love her come-thieves-yes-we, and sometimes li-gob-li - yes. So one part of her environment thinks that, complex-suing in connection with his own som-ni-tel-ny -em, from her innocence, from her pre-tendencies to her husband and his family, she was-ta-wa-las little wi-that dumb. It is impossible to say that her development was-ta-but-saw-el at the age of 14-15, when she was watched in un-weight -you tse-sa-re-vich Alek-sandr. But she abruptly prek-ra-ti-la for-no-mother-sya-im sa-mo-ob-ra-zo-va-ni-em and sa-mo-so-ver-shens-your- va-ni-em, when you began to feel yourself so-bye alone and not quite right at two. Another part of the two-ra, in part a friend of Alek-san-dra II Alek-sei Kon-stan-ti-no-vich Tolstoy considered: " san-drov-na pre-ascends not only to other women, but also most-shins-your husband-rank. with a chis-feminine both-yani and ... a super-wooded ha-rak-te-rum. " I really respect Marya Darm-shtad-skuyu and Frei-lin Tyut-che-va and po-et Tyut-chev, who sent her sti-chi. Because of the weight, it is that Maria-riya Alek-san-drov-na ho-ro-sho raz-bi-ra-las in the mu-zy-ke, perfectly-ras-but knew-la no-wei-shuyu -ro-pei-li-te-ra-tu-ru, she has been-bi-ra-las in the poly-li-ti-ke. But in French-tsuz-ski go-in-ri-la and in-no-ma-la not-dos-ta-exactly-ho-ro-sho, ve-la se-bya modestly and restrained jean no. In-general, shi-ro-ta her in-te-re-sov and soul-shev-nye ka-san-tva pri-vo-di-whether in vos-bargaining of many of those with whom she is -wel-el to meet-ch-Xia. In the framework of bla-got-vo-ri-tel-nos-ty, she za-no-ma-las vop-ro-sa-mi ob-ra-zo-va-nia in Russia, vop-ro -sa-mi development of culture. But these are all just secular pro-that-ring-ny-ty-tions. And from the do-ku-men-tov it is impossible to understand whether it was her-la ini-tsi-ati-va or just the Russian right-vos-lav-naya church and le -the scribes of the di-nas-tii Ro-ma-no-vyh pri-pi-sa-li she ve-li-kie zas-lu-gi in questions-ro-sah development of the ob-ra-zo -va-tion in Russia, created a positively-lively image of the im-per-rat-tsy who is raving for Russia. It’s not worth it to say that Marya Darm-shtad-skaya was-la-me-sha-na on the way of her own law about -is-walk-de-niya and on his own non-metz-com aris-tok-ra-tiz-me. Im-pe-rat-ri-tsa Marya Alek-san-drov-on all the same pretty cool-well-but from-but-s-las to life in Russia, husband her Alec-san-dra she didn’t learn the mother and the thread, and she also didn’t learn to care about him, always os-ta-nav -li-wa-la him in-ry-you passion with your cold-nose-ty. Marya Darm-shtad was always in the power of her ills, gloomy thoughts, complexes and, in order to distract, she for-ni-ma-las more than anything you-shi-wan-em or vya-zan-em and gossip-nya-mi about the ro-ma-nah, in-tri-gah , wedding-bang and in-ho-ro-nah with two Ev-ro-py. Ho-cha, su-dya by her rare-kim z-pi-siam and vys-ka-zy-va-ni-yam, she still from-da-va-la owe Alec-san-dru for that that he took her out of a god-for-something-the-prince-tva and seated a row with him to the Russian press-tol, so she was la greater respect among the representatives of the representatives of the Ev-ro-pei-di-nas-tiy. In addition, Alek-sandr gave her a certain debt of respect and didn’t get involved with her, even having a second family.

For something Go-su-da-ry-nya Marya Alek-san-drov-na you-pol-no-la main pre-naz-na-che-sup-ru-gi-ts- rya - ro-di-la us-led-nikov for the Russian-si-sky press-to-la. After the birth of the sixth-th-th re-ben-ka doctor-chi zap-re-ti-whether to give birth to her, and in all, she has 8 children, two of them died. Daughter-ka-prince-na-ma-sha was-la-only-twen-noy love-bi-my daughter. Before Mashi, in 1842, the daughter of Alek-san-dra Alek-san-drov-na was born to the tsar-ri-tsa, but she died in 1849.Since then, the tsar's family has a hundred -wish not to call the de-check Alec-san-droy.
And yet, the soup-ru-jess-your Alec-san-dra Vto-ro-go and Ma-rii Alek-san-drov-we considered it gar-mo-nich-ny, and, at one time -my, yes, ka-za-els, that nothing will be able to play this gar-mo-niya, but everything has changed after the death of their older -th son of Ni-ko-bark in 1865 in Nice. Ma-riya Alek-san-drov-na med-len-but uga-sa-la from sickness and grief and could not condescend to be supported by no -zha, not at Rods-Twain-nikov or at-thieves.

Following Mary-she Darm-shtad-skaya, her younger brother Alek-sandr also went to Russia, who, perhaps, was born not from her-tso-ga Liu-do-vi-ka Second-ro-go, but from his come-thief-go. But the pe-re-ride of the kin-no-brother-that is not from the ba-vil of Maryu Alek-san-drov-well from the tos-ki and one-no-san-tva, the more that the bra -that soon-re out-la-whether from Russia according to us-that-yaniya Ni-ko-laya I because of unequal marriage with Frei-lin Ga-uk.

From Alek-san-dra Darm-stadt-sko and Frei-lin Yulia Ga-uke (Frei-lin of the Prussian ko-ro-lion-na Alek-san-dra Fe-do-rov-ny, female us Ni-ko-laya I) went the an-gli-clan Ma-un-tbet-te-nov, and in that-mok of this clan - Phi-lipp became the prince of Edin-burg -skim, mu-zhem great-vya-shch from the middle of the 20th century to na-cha-lo 21 ve-ka ko-ro-le-you Ve-li-kob-ri-ta-nii Eli -for-ve-you II.

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What disease led to the death of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

The opinion that Empress Maria Alexandrovna died of tuberculosis was firmly established in the public consciousness. This is not so, since, on the basis of the autopsy protocol of Maria Alexandrovna, modern doctors believe that bronchiectasis was the cause of the death of the empress. 1170
The main manifestation of bronchiectasis is a persistent cough, accompanied by the release of purulent sputum. Hemoptysis and even the development of pulmonary hemorrhage are possible.

Associated with chronic inflammation of both lungs (mainly the right one), but then many thought that the cause of death was tuberculosis.

In May 1880, Empress Maria Alexandrovna died in the Blue Bedroom of the Winter Palace. Maria Alexandrovna from a young age had a pronounced asthenic physique, 1171
The maid of honor of the Empress AF Tyutchev wrote: “All her life she retained a young appearance, so that at 40 she could be mistaken for a woman of about thirty. Despite her tall stature and slenderness, she was so thin and fragile that, at first glance, she did not give the impression of a beauty; but she was unusually graceful with that very special grace that can be found in old German paintings, in Albrecht Durer's Madonnas ... ”.

That to a large extent, along with frequent childbirth, contributed to the development of her chronic pulmonary disease.

Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Problems with the lungs began to bother Maria Alexandrovna in the first half of the 1850s. This is evidenced by the fact that it was then that doctors recommended to provide the most favorable temperature regime in the Empress's chambers. In 1855, a special pipe for cooling the air was laid in the dining room of the Empress in the Winter Palace, 1172
RGIA. F. 469. Op. 11.D. 9.

A certain prototype of a modern air conditioner.

In 1858, in the Peterhof Mylna (near Monplaisir), at the direction of Dr. K. K. Hartmann, the architect E. Gahn placed a bath "of a special device with adjoining rooms for a cold bath with a shower and a Russian bath." All this splendor was intended for Empress Maria Alexandrovna. Let me explain that the "cold bath" was widespread in the 18th – 19th centuries. the method of hydrotherapy for various diseases, including lung diseases.

Living conditions in the Farmer's Palace did little to strengthen the fragile health of Maria Alexandrovna. AF Tyutcheva recalled: “When it rains - which is usually in Peterhof - frogs appear in the Empress's bedroom, since this room is on the same level as the swampy soil covered with luxurious flower beds, planted here at great expense. The dampness is such that mushrooms grow in her dressers and wardrobes, and she suffers from inflammation and rheumatism all summer. " It is difficult to say to what extent the words of the maid of honor are an exaggeration ...

Maria Alexandrovna's health problems worsened sharply in the spring of 1863, when she was in Tsarskoe Selo. It is curious that at that time a certain "Doctor Skansoni" was discharged to the residence as a consultant, who recommended the empress to resort to climatic treatment. 1173
OR RNB. F. 432. Op. 1.D. 16.L. 52; Fredericks M.P. Memories of an old woman.

As a result, in August 1863 Maria Alexandrovna went to the Crimea for the first time, to the Livadia estate, where she stayed until November 1863.

Blue bedroom of Empress Maria Alexandrovna in the Winter Palace

Farmer's palace. Peterhof. Alexandria Park

Cold bathroom of Maria Alexandrovna in the Baths building. Peterhof

The development of the empress's illness was catastrophically affected by the psychological breakdown associated with the death of her eldest son in April 1865.When the empress's pulmonary disease worsened, her doctor was appointed professor of the St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy S.P. Botkin, who on November 22, 1870 the title of honorary life physician was awarded the highest. 1174

SP Botkin, taking the position of the attending physician of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, began to break outdated traditions and apply generally accepted diagnostic methods in relation to members of the imperial family. In the court medical service, he is nominated not only for his brilliant knowledge and medical intuition, but also for his courage in decision-making. If doctors who treated empresses earlier made diagnoses mainly on the basis of "questioning about seizures," then SP Botkin asked permission for objective research methods: tapping, listening, etc. It is quite obvious that SP Botkin diagnosed the disease empress with the help of standard examination methods, and the physician Hartmann, who had previously treated the empress, "did not notice the evil", because he remained in captivity of court traditions. Alexander II personally gave permission for these "innovative techniques" in court medicine.

Then, to fight lung diseases, including tuberculosis, they used mainly climatic treatment. Therefore, back in 1861, Alexander II, especially for his wife, bought the Livadia estate in the Crimea, where the empress began to travel with her children during the velvet season. For example, in mid-March 1872, the Empress, accompanied by S.P. Botkin, left for the Crimea. PA Valuev wrote in his diary: “It is difficult to have an exact concept about the property and degree of the disease with many contradictory interpretations. It seems, however, that the lungs are really affected and that Dr. Hartmann did not notice the evil in time and started it. Dr. Botkin identified the disease, and the trip to Crimea was undertaken at his insistence. " 1175
Valuev P.A. Diary ... T. 2. P. 278.

E. Brandt. Palace in Livadia. 1868 g.

Palace in Livadia

As follows from the letter of SP Botkin dated April 11, 1872 to the Minister of the Imperial Court, A. V. Adlerberg, “the empress's health is noticeably improving every day; the cough is getting weaker and weaker, there are less and less wheezing in the chest, and, finally, there were so few of them, while breathing was free ... of course, the wheezing is still audible, but there are perhaps ten times less of them, comparing with that number, which was at the beginning of our move to Crimea, the night passes now completely without a cough, and during the day Her Majesty can speak and even laugh, without paying for each time with a cough, as it happened before ... a walk without support under the arm was somewhat difficult, but now the Empress walks around without help quite freely. Since yesterday, we have already left thermometric research. " 1176
RGIA. F. 1614. Op. 1.D. 218.Sheet 2.

I will add that in the mountains, near Livadia, 1177
About 9 km from Yalta.

On the recommendation of doctors, a small wooden palace called "Eriklik" was built especially for Empress Maria Alexandrovna. 1178
"Eriklik" in translation from the Crimean Tatar means "plum garden" (variant - "valley of plums"). From the estate to our time, the house of S.P.Botkin and the fountain have survived. Also in the composition Black Sea Fleet in 1872 a wheeled-commodity passenger steamer named "Eriklik" was introduced. In 1872, the artist F. A. Vasiliev, a patient with tuberculosis, painted a picture "View from Eriklik", in which we can see a fountain.

In the Winter Palace.

Professor S.P.Botkin regularly reported to the Minister of the Imperial Court, Count A.V. Adlerberg, about the slightest changes in the state of health of the Empress. On the whole, his letters to A.V. Adlerberg are characterized by an optimistic mood. The general tone of the letters: it was worse, but now it is getting better and better. In May 1874, he wrote from Gatchina to the Minister of the Imperial Court: “The Petersburg spring has passed safely for the breast, which, in essence, has not deteriorated and presents very satisfactory data in the study; of course, the catarrh phenomenon, especially in the upper part of the right side, still holds, but in a very favorable size; only the nervous system suffered somewhat as a result of room life. " 1180
In the same place. L. 3.

Chandelier shower in the Cold Bath of the Bath Building. Peterhof

As for the Cold Bath 1181
The bath itself is located in the central part of the Bath building. A polished oak bathtub is recessed into the floor, for the entrance to it there are steps with handrails made of chiseled balusters. The bathtub is so deep that Empress Maria Alexandrovna could stand in it up to her neck in water that was pumped from the Gulf of Finland. Above the bathroom hangs a chandelier, entwined with glass vines, bunches of grapes and bindweed (milk glass is painted with glaze). The chandelier not only illuminated the room, but was also used as a shower: a pipe passed through it, which ended in a gilded spray net.

In Peterhof, then S.P. Botkin understood that hydrotherapy does not help much for serious problems with the lungs, but nevertheless he did not abandon this method as a means of relieving the patient's suffering. The doctor recommended wet wraps, cold showers, and lukewarm baths. The water temperature recommended by S.P.Botkin to Maria Alexandrovna did not exceed 28 ° according to Reaumur (35 ° C). The water was gradually cooled. When the patient began to feel cold, the procedure was stopped. Such baths lowered the body temperature, refreshed and hardened the skin.

In October 1874, S.P.Botkin left Petersburg, accompanying the Empress, first to London, and then to Italy, to San Remo. From there, in November 1874, he wrote to Adlerberg almost daily, reporting on the slightest changes in the state of health of Maria Alexandrovna. The tone of his letters was still optimistic - "the empress is recovering quickly," and one of the issues discussed with the minister was the question of the empress's return to Russia. He wrote: "As a doctor, I will not consider myself entitled to insist on the continuation of Her Majesty's stay abroad in view of the Empress's most passionate desire to return to St. Petersburg." 1182
In the same place. L. 16.

However, the return had to be postponed, since at the end of November 1874 there was a sharp deterioration - "the manifestations of pleurisy are presented as much as possible." The situation stabilized only by mid-February 1875, and the empress immediately left for Russia.

The consequence of this trip for S.P. Botkin was that on May 10, 1875 he was "granted to the life-doctors 1183
As a physician, S.P. Botkin received a salary of 1,430 rubles, canteens, 1,430 rubles, and apartments, 1,430 rubles.

Court of His Imperial Majesty with the appointment of being under Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Empress and leaving him in the positions he currently occupy. " 1184
RGIA. F. 479. Op. 1 (375/1694). D. 383.L. 50.

By the same imperial decree, S. P. Botkin's assistant E. A. Golovin "was appointed as an Honorary Life-Medic of His Majesty's Court, with the assignment to be with the Life-Medic of the Actual Privy Counselor Botkin." 1185
RGIA. F. 482. Op. 2 (765/1941). D. 123.L. 1 ob. In the formular list of E.A.Golovin, compiled in 1875, it was indicated that the 32-year-old collegiate assessor (1875, in the same year - court councilor) Evgraf Aleksandrovich Golovin comes from the bourgeoisie of the Moscow province. Graduated from the Medico-Surgical Academy (1865), defended his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Medicine (1870), worked without a salary as a supernumerary junior medical officer Medical Department Ministry of Internal Affairs (1870), awarded the Order of St. Anna (1873).

Prior to that, since 1873, on the recommendation of S.P.Botkin, E.A.Golovin began to be involved in the treatment of Empress Maria Alexandrovna and her younger children. In 1873 Golovin was sent to Jugenheim 1186
Jugenheim Castle, 18 km from the Darmstadt residence of the Dukes of Hesse, where Empress Maria Alexandrovna spent her childhood.

In August 1873, the Empress was appointed to accompany the Empress to Livadia "to accompany the return journey to Russia". In May 1874 he again accompanied the Empress to Jugenheim, in August 1874 to Livadia. And finally, in May 1875, he received the title of an honorary life physician. 1187
RGIA. F. 479. Op. 1. D. 1856. L. 4. About the award of the honorary physician of the State Councilor of State Botkin to the physician of the Court EI V., with the appointment of being under Her Imperial Majesty the Empress. 1875 g.

Dr. Golovin constantly observed the empress, and Botkin was invited only for consultations. One of the memoirists emphasized the attitude of EA Golovin to Botkin: “Golovin Evgraf Alexandrovich, doctor of the empress; small, thin, ugly, but smart and handsome, he came to the Court under the patronage of Botkin and therefore almost prayed for him. " 1188
Yu.A. Gorbunova 1874-1880 in Livadia. Notes // Our old times. 1914. No. 7.P. 664.

In addition to Golovin, Botkin attracted another of his students to the treatment of the empress - a specialist in pulmonary diseases, Dr. V. Ya. Alyshevsky.

In February 1876, the empress's state of health again deteriorated sharply. 1189
RGIA. Form 1614. Op. 1.D. 58. L. 1–2.

It should be noted that the empress's illness had long ago acquired a severe chronic nature, and therefore her contemporaries recorded only serious deterioration in her condition. A very curious and rather critical characterization of SP Botkin is given in the diary of PA Valuev in August 1876: “They say, however, that the Empress really fell ill. They sent for the Oracle - Botkin. This oracle is also one of those phenomena that are born of palaces. He is the Mandt of the present reign. Mandts somehow appear at the sunsets. " 1190
Valuev P.A. Diary ... T. 2. P. 381.

In May 1878, a new deterioration began in the empress's condition. Perhaps due to the increased workload on the empress's physicians or in order to further stimulate them, Alexander II decided to increase the salary for doctors. 1191
RGIA. F. 479. Op. 1. D. 2001. L. 2. On the payment of supplementary maintenance from July 22, 1878 to the physician-in-law secretary Botkin, 2764 rubles each. and the honorary life physician, collegiate adviser Golovin, 1000 rubles each. per year, in excess of the content they receive. 1878 g.

Naturally, prominent dignitaries immediately recorded in their diaries the events associated with Maria Alexandrovna's illness in the Winter Palace. On May 28, 1878, DA Milyutin wrote: “The Empress’s illness from yesterday has aroused alarming fears. Pleurisy increased and turned into severe pneumonia. Dr. Botkin does not vouch for the outcome of this disease, especially in view of the exorbitant weakness of the patient. " 1192
D. A. Milyutin Diary. 1878-1880. T. 3.M., 1950.S. 65.

At the same time, a special "mechanical chair" was purchased for Maria Alexandrovna from the furniture manufacturer Meltzer. It was used for the Empress's walks, since she could no longer walk on her own. I will note that D.A.Milyutin, one of the closest and informed associates of Alexander II, repeatedly mentioned pleurisy 1193
Pleurisy - inflammation of the pleural sheets with the loss of fibrin on their surface (dry pleurisy) or the accumulation of exudate in the pleural cavity (that is, fluid released in the tissue or body cavity from small blood vessels during inflammation) of a different nature (exudative pleurisy).

And pneumonia, but not about tuberculosis, which at that time was diagnosed quite confidently.

In the fall of 1878, the question of the Empress's winter trip abroad was decided on the very high level, since the empress herself categorically did not want to leave Russia. In addition, there was a real danger that the Russian empress might die abroad. At this time, Maria Alexandrovna was in Livadia, and the role of her attending physician was played by Botkin's student, V. Ya. Alyshevsky. At that time, Russian doctors were still losing to foreigners in polish and knowledge of etiquette, and Alyshevsky was such an excellent specialist, but a poor expert on etiquette. However, it is possible that there was some kind of opposition in his behavior. Such a Bazarov at the Imperial Court. The memoirist wrote in her diary: “Alyshevsky, the empress’s doctor, applied all means to interrupt the incipient inflammation. Speaking of the doctor: he comes to Her Majesty in a frock coat or jacket, with unwashed hands, with which, before entering the Empress, he touched the dogs and fiddled with them! In the same dress he receives patients in the hospital. In general, he strongly responds to the nihilistic principle. " 1194
Yu.A. Gorbunova 1874-1880 in Livadia. Notes // Our old times. 1914. No. 12.P. 1062.

In November 1878, Minister of War DA Milyutin wrote in his diary: “Doctor Botkin arrived, who was eagerly awaited to decide where the Empress should go for the winter - to Petersburg or abroad. Botkin like clever man, decided to go to Petersburg, to the great delight of the Empress herself and those around her. " 1195
D. A. Milyutin Diary. T. 3.P. 101.

Winter 1878/79. the empress spent in Russia, but in the spring of 1879 her condition began to deteriorate continuously. The fact that the famous Botkin failed to put the empress on her feet and her condition was constantly deteriorating led to a new wave of criticism directed at the life-doctor. In addition, SP Botkin in February 1879 mistakenly diagnosed the plague in St. Petersburg. A typical example of this discontent is the entry of February 14, 1879 in A. V. Bogdanovich's diary: “Petersburg is a plague. Botkin announced. Here is a charlatan! He is ruining Russia with this news ... Such people are dangerous. Now he is the savior of Russia, the savior of the reigning house. As a result of this news and the measures taken to remove the sick, he is the guardian of the whole of St. Petersburg. " 1196
Bogdanovich A.V. Diary. The last three autocrat. P. 14.

S.P. Botkin, who was previously burdened by his position as a physician-in-chief, which distracted him from matters that really mattered to him, immediately responded to rumors and slander with a letter to the Minister of the Imperial Court, Count A.V. Adlerberg. In May 1879, he wrote: “You know, Your Excellency, what criticisms, attacks and slander I had the misfortune to be subjected to during the last months. Russian and foreign press, city rumors - they did not spare either me or even my family. A deep consciousness of honestly and sacredly fulfilled duty gave me the strength to firmly endure all these attacks and unworthy innuendo, while the trust that I had the good fortune to enjoy on the part of Their Majesties supported me in moments of despondency. Peering, however, at the high position of the physician, one cannot but admit that his personality must be beyond any reproach and at the same time must inspire complete confidence not only in Their Majesties, but also in the whole of society. No matter how unfair the slanders and insinuations thrown at me lately and with such generosity by the society I have served for 20 years, nevertheless, my position as a health care provider of Their Majesties is shaken so much that I do not consider it possible more to bear this high rank and I ask Your Excellency to bring this to the attention of Their Imperial Majesties, asking Them, as mercy, to dismiss me from the service, which is obviously beyond my power. " 1197
RGIA. F. 1614. Op. 1.D. 218. L. 46–47.

Alexander II, of course, was informed about the request of S.P. Botkin, but it was not satisfied.

As a result, the Empress, accompanied by S.P. Botkin, left for the waters, to the Yugenheim resort, from where in August 1879 the physician-in-chief once again reported calming information to St. Petersburg: “There is much more strength, drowsiness disappeared, no shortness of breath, bluish tint, Her Majesty does not complain about her head, the swelling of her leg has disappeared, she sleeps much more calmly at night. " 1198
In the same place. L. 48.

