The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Friday 25 March 2005

From Kiev to Cooksville - What Olga did for Love - Part II

Click here for Part I

On December 17, just after Mr. and Mrs. Nicholai Kulikovsky returned to Kiev from their idyllic two-week honeymoon, they were shocked to learn that Olga�s cousin Grand Duke Dimitry and Xenia�s son-in-law Felix had murdered Rasputin. They believed they were saving the monarchy from annihilation, but Nicholas and his family were horrified. He knew he should punish the murders but Rasputin had become such a menace that the people were thrilled to see the last of him; so he simply banished them. Nicholas never got it that his days were numbered, and as he was supposedly running the war from the Front he was unaware of the campaign to depose him. On March 2, in a panic, he relinquished his throne to his brother Michael without telling the new Tsar until after the fact. Michael figured that the only way to win the war with Germany was to restore his people�s confidence, so he offered to take the throne only if the Government would work with him, and technically if the people elected him to the job! If not civil war was inevitable. The government did not want a constitutional monarchy and it, as did his family, took this as an abdication.  

Olga was pregnant with her first child and with the entire family in fear for their lives they moved to the Crimea where Sandro had an estate. Meanwhile they worried about Nicholas and his family up in St. Petersburg. They thought they themselves were safe but soon revolutionary soldiers invaded their home, ripped up the floors and emptied dressers, looking for anti-revolutionary items. What they missed was the metal jewelry box, left out in plain sight on Marie�s dressing table.           

Because she had married a commoner Olga was no longer considered a Romanov, and she was allowed to roam freely about the area. One day she and Nicholai took the box to the beach and buried it deep in a rock hole. On August 17, exactly nine months to the day of her wedding Olga gave birth to her first son Tihon. Just before his birth the provisional government was disbanded and Russia was proclaimed a republic. Nicholas and family were to be sent to Siberia. Michael had been given the option to leave but he remained and when the Bolsheviks took over that option was revoked. Two factions of Soviets, the Yaltas and the Sevastopols, were in a competition as to which one would have the privilege of executing the Crimea Romanovs. The commander of the Yaltas moved them to the town of Dulbert to Grand Duke Peter�s well-fortified villa. Athough Olga and Nicholai weren�t moved, they were too lonely and moved themselves to small rooms near the town where they could wave to family members working in the villa�s fields. On March 3, 1918 the Crimea was ceded to Germany and its army headed right for them. The Yalta soviet wanted the prisoners dead before they arrived. On the night the Germans arrived Olga, Nicholai and Tihon fled into the mountains. The German army routed the soviet forces and saved the Romanovs. South of Dulbert was Grand Duke George�s estate of Harax and here the family gathered (Marie, Xenia, Sandro, children). The British wanted Marie to leave on one of their ships, but she refused.            

In the meantime Nicholas and family had been moved to a house in the Ural Mountains called The House of Special Purpose. Initially cousin Georgie, now King George V had offered Nicholas asylum in England, but then because he feared repercussions from the arrival of his German-born Empress, took it back. In June Michael was executed, and in July Nicholas and his whole family. With a bounty on all Romanov heads Olga and Nicholai hopped on a ship heading for Novorossiysk in the Caucasus where the White Russians had fought back the Reds. With the Bolsheviks in hot pursuit a newly pregnant Olga suffered through the voyage in close quarters, through fog and mine-infested seas, to reach temporary safety in a small home where on April 23, 1919 Guri was born.           

Feeling that they were not really safe there the small family set out on a road trip, staying in places no more than a few days at a time. They went full circle back to Novorossiysk to shelter in the Danish embassy. Then from the Dardenelles, to Constantinople, to Belgrade and finally to Copenhagen. Only later they found out that Xenia and Marie had traveled in luxury on British ships to Malta and then England. It was always kept from Marie that her own sister Alexandra had been complicit in her son�s murder because King George wanted to keep Russia as an ally against Germany. Marie moved herself to Denmark and began living as if nothing had ever changed. Xenia separated from Sandro and moved her children to Sandringham, although she never stopped loving her husband. Marie summoned Olga to Amalienborg Palace where she met her newest grandson for the first time. But with money short and relations between her mother and husband rapidly deteriorating, Nicholai�s increasing bouts of depression stemming from his loss of rank and uniform and the embarrassment of being a Romanov, plus Marie�s refusal to live within her very limited means, Olga was worried sick. Xenia had been moved into Frogmore Cottage at Windsor Castle courtesy of cousin Georgie.            

