Prince Michael - Britain's Royal link to Russia

Prince Michael is the Queen's first cousin and his grandfather King George the fifth was the first cousin of Tsar Nicholas and I believe even his name has a Russian connection is that correct it is indeed he's named after the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich who was the younger brother of Tsar Nicholas and I think for most people in Britain if they've ever seen these old photographs of the Russian Tsar Nicholas Prince Michael has a beard like the Tsar did and there is a remarkable physical resemblance isn't there's an extraordinary physical resemblance if you were casting a film and wanted a character to play the Tsar he seems almost a double I think that I think that one of the reasons that he has taken such an enormous amount of trouble firstly to learn Russian which he did in the 1960s he became an army interpreter in 1968 he spent 20 years in the army retiring in 1981 so his Russian is actually quite good his Russian is extremely good and after the fall of the Soviet Union and since 1992 he has been to Russia around 50 times he's the patron of the Rousseau British chamber of commerce and also he has devoted a great deal of time it seems to becoming popular with Russia - narrating or example a documentary about the tragic fate of the Tsar and his family and of course one bears in mind there's a certain guilt in Britain on the subject because of course they did not receive asylum in Britain over royal doubts over the reception this would receive publicly and whose decision was that whose decision was it in the end not to allow the Russian royal family to claim asylum here ultimately it was the decision of George v I was something I suspect he felt extremely guilty about and there's no doubt I think that that has perhaps one of the reasons that Prince Michael is doing what he is doing it's important to remember that as the second son of the fourth son of George the fifth he does not undertake official royal duties his brother does he doesn't but he has taken on an unpaid royal role whilst being a business consultant and he's represented the Queen when abroad he and his wife Berenice marie-christine formed reddit's whom he married in 1978 - she was the Roman Catholic and that meant that he was debarred from the line of succession they have represented the Queen abroad at certain occasions and in certain countries but he does not actually undertake official royal engagements he is a business consultant he's also very well known as a freemason he's the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge and he's attached to about a hundred at charitable organizations of one sort or another people outside England or Britain may not understand that just being the Queen's cousin is not necessarily a route to riches is it I mean he doesn't actually get paid by the state only the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh received money from the Civil List which is funded by the state certain other members of the royal family receive what is called a parliamentary annuity and then parliament is refunded by the monarch from the revenues of the Duchess sorry from the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster it's important that the listeners it's important that listeners realised that being a member of the British royal family does not mean you receive state funding he has to make his way all alone and that has obviously involved him in various business ventures but he is pasted enormous emphasis because of his background on charitable activities do we actually know very much about I mean he seems that almost a genetic legacy that he should have a connection to Russia do we know exactly what he's done in Russia or what he likes doing in Russia we know that he goes to Russia and has a charitable foundation there we know also according to the British press anyway that he is popular in Russia we know most importantly that in 1998 when the Czar and his family were buried in a ceremony in st. Petersburg that Prince Michael attended I gather it was a somewhat controversial ceremony in Russia under President Yeltsin and there's little doubt he sees this as an integral part of the function that he has taken arm

Channel: Tsarevich Alexei

Views: 225,903

Rating: 4.8619699 out of 5

Keywords: prince, michael, kent, richard, fitzwilliams, berezovsky

Id: ouYGSj_YPK4

Length: 5min 1sec (301 seconds)

Published: Sat May 19 2012