According to the recollections of the chamber-jungfer A. I. Yakovleva, in the fall of 1879 the empress was “dressed and seated in a chair, on which she was rolled into another room ... breathing ". 1199
A. I. Yakovleva Memoirs of the Former Chamber Jungfer Empress Maria Alexandrovna // Historical Bulletin. 1888. No. 3. S. 604.

Since the empress's condition was very unstable, Botkin decided to abandon the planned trip to the Crimea. 1200
September 4, 1879: “She finally refused to move to Crimea due to the urgent demands of Dr. Botkin, who was convinced of the feverish nature of the local climate” (see: D. A. Milyutin Diary. T. 3.P. 163).

V. Ya. Alyshevsky

As contemporaries testified, another factor that led to the extinction of the empress was the beginning of the terrorist "hunt for the king." Countess AA Tolstaya, close to the empress, recalled that “the Empress's poor health finally deteriorated after the attempt on the emperor's life on April 2, 1879. After him, she no longer recovered. I, as now, see her that day - with feverishly shining eyes, broken, desperate. “There is no more need to live,” she told me, “I feel that it’s killing me.”

At the end of 1879 the Empress, as usual, was sent abroad for the winter, to Cannes. It took all the influence of Alexander II to convince her to leave. Maria Aleksandrovna was accompanied by S.P.Botkin's student, Doctor V. Ya. Alyshevsky. As was customary, Alyshevsky regularly informed the Minister of the Imperial Court, Count A.V. Adlerberg, about the state of her health. In November 1879, he wrote: “Bad purulent sputum, which contained a significant amount of elastic fibers ... continued to be secreted ... on the night of yesterday, a new bronchitis began. Her Majesty moistened three handkerchiefs with mucous sputum during the night and, in addition, coughed up a lot of the same sputum into the basin. " 1201
RGIA. F. 1614. Op. 1.D. 151.L. 2.

In December 1879, Maria Alexandrovna's condition deteriorated sharply, and therefore, on December 6, 1879, S.P. Botkin urgently left for Cannes, 1202
From that moment on, D.A.Milyutin recorded in detail the news about the state of health of the empress. In addition, the chamber-maid of honor AA Tolstaya left memories of this winter.

And in the Winter Palace they made a preliminary decision on the urgent return of the Empress to St. Petersburg. Since the empress's condition was very difficult, they feared the worst during her return, so the Minister of the Imperial Court, Count A.V. Adlerberg, personally went to Cannes. He wanted to make a decision on the spot, after consulting with doctors. DA Milyutin captures the questions circulating in society: “How can she withstand such a journey into a real harsh winter. Are they not taking her just to be buried here? 1203
D. A. Milyutin Diary. T. 3.P. 200.

On January 9, 1880, the empress's son, Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, arrived from Cannes and informed D.A.Milyutin that the final decision had been made to transport Maria Alexandrovna to St. Petersburg. The chamber-maid of honor of the Empress AA Tolstaya called this decision "cruel" and recalled that Maria Alexandrovna "was indignant at this inconsistency and cried for a long time." The Empress was so bad that "they thought a lot - they would not take her alive, and Dr. Botkin warned Priest Nikolsky, who was traveling on the Empress's train, to be ready to commune her with the Holy Mysteries." 1204
A. A. Tolstaya A sad episode from my life at court. Notes of the maid of honor // October. 1993. No. 5.P. 102.

For the sick Empress Maria Alexandrovna, who long time carried out in Europe back in 1872, in France they ordered a special train for overseas trips. 1205
The cost of the train at the Berlin plant was 167,500 thalers against 156,700 thalers at the Rathgeber plant in France, all other things being equal (see: RGIA. F. 237. Op. 1. D. 883. L. 2. About the order of the imperial train. Correspondence with the ministry. 1872).

The Imperial Trains Inspectorate supervised the execution of this order. 1206
The empress's railway staff was formed gradually. In 1872, the first seven carriages (six saloon and one luggage) were purchased in France, which cost the treasury 121 788 rubles. The possibility of their adaptation to the Russian track cost another 17,787 rubles. A freight car purchased separately from this consignment was equipped with a glacier and adapted for the transportation of provisions (1839 rubles). A little later, at the Milton Rau and K ° plant, they purchased four more new cars (51,620 rubles) (see: RGIA. F. 237. Op. 1. D. 889. L. 2. Case of the Inspector of the construction of the Imperial train for overseas travel. First delivery of wagons from Eikup to Warsaw and their delivery. 1873-1874). Ultimately, the imperial train was equipped with 10 carriages: 1. Alexander II carriage, 2. Maria Alexandrovna carriage, 3. Grand Duchess carriage, 4. Big red salon, 5. Canteen carriage, 6–8. Svitsky cars, 9. Service car, 10. Technical car.

Since the train was intended for the sick empress, when developing its project, great attention was paid to the comfort level of the train and its finish. Taking into account the Empress's illness, one of the main requirements was to ensure a comfortable temperature and ventilation of the composition. 1207
The device of ventilation and heating according to the system of Baron Dermiz cost the treasury 23,564 rubles.

The quality of these works was monitored by the empress's physician, prof. S. P. Botkin. Ventilation was installed in four carriages of the train, which cooled the air entering the carriages in summer. With the doors and windows closed, the temperature in the carriages should have been 5 degrees below the outside air. 1208
RGIA. F. 237. Op. 1. D. 887. L. 3. Case of the inspector of the construction of the imperial train, for travel abroad. 1872-1874

So, when the outside air temperature is from 8 to -20 degrees, the composition should maintain a constant temperature of 13 to 15 degrees, both "at the floor and at the ceiling." They also provided for the possibility of changing the temperature in the compartment regardless of the temperature in the corridor. For this, an alarm button was installed in the compartment. In the empress's carriage and in the large salon, “humidifiers” were placed to maintain a certain level of humidity (48–58% in winter).

The furnishings for these cars were also ordered from France. The contract with the French factories Milton Rau and K ° stipulated that "these wagons must be supplied with all the necessary furniture and other accessories ... except for linen and washing appliances, table candlesticks and candelabra, ashtrays and matchboxes." 1209
For example, in the empress's carriage, the washbasin was made of silver (a wash cup and a water tank). Although at this time water closets were already provided in the carriages, according to tradition, the list of ordered items also mentions "white with gilded night porcelain vessels" (For His Majesty's bedroom - 2 pcs., For the suite - 6 pcs.) (See: RGIA F. 237. Op. 1. D. 905. L. 3. On the order and supply of small accessories by the direct order of the minister. Imperial train for travel abroad. 1873-1874).

For the first time Empress Maria Alexandrovna traveled abroad in a new composition in December 1873. 1210
During this trip, some shortcomings in the equipment of several cars came to light. By and large, these were trifles (many water tanks leaked, the water pipes running under the bottom of the cars froze, dishes rattled on the move, blinds sagged, uncomfortable seats on the sofa), but they were immediately eliminated. After all the alterations and modifications, the cost of the imperial train for travel abroad was 320,905 rubles. (see: RGIA. F. 237. Op. 1. D. 902. L. 2. On the shortcomings in the existing cars, proposals for the elimination of those. 1873-1874).

According to the testimony of D.A.Milyutin, Maria Alexandrovna in last time brought to St. Petersburg on January 23, 1880. At that time, the senior physician of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School V. Ya. Alyshevsky was appointed as the attending physician who directly dealt with the empress, who received the title of honorary life physician. 1211
RGIA. F. 479. Op. 1. D. 2086. L. 1. On the appointment of the senior physician of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, the doctor of medicine, the court councilor of Alyshevsky, the honorary physician-in-chief of the Court of His Imperial Majesty. 1880 g.

The Emperor met the Empress Maria Alexandrovna who had arrived from abroad with her sons in Gatchina. At the station, it was categorically forbidden to be, to anyone, so as not to disturb the empress. Nevertheless, those who were there told Milyutin that everyone was "amazed at her thinness and emaciated appearance." 1212
D. A. Milyutin Diary. T. 3.P. 205.

The topic of the dying empress became the main news of the secular society. Milyutin wrote that she did not leave her room in the Winter Palace and that no one saw her. At the same time, soothing newsletters began to appear in the newspapers. However, the reality turned out to be different, and on January 26, 1880 Milyutin writes down the story of the maid of honor of the Baroness NK Pillar von Pilchau: “The Empress turned into a skeleton; does not even have the strength to move his fingers; can not do anything "- and adds that" the first meeting with her should have made a heavy impression on the sovereign, who from that day also feels unwell, complains of a feverish state and weakness. Today I found him visibly changed (he is pale, drooping and weak), 1213
In French.

The face is pale, sunken, eyes are faded. " 1214
D. A. Milyutin Diary. T. 3.P. 207.

On February 5, 1880, Stepan Khalturin's bomb exploded in the Winter Palace. The explosion was so strong that it was heard not only in the surrounding buildings, but also by those who lived on the Moika. The Empress, who was constantly in half-oblivion, did not even hear the explosion, and the bustle in the palace was explained to her by an accidental explosion of gas. SP Botkin did not leave the dying empress. Given the hostile attitude towards him at that time of public opinion, Alexander II, in order to show him his royal favor on Easter, April 20, 1880, granted Botkin a snuffbox decorated with diamonds with the emperor's monogram. 1215

Shortly before the death of the empress, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich saw her, who wrote in his diary on April 15: "She was sitting on the bed in the bedroom and struck me with terrible thinness, gray hair and an aging, worn face ... It hurts to hear her breathing heavily and moaning." 1216
Romanov K.K., Grand Duke... Diaries. Memories. Poems. Letters. M., 1998.S. 82.

It should be noted that the last years of her life Maria Alexandrovna was tormented not only by a bodily illness. At that time, the second family of Alexander II lived in the Winter Palace, and the empress knew this very well.

In May 1880, due to the constantly worsening state of health of the empress, the traditional relocation of the emperor to Tsarskoe Selo was temporarily postponed. But hesitation did not last very long, and on May 11, Alexander II, together with his mistress E. M. Dolgorukova, left St. Petersburg. This triggered a new wave of condemnation of the aging emperor. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich wrote in his diary that day: “The Empress lies here, there is no question of her illness. They find it uncomfortable that when she has little left to live, the Tsar moves. " 1217
In the same place. P. 85.

The Empress, in a hopeless state, remained in the Winter Palace with her younger sons, Sergei and Pavel. In order to maintain decency, Alexander II from time to time came to St. Petersburg for several hours to visit his dying wife.

On May 22, 1880, at 10 o'clock in the morning, the physician-in-chief SP Botkin and the honorary physician V. Ya. Alyshevsky sent a report on the death of Empress Maria Alexandrovna to the Minister of the Imperial Court A. V. Adlerberg. The document was written by the hand of Dr. V. Ya. Alyshevsky: “Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Empress was weak and drowsy yesterday. The expectoration, which has been gradually decreasing of late, has almost completely stopped. Having quietly fallen asleep at the usual hour last night, Her Majesty did not wake up again. At three o'clock in the morning she coughed a little, and at seven o'clock in the morning her breathing stopped, and Her Majesty slept in Bose without agony. " 1218
RGIA. F. 1614. Op. 1.D. 97.L. 2.

On the same day, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich recorded in detail the circumstances of her death: “Last night the Empress was not at all worse. At three o'clock in the morning she still called Makushina and coughed. Then Makushina, for a long time without hearing the usual bell, entered the bedroom, the Empress slept peacefully, putting her hands under her head. Makushina felt her pulse, he was not beating, her hands were cold, and her body was warm. She sent for Dr. Alyshevsky. He decided it was over. Death was hidden from everyone, they let the tsar know in Tsarskoe Selo. " 1219
Romanov K.K., Grand Duke... Diaries. Memories. Poems. Letters. P. 86.

Empresses Maria Alexandrovna on her deathbed

After the death of the empress, scattered sketches of the will remained, and one of them recorded her desire: "If it is possible, do not perform an autopsy." 1220
A. A. Tolstaya A sad episode ... p. 107.

But nevertheless, the autopsy of the empress's body was carried out at 2 o'clock in the morning on May 23, 1880. The autopsy was attended by the Minister of the Imperial Court A.V. Y. Alyshevsky, prof. V. L. Gruber, prosectors N. P. Ivanovsky, P. F. Lesgaft and A. I. Tarenetsky. 1221
The necessary preparations for embalming the Empress are listed in the said document. They cost 582 rubles. The court pharmacist Gross who took part in their manufacture and the laboratory assistant of the court pharmacy received awards of 500 and 250 rubles, respectively (see: RGIA. F. 479. Op. 8. D. 2101 L. 14. On the embalming of Her Majesty's body. 1880 G.).

On autopsy, it was noted that the subcutaneous fat layer had almost completely disappeared. In the “Conclusion” of the protocol, it was stated: “Her Imperial Majesty had chronic inflammation of both lungs, and mainly of the right. This inflammation had the character of interstitial inflammation, accompanied by expansion of the bronchi in the lower lobes and ulcerative destruction of the lung tissue, mainly in the upper lobes and especially in the right lung. The defeat of the lung tissue is complicated by the consequences of the former inflammation of the pulmonary hymen, expressed by fusion of the right lung with the chest wall, especially the posterior part of the lower lobe. There were also small adhesions on the left side. The noted pulmonary tissue edema appeared in the last hours of life and, together with the weakness of the heart, was the closest cause of death. Changes in other organs are partly the consequences of breast disease, partly they are the remnants of other side diseases that appeared during the life of Her Majesty. The changes found in the heart indicate a decline in nutrition and its activity. Changes in the walls depend on the former malarial fevers. Changes in the intestines and stomach from a former typhoid process. Finally, changes in the kidneys are the result of their abnormal mobility and, in part, of the mentioned infectious diseases. Complications of pulmonary disease, changes in various other organs such as the heart, kidneys, spleen were the obvious cause of those features that were observed during life during this pulmonary-consumptive process. " 1222
RGIA. F. 468. Op. 46. ​​D. 91. LL. 4-5.

A note from doctors about the death of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Modern researchers, using modern medical terminology, formulate the pathological diagnosis based on the macroscopic picture as follows: the main disease is bronchiectasis (cylindrical and saccular bronchiectasis and bronchiectasis in the apex of both lungs). Chronic suppurative obstructive bronchitis. Diffuse pneumosclerosis. Obliteration of the right pleural cavity, adhesions in the left pleural cavity. Complications of the underlying disease - exhaustion, myocardial dystrophy, dilatation of the heart cavities, stagnation of blood in the pulmonary circulation, pulmonary edema. Concomitant diseases - prolapse of both kidneys, kink of the right ureter, right-sided hydronephrosis, chronic pyelonephritis, bilateral nephrosclerosis. Residual effects after typhoid disease and malaria (hemosiderosis of the lymphatic follicles of the small intestine). 1223
Molin Yu.A. The Romanovs ... Oblivion is canceled! A forensic expert's view. SPb., 2005.S. 236.

Autopsy report of Empress Maria Alexandrovna (RGIA.F. 468.Op. 46.D. 91. Sheet 1)

Autopsy report of Empress Maria Alexandrovna (RGIA. F. 468. Op. 46. D. 91. Sheet 5 ob.)

On the same day, the results of the autopsy became known to the members of the Imperial family, and on May 23, 1880, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich wrote in his diary: the heart did not turn out to be an organic defect, the stomach was in a completely upset state. " 1224
Romanov K.K., Grand Duke. Diaries. Memories. Poems. Letters. P. 87.

After the death of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, the main patient of S.P. Botkin, on July 15, 1880, Alexander II ordered “to keep all the maintenance he received and to assign a pension of four thousand rubles with the production of such a pension from May 22 of this year, that is, from the day death of Her Imperial Majesty. " 1225
RGIA. F. 479. Op. 1 (375/1694). D. 383.L. 52.

The rest of the doctors involved in the treatment of Maria Alexandrovna also received large pensions. 1226
In the same place. Op. 1.D. 2110.L. 1–3. About the most merciful award to the production of a pension: to the physician-in-chief Botkin 4 thousand rubles; honorary life physician Alyshevsky 3 thousand rubles; Golovin 2 thousand rubles. and senior pharmaceutical assistant Bruderer 572 rubles. per year, from May 22 of this year, that is, from the day of the death of the Empress Maria Alexandrovna. 1880 g.

An important question came in the commentary to my entry: “Yesterday was the anniversary (130 years) of the blessed death of Empress Maria Alexandrovna (Grand Duke George is Her direct descendant). Please tell me where in St. Petersburg or other places were Pannichids served on Her? the author of the Russian folk line Alexei Popovkin ".
I would like to thank you for this question and, as an answer, tell you about how I myself "accidentally" found out about this anniversary. On June 2, in the Peter-Pavlovsk fortress, after reading the psalter over the grave of the Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna, I decided to walk along all the graves here of the buried representatives of the House of Romanovs and briefly commemorate them. When else will there be such an amazing opportunity - to be in this cathedral almost at midnight almost alone ?! All Russian tsars of the Romanov dynasty after Peter the Great were buried here. There are 42 burials in the cathedral today. I walked among these sacred tombs and briefly prayerfully remembered their names: “Lord remember the ever-remembered Emperor Peter Alexievich,” and so on.
When I approached the grave of Alexander II and his wife Maria Alexandrovna, I don't know why, I decided to read the inscription on the tombstone. She, of course, attracts attention. The tombstones of Alexander II and Maria Alexandrovna differ from all other tombstones, they are made of gray-green Altai jasper and pink Ural eagle. Emperor Alexander III wished to honor the memory of his murdered parent Alexander II and his mother, and in 1887 ordered to replace the white marble tombstones on their graves with richer ones. For this, monoliths of green Altai jasper (for Alexander II) and pink Ural rhodonite (for Maria Alexandrovna) were used. The tombstones were made at the Peterhof Lapidary Factory for 18 years. They were installed in the cathedral in February 1906 by their grandson Nicholas II.
The inscription on the front wall merged with the background of the stone and was difficult to read in the semi-dark cathedral. To read it, I had to literally feel the letters carved in the stone with my hands. And here two discoveries awaited me. Firstly, Empress Maria Alexandrovna was born on July 26, 1824, and a new style was immediately indicated - on August 8. And this is my birthday. We are all partial to such coincidences. I immediately decided that I would now always remember Empress Mary. When I made out the date of death, I was no less surprised. She reposed on May 22, 1880, in a new way - on June 4. That is, literally in a day, 130 years have passed since the repose of the Empress. The next day, at the Liturgy in the Peter-Pavlovsky Cathedral, I asked the abbot, Abbot Alexander, whether they intend to serve a panikhida in memory of the Empress on the day of her repose? He explained that since the cathedral is a museum, the administration of the museum approves the schedule of the memorial services for a year in advance and allows services for the reigning Emperors and Empresses. So far, it has not been possible to agree on the service of special memorial services for the spouses of the Emperors. Therefore, unfortunately, on the very day of the memorial service, there will be no funeral service on the coffin of Maria Alexandrovna. Fr. Alexander said that the regular service of liturgies on Sundays has been allowed since October last year, and at every liturgy at the proskomedia he commemorates all the members of the Imperial House buried in the cathedral. During this liturgy, I also took out a particle about the soul of the ever-remembered Empress Maria Alexandrovna. And from today he began to commemorate her in his church.
Empress Maria Alexandrovna is one of the brightest images of the entire House of Romanov. Her life story without the slightest effort turns into living. AF Tyutcheva wrote about her remarkably “First of all, it was an extremely sincere and deeply religious soul, but this soul, like its corporeal shell, seemed to go beyond the framework of a medieval picture. The soul of the Grand Duchess was one of those who belong to the monastery. "I found wonderful words about the Empress in the blog http://barjaktarevic.livejournal.com/81848.html:" took to heart the troubles and hardships of the Orthodox Slavs.In 1868, in the village of Belo Pole in Kosovo and Metohija, on the instructions of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, the Church of the Presentation to the Temple, destroyed by the Albanians, was restored Holy Mother of God... Maria Alexandrovna was a deeply, truly religious person ... She loved Moscow very much. I went to ancient temples, studied them in detail - comprehended with my soul. Those close to her were amazed by her deep knowledge of the history of Russia and the Orthodox Church (from the book "German Princesses - Russian Destinies"). She constantly provided attention and assistance to the Slavic Committee. ".
Therefore, it cannot be accidental that it was in honor of her that the Russian Monastery of St. Mary Magdalene was founded in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives. By the way, the sisters of the monastery are collecting materials and raising the question of the canonization of Empress Maria Alexandrovna.
For me, this discovery in the night Peter-Pavlovsky Cathedral was a small miracle.
Kingdom of Heaven and eternal peace to the ever-memorable Sovereign Empress Maria Alexandrovna. It is a pity, of course, that her jubilee remained practically unnoticed in Russia.

Empress Maria Alexandrovna, first wife of Alexander II

"Russia will never know what it owed its

Empress, due to that huge, wholesome,

The heartfelt and moral influence that she always had on the Emperor! "

E.N. Lvov. From memories.

Franz Xaver Winterhalter

The birth of a princess

The Fourth Sovereign of All Russia from the House of Romanov with such a great name in Christianity Maria - was born on July 27 (August 9) 1824 in the German Sovereign House of Hesse in the August family of the Grand Duke Ludwig II of Hesse (1777 - 1848) from a marriage with Princess Wilhelmina Louise of Baden (1788 - 1836), the august sister of the Empress Elizabeth Alekseevna - the sovereign wife of the Sovereign Emperor Alexander I the Blessed.

Ludwig II of Hesse. Lithography. The beginning of the 19th century.

Ludwig II of Hesse.

Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna. 1807. Monier. The Russian Museum.

Emperor Alexander I and Empress Elizabeth Alekseevna. After 1807. P. Crossy (sort of).

The princess was born almost 200 years after September 19 (October 2), 1624, the Holy Sacrament of marriage of the founder of the House of Romanov Tsar Mikhail I Feodorovich with the first August wife of her Princess Maria Vladimirovna Dolgorukova took place. It is also providential that, like Tsarina Maria Vladimirovna, the future Empress Maria Alexandrovna reposed before her husband, which remained the only example in the history of the Imperial House, for none of the All-Russian Sovereigns since the death of Tsarina Agafya Semyonovna on October 14 (27), 1681 , the first August wife of Tsar Theodore III Alekseevich, did not leave the crowned spouses, having retired ahead of time. A little more than 200 years will pass before the heartbeat of the Russian Empress, so beloved by the entire Royal Family, will be interrupted on the first Thursday of June 1880 (May 22, O.S.) ...

The princess's august mother left the world when she was 13 years old and she, together with her sovereign brother, Prince Alexander (1823 - 1880), was brought up by a governess for several years, living in the country castle of Jugenheim near Darmstadt.

Darmstadt

Mother of Mary, Wilhelmina of Baden.