Both Grand Dukes Dimitry and Cyril claimed to be the next Romanov heir but because Marie refused to her dying day to admit that Nicholas was dead no one else could then claim the succession.            

In 1921, a young woman who had jumped off a bridge in Berlin and refused to identify herself, one day claimed to be �Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, Olga�s supposedly murdered favourite niece. The Danish ambassador visited her, believed her story and urged Olga to go see her. The woman called herself Mrs. Tschaikovsky, and after Olga had visited her several times was almost convinced in her heart that she was the real thing. The woman would not speak Russian, although she seemed to understand it, and she seemed to know things that only the real Anastasia would know. However, Marie refused to acknowledge her as a granddaughter, and there was the little matter of the missing Romanov assets that this possible new claimant could complicate. After Queen Alexandra died and Marie went into mourning Olga decided to drop the matter, and after 1926 refused to hear of it again.           

The riches of Marie�s jewelry box increased substantially with her inheritance from Alexandra. As greedy royal relatives started sniffing around it Marie deteriorated in health, drifting in an imperial old-world of her own. Her funeral took place in the same Church of Alexander Nevsky that her husband had built for her in Copenhagen, shortly after her death on October 13, 1928. All her fortune was left to her two daughters, but very soon the contents of that jewelry box were up for grabs.           

Twenty-four hours later twelve of the remaining forty-four Romanovs in Europe signed a declaration that Mrs. Tschaikovsky, or Miss Unknown, was not a daughter of the Tsar. This was a pre-emptive strike against any claims she might try to make to the funds raised by the sale of the jewels. It was a good thing too because there were several people who came out of the woodwork claiming that she was and acting as her agent. King George made quick arrangements for the box to be bound, taped, insured for 700,000 pounds and brought to Buckingham Palace where the contents were evaluated. Xenia had not bothered to tell Olga she had OK�d this, mostly because she figured that since she had married a commoner it didn�t really concern her now. Xenia however remained in Denmark.           

On April 29, 1929 the four-day public auction began of 754 items and the house at Hvidore owned jointly by Alexandra�s relations and Marie. The former handed over their shares to the girls and to Michael�s son George who was living with his mother Natasha in London. In the presence of Xenia and the King and Queen the contents of the box was revealed. Cascades of earls, rubies, sapphires, diamonds and tortoiseshell hatpins, 76 items in all, poured out. When the jewelers had finished assessing them Xenia and Olga split 60-40 a check for 100,000 pounds. The stock market crash had rendered the total at only 137,000 pounds. Years later, thanks to the memoirs of the Keeper of the Privy Purse, this sum was questioned and there was a muffled claim of fraud by no less a personage than Queen Mary. Well, she always did have a good eye for high quality bling.           

In 1932 Olga and family moved into a farmhouse near the small town of Ballerup. Nicholai had injured his back badly in battle and had to wear a brace. While he supervised the workers Olga painted, wrote letters, washed, sewed and gardened just like any other Danish farmwife. Tihon and Guri grew to young men. Tihon was the favoured son and Guri spent his time being jealous and trying to one-up him. Tihon saved his money and wanted to be a shopkeeper. Guri spent his and then stole from his mother to go to the movies. Guri decided to marry first so he courted Ruth Schwartz for three years before marrying her in 1940. She became a favourite of Olga�s immediately. A month later Germany invaded Denmark. Tihon and Agnete, the daughter of a shopkeeper, wed in a splashy royal-type ceremony in 1942, and next morning he went to war.           

Many Russian �migr�s had joined the German army to help drive out the communists and these began showing up at Olga�s door. Out of the goodness of her heart for Russians still loyal to the Romanovs she took care of them. She had no idea that this was being interpreted in certain circles as possible complicity. Grand Duke Cyril laid claim to the throne and after his death in 1938 his son Vladimir was said to be in talks with Hitler to restore the monarchy. When Germany failed to take Russia Stalin went after those �migr�s who had defected to the German forces. After Denmark was liberated in 1945 these people could not return to Russia. Olga began receiving threatening phone calls and visits from strangers snooping around for information on any suspicious activity on her part. In 1948 King Frederik IX informed her that Denmark could no longer guarantee her safety.           

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth asked around to find out if the family could be welcome in Canada. Because the war had depleted its workforce, Canada was in desperate need of farmers for their vast prairie wheatfields and accepted the �migr�s. At the age of 66 Olga was in exile again and she, Nicholai, both sons and families and her 83-year-old maid Mimka, left Denmark for Ontario on May 5. Nicholai was so distracted by his debilitating back pain that he went along with everything. After a visit with Xenia at Hampton Court Palace they left for Liverpool. When their ship sailed in early June Olga took trunks filled with furniture, clothes, paintings, Faberge sculptures and picture frames, Marie�s traveling case and many other family mementos, and the jewels that Mimka had smuggled out of their house in Kiev and kept secure all those years. 

