The Last of the Romanovs | Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna

[Music] hmm in toronto canada in a little room above a beauty parlor a woman dies the year is 1960. only those of the funeral know the history of the woman in the open coffin she is the sister of the last russian tsar [Music] she was born to unimaginable wealth and splendor her life was set against the backdrop of an entire century it was a life filled with forbidden love enduring passion and revolution [Music] such is the story of olga the last grand duchess of russia [Music] it was another time the countries of europe were ruled by kings and queens and they were all related to each other olga's family portrait uncle edward and aunt alexandra the future rulers of england her uncle the king of greece her aunt the queen of greece her father the tsar of russia her mother princess dagmar of denmark her grandfather christine ix the king of denmark and her grandmother the queen of denmark grand duchess olga was related by blood to virtually every royal family in europe on the first of june in the year 1882 in the city of saint petersburg a daughter the grand duchess olga was born to his imperial highness the sovereign emperor alexander iii [Music] from his palace of peterhof nearson petersburg in russia olga's father the tsar ruled over one sith of the world when olga was born in honor of the grand duchess the cannons saluted in st petersburg there was cannon fire from the squadron ships in peterhof where the squadron was based [Music] it was the cannon fire that informed the people a child was born to the tsar's family colossal changes occurred during these last 100 years in russia but in our archive we keep everything we are the people's memory we are russia's memory we keep all the documents remaining in russia and concerning the grand duchess olga alexandrovna these are the documents of her birth christening marriage what does it mean to be a czar's daughter from her very birth each and every step of the grand duchess was regulated protocol for the holy christening of the grand duchess olga the romanov dynasty had been in power for 300 years the power of the tsar was absolute [Music] olga's father ruled over the country her mother ruled over the family [Music] there were five children the eldest nicholas was fated to be the last tsar of russia the youngest olga was her father's favorite my darling papa i miss you dreadfully i hope you're well alexander and the baby are coming today mrs franklin olga's british nanny fed her porridge for breakfast and taught her to write and speak english my darling papa i congratulate you on your names day today we had tea olga and her father shared a special informal relationship but even a simple visit to her mother was by protocol now it is 11 minutes past nine and i must go to mama's room like every morning [Music] in 1888 young olga realized the danger russian royals were exposed to on a trip to the crimea the royal train skidded on the tracks and crashed most likely the accident was an act of terrorism by russia's early revolutionaries the tsar's family miraculously survived little olga ran from the wreckage screaming they are coming to kill us all she was just six years old the romanovs fear it is a traditional fear transmitted from generation to generation olga's grandfather was assassinated her father was constantly threatened with assassination attempts against him this is a real fear a real tragedy which constantly soared over the family [Music] in response to the dangers surrounding them lazar moved his family to the palace of gachina it was far from the capital and most importantly it was easy to guard [Music] it was a lonely life for young olga in the 500 room palace she filled the hours at gachina drawing and painting recording her life [Music] i don't remember a time when i didn't have a brush in my hand olga's siblings were much older only her brother misha was still at the palace i grew up with misha and without comrades the two children had no ordinary playmates but we did not miss them because the sailors and soldiers who were guarding us at the palace were always ready to play with us and there were always flowers waiting for me in the garden [Music] summers were a special time for olga it was when she and her family got to visit olga's grandfather the king of denmark [Music] the visits were a semblance of normal life for the russian royal family mom dear told me this morning that i could go to copenhagen with nikki and alex as they are going shopping i'm so happy [Music] was the summer residence of the danish royal family and the members of the different european royal houses used to meet there every summer it was a tradition because the danish king christian ix had so many beautiful daughters who were married to the english royal house the russian tsar's family and to different european princes when these royal people were in freddensborg they were much more human in the way that they related to others when they were freed from the stiff rituals of home in fredensburg olga could watch the royal families behave just like ordinary people [Applause] the future kings and queens of europe would make fun of each other for olga it was a revelation christmas book 1893 now we are in petersburg and the new year's eve is past 1894 has