Mary's brother Alexander of Hesse-Darmstadt

By the time of her birth, the princess's august mother had not lived with her sovereign spouse for a long time. Each had their own love, and according to conversations, the princess was born from Baron de Grancy, a Swiss of French origin, who was the Grand Duke's equestrian. It seemed that nothing any longer foreshadowed a glorious future for the princess. However, by the will of the All-Merciful arbiter of destinies, in March 1839, the only daughter of the Grand Duke Ludwig II met in Darmstadt the Tsarevich Alexander II Nikolaevich traveling to Western Europe, the future Autocrat of All-Russia Alexander II the Liberator.

Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich

Tsarevich Alexander Pavlovich

The chosen one of the Tsarevich

From a letter from the heir of Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich, to his August father, Emperor Nicholas I the Podvigolyubivy, on March 25 (April 7) on Annunciation Day 1839: “Here, in Darmstadt, I met the daughter of the Reigning Grand Duke, Princess Mary. from the very first moment when I saw her ... And, if you will, my dear dad, after my visit to England, I will return to Darmstadt again. ”However, consent to the marriage The August parents of the Tsarevich and the Grand Duke Emperor Nicholas I the Heroic and Empress Alexandra I Feodorovna was not given immediately.

Emperor Nicholas I and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna

From the secret correspondence between Emperor Nicholas I Pavlovich and Count A.N. Orlov, trustee of the heir: “Doubts about the legality of her origin are more real than you think. three older August brothers - approx. AR), but she is officially recognized as the daughter of her crowned father and bears his surname, therefore no one can say anything against her in this sense. " (Letters and documents are cited from the book by EP Tolmachev "Alexander II and His Time", vol. 1. P. 94.) them on the very day of his arrival in Darmstadt, however, he reacted exactly as you ... He thinks that, of course, it would have been better otherwise, but she bears the name of her father, therefore, from the point of view of the law, no one can reproach her. " Meanwhile, the heir to the All-Russian throne had the strongest feelings for the princess. From a letter from the heir to Tsarevich Alexander, the August Mother, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, May 1839. Darmstadt: "Dear Mom, what do I care about the secrets of Princess Mary! I love her, and I would rather give up the throne than her. I will marry only her, this is my decision!"

Princess Maximiliana Wilhelmina Augusta Sofia Maria

Princess Maximiliana Wilhelmina Augusta Sofia Maria

Princess Maximiliana Wilhelmina Augusta Sofia Maria

Arrival in Russia

In September 1840, the princess entered the Russian land, and in December of the same year she converted to Orthodoxy with the name Maria Alexandrovna, becoming the fourth chosen one of the Russian Sovereigns from the House of Romanov with the name of the Most Holy Theotokos. At the end of Bright Week on April 19 (29), 1841, the heir to the Tsarevich and Grand Duke Alexander Nikolaevich and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna got married.

The lady-in-waiting of the Court AF Tyutchev, who knew the Empress closely, left us many detailed memories of Princess Mary: was transferred to the Court, the most magnificent, the most brilliant and most secular of all European Courts. She told me that many times after long efforts to overcome shyness and embarrassment, she at night in the privacy of her bedroom indulged in tears and long suppressed sobs ...

Tyutcheva Anna Fedorovna

When I first saw the Grand Duchess, she was 28 years old. However, she looked very young. She kept this youthful appearance all her life, so that at 40 she could be mistaken for a woman of about thirty. Despite her tall stature and slenderness, she was so thin and fragile that at first glance she did not give the impression of a beauty; but she was unusually graceful with that very special grace that can be found in old German paintings, in Albrecht Durer's Madonnas ...

In no one have I ever observed, to a greater extent than in Tsesarevna, this spiritualized grace of ideal abstraction. Her features were not correct. Her wonderful hair, her delicate complexion, her big blue, slightly bulging eyes, looked meek and soulful, were beautiful. Her profile was not beautiful, since her nose did not differ in regularity, and her chin stepped back somewhat. The mouth was thin, with compressed lips, which indicated restraint, without the slightest sign of the ability to inspire or impulse, and the barely noticeable ironic smile made a strange contrast to the expression of her eyes ... I rarely saw a person whose face and appearance better expressed the shades and contrasts of his internal extremely complex "I". The mind of the Tsesarevna was like her soul: delicate, graceful, perceptive, very ironic, but devoid of fervor, breadth and initiative ... She was careful to the extreme, and this caution made her weak in life ... She had an exceptional degree of prestige of the Empress and the charm of a woman and she knew how to use these means with great intelligence and skill. "

Unknown artist

Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna

Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna

Christina Robertson

According to her contemporaries, and the same maid of honor Tyutcheva: "Many judged her and condemned her a lot, often not without reason, for her lack of initiative, interest and activity in all areas where she could bring life and movement." Everyone expected from the Empress the activity characteristic of her August namesake Empress Maria I Feodorovna, who, following the tragic death of her August husband, Emperor Paul I Petrovich, founded many charitable societies, actively intervened in the politics of the sovereign son of Emperor Alexander I Pavlovich, had a brilliant Court, and so on. At first, not many people knew that the future Empress Maria Alexandrovna, born by the will of God on the day of the Holy Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon, was terminally ill with heart and lungs, carrying her heavy Cross all her life. But even so, she did a lot of godly deeds, continuing the glorious traditions of the All-Russian Empresses.

Coronation portraits of Alexander II and Maria Alexandrovna

Coronation.

Coronation celebrations

Timm Vasily Fedorovich

Coronation celebrations

Mikhail Alexandrovich Zichy

Coronation celebrations

Coronation celebrations

Timm Vasily Fedorovich

Coronation celebrations

Timm Vasily Fedorovich

Coronation celebrations

Coronation celebrations

Mikhail Alexandrovich Zichy

Coronation celebrations

Coronation celebrations

Mikhail Alexandrovich Zichy

Coronation celebrations

Coronation celebrations

Timm Vasily Fedorovich

Coronation celebrations

Mikhail Alexandrovich Zichy

Coronation celebrations

Mikhail Alexandrovich Zichy

Coronation celebrations

Mikhail Alexandrovich Zichy

Coronation celebrations

Folk holiday on Khodynskoye Pole in Moscow on the occasion of the sacred coronation of Emperor Alexander II

Mikhail Alexandrovich Zichy

Also, let us not forget that none of the Empresses was subjected to such a horrific terror in Russia. To survive six attempts on the life of the August spouse, to live in anxiety for the Tsar and the crowned children for a long 14 years, from the moment of the first shot of D.V. Karakozov on April 4 (17) until the explosion in the dining room of the Winter Palace in February 1880, which claimed 11 lives - this is to survive destined for only a few. According to the lady-in-waiting of Countess AA Tolstoy, “the Empress's poor health finally deteriorated after the assassination attempt on April 2, 1879, (Arranged by the populist-Narodnaya Volya AK Soloviev - approx. AR). After him, she no longer recovered. I, as now, see her that day - with feverishly shining eyes, broken, desperate. "There is no more need to live," she told me, "I feel like it is killing me."

M.A. Zichy. "The highest reception in the Winter Palace on April 5, 1866 after the first attempt on the life of Emperor Alexander II.", Performed in 1866

Zichy Mikhail Alexandrovich. "Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, Dowager Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna"

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Acts of the Empress

The Empress Empress Maria Alexandrovna accomplished the most important feat of her life - she strengthened the throne of the dynasty with numerous heirs. She gave birth to her beloved Tsar Alexander II Nikolaevich, eight crowned children: two crowned daughters and six sons. Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich 01 The Lord lent her to survive two of them - the August daughter Alexandra and the heir to Tsarevich Nicholas in 1849 and 1865. After the death of the August mother-in-law of the Empress Alexandra I Feodorovna in 1860, she headed the huge charitable department of the Mariinsky gymnasiums and educational institutions. She was destined to open the first branch of the Red Cross in Russia and a number of the largest military hospitals during the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878. With the support of the progressive community and the active personal assistance of K. D. Ushinsky, she prepared for Emperor Alexander II Nikolaevich several notes on the reform of primary and female education in Russia.

Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna with her son Nikolai

Types of rooms in the Winter Palace. Cabinet of Emperor Alexander II

Sverchkov Nikolay Egorovich - Riding in a Carriage (Alexander II with Children)

Emperor Alexander II with children. Photo of 1860

M.A. Zichy. "The highest reception at the Winter Palace on April 5, 1866 after the first attempt on the life of Emperor Alexander II.

Patronizing education

The Empress founded countless orphanages, almshouses and boarding houses. It marked the beginning of a new period of women's education in Russia, with the establishment of open all-class women's educational institutions (gymnasiums), which, according to the regulation of 1860, it was decided to open in all cities where it would be possible to ensure their existence. Under her, women's gymnasiums in Russia were supported almost exclusively by public and private funds. From now on, not only the highest patronage, but social forces in many respects determined the fate of female education in Russia. Teaching subjects were divided into compulsory and optional. The obligatory in the three-year gymnasiums included: the Law of God, the Russian language, Russian history and geography, arithmetic, calligraphy, handicrafts. I know women's gymnasiums, in addition to the above subjects, the foundations of geometry, geography, history were required, as well as "the most important concepts in natural history and physics with the addition of information related to household and hygiene", calligraphy, handicrafts, gymnastics.

Ivan Makarov Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Alexander II.

"Like an unsolved mystery ..."

Like an unsolved mystery

Living beauty breathes in her -

We look with uneasy trepidation

Into the quiet light of her eyes.

Earthly charm in her

Or unearthly grace?

The soul would like to pray to her,

And my heart is eager to adore ...

F.I.Tyutchev. Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Timofey Neff Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna.

Andrey Drozdov Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Alexander II.

Girls who were awarded gold or silver medals at the end of the gymnasium course of general education, and moreover, who had listened to a special special course of the additional class, acquired the title of home tutors. Those who did not receive medals, received an "approval certificate" for completing a full general course in a gymnasium and attended a special course in an additional class, enjoyed the rights of home teachers. The transformative activity of the Empress Maria Alexandrovna also touched upon her formulation of education in institutes. On the personal initiative of the Empress, measures were taken not only to protect the health and physical strength of children, by eliminating from the circle of their occupations all that has the character of only mechanical, unproductive labor (compiling and writing off notes that replaced printed manuals, etc.), but also to greater rapprochement of the pupils with the family and with the environment surrounding the parental home, for which they began to be allowed leave to the homes of their parents and closest relatives for vacations and holidays. At the thought and initiative of the Empress, for the first time in Russia, women's diocesan schools began to arise. In the field of charity, the most important merit of the Empress is the organization of the Red Cross, on expanding the activities of which during the Russian-Turkish war she put a lot of work and expense, refusing even to sew new dresses for herself, giving all her savings for the benefit of widows, orphans, the wounded and sick. The patronage of Empress Maria Alexandrovna owes their development and success to the society of "restoration of Christianity in the Caucasus", "distribution of spiritual and moral books", "Russian missionary", "brotherly in Moscow" and many other charitable institutions.

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Peter Ernst Rockstuhl

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Ivan Makarov

And finally, the Empress, with the full support of her August spouse, founded the largest theater and ballet school in St. Petersburg and all of Russia, which was later headed by Agrippina Vaganova. At the same time, both the school and the famous theater were fully supported by the Imperial Family, personally by the Empress, and, at the insistence of the August spouse, Emperor Alexander II, bore her name. The theater bears a sovereign name even now. A bust of Empress Maria Alexandrovna was recently installed in the foyer of the theater. From the first hour of the sovereign service of the Princess Mary of Hesse on the Russian land, her burden was so voluminous and all-embracing that the Empress spent countless amounts of energy to keep up everywhere, not to be late, to bestow, smile, console, encourage, pray, instruct, answer, fondle and: sing a lullaby. She burned like a candle in the wind! To her maid of honor and educator, confidant, Anna Tyutcheva, Tsesarevna, and later - the Sovereign of All Russia, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, with a tired smile, confessed more than once that she lived most of her life as a "volunteer" - that is, a volunteer soldier!

Karl Schultz Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna.

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Not a minute of rest and peace, moral and physical. Only the ardent feeling of reverent, selfless love for the spouse - the Emperor and no less strong sense of true faith, which sometimes admired even people of the original Orthodox, including: the confessor of the Imperial Family V. I Bazhanov and the famous Saint Metropolitan of Moscow Philaret Drozdov, supported the rapidly exhausted fragile forces of the Empress. The Saint of Moscow left several testimonies of his gratitude to the Empress, often turning to her with speeches and conversations given here.

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna in mourning

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna,

I.K. Makarov

It is known that the Empress was extremely God-loving and magnanimous, humble and meek. In her sovereign position, she was the only Empress in the Russian state for almost 20 years. She was kept on the ground only by the invariable good spirits and that "unsolved mystery of living charm," which the observant diplomat and poet Tyutchev so subtly noted in her. The powerful charm of her personality extended to everyone who loved and knew her, but such, over the years, it became less and less!

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

And the trials, on the contrary, did not diminish in the life of the High Royal Person, surrounded by the close attention of hundreds of picky eyes. One of such difficult trials for Her Majesty Empress Mary was the presence in the personal retinue of the Empress of a young, charming lady-in-waiting, Princess Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukaya, with whom such an adored husband, the ruler of the Empire, desperately, dizzily, quickly fell in love. Empress Maria Alexandrovna knew everything, for she was too smart and impressionable for self-deception, but she could not do anything ... Or did she not want to? She suffered all fourteen years of this scandalous connection - silently, patiently, without raising an eyebrow, without showing any sign. It had its own pride and its own nagging pain. Not everyone understood and accepted this. Especially matured August children, and sons who literally idolized their mother!

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Firs Sergeevich Zhuravlev (1836-1901) Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

Blissful demise

I dare to ask Your Imperial Majesty not to return for the winter to St. Petersburg and, in general, to central Russia. As a last resort - Crimea. For your exhausted lungs and heart, weakened by stress, the climate of St. Petersburg is destructive, I dare assure! Your villa in Florence is ready for a long time and is waiting for you. And the new Palace in the vicinity of Livadia is all at the service of your Imperial ...:

- Tell me, Sergei Petrovich,- suddenly interrupted the Life - the physician Botkin Empress, - to keep me here, away from Russia, did the Emperor ask you? Does he not want me to come back?- Thin, emaciated fingers drummed nervously on the windowsill of the high Italian window of the villa, overlooking the sea coast. The sea behind the glass was floating in the morning haze and was still sleepy - serene. It seemed to sway right at the feet:

August Behrendsen Küste bei Nizza

Throw away all these curtsies, Sergei Petrovich! From my invaluable health there were tiny drops, and from the August Will - one humility before God's will!- the emaciated profile of the Empress was still improperly beautiful with some unusual, painful subtlety, she had not been there before, but even on him, the profile, it seemed, had already fallen into the imperious shadow of death.

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

- I dare to argue with Your Majesty about the last statement!

So - sir, fast pulse, wet palms ... You should lie down, Your Imperial Majesty, I will now call a nurse. We must observe the regime!

I'll lie down in the next world, Sergei Petrovich, it's not long to wait. Tell me to get ready, tomorrow morning I have to be in Cannes, from there to - St. Petersburg, that's enough, I sat by the sea. I want to die at home, in my bed.

Sergey Petrovich Botkin

The whole course of procedures has not been completed yet, and I do not want to resort to oxygen cushions, as in my last visit to the capital! Your Majesty, I beg you! I received a letter from Their Highnesses, Tsarevich Alexander and Tsesarevna Maria Feodorovna, they also find that it is extremely undesirable for you to be in the capital and sour in the stuffy Winter. Autumn this year in St. Petersburg, as always, is not sugar! - the medic-life smiled slightly, the Empress immediately picked up this weak smile:

Alexander II with his family

I know, dear doctor, I know, but that's not the reason! You are simply afraid of how the presence in the Palace, over my poor head, a famous person, Sacred to the Sovereign Emperor, will affect my health! The Empress chuckled a little. Fear not, I will no longer drop combs and beat cups at the sound of children's footsteps... (A hint of Princess Catherine Dolgoruky and her children from Emperor Alexander. There were three of them. They all lived in the Winter Palace and occupied apartments right above the Empress's head! This was dictated, as historians write, by considerations of the Princess and the children’s safety. assassination attempt on the Emperor. But is it only this? .. - author's note).

Kohler I.P.Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

As always, I will find a natural explanation for such a natural noise, so as not to embarrass the young maids! - The Empress tried to smile, but her face was distorted by a painful grimace. She lowered her head, trying to suppress a fit of coughing, pressed the handkerchief to her lips. He was instantly soaked in blood.

- Your Imperial Majesty, I beg you, no need! - the agitated Botkin sharply squeezed Maria Alexandrovna's hand in his palms. I understand, I shouldn't! I understand everything, I just want you to know: I have never blamed him for anything and do not blame him! Over the years, he gave me so much happiness and so often proved to me his immeasurable respect that this would be more than enough for ten ordinary women!

Ivan Kramskoy Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

It is not his fault that he is Caesar, and I am Caesar's wife! You will object now that he insulted the Empress in me, and you will be right, dear doctor, of course, you are right, but let God judge him! I have no right to do so. Heaven knows and knows my resentment and bitterness for a long time. Alexander too. And my real trouble is that life for me acquires full meaning and multicolored colors only next to him, no matter whether his heart belongs to me or another, younger and more beautiful ... He is not to blame, which means more to me than everything else I'm just so weirdly arranged.

Princess Dolgorukaya Ekaterina Mikhailovna. - Late 1860s - early 1870s. - Photo

And I'm happy that I can leave before him. Fear for his life tortured me greatly! These six assassination attempts! Crazy Russia! She always needs something amazing foundations and foundations, disastrous shakes ... And, perhaps, the Autocrat's heartfelt personal weaknesses only play into her hands, who knows? "He is the same as we are, a weak mortal, and even an adulterer! Poison him, hey, hey!" - they shout, forgetting. Perhaps, by my prayer, There, at the Throne of the Heavenly Father, I will beg for him a quiet death, instead of the martyr's crown of the sufferer, driven into a corner by the raging rabble with foam at the mouth, eternally dissatisfied. Maria Alexandrovna sighed wearily and bowed her head on her folded hands in prayer. The strength left her completely.

-Your Imperial Majesty, you are tired, take a rest, why bother with dark thoughts! - The Life Medic muttered helplessly, trying to hide the confusion and excitement that gripped him.

Sergei Petrovich, tell me to get ready! the Empress whispered wearily. - As long as I have the strength, I want to return and die beside him and the children, on my native land, under my native clouds. You know, nowhere else is there such a high sky as in Russia, and such warm and soft clouds! - the shadow of a dreamy smile touched the Empress's bloodless lips.

Didn't you notice? Tell His Majesty that I will bequeath to be buried in a simple white dress, without a crown on my head and other Royal insignia. There, under warm and soft clouds, we are all equal before the Heavenly King, in Eternity there are no differences of rank. Do you say, dear doctor?

Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

On September 3, the empress returned from abroad with the princess. The empress, accompanied by the whole family, brought the princess to the rooms prepared for her on the upper floor. The empress took off the cambric kerchief from her neck, handed it to me and asked what my name was, where I was brought up, how long ago I had finished my course. Then she added: “I ask you to always speak Russian with the princess.

On September 7th there was a solemn entry of the highly esteemed bride into the capital. The weather was excellent; the royal family left Tsarskoe Selo in carriages, stopped in the suburban traveling palace Four Slingshots; there was breakfast and a little rest, after which the empress, the grand duchesses and the princess changed into Russian dresses. According to the ceremonial, everyone settled in gilded carriages and the ceremonial train moved at a step towards the capital.

The princess was assigned rooms on the ground floor with windows facing the Neva, along with the rooms of the Grand Duchesses Olga and Alexandra Nikolaevna. After the reception, the princess returned to her chambers, where I had to remove from her head and neck the most precious diamond jewelry that I had seen for the first time in my life. The princess wore a blue train all embroidered in silver and a white silk sundress, in front of which it was also embroidered in silver, and instead of buttons there were diamonds and rubies; a bandage of dark crimson velvet, trimmed with diamonds, an embroidered veil fell from the head in silver.

On September 9th, there was a ceremonial performance, and soon after that the Tsarskaya family returned to Tsarskoe Selo, where they spent the whole autumn in great entertainment. Without fail, every Sunday there was a ceremonial dinner at the Empress's, the toilets were almost ballroom: smart dresses with open bodices, short sleeves, white shoes, flowers and diamonds. French performances were given at the small Tsarskoye Selo theater. The Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, who was distinguished by her great taste, organized elegant celebrations in honor of the bride and groom. Sometimes we went to St. Petersburg to listen to an opera or see a new ballet.

Unfortunately, the princess was not always able to participate in the festivities and pleasures. Probably out of her habit of the harsh climate, a red spot the size of a pigeon's egg had formed on one cheek under her eye. Although it did not really bother her, the doctors did not advise her to go out into the cold. In general, she skated a little, and even then, in a closed carriage, for the most part she walked either in the halls of the Winter Palace or in the Winter Garden.

December 5th was the day of the anointing of the princess. That day she was wearing a white satin sundress and train; the latter was covered with swan's down; the hair was removed very simply: it was knocked down from the front into long, almost transparent curls; this hairstyle suited her very well, the whole dressing room was distinguished by its simplicity: there were no precious jewelry on it. The next day the Tsarevich was betrothed to the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna.

The apartment intended for the young people in the Winter Palace overlooked partly the Admiralty and partly the square of the Alexander Column. The first room was a large reception room, the second was an office, behind the columns in an alcove was a bedroom, then a room where the Tsarevich received orderlies in the morning. Then half of the crown princess began. The first room was a toilet, the second was a bathroom, and the third was a very large bedroom. The fourth room is the study, the fifth is the ceremonial study, the sixth is the golden room, the seventh is a huge white room.

1841, on April 16 at 8 o'clock in the morning, five cannon shots announced to the capital that the highest wedding was to take place today. We were in white dresses and put on the diamond clasps we had just received from the Tsarevich as a gift. When the bride was dressing the wedding dress, there were ladies of state and maids of honor.

Her white sundress was richly embroidered in silver and adorned with diamonds. A red ribbon lay over her shoulder, and a crimson velvet robe, padded with white satin and trimmed with ermine, was attached to the shoulders. On the head - a diamond diadem, earrings, necklace, bracelets - diamond. Accompanied by her staff, the Grand Duchess came to the Empress's rooms, where she was put on a diamond crown. The Empress realized that not precious diamonds should adorn the innocent and pure brow of the young princess on this day; she could not resist the desire to decorate the bride's head with a flower that serves as an emblem of purity and innocence. The Empress ordered several branches of fresh orange flowers to be brought and she herself stuck them between the diamonds in the crown; pinned a small branch on the chest; the pale flower was not noticeable among the regalia and precious diamonds, but its symbolic brilliance touched many.

Invited foreign guests, ambassadors and representatives of foreign courts in shiny court costumes, ladies in rich ceremonial court dresses of their courts have already taken their places in the church. In the choirs of those halls through which the procession was supposed to pass, a mass of the public crowded. In the choirs, the audience was in the richest toilets, it happened, however, that one lady was wearing a black lace cape, and a runner immediately appears and asks on behalf of the Chief Marshal Olsufiev to remove the black cape. The lady, of course, instantly fulfills the desire of the knight marshal, throws off the cape and holds it in her arms; a runner appears again, asking to take it away or hide it so that nothing black can be seen at all.