Their first night in Toronto was spent in a massive suite in the Royal York Hotel, but after two days Olga felt uncomfortable in this opulent prison and took up an offer to stay with a Russian family�s home. She began selling off small pieces of her collection to live on, but giving the most valuable pieces to her daughters-in-law. Both sons had few credentials for employment and decided that as they were not farmers they would find homes of their own. A. J. Creighton, of the Canadian Pacific Railway, charged with their care, found Olga a home in Campbellville. With Mimka virtually infirm by now it fell to Olga, suffering from painful arthritis and memory loss, to run the 10-room, 3-storey house on the hill.           

Shortly after the birth of his son Alexander Guri left Ruth for her hairdresser. In 1951 Olga found out that that the contents of Marie�s jewelry box had actually been appraised at 350,000 pounds. So if she and Xenia had only gotten 100,000 pounds, what happened to the other 250,000? Suspicion fell on Queen Mary, but it was 40 years before the mystery was solved, long after Olga, Nicholai and their sons were dead.           

Olga began selling her watercolours and trying to avoid the phony �Anastasias� who started coming out of the international woodwork. In 1951 Xenia wrote to Queen Mary that her sister was selling the farm; the frigid winters and hard work was too much now for Nicholai and for her. In April, 1952, for the last time, Olga and Nicholai moved to a new home in Cooksville. Because Tihon and Guri had bungled the auction of their stock they ended up with only a fraction of its true worth. �Quite a true palace�, was Olga�s description of her new home. Nicholai had shrunk four inches from his original 72 due to arthritic degeneration, and took to homeopathic remedies for the pain. Olga nursed Mimka after a debilitating stroke until she died in 1954, aged 87. In many ways Mimka had been to Xenia what Nanny Franklin had been to Olga as children.           

Olga�s fall from royal status had always pained Nicholai and the humiliation of her being referred to as �fallen Romanov princess� depressed him. Sandro, George V, Grand Duke Ernst, Princess Beatrice, nephew George and then George VI all died. In 1953, Queen Mary died. Although she never showed it, it must have killed Olga to see pictures of Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret and Princess Marina all wearing Marie�s finest pieces of jewelry. Mrs. Tschaikovsky continued her quest to inherit the Romanov fortune that had been rumoured as stashed in the Bank of England. Olga continued to deny it existed. Princess Xenia, granddaughter of her sister, arrived in Ontario to visit her. Tihon fell in love with her and divorced Agnete. As soon as she was out of the family Olga cut her off completely. She remarried eventually and ended up in a trailer park. Xenia called off her wedding to Tihon the day before it because neither one of them wanted to move from where they lived; she in California and he in Ontario. He had to sell the house he�d bought and move back in with Olga, and his niece Xenia, who was staying there to finish school. After Guri divorced her Ruth took the other two children back to Denmark. Guri visited his daughter only twice. He expected his elderly mother to care for his daughter. Olga never saw her grandsons again.            

On August 11, 1958 Olga woke to find that Nicholai had died in his sleep. God Apollo, with whom she had survived a revolution, two wars, exiles, forty years of marriage, two children and three continents, and was her main reason for living, was gone. His estate was valued at only $12,123.47. Sister Xenia died on April 20, 1960, but a failing Olga never knew. Two years after Nicholai�s death Guri and Tihon had somehow persuaded their mother to change her will, leaving everything to them and nothing to the grandchildren. As she lay dying in a Toronto hospital Guri ransacked the house. On November 30, Olga lay in state in Christ the Saviour Cathedral. The Union Jack and Russian imperial standard hung from each corner of the platform where the coffin sat. Olga was buried next to Nicholai in York Cemetery, yards away from Mimka. 

As the Father sprinkled a handful of Russian soil on her casket Grand Duchess Olga Romanov, wife of Colonel Kulikovsky was reunited with her beloved �Slave to God� forever. 

The Russian throne is still under debate in some quarters. There are many web-sites dedicated to Grand Duchess Olga, her niece and namesake, but one features Olga�s watercolours for sale. Her paintings are in the collections of many members of today�s Royal Family, including Prince Philip. It was a hobby that kept her sane during times of insanity and which she kept up until the arthritis in her hands made it impossible. Check it out. She was good.

- The Court Jester