come that year olga's father succumbed to a long illness supremely sanctioned protocol for the internment of the emperor the pious alexander the third who passed away in the grace of god darting papa at last very peacefully passed away to another much happier world we are so awfully miserable what will life be without him a pass to enter the peter and paul fortress in some petersburg during the internment of sar alexander iii i walked in procession after the coffin carried by six horses in the morning i went to the fortress with the others and we stood for two hours and then we kissed papa dear for the last time and he was laid by the side of his mother in the floor then we came home it's all too horrid without him two years later august brother nicholas became russian tsar it was the last coronation in russian history [Music] supremely sanctioned protocol for the holy coronation of his majesty the emperor nicholas ii the ruler of russia olga was 14. we at last got to the kremlin we descended from the golden carriages and walked in a long procession along planks spread with red cloth till we got to the church [Music] i couldn't see nicki for a while but i saw mama as she sat there on a throne with a diamond crown on her head and a lot of gentlemen holding up her long train with urban mantle [Music] nikki stood up and read the creed then a big mantle was put on his shoulders and a crown was given to him he put it on himself as no one was higher than him when we left the church the crowd cried hurrah and we had to bow and pretend to be pleased [Music] we had stood for hours i laughed the whole time and had nothing to do with the tiring ceremonials [Music] when grand duchess olga was 19 her mother decided it was time for her to be married romanov girls usually left russia to find a proper noble match but her mother wanted olga to remain in russia a marriage was arranged i never thought for an instance that today my life would be changed i found myself alone in a room with peter he came up to me took my hand and said he loved me i consented to marry him i don't even know if i was happy i was only frightened fancy anyone wanting me prince peter of oldenburg lived in russia he was a long time family friend much older and a homosexual [Music] in 1901 olga was wed to prince peter of oldenburg what does it mean the wedding of a grand duchess it means luxury and splendor [Music] dowry of the grand duchess olga pink velvet train pink skirt with silk lining blue skirt with silk lining four crepe skirts brooch with sapphires and diamonds necklace with sapphires and diamonds tiara with sapphires and diamonds total 339 400 rubles the dress was worth 50 000 rubles which at the time was a tremendous sun a farmer could buy a cow for just four rubles [Music] the sovereign emperor in the exercise of his supreme will has ordered that a dowry be granted for her imperial highness grand duchess olga the sum of one million rubles i had to sit before a gold looking glass while monsieur de la croix put the diamond veil and crown onto my head oh the weight of it all [Applause] supremely sanctioned protocol for the naturals for her imperial highness the grand duchess olga and his highness prince peter the duke of oldenburg after the ceremony we went to the station in the train peter and i then went to bed in the same cabin it is all very strange the couple moved into their palace in some petersburg where they lived separate lives peter continued his life of gambling and young men [Music] olga returned to her royal duties she did charity work and she was a lady in waiting to her mother the dowager empress she also spent a great deal of time with her nieces the daughters of the tsar one of her favorites was the youngest little anastasia in 1903 olga went to a military review her eyes fell on a tall fair man he was nikolai kulikovsky an officer the two fell in love [Music] the daughter of the russian tsar had fallen in love with a commoner the family did not approve [Music] olga told her husband right away that she did not love him and that she would like to have a divorce and marry another man whom she loved prince peter said no [Music] but peter made a concession he would hire kulkovsky as his aide olga and kulikovsky could be near each other and wait for the possibility of a divorce they waited for 13 years [Music] in 1914 the first world war began kulikovsky and his regiment were sent off to the front the women of the royal family were expected to contribute to the war effort olga chose to be a nurse she traveled to the front war and i do not think that she followed kulikovsky she left for the front as her heart told her to do she organized hospitals there she was a grand duchess and had all the means for it organization of the hospitals took a lot of straight from grand duchess olga because one had to supply dressing material equipment find personnel pay the personnel some money my darling greetings to you for christmas i am full of my own thoughts and hospital work we have about seven or eight operations every day i love my work just what i always wanted i still find time to paint it was so great to be with you it's strange to think that it will be christmas the time when everybody is together you and i are apart everything in this life is backwards for instance we would like to get married