The ringing of the bells did not stop all day. When it got dark, the whole city was flooded with the lights of magnificent illumination. In the evening there was a ball, to which only the first three classes of ranks, the first two guilds of merchants and foreign merchants were admitted.

June 25, on the birthday of Tsar Nikolai Pavlovich, there was usually a reception. After the wedding of the Tsarevich, the Empress decided to arrange this banquet in the form of a rural festival in the open air in the garden of Monplaisir, and she wished that the toilets would correspond to their simplicity. Ladies were mostly in light white dresses. The empress's white dress was decorated with bouquets of cornflowers (her favorite flower), her head was decorated with the same flowers. The princess's white dress was embroidered with straw, her head was covered with red poppy and ears of corn, the dress was decorated with the same flowers, and in her hands was a bouquet of the same flowers. The costumes of the rest of the people were more or less simple. For that adornment with jewelry there were no boundaries. The mass of white dresses produced a great effect, but the main beauty was given to them by diamonds. The empress, the crown princess, and other grand duchesses and princesses had their flowers studded with diamonds: a diamond was attached to the center of each flower on a silver wire; he depicted as it were dew and swayed effectively on his flexible stalk.

Dress embroidered with straw. Russian Empire, 1840

The ladies who walked in the garden of Montplaisir and on its platform overlooking the bay, in white dresses, shining with all the colors of the rainbow of precious stones, seemed to be nymphs, especially on the platform of the coast, where the last rays of the setting sun illuminated these brilliant moving creatures for several minutes and gave them some kind of pink transparency. Music played in the halls and in the garden. The mass of the public surrounded the Montplaisir garden and admired a truly magnificent sight.

In early August, the royal family moved to Tsarskoe Selo, which was the favorite place of residence of the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna. The Grand Duchess usually got up at 8-9 o'clock and then ate tea in the Catherine's bedroom with the Grand Duke, who by this time was returning from a walk around the lake. Her morning dress was very simple: a light cambric or jaconet dress with a white embroidered collar, a straw hat with straw-colored ribbons, a brown veil, a brown umbrella, Swedish gloves and a checkered, motley coat. Dressed like that, she went every morning with the Tsarevich in a cab to the Empress.

The Grand Duke often left to work for the sovereign, and the Grand Duchess at that time, accompanied by one of her maids of honor, Princess Eugenia Dolgorukova or Sofia Dashkova, went for a walk on foot; these walks sometimes lasted two hours. She used to come back from a walk tired, heated, hurrying to change her dress for a slooper (and at least wring out the linen on her), at the same time hurrying to get seltzer water as soon as possible. A jug of water was served literally ice cold, it could hardly be held in hand. Half a lemon was squeezed into a glass and a third of the glass was poured into the finest sugar; she held the glass in her hand and stirred quickly with a spoon while the water was poured; from the lemon and sugar, the water froth strongly, and the Grand Duchess drank a glass of cold seltzer water in one gulp, after which she went into the study and lay down on the couch to rest. That may be the reason for the onset of her illness and premature death. I was extremely surprised by this regime, but I had no right to talk about it. Often, returning from a meeting heated up, she found the night so seductively cool that she went for a drive. It happened even in winter that, having changed her outfit for a simple negligee, she rode in an open sleigh with the Grand Duke. The Grand Duke sometimes left for Petersburg, to the State Council from 10 am and returned to dinner at 7 o'clock; and the Grand Duchess did not eat breakfast without him and thus did not take food for more than 10 hours. This could hardly fail to harm her delicate body.

In the fall, the royal family lived for more than three months in Tsarskoe Selo; August and September were spent in summer entertainments: long walks, skiing, etc. Sometimes in the evening we went to Pavlovsk in English carriages to the music.

From Tsarskoe Selo it was supposed to go for 10-12 days to Gatchino. The first step was a walk through the palace; the Grand Duchess was shown all the sights of the palace, then there were walks in the parks, which are really good. It was announced that there will be a performance, the vaudeville "Lodge of the first tier" will be held. Daily rehearsals were scheduled. Immediately after breakfast, with cheerful exclamations and laughter, the whole company hurried to the hall where the theater was set up. The Grand Duchess returned from rehearsals cheerful, sang, tried to tell us something funny to make us laugh. Taking off her gloves, and showing them to us with a grin, she said:

Vous vous-etonnez? (Are you surprised?) And there really was something to be surprised: the gloves for the first time were literally tattered, as it turned out, due to zealous applause. On her right hand, on the fourth finger, the Grand Duchess wore many rings; these were the memories of her childhood, adolescence, there were her mother's rings, all inexpensive and not even of any particular outward dignity. On her left hand she wore a very thick wedding ring and another, equally thick, with a patterned embossing, a diameter of the same thickness attached with a large ruby. This is a family ring presented by the sovereign to all members royal family... These rings helped to rip the gloves when applauding.
The Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna reluctantly left the more or less quiet life in Tsarskoe Selo in order to plunge back into the life of the capital's etiquette with incessant audiences, performances of new faces, necessary visits to balls, concerts, performances, strictly observed visits and congratulations between the royal persons. It was unthinkable not to appear at the daily meetings of the Empress. When the meeting consisted of a small circle of invitees, the ladies were engaged in needlework; they embroidered on the canvas with wool a strip ½ arshin wide and about 6-7 arshins long, at the end of each strip the name of the embroiderer was embroidered. On the day on duty, we embroidered half a stitch according to the pattern, so the Grand Duchess only had to cover the half-embroidered stitches. This embroidery was intended for one of the rooms of the Gatchina Palace. Between each embroidered strip was inserted a strip of polished walnut of the same width.

At Shrovetide, the sovereign invited his entire family and several selected persons to pancakes, and after the pancakes it was supposed to dance. It was a completely new pleasure: during the day to dance with the sovereign in small cramped rooms! It was accepted with enthusiasm! In terms of tightness, it was decided to dress very simply: white muslin dresses, a bow or a flower on the head, but precious jewelry replenished the toilet and rewarded simplicity. By 12 o'clock everyone gathered for pancakes, after which they immediately began to dance in all the rooms. The tightness and the hustle and bustle were terrible, but that made it all the more fun. After dancing until 6 o'clock, everyone came home tired, flushed, with torn dresses, and enthusiastically claimed that they had never had so much fun as that day and called it "Folle journee" (crazy day).

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna knew that the Tsar was a great connoisseur of ladies' attire and loved something original; she came up with dresses of the same color and cut for all the ladies of the royal family. One day a family dinner was appointed; no one was invited to such a dinner: the sovereign dined with his family.

Family dresses were prepared by surprise for this day. They were sewn from blue silk fabric (gros d'Afrique) in a very simple but original way: a skirt of 6-7 panels is assembled and sewn to the belt; bodice with a cape. Starting from the cape, three folds are made, which are sewn tightly at the cape and up to the half of the waist, so that they are almost invisible; from half the waist, they begin to diverge and already at the very collar, i.e. they form three folds on the chest, folded in tubes, which by their inner side are slightly attached to the white silk lining of the bodice; the edge of the lagging folds is trimmed with a narrow velvet ribbon, and around the collar of the white bodice a white muslin buffa is sewn into an inch wide; a narrow velvet ribbon is inserted into the upper part of it so that you can pull the buffa a little on the shoulders and chest. From under the blue short sleeves in the form of an epaulette, long wide white muslin sleeves descend, sewn only to the bend of the elbow, leaving the rest of the arm bare. He is wearing a family bracelet. On the head there are two gold hoops ½ inches wide: the first on the forehead, near the hair, the second surrounded a braid, from which 3-4 long curls fell out.

The sovereign presented exactly the same bracelets to all the ladies of the family. The ½ inch wide bracelet consisted of various parallelogram-shaped gems the same size, each stone was set separately and could be unfastened from the other. The Emperor, entering the Empress's rooms and seeing his entire family in antique hairstyles and dresses as close as possible to the Greek cut, was pleasantly struck by this metamorphosis.

Once, entering the dressing room, I quite unexpectedly found Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna and Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna there; both of them sat in armchairs. I had to pass by Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna. She anxiously turned to me, apparently protecting something on the floor and said: - Je vous en prie, ne marches pas sur mon chapeau! (Please n step on my hat.) I saw her hat on the floor and hurriedly wanted to pick it up, but the Grand Duchess did not allow it, adding: - Non, non, laissez le, ou il est. (No, no, leave her where she lies). It turned out that, out of respect for the Grand Duchess, she did not consider it possible to put the hat on a chair, table or sofa, but laid it on the floor beside her.

Since the Grand Duchess returned from church before the end of Mass, she became ill. Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, having escorted her to her rooms, turned to us with joyful congratulations.

Congratulations, congratulations ... alter the dresses.

From that time on, the Grand Duchess began to stay at home more often. Prince Alexander and the maid of honor Grancy spent time with her.

With the first rays of the spring sun, the Grand Duchess was in a hurry to leave the stuffy capital in order to heal again in the open, on clean air, which was still very fresh, but the Grand Duchess was very fond of walking for several hours a day. Her delicate skin on her hands and face was covered with some kind of dandruff and coarse, even bursting on her hands; doctors advised her to use a decoction of oatmeal instead of water to wash her hands, and almond bran for her face. In the spring, when the heat set in, the Grand Duchess sunbathed not so much from the sun as from the air. Upon returning from a walk, she was immediately served a fresh cucumber, she cut it in half in half and wiped her face with the inside; it was very refreshing for her.

To prevent mosquitoes from staying in the bedroom at night, since the Grand Duchess did not go to bed, if she heard the squeak of a mosquito, they used the following remedy: they would open all the windows, put out all the lights, the footman would bring in a wash cup filled with water and light a juniper branch, holding it over cup to prevent sparks from falling onto the carpet. The room is filled with juniper smoke and mosquitoes along with it rush through the open windows. When the air is more or less purified, then the windows are closed and the fire is brought in again.

At that time the Empress was abroad, and the Grand Dukes Nikolai and Mikhail Nikolaevich remained in Tsarskoe Selo; almost every day, during their morning walk, they went to see the Grand Duchess. They joked, played naughty, chatted, made the Grand Duchess and us laugh. Once they began to imagine how they would choose their brides (they were then 10-11 years old). Green screens by the bed depicted a number of foreign princesses, and they, passing by, surveyed them and, pointing at each with their hand, said: "Laide, laide, passable, passable, laide!" ("Ugly, ugly, mediocre, mediocre, ugly"). The Grand Duchess laughed and teased them that in this way they risked remaining bachelors.

Princess Maria Alexandrovna's dress

From Tsarskoye Selo the imperial family moved to Peterhof; that summer the Grand Duchess had to give up ceremonial exits, dinners and balls, which, incidentally, she was very glad, because she preferred a quieter life. But she walked very diligently; the bad, rainy weather did not hold her in the least. Her legs were very swollen because of her position; huge boots and galoshes had to be ordered; the galoshes were unbearable to her, weighed down and shook her legs. M-me Bruno (the shoemaker) managed to make galoshes from glove leather on a very light and soft lining; Of course, walking in the rain and on swampy paths, without wrapping her dresses and skirts, the Grand Duchess returned from a walk in such a state that she had to not only change clothes, but the removed dresses and skirts (she wore white silk skirts) turned out to be unsuitable for further use; the galoshes were soaked and looked like something soft and imperceptibly slippery, and the red lining colored both boots and stockings; all these shoes could hardly be pulled off the feet. Consequently, boots and galoshes were ordered in dozens; galoshes served only for one walk.

In early August, everyone moved from Peterhof to Tsarskoe Selo. Finally, the day of the motherland came. Sovereign Nikolai Pavlovich visited the Grand Duchess in the morning, and later the Empress arrived. When the obstetrician could reliably determine the proximity of childbirth, the sovereign went to the Catherine's bedroom, where an image and a glowing lamp were prepared on the table; here Nikolai Pavlovich prayed fervently for a successful resolution. When he accidentally entered the duty room, where we were all on duty and free, he looked at us and told the camera-frau to release us from service for a few days, since there is nothing for such young girls to do here.

When the next day we were allowed to congratulate the Grand Duchess, the newborn was lying in a basket covered with green taffeta, at the head and at the feet were reclining wagons; the basket was on the bed next to the Grand Duchess.

On the ninth day, the Grand Duchess got up; for this day, the Grand Duke presented her with a morning bonnet, gray cashmere, with a blue silk lining and a cap with blue ribbons. When she was completely dressed, the Grand Duke came, hugged her, kissed her and took her by the arm to her office, where she received the Grand Duchesses and Grand Dukes who came with congratulations, here she stayed until 8 o'clock, after which she was put back to bed.

From that day on, the child was placed in the rooms prepared for him. The Grand Duchess expressed a desire to feed herself, but the sovereign opposed this. On August 30th, the christening took place in the Tsarskoye Selo church.

Once the Grand Duchess, returning from the French theater, told the chamberlain that she had seen Madame Allan (the famous French actress) that evening had a very beautiful ribbon, worn instead of a sash. The Grand Duchess described the ribbon and added:

Look in stores to see if you can find something similar.
A few days later, the chamber-frau brings a ribbon about 4 yards long, exactly the same as the one described by the Grand Duchess, and says that there are no more such ribbons, everything is sold out. The Grand Duchess was satisfied and ordered and ordered to make a sash with long ends, and put it on white dresses. And the chamber-frau confessed to us that she had gone to see Mrs. Allan and begged her to give up this tape to the Grand Duchess.

Both the sovereign and the grand duke paid much attention to the toilets. The sovereign had an antipathy for black ties. Then a tie was a necessary accessory for a toilet; to please the sovereign, only colored ones could be worn. When the sovereign happened to pass through the duty room and noticed a black tie on one of us, he would certainly ask:

Long ago widowed?
And if he was in a bad mood, he said:
- What a crow!

In Darmstadt, it is customary for Christmas to bake anise gingerbread. The Grand Duchess loved them very much. Louise Beger brought them to the Grand Duchess every year for Christmas. Subsequently, they began to be baked in the court confectionery, but the Grand Duchess found that they were not prepared so well.

On one of the big holidays, before moving to Tsarskoe Selo, there was an exit at the court. The Empress put on a precious pearl necklace, which consisted of four strings of large pearls; the largest grains were in the middle, smaller at the ends and closed with a large clasp of pearls.

Soon there was a way out again and the empress wished to put on the same necklace again. It should be noted that the pearls were mathematically correctly matched in size, and the threads lay so tightly to one another that they were like something solid. On the same day, to the extreme amazement of everyone, the necklace could not be laid evenly in any way: the upper thread constantly fell to the next one; No matter how they adjusted, the necklace was impossible to put on. The Empress, of course, was very unhappy with this; she put on a long string of large pearls that fell below her waist.

As soon as the empress left for the church, the chamberlain sent immediately for the court jeweler and taxir, Kemmerer. He knew all the diamonds and jewels of the empress. Arriving, Kemmerer put the necklace in a box in which four grooves were made, into which the grains are poured when they are strung. Now it turned out that not all the grains were here; but the symmetrical distribution of pearls in size was not violated, therefore it was difficult to immediately determine how many and what grains were missing. By weight and reference in the book, the jeweler announced that there were not enough 8 pearls worth 800 rubles. The unhappy chamber-frau was desperate; she could not find peace, exhausted and anxious about the impossibility of finding the culprit and finding out in what way and when they could extract the pearls from the closed showcase.

The Chief of Police was immediately notified of the disappearance: of course, a strict secret surveillance was established for everyone.

The next day, a woman unexpectedly comes to the chamber-frau, throws herself on her knees in front of her, begging not to destroy her, and announces that she can indicate who has stolen the pearls.
Kamer-Frau calms her down, promising not only not to destroy her, but even to reward her if her testimony turns out to be true. Then this woman, who turned out to be the serf maid of the chamber-jungfer O ... nina, names the culprit and tells how the matter was.

In the duty room, the chambers-frau and the senior chamber-jungfer spent the night in turn. When O. was on duty at night and the maid came to the duty room to send a bed and help to undress, she saw a necklace in O.'s hands. O. forced her maid to help her change the beads; she had prepared in advance several threads of white tambour silk, which is usually used by jewelers for stringing beads; thin gold wires were inserted at each end of the thread to serve as a needle.

The maid begged her mistress not to touch the pearls. O did not want to hear anything and continued to carry out her intention. The maid said that the pearls were laid somewhere. Kamer Frau forbidding the maid to tell anyone about what she had said, wrote and showed the empress an anonymous letter, as if she had just received it, in which the criminal was named. The Chief of Police was immediately given to know about this. Already on the first report of the loss, the police drove around all the usurers and attacked the trail. Oh ... well, the detective was waiting at a moneylender, calculating quite rightly that she would hurry to buy the pearls. Having bought the pearls, she returned home, but she was arrested at the door of the apartment and taken to the police, where she was assigned a room with one window behind an iron grating and a tiny hole in the door, through which a sentry with a gun constantly watched. She was interrogated several times, but she did not confess.

Finally, a handsome-looking young man entered her room; he began to question her with great sympathy and pity her, advising her to confess herself rather than wait until everything was revealed by the police; but the culprit staunchly maintained her innocence. Then, with an air of sympathy, he began to say that he completely understands that a loving woman is ready to make up her mind and sacrifice herself for a loved one; he knows that for this she pawned pearls for 800 rubles, knows that she bought it back as soon as the rumor spread about the loss, but that she did not have time to return it back. She still persisted and did not confess.
Finally, he said that on such and such a date in such and such a house she called and a footman opened the door for her, who saw her buying pearls, and this footman was himself, and that at that moment the pearls were in her sack-voyage. It would be much better if she gave it to him now; then he will find an opportunity to return the pearls to their belongings, and no one will know where he found it.
Seeing that everything was open and it was impossible to lock up anymore, she, sobbing, confessed everything, gave him the pearls and answered all his questions, and in the meantime, behind the wall, all her answers were written down.

The Emperor ordered her to leave Petersburg in 24 hours with a ban on ever returning to it. It seems she was ordered to live in Novgorod. The Empress allocated 400 rubles for her pension.
Two or three years later, she still decided to come to Petersburg and even appear in Tsarskoe Selo, not far from the palace. The Emperor, returning from a walk, recognized her from a distance and immediately ordered the policeman standing at the palace to immediately send her back to her place of residence and repeat her prohibition to appear in Petersburg and its environs.

On the day of the silver wedding of the deceased sovereign, there were many who wanted to bring their loyal congratulations to the royal couple. Among the congratulators were the former chamber-jungfers of the late Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, who had been married long ago. They were curious to see that the sovereign gave the empress a pair of diamond cufflinks for mittens and two or three more knickknacks, while the sovereign Nikolai Pavlovich presented Empress Alexandra Feodorovna with a diamond esclavage with seven pear-shaped large pendants for the silver wedding.

Empress Maria Alexandrovna had a huge amount of jewelry that she rarely wore. She long ago refused expensive gifts, and accepted them from the sovereign in money, turned many gold and precious things into money; during the war, she even refused to sew new dresses for herself, and gave all these savings to the benefit of widows, orphans, the wounded and sick.

The future Russian Empress Maria Alexandrovna, the emperor's wife, was born on July 27 (old style) 1824 in Darmstadt. Her parents were Duke Ludwig II of Hesse and Grand Duchess Maria Wilhelmina of Baden. The girl was given the long name Maximilian Wilhelmina Augusta Sophia Maria of Hesse and Rhine.

Rumors spread at court that the daughter was born of an extramarital affair between her mother and Baron Augustus Senarclin de Grancy. But to prevent rumors, the Duke of Hesse recognized the illegitimate girl Maria and the boy Alexander as his heirs and gave them his last name. The children settled with their mother in the palace in Heiligenberg.

The upbringing of Mary was carried out by the priest of the Protestant Church Zimmerman, since her parent died when the girl was only 12 years old. Of those close to Mary, only her brother remained. The nominal father did not visit the small semi-desert castle and was not interested in children. The adolescent years spent in seclusion explain the calm and unsociable nature of the princess. She did not like magnificent balls and the crowded secular society, both in her youth and in adulthood.

Personal life

At the age of 14, the biography of Princess Mary has changed forever. On one of her visits to the local opera house, she was met by the Russian Tsarevich Alexander passing through Darmstadt. Despite the fact that the Princess of Hesse was not included in the list of European brides for the Russian heir, he was imbued with sincere feeling to her. Maria answered him in return. For a long time, his parents were against the candidacy of the princess because of her origin. But the son was adamant.

Alexander's mother even came to Germany for a personal meeting with Maria. The sweet, serious girl unexpectedly liked the future mother-in-law, and she agreed to the marriage. It was decided to postpone the wedding for two years due to the young age of the bride. At this time, she managed to settle in Russia. German princess adopted Orthodoxy, changing her real name to Russian - Maria Alexandrovna, after which she immediately became engaged to the Tsarevich. In the spring of 1841, Maria and Alexander were married in the Cathedral Church of the Tsarskoye Selo Palace.

Her Imperial Majesty

In 1856, at the age of 32, Maria Alexandrovna, together with her husband, ascended the throne. The coronation took place in the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Theotokos in the Moscow Kremlin. But even after accession to the throne, the new empress of the Romanov family avoided noisy events. She preferred the company of those close to her, and also communicated a lot with the clergy.

Many representatives of high society reacted contradictory to her rule. Some condemned Maria Alexandrovna for her little participation in the imperial affairs of foreign and domestic policy. But many contemporaries rightfully appreciated its role in the development of Russian society. According to the close maid of honor of the Empress Anna Tyutcheva, Maria Alexandrovna bore the heavy cross of service to the Russian people.

Empress Achievements

The results of the activities of Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna and, above all, her role in the development of the charitable medical organization Red Cross, which began its wide activities during the Russian-Turkish war, cannot be underestimated.

The Empress, saving on trips to Europe and on the number of outfits, invested the royal family in the construction of hospitals for the treatment of soldiers, as well as to support orphans and widows. On her behalf, it was sent a large number of doctors to the Balkans to help the Slavic brothers during the Turkish invasion. Under her administration, new almshouses and shelters were opened throughout the country.

Maria Alexandrovna played an important role in the education reform. Under her, 2 higher educational institutions, about 40 gymnasiums, more than 150 educational institutions the lowest stage. The queen contributed to a new round in the organization of women's education, which was mainly funded by charity funds.

Under her patronage, the scientist K. D. Ushinsky developed a number of pedagogical methods that all the gymnasiums of that period adhered to. The compulsory curriculum of primary education began to include the subjects of the Law of God, the Russian language, geography, history, calligraphy, arithmetic, and gymnastics. The girls were additionally taught needlework and housekeeping. At the highest level, the foundations of physics, algebra and geometry were added.

The Empress also patronized high art. During her reign, the building of the now world-famous Mariinsky Theater was built, the troupe of which has always maintained a high professional level and adequately represented Russia on the international arena. A ballet school was founded at the theater, headed by the legendary ballerina Agrippina Vaganova a few years later. These establishments were supported by Maria Alexandrovna's personal money.

The queen made a great contribution to the emancipation of the peasants, in every possible way supporting the reforms of her husband.

Family

The most important achievement of the Empress was that she presented Russia with a large number of heirs. Married to Alexander II, Maria Alexandrovna gave birth to six sons and two daughters. At the very beginning of marriage, the imperial family experienced a difficult tragedy - at the age of 7, their eldest daughter, Alexandra, died of meningitis. The young couple mourned the loss for a long time.

Another blow for the mother was the death of her beloved son Nicholas, who was being prepared for the heir to the throne. In 1865, at the age of 22, the Tsarevich died of tuberculous lesions of the spine. It happened suddenly, and after his funeral, Maria Alexandrovna had lost her interest in life forever. The second son Alexander was hastily prepared for the throne, and eventually he managed to become one of the wisest and most peaceful rulers on the Russian throne.

In the post of Governor-General of Moscow, the penultimate son Sergei distinguished himself, who at one time married Princess Elizabeth Feodorovna. Subsequently, they fell at the hands of the Bolsheviks: Sergei in 1905, and Elizabeth in 1918. The princess also belonged to the Darmstadt court, and her own sister became the wife of the last king of the Romanov family. Three more sons of Maria Alexandrovna, Vladimir, Alexey and Pavel, held high military positions. Daughter Maria married the Prince of Edinburgh, the son of Queen Victoria, thereby somewhat strengthening Russian-British relations.

Religion

Maria Alexandrovna was a devout person. She combined the best features of Protestant service to people and the depths of the Orthodox faith. The Empress studied the works of the holy fathers, the lives of the saints. She venerated St. Mary Magdalene and St. Seraphim of Sorovsky. Maria Alexandrovna was introduced to the biography of the Russian devotee of the faith by her maid of honor Anna Tyutcheva.

Soon, the half-mantle of a righteous man appeared in the royal family, which the relatives of Maria Alexandrovna carefully preserved among other shrines of the family. The tsarina conducted theological conversations with Parthenius of Kiev, Philaret of Moscow, Vasily Pavlovo-Posadsky. After her death, in memory of their mother, the sons built a temple to Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem, in which the relics of Elizabeth Feodorovna are now buried.

Death

The last years of Maria Alexandrovna's life were overshadowed by illness, the death of her beloved son, as well as numerous betrayals of her loving husband. The queen never outwardly showed her dissatisfaction with the behavior of her husband and did not reproach him for anything.

It is known that the main favorite of Alexander II, Princess Ekaterina Dolgorukova, lived with illegitimate children on the floor above the chambers of the crowned empress. This was largely done for security reasons: 7 assassination attempts were made on the reformer tsar, the last of which turned out to be fatal.

The tsarina had a hard time going through all the terrorist acts, each time her condition worsened. Maria Alexandrovna's personal doctor, Sergei Petrovich Botkin, taking care of her well-being, recommended that she periodically live in the Crimea. But the last six months of her life, Maria Alexandrovna, contrary to the doctor's orders, spent in St. Petersburg, which negatively affected her health.

Sarcophagus of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

The Empress died in the early summer of 1880 due to complications of tuberculosis. The tomb of the tsarina is located in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

Memory

The memory of Empress Maria Alexandrovna was immortalized by descendants of the names of cities, streets and educational institutions. A bust of the Queen with a plaque was recently installed at the Mariinsky Theater. The Mariinsky Church today is the main cathedral of the convent in Gethsemane.

In newsreels, the name of Maria Alexandrovna is captured in documentary films and in feature films. The roles of the wife of Alexander II were once played by such actresses as Tatyana Korsak and Anna Isaykina. She achieved especially great visual similarity with the empress, as can be seen in the photo of the tape frames with the participation of the Russian actress.

Irina Kupechnko as Empress Maria Alexandrovna in the series "Emperor's Love"

The films "Emperor's Romance", "Emperor's Love" and the TV series "Poor Nastya" enjoy the audience's love. The film “Matilda, which is dedicated to the era of the decline of the House of Romanov, starred Russian actors and foreign stars of feature films -,.

Chapter 2. Possession of Empress Maria Alexandrovna

"I envy dear Livadia ..."

"... And I, Theodosius, took from him, Count Lev, for the estate I sold 150 thousand rubles in banknotes, which I received in full." It is unlikely that we will ever find out what circumstances forced the commander of the Balaklava Greek battalion, famous in the history of the Russian army, FD Revelioti, to part with the Livadia estate conveniently located near the town of Yalta, a large land plot named so in memory of the ancient settlement in this area (translated from the Greek "meadow", "lawn"). According to the deed of sale, made on January 9, 1834, the entire estate with an area of ​​209 dessiatines of 1900 sq. fathoms (about 229 hectares) with orchards, vineyards, forests, arable lands.

Empress Maria Alexandrovna. 1824-1880

By this time, Count Lev Severinovich Pototsky (1789-1860) had already become one of the most influential dignitaries at the Highest Court. He came from that branch of the old Polish aristocratic family Potocki, whose representatives have long sympathized with Russia. His father, a well-known figure in the Ministry of Education and Spiritual Affairs under Alexander I, Count S.O. Potocki, was one of the founders of Kharkov University, his mother, the former princess A.A.

Palace in Livadia (house of L. S. Pototsky). Watercolor. L. Premazzi. 1860 g.

During the reign of Alexander I, LS Pototsky entered the service of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs and successfully carried out various diplomatic assignments of the Russian government.

A short stay in Naples at the very beginning of his diplomatic career as part of the Russian mission left Potocki unforgettable impressions: he became an ardent admirer and collector of antique art. Subsequently, when in 1841 the count was appointed "extraordinary envoy and plenipotentiary minister at the Neapolitan Court", this hobby happily reflected on the Livadia estate. Travelers who then visited the southern coast of Crimea noted that Livadia Pototsky looked like a small antique museum: the park was decorated with genuine, perfectly preserved marble sculptures and a sarcophagus of the early Christian period, all covered with bas-reliefs 1, and in a house built by architect F. Elson, in one of the cabinets housed a collection of antiquities from Pompeii.

Livadia. The main greenhouse of L. S. Pototsky. Photo of 1863

The park and three greenhouses spread over 40 dessiatines were the subject of special care and pride of the owner of the estate. An interesting description of the park by the Frenchman Blanchard: “I saw here plants from the depths of the East, from America, New Holland, Japan, as well as plants known to us in Europe, but here they are much larger - magnolias, for example, 2.5 sazhens in height (more 5 meters. - N.K., M.Z.) ". At the same time, the author mentions the Lebanese and Himalayan cedars, strawberries, purple berries, clematis, and, of course, about evergreen cypresses and laurels that were found at every step. All of them grew among representatives of the local flora - mighty oaks and ash trees. But, perhaps, the following observation of Blanchard is even more valuable: “What every traveler can appreciate and admire is the healthy sense and taste with which trees are selected and placed here to create green clumps, lawns, flower compositions of various tones and shades ... All this took years, during which the owners, with impeccable taste and sufficient condition, could fulfill their dream as connoisseurs of beauty in nature. "

The planning and decoration of the park, the selection of ornamental plants, made by the gardeners E. Delinger and I. Tasher, turned out to be so successful that later, if any changes were made to them, it was only in connection with the expansion of construction in Livadia or the desire of its new owners. to increase the number of rare flowering species and conifers.

By the end of the 50s of the XIX century, Livadia Potocki was a beautifully equipped estate with Bolshoi and Maly two-storey residential buildings. The first had 30 rooms, mostly private quarters and salons, furnished with the delicate taste characteristic of the owners of the estate; in the wing of the house there was also a Catholic chapel (chapel), and galleries for rest were arranged along its walls. The winter garden was decorated with a fountain "in the style of the Alhambra" made of white Carrara marble 2. All water pipes in Livadia were made of cast iron, and only in the Big House was lead.

Among the outbuildings, a winery with a wine cellar 3 stood out, in which high-quality home-made wines were kept. Through the acquisition land plots, neighboring with Livadia, Pototsky annually increased the area of ​​vineyards and orchards, which brought him a good income 4.

Emperor Alexander II. 1818-1881

In 1856, L.S.Potocki, already having the highest civilian ranks as a real privy councilor and oberhofmeister, resigned from the diplomatic service and became a member of the State Council.

He died in St. Petersburg on March 10, 1860, having bequeathed Livadia to his wife, Countess Elizaveta Nikolaevna, nee Golovina. The latter, however, immediately renounced inheritance rights in favor of her daughters - Leonia Lanckoronskaya and Anna Mnishek. And already at the end of April, the Manager of the Department of Districts of the Ministry Imperial Court Yu. I. Stenbock began negotiations with the deceased count's chargé d'affaires on the purchase of Livadia for the royal family.

The heiresses agreed to part with their beloved estate forever only taking into account the high personality of the buyer. According to Countess A. Mnishek, “the fact that Livadia is now being sold is caused solely by the fact that it pleases the Emperor” 5.

In August 1860, the estate was taken over by the Lot Office, although the bill of sale officially entered into force on March 10 of the following year.

Shortly before the first visit of Alexander II and his family to Livadia, the Department of Lots received a decree from the tsar: “Purchased<...>real estate in Crimea Livadia with all buildings and accessories<...>presenting as a gift to My Beloved wife, My Empress, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, I command the Department of Districts to enroll this estate in the ownership of Her Imperial Majesty. "

So, Maria Alexandrovna became the first of the Romanovs to own "Livadia" - one of the largest estates on the southern coast of Crimea 6. By this time, the 37-year-old empress showed all the signs of the most merciless disease of the 19th century - consumption: the unusual climate of St. Petersburg and frequent childbirth undermined the already poor health of Maria Alexandrovna. Doctors hoped that the healing climate of the South Coast would be more beneficial for her than staying at the famous resorts of Europe.

The daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse Louis II, Maximilian-Wilhelmina-Augustine-Sophia-Maria, in April 1841, married the heir to the Russian throne, Grand Duke Alexander Nikolaevich, the eldest son of Nicholas I. The marriage was for love, and for some time the family happiness of the spouses was not overshadowed by anything 7.

The personality of the new owner of the beautiful estate is one of the most attractive in the history of the Romanov dynasty. It is a rare case when the memories of all the people who surrounded or met with her agree in one opinion - Empress Maria was an extraordinary person both in her mind and in high moral qualities... Even the famous anarchist critic of the autocracy, the anarchist Prince P.A.Kropotkin, paid tribute to the education, kindness, sincerity and wholesome role that Maria Alexandrovna played in the fate of many outstanding people in Russia.

Her portraits of the 1850s-60s attract with the spirituality of their appearance. One of the best, the work of the artist F. Winterhalter 8, successfully conveys the "highest grace of her whole being, which is much better than beauty," noticed by her contemporaries.

Empress Maria Alexandrovna. 1870s

Maria Alexandrovna's appearance was in perfect harmony with her spiritual qualities. “It is created much more for inner life, soulful and mental, than for vigorous activity and for external manifestations. She turns her ambition not to the search for power or political influence, but to the development of her inner being, ”wrote the maid of honor AF Tyutcheva, who made up amazing in depth psychological portraits of Alexander II and Maria Alexandrovna.

The opinion of the noble court lady completely coincides with the observations of the famous Crimean public figure, historian and writer V. Kh. Kondaraki: “Her Majesty constantly sets an example of modesty and simplicity. In the outfits of this, in the full sense of the word, the holy mother never noticed anything sharply distinctive, no expensive trinkets, which visitors from the upper circle loved so much to be proud of at that time.<...>... It was clear to everyone that Her Majesty looked at her high position with the most humble eyes and probably never gave it the importance that others would feel. Avoiding popularity and insignificant vanity, she looked at a person as a creature of the same nature and feelings, and, it seemed, never dreamed of appropriating any advantages to herself before the Divine in relation to even those who, through hard work and bitter fate, paved their way in life. "

Architect of the Imperial Court I.A.Monighetti. 1819-1878

During the empress's life, few people knew about her direct participation in the liberation of the peasants, and such important events in the life of Russia as the reform of women's education or the creation of the Red Cross Society, which took place on the personal initiative and largely at the personal expense of Maria Alexandrovna, were heralded as a kind of charitable activity ...

Maria Alexandrovna's aesthetic views were fully manifested when creating a beautiful palace and park ensemble in Livadia, an estate that took a special place in her tragic life.

Entrance to the estate "Livadia". Gate with decorative arch and gatehouse

The first Imperial visit here took place at the end of August 1861. Already in early spring, the Department of Districts began to prepare the estate for the reception of the August family. Specific architect V.S.Esaulov was instructed to go to Livadia and, together with the gardener Pototskikh L. Geisler and the Yalta city architect K.I.

Livadia. Great Imperial Palace. North facade. Architect I.A.Monighetti. 1862-1863

The royal couple were delighted with their new acquisition. This charming corner of the South Coast completely charmed Maria Alexandrovna. Subsequently, the empress, in letters to her relatives, called her estate nothing more than "my dear Livadia."

The family devoted their stay in Crimea to acquaintance with Yalta and its environs: they were interested in the life and traditions of the peoples living in Crimea, went to the Tatar village for a wedding, visited the ancient Greek church in Autka, met with representatives of different classes. Outwardly simple life was filled with new, unusual impressions every day.

Livadia. Great Imperial Palace. Decoration of the staircase connecting the rooms of the second floor with the park

Then it became obvious that the former estate of Count Potocki would have to be thoroughly reconstructed in order to adapt it to the conditions of life during the Highest visits. At the request of the empress, the work related to the construction of new and rebuilding of old buildings was entrusted to the architect of the Imperial Court and Tsarskoye Selo palaces IA Monighetti 9, who "knows the taste of Their Majesties."

The architect enthusiastically accepted the new assignment: fate seemed to have sent him Livadia to try his hand in conditions that so vividly resembled the flavor of the southern countries.

Livadia. Small Palace (Palace of the Heir). Architect I.A.Monighetti

Monighetti was given a lot of leeway; The only restriction put to the architect by the owner of the estate was that construction costs should not exceed the amount of about 260 thousand rubles 10, and everything should be as simple as possible: after all, Livadia was intended for the treatment of the empress and family recreation, and not for official receptions.

Maria Alexandrovna took a very active part in the plans to renovate the estate. First of all, it was planned to expand the Big House, necessarily separating the church from it into an independent building, to build a Small House for the Grand Dukes, houses for a suite, a gardener, and a new kitchen.

Before leaving for Crimea, Monighetti submitted for the Empress's approval the plans for the facades of the main proposed buildings in Livadia.

Livadia. Palace Church of the Exaltation of the Cross. Western facade. Sketch by I.A.Monighetti, 1862 (In 1910-11, N.P. Krasnov, enlarging the side-altar, will make here the entrance to the temple, and the half-open passage-gallery seen on the left will turn from the palace into a completely closed one)

The architectural style proposed by the architect for the ensemble of palace buildings found full approval of Maria Alexandrovna: with its simplicity and sophisticated sophistication, it met all her requirements.

Subsequently, in reports on construction work, Ippolit Antonovich constantly emphasized that most of the buildings were made by him in the "Tatar taste" or "in the taste of the Tatar hut" 11. The project of the palace Church of the Exaltation of the Cross 12 was based on the synthesis of the architecture of the religious buildings of Transcaucasia and Byzantium.

The free, picturesque layout of the buildings made it possible for the architect to solve each of them in an original way, with the inclusion of any other, different from the neighboring, motives, while maintaining a single style created by him.

Four years of his life, completely devoted to construction on the estate of Her Majesty "Livadia", marked by the enormous exertion of all the forces of the outstanding artist. The remoteness from Russia, from the main suppliers, difficulties with the delivery of building materials and the selection of labor in the then still sparsely populated Crimea - made themselves felt already at the beginning of construction.

The summer of 1862 was spent on the energetic organization of construction work: the procurement and delivery of stone, bricks, tiles, timber, and the hiring of workers. Finally, on September 8, the laying of the foundations of the church and the house for the Grand Dukes (the Small Palace) was solemnly celebrated, and in October the rebuilding of the Pototsky house into the Grand Palace, the old greenhouse and the house of the estate manager and the construction of houses for the suite, the military office, the kitchen, the stables began. , gardener's house, bathhouse and hospital.

Livadia. Svitsky house. Architect I.A.Monighetti

Monighetti used a three-month business trip abroad to place orders for the Livadia estate. In Italy, in Carrara, he ordered marble decorations for churches and palaces, in Paris - furniture, decoration and upholstery materials for the interior decoration of the Grand and Small palaces and the house for the suite.

Livadia. Ministerial house and kitchen. Architect I.A.Monighetti

Period 1862-63 was the most difficult for the architect and his faithful assistant PI Ostanishchev-Kudryavtsev: they had to monitor the progress of construction and reconstruction of more than 20 buildings. Numerous cargoes began to arrive in Yalta from abroad, Odessa and other cities of Russia with construction materials, furniture, utensils for churches and palaces. To top it off, the winter turned out to be extremely unfavorable for construction, cold and snowy, the roads were icy, and Livadia was cut off from the most important sources of building materials 13.

Due to the delay in the delivery of marble jewelry from Italy, the dates of internal work in the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross, already erected by the summer of 1863, had to be postponed, and the famous artist Alexander Yegorovich Beideman, who had arrived to paint 36 icons there, returned to St. Petersburg for some time. Here is an interesting excerpt from Beidemann's report of this period - as a testimony of a person who was under the impression of what he saw in Livadia: “The church outside is completely finished and presents a happy solution to a problem in the Byzantine style: an unusually elegant small church, but inside it would be necessary to work for another 4½ weeks if no more. It is impossible to pass in silence and not be amazed at what Mr. Monighetti produced here in ten months of his stay! The palace is completely ready inside and outside in order to receive the Sovereign Empress.<...>Mr. Monighetti has processed every detail to an admirable degree of perfection, one thing is a pity that the church is still in such a position that one has to wait ... ".

Livadia. Stable for riding horses. Architect I.A.Monighetti

The Austrian artist R. von Alt, who came at the invitation of the imperial family, left us his perception of Livadia in 1863. Twenty charming watercolors, painted by him during his stay at the royal estate, depict all the main buildings of Monighetti and several corners of the park. The artist managed to convey not only the color scheme of Livadia's buildings, but also their subtle architectural details. Residential buildings and most of the outbuildings erected from local stone had smooth, even walls - either simple polygonal masonry, retaining the natural color of Gasprin stone, or plastered in light brown tones. The main decoration of all buildings were carved wood elements: roof eaves ("stalactites"), cornices and brackets supporting them, columns of balconies, lattices, pinnacles 14.

Against their background, the palace temple, erected of Inkerman stone, with Byzantine ornamentation on this stone and carved inserts from Gasprin shone with dazzling whiteness.

The imperial visit of 1863 justified IA Monighetti's confidence that his work would be appreciated by the owners of the estate. “Her Imperial Majesty,” he wrote, “was apparently amazed at the success and performance of the work and thanked me in the most flattering terms. Sovereign Emperor<...>after inspecting the works, he deigned to thank me with the words: "Everything that has been done so far has been done excellently, I hope that the end will be the same."

Livadia. "Turkish gazebo" in the park. Architect I.A.Monighetti

Monighetti hoped to complete the work by the fall of 1864, but orders from the royal family followed one after another, and construction was completed only in 1866.

The commonality of the creative ideals of the architect and “specific gardening master” Clement Haeckel 15, who arrived in Crimea from Maria Alexandrovna's Ilyinskoye estate near Moscow, led to the creation in Livadia of a beautiful palace and park ensemble linked by a single artistic concept.

K. Haeckel arrived in Livadia during the most difficult period of construction. In his person, Monighetti found support and friendly sympathy, which he so badly needed then. Even in business correspondence, the architect did not hide his joy that such a talented, hardworking and exceptionally honest person was entrusted with the arrangement of the park: “What a blessing that Haeckel is here! And we understand each other ... ".

Fountains of the Livadia Park. Cossacks guard at the fountain "Livadia"

Among the many merits of the outstanding gardener, first of all, it should be noted a significant expansion of the rose garden, the device of pergolas entwined with climbing varieties of roses, and, most importantly, large plantings of all kinds of conifers: on the advice of doctor S.P. Botkin, he mainly planted the latter in those places of the park, where the sick empress loved to be.

Out of over 70 buildings for various purposes, erected on the estate under the leadership of Monighetti, have survived to this day. For various reasons, most of them are either lost forever or have undergone restructuring that distorted the original plan. Fortunately, the palace church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is now in relatively good condition. Although its exterior, and especially the interiors, has suffered significantly over many decades of the state policy of combating religion, it still invariably evokes general admiration for the grace of forms and the beauty of ornamentation.

Livadia. Moorish fountain

Monighetti attached great importance to the creation of small architectural forms. He found successful solutions for gazebos, pergolas with climbing plants, retaining walls, graceful fountains. Until now, the "Turkish pavilion" over the tunnel in the park, which has become a kind of symbol of Livadia, has survived, the fountains "Maria", "Moorish" and several marble bowls.

The architect started designing the fountains after the most difficult problem of water supply was solved in the Livadia estate. The history of the appearance on its territory of several large water reservoirs and the reconstruction of the water supply network is very instructive not only technically, but also morally.

The interior of the dining room of the Great Imperial Palace. Wall decoration with doorways leading to the park. Rice. I.A.Monighetti

From the report of the estate manager Ya.M. Lazarevsky, compiled in 1862 for the Department of Districts, it followed that the rather weak water sources that previously used the Potocki estate completely dry up in the event of a particularly hot summer, and then the lack of water would generally make it impossible for the Highest Arrivals. Lazarevsky saw the solution to the issue in the diversion of water from the Biyuk-Su spring, which belonged to the Gasprin Tatars. In this he was supported by the Minister of the Court V. F. Adlerberg and the Tavrichesky Governor-General G. V. Zhukovsky. However, Alexander II immediately rejected this idea. A specialist hydrologist KO Yanushevsky was sent to Livadia with the task of finding new sources of water supply on the estate, regardless of the cost of prospecting work 17.

Yanushevsky not only perfectly coped with this task, but also developed a whole system of storage tanks connected to the water supply network.

Dining room in the Livadia Palace. Watercolor. L. Premazzi. 1872 (On the left you can see the fireplace, which was later transferred by the architect N.P. Krasnov to the ceremonial office of the emperor in the New Palace)

The versatility of I.A.Monighetti's talent manifested itself in the decoration of the interiors of palaces and churches. He personally made drawings and sketches of furniture and decoration of the Grand Palace in the style of Louis XVI and in the oriental style for the Small Palace, drawings of dishes ordered specially for Livadia. There were more than 900 sketches of church utensils and robes masterfully executed by the artist alone!

So the construction was nearing completion. In July 1865, the famous hero of the defense of Sevastopol, Adjutant General E.I. After examining everything, the general sent a telegram to the Empress in Petersburg that he found Livadia in excellent condition and admired her. Maria Alexandrovna, whose departure to Crimea that year was constantly postponed, immediately replied: "I envy about dear Livadia."

And in 1866, after receiving all the buildings of the commissions, headed by the architect of the Imperial Court A.I. IA Monighetti was nominated for the Order of St. Anne of the 2nd degree, that is, with the sign of "exalted dignity" - a diamond adornment in the form of an imperial crown; Academician A.E.Beydeman 18, who completed the main icon-painting work in the palace church, was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav 2nd degree, which followed in the general order of seniority of Russian orders immediately after the Order of St. Anna, and was awarded for useful deeds in favor of the Fatherland, in including in the field of arts and crafts. It is interesting that the Minister of the Court personally sought to award a silver medal for wearing in the buttonhole on the Stanislavskaya ribbon to the peasant of the village of Glamozdino, Kursk province, Semyon Bordakov, for the excellent performance of carpentry 19.