and it's impossible we would like to have our own children and it's impossible in the end we would like to be together always and it's always impossible i kiss you god bless you and protect you olga [Music] only her brother the tsar could give her permission to divorce dear nikki do tell me once what you really think don't you think that to finish with a divorce now during the war while all eyes and minds are occupied elsewhere would be better my darling it was great to have seen you twice but i'm sorry it was not more than just a few minutes you have my permission and all my blessing i hug you lovingly your old brother nikki one of the last decrees signed by the emperor nicholas ii to the governing senate the marriage between olga and prince peter of oldenburg is arnold excerpt from the marriages for the year 1916 on november 5th her imperial highness grand duchess olga was wed to captain nikolai kulikovsky from that moment on olga and her husband were always together and the grand duchess insisted on being called simply mrs kulikovsky [Music] three months after their wedding the russian revolution broke out [Music] it would alter the course of the entire world such changes that i thought of going mad and can't sleep and when i do all the events go on in my dreams olga's brother lazar was forced to abdicate life became dangerous for members of the entire royal family [Music] olga her husband and her mother fled to the family estates in the crimea [Applause] it was a bitter night i wore nothing but my nurse's uniform i remember the moment when looking upon my small case i realized that i owned nothing else in the world in the house in the crimea alger gave birth to a son she was 35 years old it was very difficult to get provisions none of us had any money and the only reason we weren't killed was because they couldn't decide who could kill us olga was pregnant again and she made a decision she left her mother and went with her husband and son to hide out in the caucasus an area not yet in bolshevik hands the future was uncertain [Music] the air is full of rumors we don't know where my nieces and their parents are [Music] olga never heard from her brother nicholas his wife and her nieces again in 1918 the tsar's entire family were imprisoned and [Music] [Music] only those who left russia or were abroad at the time those were saved [Music] in 1919 russia's civil war was at its peak the king of england sent a boat to pick up olga's mother marooned in another part of the country olga and her husband managed to escape one year later she had given birth to a second son she never saw russia again from the danish consulate in novorossiysk the grand duchess olga has left russia from the danish embassy in belgrade we have been informed that grand duchess olga sister of the kills tsar is on route the grand duchess olga left today thursday morning we'll be arriving in copenhagen friday evening please inform her mother the dowager empress when the dowager empress and olga were rescued out of the civil war in russia they then came to denmark they were first accommodated in the castle emmalienborg which is the danish royal family's official residence [Music] [Applause] the empress and her retinue soon moved into the villa of vidorei olga and her family moved with them one should remember the extreme contrast between coming here while they were the reigning royal house in russia and when they came the second time when they were expulsed and driven away from their country having lost everything they had and being political refugees at the side of her mother olga had once again become a prisoner of protocol [Music] it was soldiers from the guards and they were on watch all of the time so you could say that it still was a palace and that was what grand duchess olga didn't like some stuff uh what tortured grand duchess olga was that her husband kulikovsky was never really accepted by her mother and it was hard for her daughter who cares for her husband that's why they never could have an ideal and happy life with the mother there so [Music] for her mother olga carried out the various duties of companion ladies made and secretary [Music] i live so much in the past that sometimes i'm frightened maybe i'm missing my life now like that between my fingers people in denmark expected the royal family to behave like royalty olga didn't fit the mold [Music] it was disappointing to the russian immigration that had come here that grand duchess olga didn't take the position that they would have liked her to take slit into 10 it was hard for the grand duchess olga to escape the past especially when it kept coming back to haunt her in 1920 the news traveled like wildfire around the world a woman had been fished out of a berlin canal she claimed to be anastasia the youngest daughter of the tsar suppose she really were the little girl having a long nose if she is or not [Music] she wasn't my little niece at all she is just a poor misguided woman [Music] olga's mother the russian dowager empress died in vidari in 1928. her funeral was at the russian orthodox church in copenhagen it was the end of an era in european history [Music] with the empress's death olga and her husband could finally begin to live their own life olga was 46. she changed quite a bit after her mother died she was more free