Livadia. Study of Alexander II in the Great Imperial Palace. Architect I.A.Monighetti

Finally, in August 1867, a great Imperial visit to the fully equipped estate took place. With the exception of the heir to the throne, V. book Alexander Alexandrovich, the whole royal family arrived in Crimea.

It was decided in advance that on the day of the namesake of Alexander Nikolaevich, on August 30, a festivities would be held in the renovated estate.

The interior of the Holy Cross Church. Marble iconostasis and bronze royal gates. Architect I.A.Monighetti

VK Kondaraki, an eyewitness to all the events that took place during that memorable visit to the Crimean people, left vividly written memoirs "The Life of Emperor Alexander II on the Southern Coast of Crimea." “The Sovereign Emperor,” the historian reports, “made daily walks in the morning - to Oreanda, Koreiz, Gaspra, Alupka, Gurzuf, to the forestry and to the Uchan-Su waterfall - in a carriage or on horseback, swam in the sea, walked on foot. In moments of relaxation, I listened to the beautiful poems of the poet Vyazemsky, who at that time was still at the Court and, despite his 75 years, seemed vigorous and impressionable ... ".

The interior of the Holy Cross Church. Painted dome and arch of stained glass windows. Rice. I.A.Monighetti

I recalled Kondaraki and a very piquant episode associated with the visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Fuad Pasha to Alexander II. The latter arrived in Yalta on the splendid new steamer Sultane, which delighted the city's residents. The minister and his retinue were accommodated in a hotel owned by the leader of the Yalta nobility S.N. Galakhov, after which Fuad Pasha demanded that the owner show his beautiful wife. Two hours later, he was introduced to a charming woman, specially invited in advance from St. Petersburg.

The interior of the Holy Cross Church. Memorial sign in honor of Tsar-Liberator Alexander II. Architect I.A.Monighetti

But, of course, the most curious of the many receptions of 1867 was the meeting of the royal family with a large group of American tourists traveling on the Quaker City steamer through the countries of the Old World. Detailed description This event was left by two active participants - on the American side, the later famous writer Mark Twain, who was then a correspondent for two major newspapers, and on the Russian side - V. Kh. Kondaraki.

The interior of the Holy Cross Church. Wall painting above the columns. Rice. I.A.Monighetti

The civil war has just ended in the United States, and the American government and the public have praised Russia's position in preserving the unity and power of that country. Lord Palmerston admitted in the British Parliament that his government did not begin the intervention, partly out of fear that the United States might in this case "enter into a military alliance with Russia."

Therefore, one can imagine the excitement of the passengers and the Quaker City crew, who learned from the American consul in Odessa that the Russian emperor wished to meet with them at his southern coastal estate: they felt like participants in an unusual mission, introducing the people of America to the powerful monarch of a friendly power. It was urgently decided to write a welcome address and present it personally to the emperor in Livadia.

Steamer "Quaker City" (from a drawing of 1868)

The guests, and 55 of them were invited, found the most cordial welcome in the royal estate. It was also unexpected for the Americans that the Russian Emperor and members of his family showed them the palaces and parks of Livadia and Oreanda with apparent pleasure. Kondaraki also testifies that the Emperor “deigned to go out to meet them and congratulate them on their arrival. This is not enough! The monarch personally led them along the nearby alleys, paying attention to the most interesting plants and objects 21. This attention of the monarch charmed the Americans, who, of course, did not dare to expect such an open-hearted disposition from the tsar towards private individuals. "

The inspection of the estate ended with a breakfast given to the guests in Oreanda by the king's brother. book Mikhail Nikolaevich.

American writer Mark Twain

And, of course, one cannot fail to recall at least briefly about the merry folk holiday in Livadia on August 30, which has already been mentioned above. After the traditional prayer and greetings to the emperor, accompanied by steamer whistles, cannon shots and the multicolored flags of warships, the residents of Yalta and the surrounding area were informed that in Livadia everything was ready for a big holiday, to which everyone, without exception, was invited. This news instantly spread throughout the county, and the inns were filled with people demanding horses and carriages.

Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich, second son of Alexander II and Maria Alexandrovna

The celebration took place on a large meadow on the slope of Mount Mogabi. On the side of it was a hill on which all the Tatars from the surrounding villages gathered. The mass of the people enthusiastically welcomed the appearance to the sounds of the regimental orchestra of Their Majesties with their sons Vladimir, Sergei, Pavel Alexandrovich and their daughter, the young Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, as well as the emperor's brothers - the Grand Dukes Nikolai and Mikhail Nikolaevich with their families.

Children of Alexander II - Grand Dukes Pavel and Sergei and Grand Duchess Maria

Riders - Tatars, Cossacks, cavalrymen of the Crimean Tatar squadron competed in the rapid races. Climbing on smoothly polished poles and running in sacks tied to the legs caused the general fun. The winners were generously awarded, but the rest of the participants were presented with memorable gifts. At the end of the games and attractions, all those present were invited to a treat.

Alexander II with his daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna (1853-1920). Photography of the early 1870s

This cheerful and joyful holiday was then remembered for a long time by the inhabitants of Yalta. However, on subsequent High-ranking visits to Crimea, the shadow of a constant threat to the lives of members of the royal family at the hands of terrorists has already fallen: the estate has become more carefully guarded, and the admission of visitors during the stay of Alexander II was limited by order of the Minister of the Court.

Here, on the South Bank, a rhythm of the emperor's life, different from the one in St. Petersburg, developed, which almost did not change in subsequent visits. This is how the correspondent of Moskovskiye Vedomosti described him: “In Livadia, court etiquette has been eliminated as much as possible. In the morning the tsar, as usual, gets up early, walks through the park on foot, then goes about business; sometimes he mounts a horse and descends to the sea, to the bath. He usually wears a white tunic, and so does the imperial retinue. They dine, as in the village, at 2 o'clock, dinner at 9 o'clock. After lunch, carriages are served and trips to nearby scenic areas are undertaken. The Tsar, as usual, sits down with the Empress in a wicker chaise made of straw. Sometimes they ride with a retinue of carriages, and more often they travel together, like ordinary tourists. The locals do not disturb them with exclamations and do not run to their path, reverently realizing that the kings also need rest. The royal family spends the evening for the most part in a close circle of confidants. The peaceful day ends early, and the next day repeats the previous one. On Sundays, some well-known persons are invited to listen to mass in the court church. Livadia is becoming more beautiful and more colorful every day, not only the South Coast, but the entire South, the entire Black Sea looks at her with love and hope. "

Empress Maria Alexandrovna

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Notes (edit)

one . At the request of L.S. Potocki's sarcophagus was made into a bowl of a fountain, water into which came from a jug in the hands of a marble statue of a reclining nymph. This fountain, as well as the statue of the ancient hero, disappeared from the park after the war, when the Livadia Palace became I.V. Stalin.

2. The Livadia fountain has survived. With minor additions - a new pommel and base, it was subsequently moved by the architect Monighetti to the site near the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross. In total, during the described time, Pototsky's estate was decorated with about a dozen fountains, most of which were carried out by Italian marble carvers in Carrara.

3. The wine cellar building, built in 1849, has survived to this day without any significant changes. Now it belongs to the Livadia winery, which is part of the Massandra association.

4 . By 1860, vineyards in Livadia occupied 20 acres of 120 square meters. soot. and in good years they gave up to 4 thousand buckets of wine. The traveler Blanchard had a very high opinion of the quality of the latter, noting that in reality "the wines of the Crimea are worth much more than their reputation."

five . L. Lanckoronskaya is even more frank. “We are far from the idea of ​​selling Livadia,” she wrote to the Charge d'Affaires Dr. E. Peters, “but we understand that gratitude for the favors with which the Emperor honored the last days of my father obliges us to yield to the wishes of His Majesty.”

6. By 1862, its area had already exceeded 300 dessiatines.

7. In this regard, a letter from the young bride of the Russian Tsarevich written to her father in September 1840 is interesting. She has just entered the land of her new homeland, heading for St. Petersburg, where she will convert to Orthodoxy and will prepare for the wedding:

“My dear, my kind father. These are my first lines from the country that should now become my second fatherland. (That it will be as dear to me as the first - I doubt it and can hardly even wish it, since it seems to me that we should always give preference to the country in which we were born).

Nevertheless, I feel extremely attached to Russia. Cossacks met us at the border; we were expecting Sasha (i.e., Prince Alexander Nikolaevich. - N.K., M.Z.) about half an hour; without him, the Empress (Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas I. - NK, MZ) did not want me to cross the Russian border; I used this time to cast a last glance at my dear Germany and once again renew in my memory those joyful and happy days that I experienced in it ... My second glance fell on the Russian land, and I thought that now is just beginning the hardest part of my life, and I asked God for His holy help ... ".

The final phrase of this letter sounds prophetic: one had to have great inner strength in order to survive in the future, having already become the queen of a huge country, the intrigues of the Court, a serious illness and mental anguish inflicted on her by the open betrayal of her beloved husband ...

eight . An engraving from this portrait is on display at the Massandra Palace Museum.

nine . Ippolit Antonovich Monighetti, an outstanding architect of Russia in the mid-19th century, the author of many projects of original buildings in St. Petersburg, Moscow and suburban imperial residences, a talented decorator. While still a very young graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, I. Monighetti, first on his own initiative, and then on a scholarship specially allocated by the Academy, visited many Mediterranean countries, where he enthusiastically studied the richest architectural heritage of their peoples. For albums with beautifully executed sketches of buildings and ornamental decorations, which he made during these travels, the artist was awarded the title of academician upon his return to Russia.

10 . However, it soon became clear that to complete the reconstruction project in full, this amount would need to be approximately doubled.

eleven . Indeed, none of them looked like any Western examples of stylized "oriental motives" buildings. They did not repeat in them the first experience of Monighetti's appeal to the architecture of the East - the Turkish Bath pavilion, built in 1852 in Tsarskoye Selo Park. In Livadia, he showed himself as a talented interpreter of the motives of the architecture of the peoples of the Crimea, Transcaucasia, and the Middle East. Elements of original Crimean Tatar houses and ornamentalism of the Middle East were harmoniously combined in its buildings.

12 . The Empress wished to name the future church in honor of one of the most revered twelve Orthodox holidays. According to legend, at the beginning of the 4th century, the mother of the Byzantine emperor Constantine, Helen, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where she found the real cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified, and re-erected it on Mount Golgotha ​​- where the crucifixion took place. Later, on September 13, 335, the first temple in honor of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was erected on the site of the discovery, and since that time this event has been annually celebrated.

13 . Then with bitterness Monighetti wrote to Count Yu.I. Stenbock: “How many during this time I had to endure the smallest, most alarming, unknown troubles with contractors, workers, can (understand) only those who were judged by fate at one time so many different buildings<...>, the work was stopped sometimes due to the lack of the simplest materials, such as nails, roofing iron and so on. " Describing the numerous troubles that he had to endure on the construction site in Livadia, Monighetti, however, did not lose his presence of mind and firmly believed in his success: "One only supports me and encourages me to new activities, that my works and merits will be appreciated!"

fourteen . In part, an idea of ​​the architecture of old Livadia can be given by the gardener's house preserved on its territory (now a hotel) and some buildings in Yalta, built in imitation of the style developed by Monighetti, for example, the Lishchinskaya house on Ekaterininskaya street.

fifteen . Tekkel Klimenty Ivanovich (1810-1885). In the 1820s. lived in Dresden. In 1832 he arrived in Russia, already having the title of royal court gardener at the Saxon Court. At first he worked in St. Petersburg, where he created several gardens and parks, and from 1840 he became a garden master at the Ropsha estate. The main duty of K. Haeckel was the year-round supply of the Imperial Court with the best varieties of fruits, as well as overseeing the greenhouses and the park in Ropsha and Duderhof. Since 1858 - the chief gardener of the Krasnoselsky Office, at the Specific Agricultural School and the Department of Appanages, and in 1864 he was appointed head of the Moscow Specific Office.

In 1868, Haeckel, with his wife and elder sons, took Russian citizenship and, for special merits, was elevated to hereditary honorary citizenship.

The resting place of the famous master was forgotten for many decades, and only in 1995 a group of landscape architecture specialists led by A.L. Reimana discovered the family necropolis of Gekkely in the village. Malye Gorki near Ropsha (Leningrad Region).

sixteen . The first in the sad list of losses of Livadia can rightfully be put the palace of the heir, or the so-called Small Palace, which burned down at the end of 1941, just before the entry of German troops into Yalta. Unlike the Great Imperial Palace, where the architect was forced to mainly deal with the major reconstruction of the old house of Count Potocki, the Small Palace, from the foundation to the pinnacles on the roof, is entirely his creation. It was a real masterpiece of I.A. Monighetti. Travelers who visited Livadia and the authors of Crimea travel guides left us with delightful descriptions of this charming building, invariably emphasizing its oriental flavor.

17. How not to recall in this regard the instructions of the educator of the young Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich, the wonderful Russian poet V.A. Zhukovsky, who inspired the future tsar with the idea that "the habit of obeying the law is the main thing in life, both for one's own happiness and for the benefit of others."

18 . Written by A.E. Beideman in the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross was highly appreciated by the famous marine painter A.P. Bogolyubov, who accompanied Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich on trips to Livadia, and after his death in 1865 - the heir to the throne V. book Alexander Alexandrovich and V. book Maria Fedorovna.

nineteen . Among the participants in the construction, who were awarded valuable gifts, there were also foreign nationals: the contractors E. Bouchard and E. Ducros, who directly carried out most of the work on the construction of buildings, the ornamental artist R. Isella, the marble master A. Rampini, and others.

twenty . Lines from the message addressed to future generations of US citizens: “... America owes a lot to Russia, it is a debtor to Russia in many ways, and especially for its unchanging friendship in the years of its great trials. We pray with hope to God that this friendship will continue for the future. We do not doubt for a moment that gratitude to Russia and its Emperor lives and will live in the hearts of Americans. Only a madman can assume that America will ever violate this friendship with a deliberately unjust word or deed. "

21. Thus, with good reason we can assume that, by the will of fate, the citizens of the United States became the first "organized tourists" to visit Livadia, and the first guide to their estate was the all-Russian autocrat Alexander II. Mark Twain gazed with eager interest at the Russian emperor and his entourage. The appearance, demeanor, benevolence and sincerity of the owners amazed him. About Alexander II, he wrote: "He looks much more majestic than the Emperor Napoleon and a hundred times the majestic Turkish sultan."

22. Attempts on the life of Alexander II had just begun, and no one had ever imagined that “ Narodnaya Volya”Has already begun organizing a real bloody hunt for the Tsar-Liberator. Therefore, the holiday in Livadia, when the entrance to the territory of the estate was open to anyone wishing to be present, seems to be the last episode of the rapidly crumbling old Russian idyll - a kind tsar among his beloved people.

23. And the cabbies, taking advantage of the excitement that gripped the Yalta residents and residents of nearby villages, began to ask them for money unthinkable at that time - 25 rubles for a crew, and 6 rubles for a riding horse.

(To be continued)

There are not many names in history that, according to the recollections of contemporaries, would evoke only positive feelings. Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Emperor Alexander II, is a happy exception. Even the strict father-in-law Nicholas I, who at first was resolutely against this marriage, at the end of his life began letters to his beloved daughter-in-law with the phrase "Blessed is your name, Mary."

Fabulous start

In March 1839, the young heir to the Russian throne, the son of Emperor Nicholas I, Alexander traveled across Europe. The purpose of the trip, as is often the case in fairy tales, was to find a suitable bride. Before leaving, his father even compiled for him a list of suitable girls from ruling families, whom the young prince should pay attention to. But the case, completely in accordance with the fairy tales, did not go well. All the candidates from his father's list seemed to Alexander too mannered, cutesy and insincere. However, then luck smiled at him. The memories of eyewitnesses have been preserved about this event in the retelling of the sister of Prince Olga Nikolaevna:

“... the retinue never ceased to tease him with unsuccessful brides. One of the retinue ... remarked: "There is another young princess in Darmstadt." "No, thank you," Sasha replied, "that's enough for me, they are all boring and tasteless." And yet he went there ... the old duke received him with his sons and daughters-in-law. In the depths of the cortege, completely indifferently, followed a girl, with long, childish curls. The father took her hand to introduce her to Sasha. She was just eating cherries at the moment when Sasha turned to her, she had to first spit out the bone in her hand in order to answer him. So little did she expect to be noticed ... The very first word spoken to him made him wary; she was not a soulless doll, like the others, she did not cringe and did not want to be liked. Instead of the two hours that had been scheduled, he spent two days at her father's house. "

This girl was Princess Mary of Hesse. The reason she was not on the list of eligible brides was a very ugly story. Until now, all biographers are convinced that in fact Mary and her brother Alexander were the illegitimate children of Baron Augustus Senarclin de Grancy. Grand Duke Ludwig of Hesse, in order to avoid a scandal, officially recognized these children, but never took part in their upbringing. They lived with their mother in a small palace in Heiligenberg. Childhood and adolescence, spent in a secluded castle, away from the courtyard, shaped the character of the future Russian empress... She did not like the noisy court life, always preferring her a narrow circle of contacts with close people.

First difficulties

Of course, the difficulties began literally immediately. However, they only inflamed the prince in love. He wrote to his mother:

“Dear Mom, what do I care about the secrets of Princess Mary! I love her, and I would rather give up the throne than her. I will only marry her, this is my decision! "

The young princess was probably charming indeed. Alexander's parents, who strongly rejected this marriage, agreed to it as soon as they met their future daughter-in-law. For this, Empress Maria Feodorovna even specially came to Germany - a case unique for the Romanov dynasty.

“Marie won the hearts of all those Russians who could get to know her. Sasha (Alexander II) became more and more attached to her every day, feeling that his choice fell on God given. Their mutual trust grew as they got to know each other. The Pope (Nicholas I) always began his letters to her with the words: "Blessed is Your Name, Mary." (…) Daddy watched with joy the manifestation of the strength of this young character and admired Mari's ability to control herself. This, in his opinion, balanced the lack of energy in Sasha, which he constantly worried about. "(Dream of youth. Memoirs of the Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna)

Family life

Undoubtedly, the future emperor was not mistaken in choosing his wife, she became a magnificent wife and ruler, who left a wonderful memory of herself. The family life of Alexander II and Maria Alexandrovna lasted almost 40 years. However, this marriage became a real test of faith, love and patience for the Russian empress.

She gave birth to eight children, of whom six were sons - the best for the royal dynasty could not be imagined. She endured the death of her two eldest children - daughter Alexandra and son Nicholas, who was to inherit the throne. She had to endure attempts on her husband's life and his constant betrayal. In the end, Alexander stopped hiding his connections, and the constant favorite, Princess Yekaterina Dolgorukova, settled in the Winter Palace. She lived with four illegitimate children on the floor above the chambers of the crowned empress. Maria Alexandrovna did not take any action on this matter and did not reproach her husband with a single word.

Before her death, in a farewell letter, she thanked Alexander for all thirty-nine years of marriage. By the way, literally a few months after the death of his wife, the emperor entered into a morganatic marriage with Ekaterina Dolgorukova. Legitimate children for the rest of their lives could not forgive him for this. Less than a year later, Alexander II was killed by the "People's Will".

Great empress

As it always happens in history, family squabbles and problems are forgotten over time, and only what is really important remains in people's memory. Maria Alexandrovna became empress at the age of 30. She did not often interfere in state affairs, although it is believed that her opinion also played a role in the issue of the liberation of the peasants. But she fully took on the burden of worries in matters of art, education and charity.

It was during her reign that the Red Cross was established in Russia, and the Empress was the highest patroness of this organization for many years. Under her leadership, he became a public-state structure, uniting the funds of philanthropists from all over Russia. In total, the empress patronized 5 hospitals, 12 almshouses, 36 orphanages, 2 institutes, 38 gymnasiums, 156 lower schools and 5 private charitable societies. The Empress herself spent huge sums on good deeds. It is known that during the war she gave up new outfits in order to use excess funds in favor of widows, orphans, the wounded and sick.

She patronized the great Russian teacher Konstantin Ushinsky, and it was through the efforts of Maria Alexandrovna in Russia that open all-class women schools(gymnasiums) - for the first time in the history of our country, girls were able to massively receive a systemic education. The Empress helped the poets Vyazemsky, Tyutchev and Zhukovsky. The name of the great Russian empress is also borne by one of the leading musical theaters in our country and the world - the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.

It is interesting that the embroidery pattern on the curtain of the Mariinsky Theater was created "based on" the patterns on the train of Maria Fyodorovna's coronation dress (the coronation took place a year before the opening of the new building). This outfit is a real work of art covered with silver embroidery and is currently kept in the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin.

"I envy dear Livadia ..."

"... And I, Theodosius, took from him, Count Lev, for the estate I sold 150 thousand rubles in banknotes, which I received in full." It is unlikely that we will ever find out what circumstances forced the commander of the Balaklava Greek battalion, famous in the history of the Russian army, F.D. Revelioti to part with the Livadia estate conveniently located near the town of Yalta - a large land plot named in memory of the ancient settlement in this area (translated from the Greek "meadow", "lawn"). According to the deed of sale, made on January 9, 1834, in the possession of Count L.S. Potocki completely transferred the entire estate with an area of ​​209 dessiatines of 1900 sq. fathoms (about 229 hectares) with orchards, vineyards, forest, arable land located in it.

By this time, Count Lev Severinovich (1789-1860) had already become one of the most influential dignitaries at the Imperial Court. He came from that branch of the old Polish aristocratic family Potocki, whose representatives have long sympathized with Russia. His father, a well-known figure in the Ministry of Education and Spiritual Affairs under Alexander I, Count S.O. Pototsky, was one of the founders of Kharkov University, mother, former princess A.A. Sangushko, nee Sapega, also belonged to the highest circles of the Polish nobility.

During the reign of Alexander I, L.S. Pototsky joined the Collegium of Foreign Affairs and successfully carried out various diplomatic assignments of the Russian government.

A short stay in Naples at the very beginning of his diplomatic career as part of the Russian mission left L.S. Potocki an unforgettable experience: he became an ardent admirer and collector of antique art. Subsequently, when in 1841 the count was appointed "extraordinary envoy and plenipotentiary minister at the Neapolitan Court", this hobby happily reflected on the Livadia estate. Travelers who then visited the southern coast of Crimea noted that Livadia Pototsky looked like a small antique museum: the park was decorated with genuine, perfectly preserved marble sculptures and a sarcophagus of the early Christian period, all covered with bas-reliefs, and in a house built by architect F. Elson, in one of the offices a collection of antiquities from Pompeii was kept.