she was more happy yesterday [Music] so in the small danish village of balarup there is a museum devoted to the grand duchess olga who lived there from 1930 until 1948. i'd like to talk about how it all began with grand duchess olga grand duchess olga and her husband bought a big farm in balorup and when they arrived there in 1930 ballarap was a small mini society you could say and was strongly class divided [Music] c2 to come and see she was a very peculiar type she could come up one day with her long rubber boots wear her romanov brooch sit in her horse-drawn cab and drive to the market and deliver potatoes or something else from their farm [Music] they were totally straightforward just ordinary people she came often to our house actually every morning in the 30s because there were lots of trees you could paint [Music] she always wanted to have coffee but our family was very poor so they only had metal mugs [Music] olga was very close to her goddaughter's family alfred the father became one of her closest friends [Music] i remember my godmother as a very happy person during the 30s and that was while i was a child very very animated very very happy when she had to go to the royal dinners she wasn't very happy perhaps a little affected by all her growing up time where everything had to be formal and she couldn't be herself really in bala olga and nikolai farmed and raised their two sons when world war ii broke out denmark was occupied by the germans olga's life went on seemingly unchanged her two sons were growing up and in 1942 her eldest son wanted to get married she also had given her boys the freedom to choose to marry whomever they wanted to and one of them fell in love with a daughter of a farmer the other a daughter of a kiosk owner he in kyoto and of course it was always something when a poor girl may to conduct his oldest son we came to the church and there were so many people outside i got a shock but you know it's because like that a poor girl mayor he should have met a princess then there wouldn't have been that many but he only wanted me [Music] it was very difficult under the wall because now i remember that the gun duchess didn't want to eat because she felt that it was better for us young to eat but i felt so bad about it because i didn't like that idea to see one sitting on the table and not eat it should have been for all of us the same and we add so many of the rabbits here so i was so tired of eating heartbeats i never would do it again never so but we came through it somehow during the occupation the germans brought soviet prisoners of war to denmark their presence would create a major turning point in olga's life in may 1945 with the collapse of germany denmark was liberated by the british one part of denmark the island of bornholm however was liberated by the soviet army the soviets refused to leave one should remember that denmark was and is located very close to the soviet union and denmark had also felt in 1945 to 46 that the red army liberated and you could say occupied the island born home where they stayed for one year olga's nephew the crown prince of denmark greeted the soviet army [Music] so one can easily imagine that olga was terrified about the thought that the danish government would give in to the soviet pressure and deliver her to the soviet union [Music] the soviet union demands the return of all soviet citizens from denmark some soviet citizens who had been prisoners of war didn't want to return to the soviet union anyone that didn't want to return was considered a war criminal [Music] there where the grand duchess lived one day a man came and asked your royal highness could there be any possibility for me to work at your house because i don't want to go back to the soviet union and he stayed there for a month and helped in the farm [Music] june 19 1947. there is someone protecting war criminals in denmark the former grand duchess olga helps war criminals in the soviet union they had not forgotten that there was one last remaining romanov in denmark the archives in denmark reveal the worries of the danish government top secret confidential the grand duchess olga is accused of hiding soviet war criminals and providing them with papers supporting them economically and otherwise in order to enable them to leave for other countries other than the soviet union police department our investigation has revealed that the grand duchess did not give any prisoners false papers or help to leave denmark the only support she gave them was maybe a meal but olga could not afford to wait for the outcome she [Music] [Applause] [Music] the whole of the house was kind of a packing department with big cases and there she sat and painted i think she painted herself the way out of all her worries [Music] at the age of 66 grand duchess olga was once again a refugee danish consul general in montreal grand duchess olga and her family are arriving from denmark to canada this morning at 7am i walked on board the ss empress of canada to greet the grand duchess olga and her family and to offer my help concerning their arrival in canada what i met was an immigrant family the grand duchess was doubtlessly the one who was expected to carry the entire burden [Music] we come to canada [Music] we arrived in canada on the empress of canada in june 1948 after [Music] after we had been sick about a day or so then she came down in the cabin and picked me up and took me out on the deck so that i could get some fresh air and then i made the rest of the journey almost sitting on the deck of empress of canada empress of canada the king of england made olga's flight to canada possible canada needed agricultural workers a farm in campbellville was the solution dear alfred here you see the house where we now live in toronto seen from the garden our pictures have been in the magazines here and now everybody knows my face when i go out to do my shopping in the morning everybody in the shops have become so friendly it puzzles me why what am i to people here [Music] maybe my grandmother was different from other people she was just grandmother and i didn't think of her as a grand duchess she was a little peculiar version of a grandmother because she couldn't cook she had two dishes in her repertoire the one was chicken and the other was fish [Music] when the family came to dinner that was what we got and the dessert was ice cream because she didn't need to make it my grandmother was an active person she was very social she had a large circle of people she knew both from where we used to live and friends she got in canada the russian community of toronto was a part of olga's social circle when she was well we were visiting her and she would come visit us and she would cook with mother she wasn't granddad she was just an ordinary friend and she was very very often in our house for my father granddaughters was granddaughters for him it was a piece of russian min my grandfather loved my grandmother even as old people they would hold hands i came very often into the living room and he was holding her hand with their two sons away working at their own jobs it was too difficult for olga and nikolai to work the farm and once again they were forced to move [Music] dear alfred now we are in our little house in cooksville it is difficult to unpack everything because my husband is so ill and so weak he can't walk anymore then they mean best father the day my grandfather died my grandmother brought me to my grandfather and showed me him and said that he was dead and she took his hands crossed them and kissed him [Music] i just remember that my grandmother was very quiet and she sat down and started painting [Music] after grandfather died life went really slowly but the world would not let ogre forget who she had been in the last year of her life she had to continue to perform royal duties [Music] when english queen elizabeth ii was traveling in canada in 1959 she came to toronto and invited my grandmother to visit her for lunch on her royal ship the britannia [Music] lucky few to have lunch with queen aboard britannia thousands will see the queen when she comes to toronto a few will meet her and a very lucky group of less than 50 will be guests at the queen's party what to wear is the question bothering most women invited because my grandmother wasn't particularly interested in clothes but the family insisted that she should have a new dress and hat of course you should wear that to the lunch so my grandmother was taken into town got a nice blue floral pattern a hat and a dress oh enjoy the pasta tail that same year olga had one more difficult duty to perform the world wanted to believe that anastasia the youngest daughter of the tsar had survived olga was called to testify once again the problem comes before a court the district court of hamburg which is trying to decide between the woman who claims she is the daughter of the last of the czars and the romanov relatives who claimed the real anastasia died with him in the massacre of 40 years ago i am 77 years old i am the daughter of tsar alexander iii i am the sister of tsar nicholas ii i hereby declare that the woman claiming to be anastasia is not my niece dear alfred i am a skeleton but i am still painting i have been sick i have been lying down and painting i have made 20 watercolors and sold two of them for few years that we knew grand duchess she was just like ordinary person but by the end of her life she was [Music] glantages [Music] the doctor phone from from cooksville when he went to see grand duchess and he found her very sick very ill and then he asked us if he can bring grand duchess to our house and i just came to our house or ready to stay till the end the last two hours of gan dutch's life was terrible probably she was running completely through her life she was so excited her life was passing by olga the last grand duchess died in toronto on november 24th 1960. you

Channel: The Romanov Royal Martyrs

Views: 1,393,344

Rating: 4.8451018 out of 5

Keywords: romanovs, romanov, romanov royal martyrs, Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, Royal Family, Romanov execution, Romanov dynasty, Romanov trailer, Romanov family, Romanoffs, Helen Rappaport, Four sisters, Last Tsar, Ekaterinburg, Olga Shirnina, Anastasia Romanov, Alexandra Feodrovna, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, Royalty, British Royalty, romanov family today, romanov family death, romanov coronation, romanov sisters, romanov jewels, romanov saints, romanov book, National Geographic

Id: a0R92cboqrM

Length: 50min 42sec (3042 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020