The park and three greenhouses spread over 40 dessiatines were the subject of special care and pride of the owner of the estate. An interesting description of the park by the Frenchman Blanchard: “I saw here plants from the depths of the East, from America, New Holland, Japan, as well as plants known to us in Europe, but here they are much larger - magnolias, for example, 2.5 sazhens in height (more 5 meters. - N.K., M.Z.) ". At the same time, the author mentions the Lebanese and Himalayan cedars, strawberries, purple berries, clematis, and, of course, about evergreen cypresses and laurels that were found at every step. All of them grew among representatives of the local flora - mighty oaks and ash trees. But, perhaps, the following observation of Blanchard is even more valuable: “What every traveler can appreciate and admire is the healthy sense and taste with which trees are selected and placed here to create green clumps, lawns, flower compositions of various tones and shades ... All this took years, during which the owners, with impeccable taste and sufficient condition, could fulfill their dream as connoisseurs of beauty in nature. "

The planning and decoration of the park, the selection of ornamental plants, made by the gardeners E. Delinger and I. Tasher, turned out to be so successful that later, if any changes were made to them, it was only in connection with the expansion of construction in Livadia or the desire of its new owners. to increase the number of rare flowering species and conifers.

By the end of the 50s of the XIX century, Livadia Potocki was a beautifully equipped estate with Bolshoi and Maly two-storey residential buildings. The first had 30 rooms, mostly private quarters and salons, furnished with the delicate taste characteristic of the owners of the estate; in the wing of the house there was also a Catholic chapel (chapel), and galleries for rest were arranged along its walls. The winter garden was decorated with a fountain "in the style of the Alhambra" of white Carrara marble. All water pipes in Livadia were made of cast iron, and only in the Big House was lead.

Among the outbuildings, a winery with a wine cellar stood out, in which high-quality home-made wines were kept. By acquiring land plots adjacent to Livadia, Pototsky annually increased the area of ​​vineyards and orchards, which brought him a good income.

In 1856, L.S. Pototsky, already having the highest civilian ranks of the actual Privy Councilor and Oberhofmeister, resigned from the diplomatic service and became a member of the State Council.

He died in St. Petersburg on March 10, 1860, having bequeathed Livadia to his wife, Countess Elizaveta Nikolaevna, nee Golovina. The latter, however, immediately renounced inheritance rights in favor of her daughters - Leonia Lanckoronskaya and Anna Mnishek. And already at the end of April, Yu.I. Stenbock began negotiations with the deceased count's chargé d'affaires on the purchase of Livadia for the royal family.

The heiresses agreed to part with their beloved estate forever only taking into account the high personality of the buyer. According to Countess A. Mnishek, "the fact that Livadia is now being sold is caused solely by the fact that it pleases the Emperor."

In August 1860, the estate was taken over by the Lot Office, although the bill of sale officially entered into force on March 10 of the following year.

Shortly before the first visit of Alexander II and his family to Livadia, the Department of Lots received a decree from the tsar: “Purchased<...>real estate in Crimea Livadia with all buildings and accessories<...>presenting as a gift to My Beloved wife, My Empress, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, I command the Department of Districts to enroll this estate in the ownership of Her Imperial Majesty. "

So, Maria Alexandrovna became the first of the Romanovs to own "Livadia" - one of the largest estates on the southern coast of Crimea. By this time, the 37-year-old empress showed all the signs of the most merciless disease of the 19th century - consumption: the unusual climate of St. Petersburg and frequent childbirth undermined the already poor health of Maria Alexandrovna. Doctors hoped that the healing climate of the South Coast would be more beneficial for her than staying at the famous resorts of Europe.

The daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse Louis II, Maximilian-Wilhelmina-Augustine-Sophia-Maria, in April 1841, married the heir to the Russian throne, Grand Duke Alexander Nikolaevich, the eldest son of Nicholas I. The marriage was for love, and for some time the family happiness of the spouses was not overshadowed by anything ...

The personality of the new owner of the beautiful estate is one of the most attractive in the history of the Romanov dynasty. It is a rare case when the memories of all the people who surrounded or met with her agree in one opinion - Empress Maria was an outstanding person both in her mind and in high moral qualities. Even the well-known critic of autocracy, anarchist prince P.A. Kropotkin paid tribute to the education, kindness, sincerity and wholesome role that Maria Alexandrovna played in the fate of many prominent people in Russia.

Her portraits of the 1850s-60s attract with the spirituality of their appearance. One of the best, the work of the artist F. Winterhalter, successfully conveyed the "highest grace of her whole being, which is much better than beauty," noticed by her contemporaries.

Maria Alexandrovna's appearance was in perfect harmony with her spiritual qualities. “It is created much more for inner life, soulful and mental, than for vigorous activity and for external manifestations. She turns her ambition not to the search for power or political influence, but to the development of her inner being, ”wrote the lady-in-waiting A.F. Tyutchev, who made up amazing in depth psychological portraits of Alexander II and Maria Alexandrovna.

The opinion of the noble court lady completely coincides with the observations of the famous Crimean public figure, historian and writer V.Kh. Kondaraki: “Her Majesty constantly sets an example of modesty and simplicity. In the outfits of this, in the full sense of the word, the holy mother never noticed anything sharply distinctive, no expensive trinkets, which visitors from the upper circle loved so much to be proud of at that time.<...>... It was clear to everyone that Her Majesty looked at her high position with the most humble eyes and probably never gave it the importance that others would feel. Avoiding popularity and insignificant vanity, she looked at a person as a creature of the same nature and feelings, and, it seemed, never dreamed of appropriating any advantages to herself before the Divine in relation to even those who, through hard work and bitter fate, paved their way in life. "

During the empress's life, few people knew about her direct participation in the liberation of the peasants, and such important events in the life of Russia as the reform of women's education or the creation of the Red Cross Society, which took place on the personal initiative and largely at the personal expense of Maria Alexandrovna, were heralded as a kind of charitable activity ...

Maria Alexandrovna's aesthetic views were fully manifested when creating a beautiful palace and park ensemble in Livadia, an estate that took a special place in her tragic life.

The first Imperial visit here took place at the end of August 1861. Already in early spring, the Department of Districts began to prepare the estate for the reception of the August family. Specific architect V.S. Esaulov was instructed to leave for Livadia and together with the gardener Pototskikh L. Geisler and the Yalta city architect K.I. Eshliman to carry out work to bring all buildings and the park "in proper form."

The royal couple were delighted with their new acquisition. This charming corner of the South Coast completely charmed Maria Alexandrovna. Subsequently, the empress, in letters to her relatives, called her estate nothing more than "my dear Livadia."

The family devoted their stay in Crimea to acquaintance with Yalta and its environs: they were interested in the life and traditions of the peoples living in Crimea, went to the Tatar village for a wedding, visited the ancient Greek church in Autka, met with representatives of different classes. Outwardly simple life was filled with new, unusual impressions every day.

Then it became obvious that the former estate of Count Potocki would have to be thoroughly reconstructed in order to adapt it to the conditions of life during the Highest visits. At the request of the empress, the work related to the construction of new and the rebuilding of old buildings was entrusted to the architect of the Vysochaishy Dvor and Tsarskoye Selo palaces I.A. Monighetti, who "knows the taste of Their Majesties."

The architect enthusiastically accepted the new assignment: fate seemed to have sent him Livadia to try his hand in conditions that so vividly resembled the flavor of the southern countries.

Monighetti was given a lot of leeway; The only restriction put to the architect by the owner of the estate was that construction costs should not exceed the amount of about 260 thousand rubles, and everything should be as simple as possible: after all, Livadia was intended for the treatment of the empress and family recreation, and not for official receptions.

Maria Alexandrovna took a very active part in the plans to renovate the estate. First of all, it was planned to expand the Big House, necessarily separating the church from it into an independent building, to build a Small House for the Grand Dukes, houses for a suite, a gardener, and a new kitchen.

Before leaving for Crimea, Monighetti submitted for the Empress's approval the plans for the facades of the main proposed buildings in Livadia.

The architectural style proposed by the architect for the ensemble of palace buildings found full approval of Maria Alexandrovna: with its simplicity and sophisticated sophistication, it met all her requirements.

Subsequently, in reports on construction work, Ippolit Antonovich constantly emphasized that most of the buildings were made by him in the "Tatar taste" or "in the taste of the Tatar hut". The project of the palace Church of the Exaltation of the Cross was based on the synthesis of the architecture of the religious buildings of Transcaucasia and Byzantium.

The free, picturesque layout of the buildings made it possible for the architect to solve each of them in an original way, with the inclusion of any other, different from the neighboring, motives, while maintaining a single style created by him.

Four years of his life, completely devoted to construction on the estate of Her Majesty "Livadia", marked by the enormous exertion of all the forces of the outstanding artist. The remoteness from Russia, from the main suppliers, difficulties with the delivery of building materials and the selection of labor in the then still sparsely populated Crimea - made themselves felt already at the beginning of construction.

The summer of 1862 was spent on the energetic organization of construction work: the procurement and delivery of stone, bricks, tiles, timber, and the hiring of workers. Finally, on September 8, the laying of the foundations of the church and the house for the Grand Dukes (the Small Palace) was solemnly celebrated, and in October the rebuilding of the Pototsky house into the Grand Palace, the old greenhouse and the house of the estate manager and the construction of houses for the suite, the military office, the kitchen, the stables began. , gardener's house, bathhouse and hospital.

Monighetti used a three-month business trip abroad to place orders for the Livadia estate. In Italy, in Carrara, he ordered marble decorations for churches and palaces, in Paris - furniture, decoration and upholstery materials for the interior decoration of the Grand and Small palaces and the house for the suite.

Period 1862-63 was the most difficult for the architect and his faithful assistant P.I. Ostanischeva-Kudryavtsev: they had to monitor the progress of construction and reconstruction of more than 20 buildings. Numerous cargoes began to arrive in Yalta from abroad, Odessa and other cities of Russia with construction materials, furniture, utensils for churches and palaces. To top it off, the winter turned out to be extremely unfavorable for construction, cold and snowy, the roads were icy, and Livadia was cut off from the most important sources of building materials.

Due to the delay in the delivery of marble jewelry from Italy, the dates of internal work in the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross, already erected by the summer of 1863, had to be postponed, and the famous artist Alexander Yegorovich Beideman, who had arrived to paint 36 icons there, returned to St. Petersburg for some time. Here is an interesting excerpt from Beidemann's report of this period - as a testimony of a person who was under the impression of what he saw in Livadia: “The church outside is completely finished and presents a happy solution to a problem in the Byzantine style: an unusually elegant small church, but inside it would be necessary to work for another 4½ weeks if no more. It is impossible to pass in silence and not be amazed at what Mr. Monighetti produced here in ten months of his stay! The palace is completely ready inside and outside in order to receive the Sovereign Empress.<...>Mr. Monighetti has processed every detail to an admirable degree of perfection, but it is a pity that the church is still in such a position that one has to wait ... "

The Austrian artist R. von Alt, who came at the invitation of the imperial family, left us his perception of Livadia in 1863. Twenty charming watercolors, painted by him during his stay at the royal estate, depict all the main buildings of Monighetti and several corners of the park. The artist managed to convey not only the color scheme of Livadia's buildings, but also their subtle architectural details. Residential buildings and most of the outbuildings erected from local stone had smooth, even walls - either simple polygonal masonry, retaining the natural color of Gasprin stone, or plastered in light brown tones. The main decoration of all buildings were carved wood elements: roof eaves ("stalactites"), cornices and brackets supporting them, columns of balconies, gratings, pinnacles.

Against their background, the palace temple, erected of Inkerman stone, with Byzantine ornamentation on this stone and carved inserts from Gasprin shone with dazzling whiteness.

The imperial visit of 1863 justified the confidence of I.A. Monighetti is that his work will be appreciated by the owners of the estate. “Her Imperial Majesty,” he wrote, “was apparently amazed at the success and performance of the work and thanked me in the most flattering terms. Sovereign Emperor<...>after inspecting the works, he deigned to thank me with the words: "Everything that has been done so far has been done excellently, I hope that the end will be the same."

Monighetti hoped to complete the work by the fall of 1864, but orders from the royal family followed one after another, and construction was completed only in 1866.

The commonality of the creative ideals of the architect and “specific gardening master” Clement Haeckel, who arrived in Crimea from Maria Alexandrovna's Ilyinskoye estate near Moscow, led to the creation of a beautiful palace and park ensemble in Livadia, linked by a single artistic concept.

K. Haeckel arrived in Livadia during the most difficult period of construction. In his person, Monighetti found support and friendly sympathy, which he so badly needed then. Even in business correspondence, the architect did not hide his joy that such a talented, hardworking and exceptionally honest person was entrusted with the arrangement of the park: “What a blessing that Haeckel is here! And we understand each other ... ".

Among the many merits of the outstanding gardener, first of all, one should note the significant expansion of the rose garden, the arrangement of pergolas entwined with climbing varieties of roses, and, most importantly, large plantings of all kinds of conifers: on the advice of doctor S.P. Botkin, he mainly planted the latter in those parts of the park where the sick empress liked to visit.

Of the more than 70 buildings for various purposes erected on the estate under the leadership of Monighetti, very few have survived to this day. For various reasons, most of them are either lost forever, or have undergone restructuring that distorted the original design. Fortunately, the palace church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is now in relatively good condition. Although its exterior, and especially the interiors, has suffered significantly over many decades of the state policy of combating religion, it still invariably evokes general admiration for the grace of forms and the beauty of ornamentation.

Monighetti attached great importance to the creation of small architectural forms. He found successful solutions for gazebos, pergolas with climbing plants, retaining walls, graceful fountains. Until now, the "Turkish pavilion" over the tunnel in the park, which has become a kind of symbol of Livadia, has survived, the fountains "Maria", "Moorish" and several marble bowls.

The architect started designing the fountains after the most difficult problem of water supply was solved in the Livadia estate. The history of the appearance on its territory of several large water reservoirs and the reconstruction of the water supply network is very instructive not only technically, but also morally.

From the report of the estate manager Ya.M. Lazarevsky, compiled in 1862 for the Department of Districts, it followed that the rather low-power sources of water that had previously used Potocki's estate completely dry up in the event of a particularly hot summer, and then the lack of water would generally make it impossible for the Highest Arrivals. Lazarevsky saw the solution to the issue in the diversion of water from the Biyuk-Su spring, which belonged to the Gasprin Tatars. In this he was supported by the Minister of the Court V.F. Adlerberg, and Tavrichesky Governor-General G.V. Zhukovsky. However, Alexander II immediately rejected this idea. Specialist-hydrologist K.O. was sent to Livadia. Yanushevsky with the task to find new sources of water supply on the territory of the estate, regardless of the cost of prospecting work.

Yanushevsky not only perfectly coped with this task, but also developed a whole system of storage tanks connected to the water supply network.

The versatility of I.A. Monighetti also manifested itself in the decoration of the interiors of palaces and churches. He personally made drawings and sketches of furniture and decoration of the Grand Palace in the style of Louis XVI and in the oriental style for the Small Palace, drawings of dishes ordered specially for Livadia. There were more than 900 sketches of church utensils and robes masterfully executed by the artist alone!

So the construction was nearing completion. In July 1865, the famous hero of the defense of Sevastopol, Adjutant General E.I. Totleben. After examining everything, the general sent a telegram to the Empress in Petersburg that he found Livadia in excellent condition and admired her. Maria Alexandrovna, whose departure to Crimea that year was constantly postponed, immediately replied: "I envy about dear Livadia."

And in 1866, after the acceptance of all the buildings of the commissions headed by the architect of the Imperial Court A.I. Rezanov, the awarding of orders and valuable gifts to persons who distinguished themselves at work in the imperial estate took place. I.A. Monighetti was presented to the Order of St. Anna, 2nd degree, that is, with the sign of "exalted dignity" - a diamond adornment in the form of an imperial crown; academician A.E. Beideman, who completed the main icon-painting work in the palace church, was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav, 2nd degree, which followed in the general order of seniority of Russian orders immediately after the Order of St. Anna, and was awarded for useful deeds in favor of the Fatherland, including in the field of art and crafts. It is interesting that the Minister of the Court personally sought to award a silver medal for wearing in the buttonhole on the Stanislavskaya ribbon to the peasant of the village of Glamozdino, Kursk province, Semyon Bordakov, for the excellent performance of carpentry.

Finally, in August 1867, a great Imperial visit to the fully equipped estate took place. With the exception of the heir to the throne, V. book Alexander Alexandrovich, the whole royal family arrived in Crimea.

It was decided in advance that on the day of the namesake of Alexander Nikolaevich, on August 30, a festivities would be held in the renovated estate.

An eyewitness to all the events that took place on that memorable for the Crimean royal visit, V.Kh. Kondaraki, left vividly written memoirs "The Life of Emperor Alexander II on the South Coast of Crimea." “The Sovereign Emperor,” the historian reports, “made daily walks in the morning - to Oreanda, Koreiz, Gaspra, Alupka, Gurzuf, to the forestry and to the Uchan-Su waterfall - in a carriage or on horseback, swam in the sea, walked on foot. In moments of relaxation, I listened to the beautiful poems of the poet Vyazemsky, who at that time was still at the Court and, despite his 75 years, seemed vigorous and impressionable ... ".

I recalled Kondaraki and a very piquant episode associated with the visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Fuad Pasha to Alexander II. The latter arrived in Yalta on the splendid new steamer Sultane, which delighted the city's residents. The minister and his retinue were accommodated in a hotel that belonged to the leader of the Yalta nobility S.N. Galakhov, after which Fuad Pasha demanded from the owner to show his beautiful wife. Two hours later, he was introduced to a charming woman, specially invited in advance from St. Petersburg.

But, of course, the most curious of the many receptions of 1867 was the meeting of the royal family with a large group of American tourists traveling on the Quaker City steamer through the countries of the Old World. A detailed description of this event was left by two active participants - on the American side, the later famous writer Mark Twain, who was then a correspondent for two major newspapers, and on the Russian side - V.Kh. Kondaraki.

The civil war has just ended in the United States, and the American government and the public have praised Russia's position in preserving the unity and power of that country. Lord Palmerston admitted in the British Parliament that his government did not begin the intervention, partly out of fear that the United States might in this case "enter into a military alliance with Russia."

Therefore, one can imagine the excitement of the passengers and the Quaker City crew, who learned from the American consul in Odessa that the Russian emperor wished to meet with them at his southern coastal estate: they felt like participants in an unusual mission, introducing the people of America to the powerful monarch of a friendly power. It was urgently decided to write a welcome address and present it personally to the emperor in Livadia.

The guests, and 55 of them were invited, found the most cordial welcome in the royal estate. It was also unexpected for the Americans that the Russian Emperor and members of his family showed them the palaces and parks of Livadia and Oreanda with apparent pleasure. Kondaraki also testifies that the Emperor “deigned to go out to meet them and congratulate them on their arrival. This is not enough! The monarch personally led them along the nearby alleys, paying attention to the most interesting plants and objects. This attention of the monarch charmed the Americans, who, of course, did not dare to expect such an open-hearted disposition from the tsar towards private individuals. "

The inspection of the estate ended with a breakfast given to the guests in Oreanda by the king's brother. book Mikhail Nikolaevich.

And, of course, one cannot fail to recall at least briefly about the merry folk holiday in Livadia on August 30, which has already been mentioned above. After the traditional prayer service and greetings to the emperor, accompanied by steamer whistles, cannon shots and multicolored flags of warships, the residents of Yalta and the surrounding area were informed that everything in Livadia was ready for a big holiday, to which everyone, without exception, was invited. This news instantly spread throughout the county, and the inns were filled with people demanding horses and carriages.

The celebration took place on a large meadow on the slope of Mount Mogabi. On the side of it was a hill on which all the Tatars from the surrounding villages gathered. The mass of the people enthusiastically welcomed the appearance to the sounds of the regimental orchestra of Their Majesties with their sons Vladimir, Sergei, Pavel Alexandrovich and their daughter, the young Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, as well as the emperor's brothers - the Grand Dukes Nikolai and Mikhail Nikolaevich with their families.

Riders - Tatars, Cossacks, cavalrymen of the Crimean Tatar squadron competed in the rapid races. Climbing on smoothly polished poles and running in sacks tied to the legs caused the general fun. The winners were generously awarded, but the rest of the participants were presented with memorable gifts. At the end of the games and attractions, all those present were invited to a treat.

This cheerful and joyful holiday was then remembered for a long time by the inhabitants of Yalta. However, on subsequent High-ranking visits to Crimea, the shadow of a constant threat to the lives of members of the royal family at the hands of terrorists has already fallen: the estate has become more carefully guarded, and the admission of visitors during the stay of Alexander II was limited by order of the Minister of the Court.

Here, on the South Bank, a rhythm of the emperor's life, different from the one in St. Petersburg, developed, which almost did not change in subsequent visits. This is how the correspondent of Moskovskiye Vedomosti described him: “In Livadia, court etiquette has been eliminated as much as possible. In the morning the tsar, as usual, gets up early, walks through the park on foot, then goes about business; sometimes he mounts a horse and descends to the sea, to the bath. He usually wears a white tunic, and so does the imperial retinue. They dine, as in the village, at 2 o'clock, dinner at 9 o'clock. After lunch, carriages are served and trips to nearby scenic areas are undertaken. The Tsar, as usual, sits down with the Empress in a wicker chaise made of straw. Sometimes they ride with a retinue of carriages, and more often they travel together, like ordinary tourists. The locals do not disturb them with exclamations and do not run to their path, reverently realizing that the kings also need rest. The royal family spends the evening for the most part in a close circle of confidants. The peaceful day ends early, and the next day repeats the previous one. On Sundays, some well-known persons are invited to listen to mass in the court church. Livadia is becoming more beautiful and more colorful every day, not only the South Coast, but the entire South, the entire Black Sea looks at her with love and hope. "

Meanwhile, within the royal family, a drama was rapidly playing out, at first hidden from everyone except the closest circle. The romantic infatuation of the already middle-aged emperor with the young Princess Catherine Dolgoruka soon grew into a passionate love for her. The birth of illegitimate children, the appearance of a second family for Alexander Nikolaevich was a cruel blow for the empress and the children who adored her. From that time on, the lung disease began to progress irreversibly.

And in Livadia, which at first charmed Maria Alexandrovna only with the beauty and exotic nature of the surrounding nature, she now found relief from both physical suffering and severe mental anguish from the consciousness of her humiliation. Away from the capital, she led a simple, secluded life, taking care of children, reading, charity work, taking walks to the sea. Usually the empress came to Crimea with her younger sons Sergei and Pavel, daughter Maria and a small retinue in spring or August, and tried to stay in Livadia until the last warm days. Reminders of the need to return to St. Petersburg irritated her and clearly displeased her. In this regard, the episode described by V.Kh. Kondaraki.

In 1870, the Empress's stay on the South Bank dragged on so long that the Minister of the Court was forced to telegraph the persons accompanying her several times with the demand to expedite the return to the Winter Palace. Since none of the retinue dared to turn to Maria Alexandrovna with a question about the time of departure from Crimea, a telegram followed from Alexander himself. But a dry answer was given to her: "I will inform you about the time of my departure in advance."

Strict court etiquette compelled even such confidants of the royal family as A.A. Frailina. The fat woman should remain silent and not discuss, except with close people and behind closed doors, the position of the empress and her legitimate children. She could only watch with bitterness what a destructive effect on the morality of high society this long-term love affair of the monarch had and how many mental anguish and humiliation his family and, above all, Empress Maria Alexandrovna had to endure.

In his book "Notes of the Maid of Honor", dedicated to the description of the dramatic events that took place in the life of the royal family from the late 60s to the accession to the throne Alexander III, Tolstaya speaks of some alarming tendencies in the life of the country associated with the decline of the Tsar's prestige: “In the eyes of many, he ceased, as before, to serve as an object of adoration and enthusiastic reverence. He lived the last fourteen years of his life outside of divine and moral laws, so to speak, on the edge of a needle, and this cooled even the most ardent hearts. There was no hope ahead either. " The latter was, perhaps, the most sad, since Alexander Nikolaevich began to become more and more isolated "in the pleasures of private life." At the end of the 70s, he was no longer the full of energy and ideas of the Emperor-Reformer that he was in the 60s.

The position of educator of the only daughter of the royal couple put Countess Tolstaya in a number of persons especially close to the empress. Like another outstanding personality of the Russian Court of that time, the lady-in-waiting A.F. Tyutchev, Tolstaya was sincerely attached to Maria Alexandrovna, appreciating in her first of all the moral purity and nobility of the soul, and therefore deeply sympathized with the carefully hidden grief of the unfortunate empress.

Her assessment of the main actors The enacted drama is strikingly different from the romantic description of the monarch's love affair in the well-known book of the French diplomat M. Palaeologus. The image of the young and gentle Catherine Dolgoruka, created by him, disinterestedly and devotedly loving her powerful patron, in many respects loses its attractiveness in the light of observations, mercilessly sketched by an intelligent and discerning lady of the court.

For some time now, Dolgorukaya began to accompany Alexander Nikolaevich to the Crimea. Not far from the Livadia settlement, the Department of Lots bought a small estate "Biyuk-Saray" for her and built a two-story mansion, in which Ekaterina Mikhailovna settled upon her arrival. But, as A.A. wrote with indignation. Fat, incognito was not included in the princess's plans, and she often openly appeared in Yalta, which, of course, soon became known to the empress as well.

Taking the advice of doctors - to be more in the air, saturated with the aroma of conifers, Maria Alexandrovna ordered to build a dacha "Ereklik" on the northern outskirts of the estate, in a mountain pine forest. Designed by the Petersburg architect A.I. Rezanov in 1872-73. a modest, but very cozy house was erected, at a distance from which there was a dairy farm, poultry houses and a pheasant built by I.A. Monighetti. The road from Livadia to the dacha passed by a beautiful meadow park founded by K. Haeckel in the 1860s specifically for grazing thoroughbred Swiss cows.

So, starting in 1873, Maria Alexandrovna, arriving in Livadia, tried to spend most of her time now in Ereklik, where she could retire and not feel so acutely the ambiguity of her position.

In the spring of 1879, the last short-term arrival of the terminally ill empress, suffocating to the point of fainting, took place to her beloved estate. Without any hope of recovery, she soon left here for Kissingen, and then for Cannes. Alexander Nikolaevich, having seen her off, returned to Livadia and remained there until winter, openly meeting with Ekaterina Dolgoruka.

On June 3, 1880, Empress Maria Alexandrovna died quietly in the Winter Palace. And on July 18, a very modestly furnished secret wedding of Alexander II with Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgoruka took place in Tsarskoye Selo. By the time of the wedding, they already had three children - Georgy, Olga and Ekaterina. The morganatic wife of the king, by his decree, henceforth began to be called the Most Serene Princess Yuryevskaya, and her children are protected by all rights to ensure their future, except for the right of succession to the throne.

A month and a half later, at the end of August, Alexander, together with his young wife, went on his last trip to Livadia. This is how M. Palaeologus writes about it: “For the first time, Ekaterina Mikhailovna rode in a tsarist train. The Emperor's retinue, adjutants, masters of ceremonies and other court officials were amazed at the honor shown by the Tsar to Princess Yuryevskaya and did not understand its reasons. The amazement intensified even more when Princess Yuryevskaya stopped not in Biyuk-Saray, as before, but in the palace. She had been there once before, but then her stay was hidden. "

From Livadia, Alexander Nikolaevich sent a letter to his sister, Olga Nikolaevna, Queen of Württemberg, in which he explained to her, and through her, to all relatives, the motives for concluding a morganatic marriage. The letter is significant: it contains both a premonition of an imminent tragic death, and the complete blinding of a loving person who sees in the object of his passion only purity and nobility, and an obvious lack of understanding of what a grave offense for the insulted dignity of a mother the heir to the throne carries in his soul. It is so important for the history of the Romanov dynasty that it seems interesting to cite it in full.

My conscience and sense of honor insistently oblige me to conclude a second marriage. Of course, I would not have dared to do this earlier than after a year of mourning in a dream, if the time in which we live was not an era of crisis, when I am exposed to new attempts, - this time puts an end to all my hesitations. For me, it is primarily about securing, and as quickly as possible, the fate of a person who has lived only for me for 14 years, as well as the fate of three children born to me from her. Princess Ekaterina Dolgorukaya, despite her youth, chose to abandon all the joys and pleasures of the world, usually so attractive to young people of her age, and devote her entire existence to surrounding me with her love, her cares. So she decided to my happiness and respect, to my gratitude.

Without devoting anyone to this, except for the only sister, never interfering in any business, despite the numerous petitions with which she was approached Despite the spread of nasty things around her name, insults, she lived only for me and was engaged only in raising our children, which until now brought us only joy.

Our wedding took place on July 6/18 in my field church, located in one of the halls of the Great Tsarskoye Selo Palace, and was blessed by the court priest Nikolsky, the same one who accompanied me during the war of 1877, in the presence of my adjutant general, Count Baranov, Count Adlerberg , Ryleeva, Mademoiselle Barbie Shebeko, a devoted friend of the princess.

The deed in form, stating the fact of our marriage, was drawn up by Father Nikolsky and signed by our three witnesses. On the same day, I signed a decree to the Senate notifying my morganatic the marriage with Princess Yekaterina Dolgoruka, whom I gave the name of Princess Yuryevskaya with the title of Grace on this occasion; the same title was awarded to our children: son George 8 years old, our daughters Olga and Ekaterina, 7 and 2 years old with all the rights of legitimate children from a morganatic marriage of members of the Imperial Family with persons not belonging to the ruling (reigning) family, on the basis of articles of the Code of Laws Russian Empire and special laws governing the Imperial Family - the Institutions of the Imperial Family.

The same rights apply to children who may follow them in the future. These two acts have been temporarily deposited in the archives of the Ministry of the Imperial Court.

My intention was to keep the new marriage a secret until May next year. But then I changed my mind and introduced my wife and my children to the assembled Count Loris-Melikov, my son Sasha, who had returned from Hapsal, as well as Minnie and others. I decided to let them learn the truth from my lips, so that no one could later use the opportunity to harm us, despite all my trust in the upper world and its feelings.

And I can honestly say that the audience fully justified my hopes, they deeply touched me with the way they accepted my confession, and the friendship that they revealed in relation to my wife and our children.

This happened 4 days before my departure to Crimea, where my wife and children were to accompany me on the same day, but by an ordinary courier train in order to stay in their own house not far from Yalta. But two days before that, she received an anonymous letter in which she was threatened with an attempt on her and her children while traveling. This resolved the issue of getting them on my train and giving them a roof in Livadia. Thus, it became impossible to hide the truth from the Court and from everyone who saw us together.

Counts Adlerberg and Loris-Melikov were of the opinion that it is not necessary to deny the marriage in front of those who ask them questions, but it should not be officially announced; That is why I decided to place everyone in Livadia, where my wife had already had the opportunity to get to know the retinue earlier and where we led a very secluded life, having supper from time to time only with the closest ones, with whom I played several games in the evenings.

I can only hope for the blessing of the Lord, that it will not leave us in the future, that the family members, who have always shown so much love for me, will all follow Sasha and Minnie together and will not deny their friendship to my wife and children, knowing how dear they are to me and how I am committed to the unity in the family, which our dear Parents so bequeathed to us ...

I can assure the family that my wife understands perfectly his position as a morganatic spouse and will never express claims that run counter to my will of the head of the Surname and the Autocrat... I would only like all other members of the family to remember this and not force them to remind it. "

Even before the sending of this letter to Germany, the will of the "head of the Surname and the Autocrat" manifested itself rather harshly in relation to the Tsarevich. Alexander Nikolaevich insisted that the heir and V. book Maria Fyodorovna with her children arrived on vacation in Livadia at the same time when he was there with Princess Yuryevskaya.

The tsar's stubborn desire to bring his new family and his eldest son together, in whose person he saw in the event of the death of the faithful defender of the princess and her children, turned into severe mental suffering for Alexander Alexandrovich and Maria Feodorovna.

In the Great Livadia Palace, built for the late Empress and so beloved by her, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Yurievskaya was already in full control of her wife. And if the Tsarevich maintained his composure, then for the impressionable Maria Feodorovna, life next to "this lady" was, in her words, like an incessant nightmare. In addition, the situation was heated by the constant tactlessness of the Most Serene Princess and the behavior of her son George, as well as the need to give answers to the perplexed questions of twelve-year-old Nika, to which the parents who raised the future Nicholas II to be honest and truthful often had to simply lie.

This situation will be partly repeated in Livadia in four years, but then the heir to the throne, who is no longer forced to obey the will of his father, will not come to Crimea, but the Emperor ...

And for Alexander Nikolaevich and Ekaterina Mikhailovna, the autumn days of 1880 flew by calmly and happily, in Return trip they only met on December 1st.

“On the way to Sevastopol, Alexander ordered to stop the carriage at the Baydarskiy gate. From there, a wonderful view of the Black Sea, the bluish peaks of Yaila opened up. The sky was clear and the last day here was fabulously lovely. Fascinated by the sight that opened before him, the emperor ordered to set the table in the air<...>... The only servant served. The dinner was cheerful and lively, and happiness shone on all faces. "

Thus ended the last visit of Alexander II to the Crimea ...

According to Maria Alexandrovna's will, Livadia, after her death, was to be transferred to “life-long disposition and possession” by Alexander Nikolaevich, and in the event of his death, to the heir to the Tsarevich.

With the accession of Emperor Alexander III to the right of inheritance began new page in the history of the Livadia estate.

Notes (edit)

At the request of L.S. Potocki's sarcophagus was made into a bowl of a fountain, water into which came from a jug in the hands of a marble statue of a reclining nymph. This fountain, as well as the statue of the ancient hero, disappeared from the park after the war, when the Livadia Palace became I.V. Stalin.

The Livadia fountain has survived. With minor additions - a new pommel and base, it was subsequently moved by the architect Monighetti to the site near the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross. In total, during the described time, Pototsky's estate was decorated with about a dozen fountains, most of which were carried out by Italian marble carvers in Carrara.

The wine cellar building, built in 1849, has survived to this day without any significant changes. Now it belongs to the Livadia winery, which is part of the Massandra association.

By 1860, vineyards in Livadia occupied 20 acres of 120 square meters. soot. and in good years they gave up to 4 thousand buckets of wine. The traveler Blanchard had a very high opinion of the quality of the latter, noting that in reality "the wines of the Crimea are worth much more than their reputation."

L. Lanckoronskaya is even more frank. “We are far from the idea of ​​selling Livadia,” she wrote to the Charge d'Affaires Dr. E. Peters, “but we understand that gratitude for the favors with which the Emperor honored the last days of my father obliges us to yield to the wishes of His Majesty.”

By 1862, its area had already exceeded 300 dessiatines.

In this regard, a letter from the young bride of the Russian Tsarevich written to her father in September 1840 is interesting. She has just entered the land of her new homeland, heading for St. Petersburg, where she will convert to Orthodoxy and will prepare for the wedding:

“My dear, my kind father. These are my first lines from the country that should now become my second fatherland. (That it will be as dear to me as the first - I doubt it and can hardly even wish it, since it seems to me that we should always give preference to the country in which we were born).

Nevertheless, I feel extremely attached to Russia. Cossacks met us at the border; we were expecting Sasha (i.e., Prince Alexander Nikolaevich. - N.K., M.Z.) about half an hour; without him, the Empress (Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas I. - NK, MZ) did not want me to cross the Russian border; I used this time to cast a last glance at my dear Germany and once again renew in my memory those joyful and happy days that I experienced in it ... My second glance fell on the Russian land, and I thought that now is just beginning the hardest part of my life, and I asked God for His holy help ... ".

The final phrase of this letter sounds prophetic: one had to have great inner strength in order to survive in the future, having already become the queen of a huge country, the intrigues of the Court, a serious illness and mental anguish inflicted on her by the open betrayal of her beloved husband ...

An engraving from this portrait is on display at the Massandra Palace Museum.

Ippolit Antonovich Monighetti, an outstanding architect of Russia in the mid-19th century, the author of many projects of original buildings in St. Petersburg, Moscow and suburban imperial residences, a talented decorator. While still a very young graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, I. Monighetti, first on his own initiative, and then on a scholarship specially allocated by the Academy, visited many Mediterranean countries, where he enthusiastically studied the richest architectural heritage of their peoples. For albums with beautifully executed sketches of buildings and ornamental decorations, which he made during these travels, the artist was awarded the title of academician upon his return to Russia.

However, it soon became clear that to complete the reconstruction project in full, this amount would need to be approximately doubled.

Indeed, none of them looked like any Western examples of stylized "oriental motives" buildings. They did not repeat in them the first experience of Monighetti's appeal to the architecture of the East - the Turkish Bath pavilion, built in 1852 in Tsarskoye Selo Park. In Livadia, he showed himself as a talented interpreter of the motives of the architecture of the peoples of the Crimea, Transcaucasia, and the Middle East. Elements of original Crimean Tatar houses and ornamentalism of the Middle East were harmoniously combined in its buildings.

The Empress wished to name the future church in honor of one of the most revered twelve Orthodox holidays. According to legend, at the beginning of the 4th century, the mother of the Byzantine emperor Constantine, Helen, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where she found the real cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified, and re-erected it on Mount Golgotha ​​- where the crucifixion took place. Later, on September 13, 335, the first temple in honor of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was erected on the site of the discovery, and since that time this event has been annually celebrated.

Then with bitterness Monighetti wrote to Count Yu.I. Stenbock: “How many during this time I had to endure the smallest, most alarming, unknown troubles with contractors, workers, can (understand) only those who were judged by fate at one time so many different buildings<...>, the work was stopped sometimes due to the lack of the simplest materials, such as nails, roofing iron and so on. " Describing the numerous troubles that he had to endure on the construction site in Livadia, Monighetti, however, did not lose his presence of mind and firmly believed in his success: "One only supports me and encourages me to new activities, that my works and merits will be appreciated!"

In part, an idea of ​​the architecture of old Livadia can be given by the gardener's house preserved on its territory (now a hotel) and some buildings in Yalta, built in imitation of the style developed by Monighetti, for example, the Lishchinskaya house on Ekaterininskaya street.

Tekkel Klimenty Ivanovich (1810-1885). In the 1820s. lived in Dresden. In 1832 he arrived in Russia, already having the title of royal court gardener at the Saxon Court. At first he worked in St. Petersburg, where he created several gardens and parks, and from 1840 he became a garden master at the Ropsha estate. The main duty of K. Haeckel was the year-round supply of the Imperial Court with the best varieties of fruits, as well as overseeing the greenhouses and the park in Ropsha and Duderhof. Since 1858 - the chief gardener of the Krasnoselsky Office, at the Specific Agricultural School and the Department of Appanages, and in 1864 he was appointed head of the Moscow Specific Office.

In 1868, Haeckel, with his wife and elder sons, took Russian citizenship and, for special merits, was elevated to hereditary honorary citizenship.

The resting place of the famous master was forgotten for many decades, and only in 1995 a group of landscape architecture specialists led by A.L. Reimana discovered the family necropolis of Gekkely in the village. Malye Gorki near Ropsha (Leningrad Region).

The first in the sad list of losses of Livadia can rightfully be put the palace of the heir, or the so-called Small Palace, which burned down at the end of 1941, just before the entry of German troops into Yalta. Unlike the Great Imperial Palace, where the architect was forced to mainly deal with the major reconstruction of the old house of Count Potocki, the Small Palace, from the foundation to the pinnacles on the roof, is entirely his creation. It was a real masterpiece of I.A. Monighetti. Travelers who visited Livadia and the authors of Crimea travel guides left us with delightful descriptions of this charming building, invariably emphasizing its oriental flavor.

How not to recall in this regard the instructions of the educator of the young Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich, the wonderful Russian poet V.A. Zhukovsky, who inspired the future tsar with the idea that "the habit of obeying the law is the main thing in life, both for one's own happiness and for the benefit of others."

Written by A.E. Beideman in the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross was highly appreciated by the famous marine painter A.P. Bogolyubov, who accompanied Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich on trips to Livadia, and after his death in 1865 - the heir to the throne V. book Alexander Alexandrovich and V. book Maria Fedorovna.

Among the participants in the construction, who were awarded valuable gifts, there were also foreign nationals: the contractors E. Bouchard and E. Ducros, who directly carried out most of the work on the construction of buildings, the ornamental artist R. Isella, the marble master A. Rampini, and others.

Lines from the message addressed to future generations of US citizens: “... America owes a lot to Russia, it is a debtor to Russia in many ways, and especially for its unchanging friendship in the years of its great trials. We pray with hope to God that this friendship will continue for the future. We do not doubt for a moment that gratitude to Russia and its Emperor lives and will live in the hearts of Americans. Only a madman can assume that America will ever violate this friendship with a deliberately unjust word or deed. "

Thus, with good reason we can assume that, by the will of fate, the citizens of the United States became the first "organized tourists" to visit Livadia, and the first guide to their estate was the all-Russian autocrat Alexander II. Mark Twain gazed with eager interest at the Russian emperor and his entourage. The appearance, demeanor, benevolence and sincerity of the owners amazed him. About Alexander II, he wrote: "He looks much more majestic than the Emperor Napoleon and a hundred times the majestic Turkish sultan."

Attempts on the life of Alexander II had just begun, and no one had ever imagined that Narodnaya Volya had already begun organizing a real bloody hunt for the Tsar-Liberator. Therefore, the holiday in Livadia, when the entrance to the territory of the estate was open to anyone wishing to be present, seems to be the last episode of the rapidly crumbling old Russian idyll - a kind tsar among his beloved people.

And the cabbies, taking advantage of the excitement that gripped the Yalta residents and residents of nearby villages, began to ask them for money unthinkable at that time - 25 rubles for a crew, and 6 rubles for a riding horse.

Alexandra Andreyevna's cousin, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, spoke of her with admiration: “The beauty of Alexandria, joy, consolation. And I have not seen a single woman reaching her knee. "

The book of M. Palaeologus "Roman Emperor" has withstood several editions in Russia in recent years. However, despite the vividness of the exposition and the author's desire for objectivity, one cannot but pay attention to his admission that the basis for writing it was fragmentary information collected by him when he was the ambassador of France in Petrograd, several letters that fell into his hands, and the stories of the princess's friend Dolgoruky Varvara Shebeko. Against this background, the description of the events that the author of the "Notes of the Maid of Honor" directly observed, including those that took place in the Crimea, as well as personal meetings and the content of conversations with almost all members of the royal family, high-ranking courtiers and with Ekaterina Mikhailovna herself, stands out favorably. ...

Ereklik - "valley of plums" (Turkic), consonant with the Scottish "air chime". It was there that the brilliant artist F. Vasiliev, commissioned by V. book Vladimir Alexandrovich wrote one of his last paintings "View of Yalta from Erekpik".

The house of Empress Maria Alexandrovna has not survived, and now only the remains of buildings with original decorations on the walls and cornices, made according to Monighetti's sketches, serve as a reminder of the once prosperous economy.

Maria Alexandrovna loved to assign nicknames to these beauties herself, jokingly using the pantheon of ancient Greek and Roman gods for them: Vesta, Amphitrite, Juno, Mars, etc.

The Livadia herd invariably aroused the admiration of all who received permission to inspect the empress's estate. A notable St. Petersburg lady, who made a long journey along the southern coast of Crimea in the early 1880s, described her impressions of the sight of these extraordinary animals in the following way: the exceptions were flesh-colored, and one of them even banged in pale pink. The officer accompanying me told me that a few years ago it was completely pink and that those visiting the farm could not stop looking at it; now the wool turns pale every year. Despite the young rivals around her, she looked around at us so meaningfully and majestically that looking at her beautiful eyes I recalled the myth of Jupiter and Io.

Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna (1822-1892), second daughter of Nicholas I and Alexandra Feodorovna. She received an excellent education. Since 1846, the wife of the Württemberg Crown Prince Friedrich-Karl-Alexander, later King Charles I (1823-1891).

This letter and Olga Nikolaevna's answer to it were first published by A.A. Thick in the book mentioned above. We provide a rough draft of this message, stored in the funds of the State Archives. Russian Federation... Despite the seemingly identity of the letter sent to Germany, the draft is not only somewhat larger in volume, but also contains a number of essential details, altered or completely absent in the version subsequently edited by the tsar. Moreover, some of them were, apparently, so important to him that he even emphasized single words or whole phrases. The latter is of particular importance for understanding state of mind, in which Alexander Nikolaevich was in Livadia. (Translation of the text of the letter from French by T.A. Leshchenko).

In a letter sent from Livadia to Stuttgart, this part of the phrase is excluded, thereby Alexander deliberately misleads his relatives. The testimonies of contemporaries directly speak of a strong and, for the most part, negative influence that Yuryevskaya had on Alexander II. Is it possible, for example, not to trust S.Yu. Witte, who at the beginning of his career held the highest positions in the Ministry of Railways, and therefore knew thoroughly all the ins and outs of concluding construction concessions railways in Russia? Based on specific examples, he directly points to the very unseemly role of Ekaterina Mikhailovna: "Through Princess Dolgoruky, and later through Princess Yuryevskaya, many different things were arranged, not only appointments, but money matters of a rather untidy nature."

Loris-Melikov Mikhail Tarielovich (1825-1888), Count, Adjutant General. Since 1880, he was the head of the Supreme Administrative Commission for the Protection of State Order and Public Peace with extraordinary powers. After its abolition - from August 1880 to May 1881 - Minister of the Interior, member of the State Council.

V. kn. Maria Feodorovna, wife of the heir to the Russian throne V. book Alexander Alexandrovich. The daughter of the Danish king Christian IX, Princess Dagmar. Since 1881 - Empress of All Russia.

Alexander II is referring to Dolgoruka's house in Biyuk-Saray.

In a letter sent to Germany, the last paragraph is completely excluded: the emperor clearly wanted to remain honest with himself. As A. Tolstaya testifies, referring to the high-ranking officials of the Court who had access to the secret archives, Alexander Nikolaevich intended to crown his new wife with the crown in the near future. “This terrible event,” writes the lady-in-waiting, “was prepared, of course, secretly, but too many people were involved in this dark affair so that it would not be made public.<...>... The future Empress ordered a mantle for her coronation in Paris, and many of the Emperor's close associates saw the code for the maid of honor Catherine III, invented by him ... ".

(The cipher is a special insignia for the maid of honor. It was a gold brooch decorated with diamonds with the monogram of the Empress or the Grand Duchesses, with whom they were, and was worn under the crown on a bow made of St. Andrew's blue ribbon on the left side of the chest).